Star Trek: Discovery 1.10

[selenak]

Hiatus over, the second half of the season starts by quickly resolving two open questions from where we let off.



To its credit, the show doesn't waste time by letting the characters puzzle endlessly about where they might be while 99% of the target audience have guessed it already, and still finds a way to make the quick deduction logical. Yep, we're in for another return to the Mirrorverse, and I must say, this one already is way better than the last two or three DS9 eps dealing with same. (The first two DS9 Mirrorverse episodes were great, but then it deteriorated, badly.) TNG never did a Mirrorverse episode though Diane Duane wrote a TNG Mirrorverse novel. Same with Voyage (no episode, novel exists). Enterprise did an episode which I actually watched, and this episode uses this bit of canon to its advantage (the Defiant incident), but what the new episode mostly pays homage to is of course the original TOS episode. Agony booths, attempted assassination of undercover pretend Captain in elevator (should have known this was coming since Connor had Chekov's job), while still coming up with a Discovery specific plot. Both Michael Burnham and Tilly role playing their evil selves was every bit as fun as you want from a Mirrorverse scenario, while highlighting their strengths and smarts. (Michael knocking out gravity in the elevator to deal with Connor!) Mind you, the reveal that Mirrorverse Tilly murdered her way up to a Captaincy already unfortunately means one has to be afraid for her life again in our universe, since it means Stamets addressing her as "Captain Tilly" a few episodes ago wasn't him having a flash forward but a sideways flash.

Given that the episode makes a big deal about the identity of the evil Mirrorverse Emperor being a secret to the rebels and Stamets repeatedly saying "don't go to the palace", and the info that Mirroverse Burnham is a favourite of the Emperor's, I'm as sure as I can be that everyone's hopes, including mine, for a Mirrorverse Empress Philippa Georgiu will be fulfilled, and Michael is in for some major angst next week or whenever she'll meet Evil Philippa.

Meanwhile, Mirrorverse Lorca appears to be the sole known Terran among the rebels against the evil Empire and has disappeared, presumed (but not proven) dead. You know, I'm not that fond of the theory that "our" Lorca is Mirrorverse Lorca (who presumably ended up in our universe by accident and saw the spore drive as his ticket home), not least because I want Lorca's shadiness and ambiguity to have no "he's not himself" explanation, but that could be a basis for that explanation. Otoh, it could simply make a point about "our" Lorca that his Mirrorverse counterpart is so far the sole non-completely-evil Terran we've heard of. In any case, Burnham and Lorca being both disappeared (one presumed dead, one not) in the Mirroverse provides our versions the chance to come up with a plan to infiltrate the Mirrorverse Shenzou using ye olde "escaped prisoner returned" scheme, and I must say, I don't ship them, but there's certainly a vibe for fanfic to explore with pretend evil Burnham putting pretend (?) mirror Lorca on his knees. RP fun aside, their earlier scene emphasizes (with Michael saying destiny didn't free her from prison, Lorca did) that she has come to not just respect but care for him. Did I mention Michael is in for future angst? And then some, and that's before we even get to the big cause.

The other open question was of course the "is Ash Voq?" theory, and that, too, is answered witha resounding "yes, he is" in this episode. As has been theorized, both via surgery and the implant of an artificial personality (presumably with the real Ash Tyler's memories, or at least a very good approximation thereof) and with no awareness on Tyler's part that he's a secondary personality until the misson on the Ship of the Dead starts to trigger flashbacks to L'Rell and the surgery. L'Rell in this episode uses the code words meant to bring back Voq's original personality, but it doesn't quite work; Tyler seems to be glitching between Tyler and Voq, with Voq only showing up when his existence and mission is under direct threat, more about what happens in a minute, as this needs to be discussed separately. I don't think that by the end of the episode, he's Voq play-acting Tyler now, but Tyler aware he has blackouts and that there is something terribly wrong with him beyond PTSD but clinging to being Tyler for now. Michael covering up his second PTSD episode, btw, is as Tilly covering up Stamets' sideeffects a lesson on why you really shouldn't do that for someone you care about, you're NOT doing them a favour, and disaster will follow.

Sidenote before I discuss the big thing: in terms of world building, I like that the episode highlights Tyler was checked both for physical identity and for brainwashing (Manchurian protocol indeed) when he first came on board (incidentally: since only a deeper examination lets Culber realise Tyler wasn't, as originally supposed, tortured, but had extreme surgery everywhere in his body it means either those early scans were shallow or that Klingon surgery is really good), and that there are protocols on how to deal with crew members who suffer from PTSD (of course, with Lorca in command, these might as well not exist).

