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‘An Obol for Charon’ is basically a ‘bottle episode’ of Star Trek: Discovery, or perhaps a ‘kitchen sink’ episode is a better metaphor. Bottle episodes are those that are confined to one location (or already existing sets) as a means to rein in the budget for thing to come. The action of this episode is confined to the Discovery. But it also manages to throw a ton of plotlines at us that ultimately make us wonder where this fits in the over-arching story for the season. Not that it was at all bad, it was just hectic with some phony emotional manipulation … that ultimately does and probably will serve a purpose later down the line (I mean, come on, we all know Saru isn’t about to die).
The episode also introduced — and just as quickly sent away — Captain Pike’s Number One, played by Rebecca Romijn. She jots on over from the Enterprise to give Pike some information about Spock which send Discovery after him by following the warp trail of his shuttle. But the ship basically hits a brick wall while in warp and finds itself stuck in space, a giant red orb (no, apparently not one of the other red orbs they’ve been looking for) holding them in place. To make matters worse, the orb has infected the ship with a virus that is disrupting the universal translator, among other things, causing the crew to speak to each other in different languages every few seconds. That was actually a pretty neat moment with an exasperated Saru on hand to save they day because he’s apparently the only person in Starfleet who’s bothered to learn multiple languages.
But while the ship’s systems are shutting down — from communication to doors not opening — Tilly and Stamets seem to be secure in engineering, trying to keep the ‘May’ virus at bay. And hey, look, Jett Reno is here too! But they get locked in and the virus breaks out of confinement and reattaches itself to Tilly, now able to communicate its anger towards Stamets. His jumping into the mycelial network is causing grave damage to the entities that reside there so … that’s why we’ve never heard of a spore drive in any other Trek series. Stamets is eventually going to have to stop using it and possibly destroy the technology so Starfleet ships are confined to warp to travel long distances. Did I mention that Stamets also had to drill a hole into Tilly’s skull — with a real drill, not a starship-issued laser variety — to place a device in her noggin to help he fight the effects of May? Yeah, that happened as the two sang ‘Major Tom’ to ease the tension. In the end though, Tilly had been consumed by the virus, freed, and somehow sucked back in, possibly to the mycelial network, when no one was looking. But maybe she’ll bump into Dr. Culber!
If all that wasn’t enough, the ship’s proximity to the orb has set off some kind of biological time clock in Saru that will eventually lead to his death. Now we all know they are not going to kill of Saru any time soon, but the incident did allow him to be a real hero, as well as have some wonderfully touching moments with Michael — okay, the one where they had to stop everything to have a long conversation about mortality and Saru asking Michael to be the caretaker of his carefully documented experiences in Starfleet while the ship is shutting down around them was a bit much, but it did eventually lead them to realize the orb’s virus wasn’t a virus in the traditional sense of the word, it was trying to communicate with them.
This orb was 100,000 years old, and as Saru wanted Michael to keep the records of his memories, the orb wanted the Discovery to be the caretaker of its vast wealth of knowledge (and, hey, the last thing it saw and recorded was Spock’s shuttle … how convenient because the longer the ship was stuck there, the greater chance they had of losing Spock forever). Burnham and Saru convinced Pike to lower the shields and accept the communication from the orb and they were right (of course). But the constant exposure to the orb sped up the process that was going to take Saru’s life. Nearly collapsing, Michael helped him to his quarters while the rest of the bridge crew stood in honor as they left. Okay, I got a little choked up there.
We got another touching moment between Saru and Michael, Saru bemoaning the fact that once he joined Starfleet he was forbidden to ever return home because of the Prime Directive, which is why he’s bonded so closely with Michael, the sister he had to leave behind (and if you haven’t checked out Saru’s ‘Short Treks’ episode, do so now to see his origin story). But that brought up the conflict in Michael about wanting to avoid Spock if and when they catch up to him. Seeing how utterly despondent Saru is about leaving his sister behind without so much as a goodbye has made her reconsider her attitude and now she wants to help Spock however she can.
But there was still the matter of Saru dying she had to attend to. This process he’s going through is something his people have accepted forever, a part of ‘the culling’ they face where Kelpians are offered up to whatever entity it is that calls to them. To help hasten his demise before the pain becomes too great, Saru asks Michael to cut off his death-sensing ganglia, a sort of method of euthanasia. Michael — and here Sonerqua Martin-Green gives a powerfully emotional performance, breaking down all those Vulcan barriers Michael had built up since childhood — attempts to do the deed but can’t. On a second attempt, the ganglia suddenly harden and fall off. Which opens up a whole new can of worms for Saru.
In sick bay, he reveals that he’s never felt better, the overriding sense of fear that all Kelpians live with is now gone. He feels stronger than he ever has. But … now he realizes his people have accepted something for generations that they never had to accept. All they had to do was ride out the illness until the ganglia fell off on their own accord. This certainly sets up a major conflict for Saru who now has to deal with obeying the Prime Directive while having this new knowledge that his people have been needlessly sacrificing themselves for generations.
With the orb’s final records transferred to the Discovery, it dies, making sure to push the ship away before it explodes. Armed now with a more detailed record of Spock’s path, and a wealth of new knowledge to sort through, both intellectual and emotional, the ship is able to get back on its way. There was a lot going on in this episode and it had some good moments, a return to the humor of the first couple of outings, and some nice emotional bonding for Saru and Michael (even if it was manipulative for the viewer), but I’m ready for the crew to get going and find Spock!
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery begin streaming Thursdays at 8:30 PM on CBS All Access.
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