By Jarman Day-Bohn
With this episode and the last, we now have two major reveals exposed: Ash Tyler is somehow Voq, and Captain Lorca is actually from the mirror universe. If you are like me, you may have already had those reveals spoiled for you in the form of fan theories from various Star Trek forums and podcasts. If you don’t over-expose yourself to those, then you might have been very surprised by these twists and turns.
Even though I already guessed these surprises, I still found them very satisfying due to the extremely tight writing, but even more because of the excellent performances. Jason Isaacs is a solid veteran performer, and both Sonequa Martin-Green and Shazad Latif as Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler/Voq respectively continue to surprise me. Martin-Green really has come into her own as an actress this season, and since she really has to be the audience surrogate for all these surprises, it’s a tough job to constantly give us satisfying performances of the depth of these reveals. And Latif really makes me feel the transition between tortured Tyler into a truly frightening Voq.
Each and every character has been developed more and more over this season so far, with the exception of Keyla Detmer (played by Emily Coutts, the officer with the damaged face from the battle of the binary stars, with the cool half fade haircut), but they keep giving her more and more screen time, hinting that she will be more important and prominent later on in the series. I am saddened that Stamets has spent so long in a state of coma/insanity, because I miss his firey personality in relation to the other characters. And of course, along with that, we have the loss of Culber, who does actually return in this episode in the form of a vision in Stamets’ clouded brain. I am hoping, along with so many other fans out there, that Culber still returns to the show in some capacity, whether it be through some weird time travel loophole or via his Mirror Universe counterpart. If they can pull it off organically somehow that the Mirror Universe Culber permanently joins the Prime Universe Discovery crew and once again falls in love with Stamets, I will be a very happy man, but I know this would be difficult to happen without feeling forced.
Speaking of loopholes, I am wondering how they plan to retcon many inconsistencies already taking place in the timeline of this show with the rest of Star Trek canon. Included in this is 1) There is no mention or repercussions of Starfleet ever having a spore drive in shows that take place after this one, and 2) Starfleet seems to be completely unaware of the Mirror Universe when it “first” shows up in the original series, which takes place after this. So…either some weird time travel stuff goes down to where none of this ever happened, or they get back to the Prime Universe and Starfleet keep all these activities and the spore drive completely under wraps in such a top secret fashion that Kirk and his crew would not be told of it even when they report their Mirror Universe activities back to Starfleet Command. I really do hope they come up with some explanation for all this, otherwise that would feel just a bit lazy to me, and a bit of a cheat to true fans out there. I really would only take one line of explanatory dialog to retcon it and I’d be happy with it.
I should also mention the reveal of Captain Georgiou being the Emperor in the mirror universe. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I really didn’t care that much about that reveal. I know that story-wise that makes this more complicated between her and Michael Burnham because of their close relationship in the Prime Universe, but I really just am not riveted by Michelle Yeoh’s acting, and I just don’t buy her as this all powerful Emperor. For some reason, I think I would have enjoyed it more if Admiral Cornwell was the Emperor instead. But, c'est la vie.
So! Where is the Prime Universe Lorca? Dead? And I’m confused…so Ash Tyler was a real guy? Does that mean that Voq’s actual body is gone? But they said they reduced his bones…so did they get rid of the original Ash and just overlay his memories and take his face…off? What is the ISS Discovery up to in the Prime Universe if they did indeed switch places? What is Mirror Universe’s Lorca’s grand plan? Hopefully we find out the answers to this and more on next week’s Star Trek: Discovery! Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments below!
Jarman is a proud Trekkie and Tolkienite, but really just goes crazy over anything sci-fi, fantasy or horror. He is also the co-host, editor and producer of the main A Play On Nerds podcast. Jarman spends his non-geek-media-consumption hours performing voice overs for various projects, which you can find at JarmanActor.com - See his random musings on his Twitter feed @HistrionicSpock