The big issue: Tyler, when Culber spells out the truth, has one more Voq flash and immediately breaks Culber's neck. This, to put it mildly, is majorly upsetting on a Doylist level, given Culber is one half of the first on screen gay couple. Otoh, googling quickly let me to an article wherein Wilson Cruz (who plays Hugh Culbert) swears this is not the end of either his character nor the Stamets/Culber romance and that it will be an epic love story of grief and redemption. Okay, that sounds better, so let's see what possibilities decades of ST canon offer, given that neck twist looks pretty final:

1.) Mirrorverse Culber turns out to be not evil and joins the crew when they get back to "our" universe. Obvious downside: it would be a different person. Him and Stamets falling in love as well could be told credibly as long as this fact isn't disregarded, or it could be incredibly tacky.

2.) Stamets goes Gary Mitchell (he already occasionally does the eyes) and via godlike powers resurrects Culber. Culber then has the task of bringing back Stamets from traditional megalomania that always comes with godlike powers in ST. Could see that happening, and remember, we still need a reason why the spore drive will never be used again.

3.) Time travel! Stamets goes back in time via the spore drive and saves his beloved. This would also explain why the scene ends immediately after the neck brekaing and Stamet's verbal reaction and the next time we see Tyler he's befuddled, doesn't disguise that and says he has no idea what happened. Yes, that could be because he's glitching between Tyler and Voq, but it also could be because Future Stamets in a sequence we'll later see alters events.

4) The miracles of modern medicine: Culbert survives a broken neck and is healed with futuristic means. Since TylerVoq presumably left quickly without checking on Culber further, I suppose this is theoretically possible.


Lastly: if Culber's death remains for a while longer what it seems, I'd speculate that the Discovery crew will first believe Stamets inadvertendly killed Culber, since Tilly witnessed a zoned-out Stamets reacting violently against Stamets earlier in the episode.

Addendum: rewatching the pilot made me realise that it goes to some lengths to parallel Voq with Michael - they're the dedicated Faithful Lieutenants to their leaders who tell them about their future - Philippa tells Michael she'll get the Captaincy now, T'Kuvma makes Voq torchbearer; they have identical scenes where their respective leader is in conversation with hierarchic superiors (Starfleet admirals and the Klingon house leaders respectively) which they unceremoniously interrupt with an outburst in front of the hierarchical leaders; they're both orphans (Voq is "the son of no one") desperate to prove themselves in their chosen society. Both experience the deaths of their respective beloved leaders as a major catastrophe, after which the promised good future doesn't happen, but six months of isolation and shame do. In both cases, there's also another faithful lieutenant around - Saru and L'Rell respectively. L'Rell is in the pilot, I only noticed during rewatching; she's the second Klingon after Voq to proclaim T'Kuvma, and stands on T'kuvma's other side. In the third episode, Voq brings up whether she's not resentful that T'Kuvma didn't annoint her his successor, given she served with him longer, which parallels (one of) Saru's issues with not being Georgiu's first officer the way Michael was, though L'Rell says she'd rather be the grey eminence instead. All of which makes me speculate again that TylerVoq and his relationship with Michael will contribute to the resolution of the war.

Though it also makes me fear one particular storyline I really really do not want. L'Rell was already startled that her code words did not work as intended (though Tyler replied correctly) and upset her beloved accuses her of torture and rape. I can't imagine she'll be thrilled once she finds out about the Tyler/Burnham relationship. (Which would not bother her if it's just the artificial personality, but if she believes it's Voq as well...) And I really really REALLY do not want a scene where Tyler chooses to be Tyler, not Voq, by killing L'Rell to save Michael. All that swearing he'll protect her no matter what makes me extremely distrustful this is in the cards. Do not want, show. Do not want. L'Rell is the sole interesting Klingon-as-Klingon you've given us so far, and if Klingons continue to be a big deal on this show, she must live.

Further speculation: given we now know for sure "our" Tyler is Voq, could we meet Mirrorverse Tyler and Mirrorverse Voq as two different people? Since the battle of the Binary Stars did not happen in the Mirrorverse, where the human Tyler perished in ours, there's no reason to suppose Mirrorverse Tyler is dead. Presumably Mirrorvers Voq is alive as well, and part of the anti Terran rebellion. If "our" Tyler meets either, it could push him into complete realisation for good. Or, conversely, if another member of the Discovery crew meets either, it might give them a clue.

