For the second time this season, the Discovery crew’s attempt at going home has hit some bumpy roads.
But for a crew that has thrived on being adaptable and rolling with the punches, all they need is an opportunity to prove themselves. And this opportunity comes from a classic away mission plot of going somewhere to pick up something that can help a population get an antidote to survive.
While the mission itself is nothing necessarily remarkable or different than what has been seen before in this franchise, what has always been this show’s unique strength is using these classic episodic elements to further the exploration and growth of the characters.
We begin with Saru’s captain’s log, expressing eagerness on finally reaching home. He hopes here at Starfleet and Federation headquarters, there will be answers for Michael who wants to know about the status of her mother, and solace for everyone else still shaken from their collective trauma of leaving their whole lives behind.
When we break through the distortion field and finally get a glimpse of this new headquarters, needless to say, I had the same smile on my face as the Discovery crew themselves. The VFX team truly outdid themselves because everything looks familiar and new at the same time. Visually it’s just so beautiful that I could probably stare at it for hours on end and still pick out something else that’s new. And as the crew find themselves nerding out over all the new things they are seeing from flying rain forests to detached nacelles to hulls made from what used to be theoretical alloy fibres, we the audience pick up the nods to the U.S.S. Voyager with a J now that there are 11 generations of evolution and a heartwarming tribute with the U.S.S. Nog, an Eisenberg class ship for the late Aron Eisenberg.
For the crew of the Discovery, it’s joy, it’s happiness, it’s relief, and as Saru (Doug Jones), Michael (Sonequa Martin-Green), and Adira (Blu del Barrio) beam out to greet this new Starfleet, it seems like their dreams have come true. But as we are often told, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Not that Starfleet and the Federation have somehow become evil and malicious, no, but the homecoming that the crew might have hoped for runs smacked into the weariness and guarded nature of this new Starfleet, still living in triage mode since the Burn with about 38 member worlds.
In fact, the Discovery’s arrival may even be a crime, after all the drama of the Temporal Wars and the treaty that outlawed time travel and not helped by the fact that the true nature of what happened to the Discovery was erased from all records. I admit, there was a part of me that had wondered before this episode if Discovery’s return might have been anticipated, after all, Spock (Ethan Peck) or Pike (Anson Mount) or even Tyler (Shazad Latif), could have left some message in a bottle to be opened at a certain time since they knew when in the future the Discovery was heading. And maybe they did, and we will find out later. But at this moment, it seems no one knows about the Discovery and its spore drive, which means Spock, Pike, Tyler, and the others really did a great job of keeping their mouths shut for all their lives.
Michael and Saru, of course, plead their case, trying to assure Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr) that they are not lying, and they just want to help. But understandably, Vance can’t just take them at their word. With the Federation and Starfleet so broken down and weakened, they simply can’t just afford to trust that easily as the safety and security of what remains has to take priority. So, until everything has been resolved, Discovery will be requisitioned for analysis and retrofit with the crew going through debriefing and reassigned.
This is a hard pill to swallow. But this is a conflict that I thought the show did really well to portray because I can understand why both sides are struggling and behaving as they do. Michael is frustrated, wanting to just get their hands on a roster list of planets so the crew can go and help the alien refugees while showing Starfleet that this crew can do their jobs and is needed. She thinks that Vance is diminishing the crew when they should be using them as assets. Saru as captain is looking at the big picture, he both gets Michael’s frustrations, but he also knows that they cannot just steal Federation property and violate a direct order. A lesson that, he notes, Michael should have learned by now given her history from back in Season 1. After all, it’s not as if Vance is entirely wrong. The crew came out of nowhere, no records and with only their words and no evidence, any leader worth anything would be wary and suspicious, and not put them at the centre of important tasks. The crew are strangers in this world, and with the Federation being the state that it is, trust is not a luxury that they can easily afford.
