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It was a thrilling return to formwith this week’s Star Trek: Discovery, ‘Saints of Imperfection’, with almost everyone from Season 1 turning up on the Discovery.
We left off with Tilly now transported into the mycelial network by the May virus, and none too pleased about this turn of events. But now in her own world, the writers were finally able to make May not the shrill annoyance she’s been since she started haunting Tilly. She becomes a bit more ‘human’ once back in the network and is able to plead her case to Tilly — she needs her help to stop the destruction of the network. Every time the ship jumps, it does massive damage even though it takes just a split second for the ship to move from one place to the next (and if you remember last season, Stamets had to make several hundred micro-jumps in one episode, so that must have taken a huge toll on May’s species and their home).
But there’s another problem as well: there is a monster in the network and May needs Tilly to kill it before it kills all of them. Tilly is reluctant to help, more concerned with finding a way out of the network — and that’s not happening without May’s assistance — so the two form a bond and go off in search of the monster.
Back on Discovery, there are some new arrivals — Captain Georgiou and Ash Tyler, under the purview of Section 31 to help locate and capture Spock … although arriving in Spock’s shuttle, which he had since abandoned, puts a little damper on the search for Spock. With no warp trail to follow, the chase is pretty much dead in the water, but Georgiou (and Pike) believe Michael may have more knowledge as to where her brother might be than she’s letting on. But that all gets put on the back burner as Stamets pleads his case to the captain that he believes Tilly is alive in the network and he knows how to get her out — a half jump which would put the Discovery partially inside the mycelial network, using the cube where Stamets makes the jumps as a sort of bridge between the two worlds.
With the ‘no one left behind’ attitude, Pike agrees to the maneuver and … it works. And Stamets and Burnham find Tilly in pretty quick order. As much as she wants to get back to her world, Tilly made a promise to May and they all go off in seach of the monster in the network. And everyone is in for a huge surprise when it turns out the monster is … Hugh Culber! And not just some mycelial concoction of Hugh, but the real Hugh which means that when Paul encountered him that time he was stuck in the network, it wasn’t just some wild hallucination.
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How Hugh was transported to the network is classic Star Trek sci-fi mumbo jumbo — he was reconstituted there much in the same way Tilly was after an electrical jolt when Paul kissed him as he cradled Hugh’s apparently not-quite-dead body. But Hugh’s presence is what is destroying the network and May wants him dead. But if they are all in the network, then they should be able to bring Hugh out. And they need to do it fast as the mycelial spores are beginning to eat through the hull of the ship while drawing it further into the network (luckily Georgiou’s Section 31 ship shows up to attach some tractor beams to Discovery to hold it in place … but even that is an iffy prospect).
Getting back to the cube on Discovery, Stamets enters and tells Hugh to follow. Now Hugh is not in good physical or mental shape at this point and he’s unsure of his own reality but he finally reaches out to Paul and … his hand vanishes as it crosses from the network to Discovery. As May explained when bringing Tilly to the network through the biopod, she was broken down and transported to the network as energy and May would have to put her back in the pod to send her back to her world. So could this also be true for Hugh?
Stamets, Tilly and Michael go back to their world just in time before the ship is almost entirely consumed by the network and then wait. And wait. Wait, how was Tilly able to cross over if she had been transported by the pod? A pinkie swear that she would one day meet up again with May?
And then … the pod opens and there is Hugh, naked as the day he was born and fresh as a daisy, and the Discovery is back in its own space. But, Pike transports to the Section 31 ship to take a meeting with Leland and … Admiral Cornwell to discuss new findings about the mysterious signals. The one that led Discovery to the asteroid left behind tachyon radiation which would indicate … time travel? Or transporters. Apparently both theories are right … or wrong. With Spock the only person who has any connection to these signals, Cornwell orders Pike and Leland to put aside their differences and work together. And Ash Tyler is now a permanent figure on Discovery, which should be all kinds of awkward once he encounters Hugh again.
Unfortunately Pike won’t get to delve deeper into Georgiou’s story but he’s certain there is something off about her, and it’s clear Burnham knows more than she’s telling him. Not that she can say anything about who Georgiou actually is. But we’re left to wonder who exactly Georgiou is playing for as she communicates with Michael about Spock, suggesting he’d be better off with her finding him than Section 31. Georgiou appeals to Burnham’s emotions and seems to have her convinced that she will protect Spock, but can Michael truly trust her?
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery begin streaming Thursdays at 8:30 PM on CBS All Access.
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