And another thing: Lorca coming up with this whole infiltration idea that includes him posing as a rebel does not make much sense if he's really Mirrorverse Lorca who knows that means he's in store for gruesome torture. Then again, it's Lorca. Entirely capable of setting himself up for torture if he believes he'll get what he wants at the end of it.

Comments

[saturnofthemoon]

L'rell/Ash/Michael is the love triangle that no one wants. I do believe that Ash's feelings for Michael are genuine, (they're two outcasts drawn to each other), but I have no idea how that will factor into the plot.

It's actually Culber. I just misspelled his name too, in a poll.

[selenak]

*edits*

A curse on Stephen Colbert, whom I blame for this. :)

[kore]

L'rell/Ash/Michael is the love triangle that no one wants.

TRUE STORY

I don't know why I want that final "t" on "Culber" so much but I do.

[monanotlisa]

"Then again, it's Lorca. Entirely capable of setting himself up for torture if he believes he'll get what he wants at the end of it."

Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him. He's no coward, just manipulative and ravenous for power.

Great review, as ever! You discuss the pertinent points; some of them pop up in the spacefungusparty discussion from last night, too.

[selenak]

I'm not even sure about the "ravenous for power" bit. I mean, he wants to be in absolute control of his vessel, sure, but if he wants more power than that, he has a weird way of going about it. Rising in the ranks to Admiral does not happen via arguing with every admiral he meets, even if it's tried and true ST tradition for captains to argue with admirals. Discovery neatly flipped the cliché from "good captain, shady admiral" to "good admiral/shady captain" in the specific case of Katrina Cornwell, but Lorca has made no move to endear himself to the brass beyond her, either. (See: Torral.)

And of course his current command is the way it is only due to very particular circumstances (i.e. the war). Otherwise he wouldn't have the leaveway to have either Michael or Ash Tyler join his crew, for example. And he couldn't override Culber on Stamets or in any other medical question. (We've seen the chief medical offer relieve the captain of duty due to said captains behaviour in more than one ST show, btw. It's a non-mutinous way to deal with a leader behaving irrationally or worse.)

Of course, if Lorca is really Mirrorverse Lorca and his planned end game is a coup in which he removes Mirrorverse Georgiu the Emperor and becomes Emperor himself, then the power craving is spot on.

[jainas]

Great review!

I was very upset by Culber's death, and the new that it could not be as definitive as believed is very welcome!
Regarding the blame, I assumed that the infirmary on a Starfllet ship is monitored, it would be very strange to me that Ash's presence at the time of death couldn't be easily discovered...

Contrary to you I didn't read Mirrorverse Lorca trying a coup as him being part of the rebels, but just as him being a Mirrorverse power-hungry officer reaching for the top... But of course everything is possible.

[lizbee]

Then again, it's Lorca. Entirely capable of setting himself up for torture if he believes he'll get what he wants at the end of it.

I mean, he just broke his own face open, which I realise isn't quite the same, but it's not nothing! I'm more open to Mirror Universe Infiltrator!Lorca than I have been in the past, but clinging to the belief that, if that is the case, when we finally meet "our" Lorca, he'll be just as shady and messed up as the guy we thought was the rightful captain. (I mean, they both lost the Buran...)

I otherwise agree with all your thoughts!

[kore]

I think you're dead on about people blaming Stamets for Hugh's death, and the love triangle, and both are super DNWs for me. If it weren't for Cruz's interviews, I might have dropped the show and come back to it later once more episodes had aired. I also liked the idea that Lorca and Ash were dealing with trauma, and am not fond of the "they're not themselves really" idea either.

Then again, it's Lorca. Entirely capable of setting himself up for torture if he believes he'll get what he wants at the end of it.

....well what he wants could include the torture maybe! //or maybe that's just me

[selenak]

I also liked the idea that Lorca and Ash were dealing with trauma, and am not fond of the "they're not themselves really" idea either.

I would differentiate between Ash and Lorca, though, in that the show played fair by the viewer with Ash. There were signals about him being Voq from the moment "Ash Tyler" was introduced (an episode after L'Rell tells Voq for her plan to defeat the Federation to succeed, he'd have to sacrifice everything, and then Voq, after being prominent in the first episodes, suddenly is no more seen). Ash claims he's been a prisoner of L'Rell's since the battle of the Binary Stars, for the last seven months, and that this was the only reason he survived. We know that L'Rell spent six of those months not in charge of a prison ship but with Voq on the Ship of the Dead. (Where the food situation was so bad that Kol bribes himself to power afterwards by bringing nourishment alone. Arguably even the bit about eating Georgiu might have been less a ritual and more because of the food situation. Definitely does not sound like the place to keep a human prisoner alive as your personal sex toy.) Also, Voq is the only male she's ever shown interest in and now she's supposed to have been obsessed with a human all this time?

