Star Trek: Discovery Recap: Excuse Me, You're Continuing On My Katra

Star Trek giveth, and Star Expedition taketh away, and this week Star Trek leans pretty heavy on the givething. Explanations! Meaningful follow-up! Weirdly inert daddy-girl mitt-to-paw gainsay by an inexplicable infinity puddle!

This calendar week'south episodes highlights include:

• Various shots of Vulcan that confirm, at to the lowest degree to me, that Sarek'southward actor definitely insisted on having the to the lowest degree-pointy eyebrows possible in his contract. They sort of taper over the ends of his optics, but they're essentially apartment and human-looking, while all the other Vulcan actors are stuck with the old-schoolhouse diagonal design that climb straight into the hairline.

• The Discovery is the almost avant-garde piece of technology in the entirety of Starfleet but does not have a running rail, so Tilly and Burnham just jog through the halls while everyone around them is trying to work.

• Way more jokes at the expense of greenish juice than I predictable, plus a replicator that doesn't only hand you your meal, only offers a bland comment or two about its nutritional value, like those Snapple Facts they print on the underside of bottle cops or something. "Two…nutritious…breakfast…burritos! This … green … tea … has … antidioxidants!" Delight TELL ME THE FUTURE IS NOT A COMPUTER HANDING ME MY Lunch AND MAKING CUTE Lilliputian ASIDES ABOUT WHETHER I'1000 EATING SOMETHING HEALTHY Enough!

This is possibly more spoiler-y than usual, but if yous're not already familiar with the theory that Ash Tyler is Voq in disguise, it'south worth investigating, because there are numerous heavy suggestions lobbed effectually this dude over a single 40-infinitesimal episode. (Recall, the last we saw of Voq, he was being taken to a house of deceivers and liars and told he would have to surrender "everything," which is sort of an odd thing to say to a dude who already very clearly lost everything.) It makes a certain sort of sense! Everyone on Discovery is totally astonished that Tyler was able to have out vi Klingon warriors in manus-to-hand gainsay afterwards seven months of torture, while Lorca brings up a couple of hands paw-waved questions almost Tyler'south backstory — he says he's from Seattle, but Lorca points out that he'southward actually from a town 24 miles exterior of Seattle, which in fairness, I always did something similar when people asked me where I was from, because information technology's a lot easier to say "Chicago" than information technology is to say "Hoffman Estates, from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, information technology'due south like Schaumburg merely isn't, it's got the Portillo'southward in it, it'southward near where all the John Hughes movies were filmed," and I'thou not a Klingon — that seem clearly designed to reassure the characters onscreen merely leave the viewers at home wanting to know more. Lorca and Tyler run through a re-creation of their escape from the Klingon ship on Discovery'due south holodeck and Tyler so baldly underestimates his kill count that Lorca would have been an idiot non to double-check his score. "Because he'southward Voq," I squealed from my couch, "and he'south playing y'all like a fiddle! Or, more correctly, like a HurDagh!"

Lorca immediately upgrades Tyler to main of security, because the theme of this episode is "Lorca staffs the Discovery almost exclusively with people whom he considers personally loyal to him rather than Starfleet." Tilly calls it exactly what it is: a professional person sort of "adoption" that started with Burnham and is heading straight down the line.

Hopefully it works out better for Lorca than Burnham's last adoptive father, considering hoo boy, practise we get to revisit some Insufficient Fathering Moments this evening. Afterward a "logic extremist" who looks similar Taran Killam turns himself into a human torch to go on Sarek from attention a preliminary peace talk with the Klingons, Burnham finds herself repeatedly drawn to his fading consciousness, and we finally go a little more explanation equally to how the whole shared-katra thing actually works between them. Which is to say: not great, as yous might imagine! The first sign of trouble comes when Burnham tries to shake Tyler's hand and simultaneously experiences the first of several flashes to Sarek's heed. It'due south apparently a coincidence, but I don't think information technology's an accident those 2 moments are set up up together: It'due south clearly suggestive of Vulcan impact telepathy, and is meant to acquaintance Tyler with something big, something not-yet-understood. (Also, the dude is drinking a large honking light-green juice of his own, mere seconds after Burnham tears the concept of green juice a new one for being nutritionally unfit to replenish difficult-working Starfleet officers, a fiddling moment I found adorable and delightful.)

