selenak

You know, I kept thinking through this episode that La'an with her stoic woobieness and her specific backstory trauma has to remind Spock of Michael even before the reveal La'an had a brother who saved her life by sacrificing himself, and was wondeirng whether there would be a reference, and then, lo, we got something even better; Spock having an audio flashback to Michael and missing her while in mindmeld with La'an! Yesssssss.

Of course, this episode, the darkest one so far, did things over than gratifying my penchant for siblings. It felt like a homage to submarine stories (complete with pseudo radar sound) as the Enterprise had to play lethal hide and seek with the Gorn, whom wisely we never see. (Though I guess we will later this season, I doubt that this will remain the sole encounter.) As with all good suspenseful episodes, there was a lot of character stuff in between action. Uhura and Hemmer having to team up reminded me of the fact that in an early TOS ep, we see Uhura repair her bridge station - it makes sense that she would have earlier engineering training. Also, as I hoped, we learn more about Hemmer than "grumpy Aenar". Him pointing out being a pacificist doesn't mean "being passive" and that he's willing to help and to die for Starfleet, but won't kill was a very welcome and timely reminder. (And it echoed those pacificists who were ambulance drivers or worked at hospitals.)

Given the resemblance between La'an's childhood backstory trauma and Michael's childhood backstory trauma, I do suspect La'an will forced to interact with at least one Gorn before the season is over, as I said, and will be put in a position where she could go for revenge or for peace. For now, both her determination and her repressed hurt come across powerfully, and I like that we see not one but three relationships developing for her - with Una, with Pike (lots of mutual respect there!) and now with Spock.

Lastly, given Star Trek fandom coined the phrase "red shirt", I appreciate we see Pike takes those lives lost under his command very seriously, and that they get a reminder of having been lost at the end instead of being forgotten because their actors are not in the opening credits.