Then there's the part where, if Lorca wasn't captured specifically so he could escape with Ash, the Klingon proceedings don't make much sense. I get why they would want to interrogate the Captain of the Discovery with its mystery ability to be everywhere, absolutely. But why put him with two human prisoners, one of whom, because he's Mudd, is guaranteed to alienate him, while the other as a fellow Starfleet officer is designed to invoke sympathy? Why not put him in a solitary cell and interogate/torture him non-stop? Note that Katrina Cornwell later isn't locked up with anyone else.

Incidentally, Ash Tyler suffering from PTSD is even more true if you include him being Voq. I don't care how tough Klingons are, those surgery flashbacks look gruesome, and to transform him so thoroughly going by Culber's presentation, it must have been a lot of surgery. Not to mention that the Ash personality and the Voq personality both now have to be horrified at each other, though for different reasons. The man is definitely in emotional hell.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

I think the Ash-is-Voq plot has been done well, as you say, and suffers only from the fact that we live in an era of meta-analysis, where fans figure twists like this out early and theories spread rapidly. The show definitely played fair there.

But I think you can make the same argument about Lorca. I'm really not a fan of the Lorca-is-from-the-Mirror-Universe theory, because as you say, the whole point of Lorca seems to be moral ambiguity, and it flattens him. But there have been a lot of odd signs about him, including his memories & scar not matching Cornwall's memories, and he is definitely obsessed with the Mirror Universe. This episode makes a point of Lorca not letting them examine the jump records, which gives credence to the theory that his overrode the jump, and lying about Stamets' willingness to help him explore the Mirror Universe.

He doesn't have to be from the Mirror Universe—he could have met his doppelgänger from it, maybe—but what is he doing? I have an uneasy feeling that either he'll be from the Mirror Universe, which will irritate me on character grounds, or he won't be, which works only if the plot has made good use of these signs as red herrings.

[vilakins]

I too am really upset by Culber's death, especially given his relationship, but you give me hope. Greg suggested the bizarro-verse one might replace him but you're right - it would be a different person, even if he's not evil. I can't see how they'll bring him back, and they'd better not take them all back into the past to return to our universe as that would be the equivalent of "it was all a dream", a trope I absolutely loathe.

So I was right about Tyler being a plant, and of course you were spot on. I still don't trust the bastard an inch after Culber.

I'm a bit sad that Stamets's recognition of Tilly as captain wasn't from the future, at least not hers, but his palace ravings do make sense now. Why not go to the palace though? Listen to him, people!

I wonder how long we'll be in this universe. It's very interesting and sometimes blackly funny (Captain Killy's nicknames) but man, it's an awful place.

[must find or make icons...]

[selenak]

I hear you on the sci fi equivalent of "it was all a dream", and not wanting same. Still, as the interviews were so insistent on this not being the end of Culber, I'm cautiously looking forward to finding out how on earth they'll pull it off.

Incidentally, now you know why I couldn't comment on your comment re: Stamet's imagine in the mirror staying after he'd left back in episode 4 or 5. This was an early indication the show was heading towards the Mirrorverse (as this particular parallel universe has been nicknamed, due to first showing up on the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror.

[vilakins]

I figured that in retrospect!

Being very logical, I do have problems with Star Trek alternate universes. I like AUs in general (e.g. what if the Roman Empire never fell) but those in which major things are different, like the Federation being evil, yet everyone in ours exists, so their parents and all their many forbears still met and fertilised the very same eggs with the very same sperm... [points at icon] Plus if the universe is hugely different, then many people would not even have survived, let alone had the very same children.

But yeah, that's me. I'm known by a Trekkie friend to be a scientific nitpicker, but I still enjoy the entertainment (and even have two Star Trek pop-up books).

Oh, I do hope they can bring Culber back, though I really don't see how, unless he's just paralysed and I don't think he is. [worries]

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

I am disgruntled over Culber's death, but I thought this was a good episode. A lot happened, and the set-up for trying to survive the mirror universe was a good one.

Also, Lorca affecting a Scottish accent as the chief engineer was a very cheap laugh, but it worked for me!