Besides: Amanda Grayson, a.k.a. Sarek's human wife and Burnham'due south foster mother, is played by Mia Kirshner, who volition forever be Jenny Schecter from The Fifty Give-and-take, then I blacked out from sheer Emotion at least four times during tonight's episode.

Every time Burnham tries to get closer to her father, he literally chases her out of his ain dying thoughts, which really sets a tone for the episode. Their fights are about in deadening motion and totally inert, and for some baffling reason are set up past an infinity pool, which I can only imagine some set designer threw in there because "infinity pools are pretty arctic, and Vulcans seem chill." During a subsequent trip to Sickbay, Burnham reveals that she actually died for iii minutes when Vulcan extremists bombed the learning centre, that Sarek revived her by linking his katra to her — and that what he did is incredibly uncomfortable and strange by Vulcan standards, which was such a relief to hear after thinking I was going totally bananas for the last four episodes.

It's farther revealed, as Burnham explores her father's memories, that the reason Sarek keeps reliving the day she failed to get into the Vulcan Expeditionary Group is non because he's thinking about how she failed him ("I've been close to decease," a suspiciously helpful Tyler points out. "You don't remember about people who disappointed you. You think about people you dear, and what you wish yous'd done differently"), only because he can't finish thinking about how he failed her. The council made information technology articulate they were willing to consider humans equally potential equals slowly, and one at a fourth dimension, significant that they could either accept Michael now or Spock, Sarek's biological half-Vulcan son, in ten years. Estimate which one Sarek chose? Guess how satisfying Burnham's attempt at having an emotional resolution with Sarek is even later on saving his life!

After some back and forth, Burnham says, "You could talk to me about it," and he tries to pull the "technically, we're not actually related" menu, which is but the lowest, virtually cowardly possible blow. You're very skilful at guessing.

This week's other subplot was, as best equally I tin can make out, The Big Chill featuring Captain Lorca and Admiral Cornwall. (I have never seen The Big Chill.) Every time nosotros've seen sad-eyed, competent, and frustrated Admiral Cornwall in this series, I take uttered a single prayer at my screen: Please don't let her and Lorca hook up. Please don't let her and Lorca hook up. Anyhow, tonight they claw up.

What's worse, after realizing that Lorca is fifty-fifty more than paranoid and unhinged than she'd feared, Cornwall grabs the Idiot Ball and runs with it by promising direct to remove him from command, declining to mention her plan to literally anyone else in Starfleet or on the Discovery's crew, then steps up equally Sarek's replacement to an extremely volatile peace talk with the Klingons, where she is, naturally, immediately betrayed and kidnapped, and no 1 in the entire Federation is whatsoever the wiser near her concerns, re: Lorca's fitness for command. File a report, Cornwall! The Klingons murder everybody. Apparently.

Lorca performs the command equivalent of stuffing his hands in his pockets, whistling innocently, and wandering away. He and then offers Burnham a position as scientific discipline specialist on the span, which she immediately accepts. Between this and the Tyler rent, Lorca is that much closer to having a private security team around him at all times.

Before I leave, I want all of you to promise me that if y'all always suspect the nearly invulnerable captain of a uniquely strategic transport heading up the Federation'southward entire war efforts of being unfit for control, you lot volition exercise the following, in the following order:

i. You will not tell him you suspect him without at least 4 other people in the room present.

2. You volition not have sex activity with said captain while you are evaluating him for said fitness!

3. If ultimately you lot determine he has lied on his psych reports, you will tell your firsthand superiors and at to the lowest degree 2 of your peers, preferably leaving behind a written record, before embarking on any unsafe missions.

4. You will only attend a Klingon peace accord if you are on an episode of DS9.

Star Trek Recap: Excuse Me, You're Continuing On My Katra