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We are racing to the finish line for this season of Star Trek: Discovery and it’s been a good one, hasn’t it? I like how there really has been a throughline with the storytelling, even when it seemed that the episode with the sphere was just a bit of filler. Who knew then it would be the episode the entire rest of the season was being built upon? And now the Red Angel question has been resolved, but what about those red signals? Michael’s mother said she had no idea what they were and had no connection to them, so as far as Michael is concerned at this point, they mean nothing … even though the appearance of another one still seems to be a destination point on a galactic GPS. leading the Discovery to the Klingon planet Boreth, upon which sits a monastery … the same monastery where Tyler/Voq and L’Rell deposited their unnamed baby — that no one is supposed to know about.
But with Michael’s mother sucked back to the future and no time crystals to help get her back, or to launch the sphere data far into the future so Control can’t access it, Michael is more interested in a Section 31 ship that had missed its hourly check in by 10 minutes (all Section 31 ships are required to notify HQ of their whereabouts on the hour). Pike, however, is more concerned about the signal and plots a course to Boreth with the unexpected result being they need permission to beam down to the planet and the only person who can give that is … L’Rell, setting up an uneasy reunion for her and Ash. Which also forces them to reveal the existence of the baby to Pike, meaning neither of them can go to the monastery. Pike is fine with that, he’d perfer to be the one to go, so permission is granted. And with Pike off the ship, that puts a newly confident Saru in charge — and he’s quite blunt about being the acting captain (perhaps setting up a promotion for Season 3) — and he agrees with Michael that investigating the Section 31 ship is important so he allows her to go (with Spock joining her for back-up).
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On Boreth, it’s safe to say Pike is not welcomed with open arms, confronted by a Klingon monk who basically tells him to go away (sort of like the guard at Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz). What makes this place so important is that the monastery sits atop a cavern filled with time crystals and Pike needs one to help complete their mission of ridding Discovery, and Starfleet, of the sphere data. The monk, who is actually a ‘time keeper’ finally allows Pike to advance but warns him that time behaves differently in this place, with the past, present and future always on a collision course. The time keeper reveals that when he came to this place, he had no name and was given the name Tenavik. Yes, Tenavik is the now fully grown son of Voq and L’Rell. Time does work in mysterious ways here.
A little aside — Tenavik is played by Kenneth Mitchell, who played Kol in Season 1, and Kol-Sha in the ‘Point of Light’ episode this season. And he wasn’t killed off this time!
Tenavik takes Pike to the cavern and tells him that he can take a crystal but … he must be prepared for what he will see once he touches that crystal. Visions of his future could lead to madness. Pike is hesitant but he finally grasps the crystal and suddenly he’s on a ship that is experiencing some sort of destruction with radiation about to pour into the bridge. He orders everyone off the ship but an explosion engulfs him … and then Pike is in a long hallway. He hears an odd breathing sound. Suddenly a figure appears in what can only be described as a mobile life support system. Any Star Trek fan worh their salt knows that Pike is coming face-to-face with the inevitable future that we already know is forged in stone for him. Pike is terrified by his burned and melting face but he’s drawn back to the present where he seems to second guess the choice of taking the crystal, but as we’ve seen before with someone confronted by massive amounts of radiation, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Pike takes the crystal (and why didn’t he use a glove or handkerchief or part of his sleeve to touch it again?) and returns to Discovery where Stamets and Jett Reno will have some work ahead of them.
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Meanwhile, Michael and Spock find the Section 31 ship but there’s one problem — the crew is floating around outside the ship in the cold vacuum of space. But there is one crewman still barely alive and they get him back to the shuttle and in good enough shape to convince him to return to the ship and help them try to thwart Control. (The crewman also happens to be someone Michael knows, one of the survivors of the Shinzou.) But things begin to not add up as Spock is almost lured to another section of the bridge and locked in the room while Burnham is attempting to set the trap for Control with Gant. But Gant begins to act odd and Burnham realizes that he is Control, or Gant assimilated by Control as Leland was. With Burnham defenseless, Gant unleashes millions of nanobots to assimilate Burnham but Spock manages to save her in the nick of time (even with his failure to subdue Gant with a Vulcan nerve pinch which only works if the subject has nerves) so they can hightail it out of there.
With everyone back on Discovery and a horde of Section 31 ship on their way to retrieve that sphere data — while deep in Klingon territory, mind you — there now seems to be only one option to prevent Control from accessing the date: destroy Discovery. Pike contacts Number One on the Enterprise and arranges a rendez-vous while everyone prepares to evacuate the ship … which means Staments and Reno are going to have a hard time continuing their work with the crystal … which opens up a whole lot of questions. Is the destruction of the Discovery what Pike’s vision of the future foretold? Is this how he ends up burned and disfigured with his only option being a permanent resident on Talos IV? And will Starfleet just build a new Discovery that begins to look more like the classic Enterprise on the inside for Season 3? Is Control being set up as the genesis of the Borg? With only two episodes left, there is a lot yet to resolve.
New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery begin streaming Thursdays at 8:30 PM on CBS All Access.
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