I actually find myself really loving Vance as a character. Played brilliantly by the always amazing Oded Fehr, he is both a stern leader but also not without kindness and empathy. He’s not raising his voice yelling at anyone, he is not angry and uncaring. He is cautious, guarded, but with good reason given what The Burn did to the galaxy. If anything, Starfleet and the Federation are just as traumatized as the Discovery crew has been. He’s not breaking up the crew out of some nefarious desire to be cruel, he is doing it because it’s his job to make sure they are who they say they are and that everyone is ready for the job. Towards the end of the episode, he even worries about the mental health of crew members like Detmer. We also see a glimpse of sentimentality on his face when Adira tells him how Senna Tal never meant to keep everyone waiting but that he just wanted to see snow one last time. This is not a man being a moustache-twirling villain, nor is he even like the usual bad admirals of past Trek. This is someone who does care, as much as Michael and Saru care, but just as Michael fears breaking up the crew could mean that some of them never recover, Vance fears trusting them could mean whatever is left of the Federation may not recover if things go wrong. There is a huge weight on his shoulders, and I don’t envy him.
The crew going through debriefing are perhaps some of the funniest scenes of this season. Culber (Wilson Cruz) remarking that he was clinically and emotionally dead and murdered but his murderer and he are good now had me howling. Reno (Tig Naruto) being starving and wanting snacks is a mood. Stamets is just offended people keep asking if he’s essential personnel. Nhan (Rachael Ancheril) is not giving anything away, except that her first name starts with the letter D. And Tilly (Mary Wiseman) is just lamenting how she loves Starfleet but none of this was in the handbook. Sometimes it’s a good occasional reminder that despite us just accepting Star Trek stories as they are, when you actually try to explain them, they really do just sound completely crazy and ridiculous.
The most intriguing debriefing though has to be Georgiou’s, because, for the first time, the almost always unflappable Terran Emperor was shaken. And who better to do it than the legendary David Paul Cronenberg. What a perfect casting too, because to go toe to toe in screen presence with someone like Michelle Yeoh, you really need someone who can compete. And compete he certainly does, as Cronenberg’s character, Kovich seems to be the first person to outmanoeuvre Georgiou. She definitely started on top, blinking to shut down the holograms and generally not taking anything seriously, but when Kovich reveals that the Terran Empire fell and he keeps needling at her that the Federation at least endured, even correctly pointing out that she stayed on the Discovery because she cares about someone on it, her face changes. It’s not every day that she’s put on the back foot and it’s clear that she’s not comfortable with that. At the end of the episode when Michael sees her, Georgiou seems frozen and unblinking in the corridors until she snaps out of it and walks away. We don’t know what Kovich may have done to her or maybe said something else to her, but something is definitely going on with her. I just don’t know if she’s not a hologram or if she’s just had her confidence shaken for the first time in her life and that’s disorienting her. Judging by the previews for next week though, we may get some answers on that front. I am very curious how this story for Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) will set the stage for what is to come in her Section 31 show. If the future is unsettling her, she may find a way back to the past so she can feel at home and in control.
Speaking of home, Nhan got some focus this week and is now heading home. Once Michael and Saru managed to convince Vance to let the Discovery find an old seed vault ship that could have samples that can help create an antidote for the medical problem that Starfleet has been dealing with, we discover that the latest people to look after the ship is a Barzan family. Nhan, much like Saru, is surprised and happy to find her homeworld now a part of the Federation, and when she arrives on the seed vault ship, The Tikhov, we see her visibly yearning for a home. She laments to Culber that she wishes she could have gone home before this jump to the future and that she hadn’t heard her own language until seeing the holos of this Barzan family. In many ways, everyone in this episode is yearning for a home.
The crew wanting to find a home with this new Starfleet, Michael yearning for her mother, and the father of the Barzan family yearning for a miracle that could revive his wife and children. When Nhan decides to stay on the U.S.S. Tikhov and eventually go home to her planet, it is perhaps not really a surprise. Throughout the episode, she finds herself in conflict with Michael and Culber over issues of medical help and the concept of death that’s different between Barzan and Human. The father of the Barzan family, Dr Attis (Jake Epstein), lost his family in the storm while he survived due to being in mid-beaming but while they were able to get him stable again so he could help open the vault to find the seed samples they need, he is still dying and refusing to leave his family. Nhan argues that his wishes should be respected, after all, cultural customs should matter. But Michael points out that they need this seed vault ship, and sometimes there is no good choice, just what you can live with. This feels like Starfleet versus one man, but Nhan finds another way. She will stay to look after the ship and take the Barzan family home for their proper burials, fulfilling both her duty to the Federation and to her people.
While this feels like a final goodbye for Nhan, with Rachael Ancheril having just recently been upgraded to a series regular, I doubt this is the last of her. Much like David Ajala’s Booker, I suspect she will return soon. That seed vault will probably come into play as the story goes on. In the meantime, though, I have loved Rachael’s performance as Nhan and I love her steadfastness in everything that she does. Hopefully, we see her return sooner than later!
So, with the mission to get samples to make antidotes for the Kili refugees a success, the Discovery crew is back in the good graces of Starfleet. Vance’s security chief Lieutenant Willa (Vanessa Jackson) was impressed by Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Tilly, and Reno coming up with solutions, despite their dysfunction. And after at first scoffing and sceptical of the ship and its crew, she is much more at ease in trusting them, even giving Michael information about the melody that Michael had heard.
And on the topic of that melody, my theory is that maybe the music is carrying a message. Much like how music played on radio stations was used by spies to send and receive messages, perhaps this melody is for the same purpose. And maybe the meaning of the message has been forgotten so now people like Lieutenant Willa simply don’t know that’s something they are supposed to be looking for. It’s like in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the beacons being lit was a sign that Gondor is calling for aid, maybe this melody is calling for something as well, but people just have forgotten the meaning or the message. Or maybe the melody is some signal or frequency that caused the dilithium to explode during The Burn? Whatever it is, Michael is now curious and no doubt she will get to the bottom of this mystery.
In this whole episode, Michael was tenacious and relentless. It’s still very clear that her year away from the crew has changed her view on the following authority. Like Georgiou had pointed out a few episodes back, Michael has tasted freedom, and it’s hard now to fall back in line and now simply do whatever she wishes to do when she was free with Booker. And this impulsive headstrong mentality will no doubt cause more butting of heads in future episodes as Michael struggles to reconcile her year away with the Starfleet officer she’s supposed to be. Saru is currently still very patient with her, being the understanding captain that he is. But I have to wonder if at some point that patience may grow thin and lead to conflict. I hope not, because I very much enjoy watching Michael and Saru on the same page, after all, they are all stronger together than they are apart. Isn’t that the theme of this season too?
This story by James Duff and Sean Cochran is rather simple, but I do love the way that it illuminated certain aspects of different characters, exploring their depths. The plot on the Tikhov was not the most exciting or strong storyline of this season but it functioned to service the characters in the way it needed to do. And as someone who loves Star Trek: Enterprise, the references dropped about the Temporal Accords makes my heart happy every time. Maja Vrvilo’s direction was superb, the music by Jeff Russo once again resonates on all the right emotional levels, and again the VFX is just breathtaking!
With the Discovery crew now finally somewhat settled, we can begin to explore more of the unfolding mystery of this season. This episode certainly left many questions, and we still don’t have a concrete theory on what caused The Burn. This feels like a calm before the inevitable storm that is to come. But all the mysteries aside, what still is the heart of this tale are the characters. And as Michael and Saru stood looking out the windows of the ship, they wonder about the state of the Federation, its values and its people, remarking that maybe now they can both start looking up, out of the Dark Ages and into the light. Once again, the show is hitting right on the feelings of our current times, where we may finally be able to believe that things can start to look up again.
And as I watch this season and seeing the Discovery crew give this future Federation a reason to look up, I am reminded of a part of the poem “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson that seems very appropriate for this story, “Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, one equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Be sure to tune into season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery which airs Thursdays on CBS All Access in the USA, CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada and on Fridays internationally on Netflix
