Anika and Liz are caught in a time loop, which is actually a nice opportunity for a nap when you think about it. We’re talking about Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, “Face the Strange”!
- Let’s check in with Anika, The Only Person Who Hated “Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad”. She thought “Face The Strange” was … good
- “I don’t wanna sound creepy, but I have a pretty good idea of where Jason Isaacs is at all times.”
- This season feels like an intentional final season, even though we know that’s not true
- Michael is the collaborative leader that Pike pretends to be
- We are platonically shipping Rayner and Reno as BFFs
- Book’s job in this episode is to turn up, take his shirt off and be supportive. Perfect, no notes
- L’ak is SO going to die
- So far Discovery has focused on fleshing out Rayner, but at the expense of Moll and L’ak
Transcript
Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext, and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. Today, we are discussing Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, Face the Strange.
Liz: Now, as I recall, you did not care for Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad. You have a minority opinion.
Anika: I am the one person in Star Trek: Discovery fandom that didn’t like that episode, but I have a strong dislike of that episode, actually.
Liz: Has this particular episode caused you to revisit your feelings?
Anika: What I would say is that this episode definitely called back to that episode in, you know, very nice little parallel ways. It was certainly referencing it, but this episode was all about learning to connect and working together, whereas that episode was the opposite. I know that people disagree.
Anika: That episode was also about connecting, and I will accept that, but it was superficial and I just hate Mudd. And there was an entire sequence in that episode that was just about murder. And it ended with murder, and I’m against everything.
Liz: I am a basic Trekkie. I love Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad. I thought the murder montage was hilarious. I enjoy Harry Mudd.
Anika: Sorry!
Liz: No, no, no!
Anika: I acknowledge that it is supposed to be funny, but I never find murder funny.
Liz: No, no. Look, you are completely entitled to your opinions. I think they are very reasonable, but I realized what this episode was doing, and my first thought was, Anika is going to be so mad about how much she likes this.
Anika: Exactly. But it’s because there was no murder montage and there was no Harry Mudd. There was no Lorca being a jerk and hating on whales. Nothing that I hate about that episode. There wasn’t even any beer pong. (I don’t hate the beer pong, but I don’t love the beer pong.)
Liz: See, my feeling is that this episode had exactly two flaws. One, the fight between Michael and Michael looks a bit like a slap fight. Just, the choreography wasn’t quite doing it for me. And two, that they didn’t land in the middle of Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad. So you have Rayner going, oh my god, this crew is so very trauma bonded. And Michael just sweeping in and taking over from Lorca. And just, you know, stepping on him, basically.
I don’t want to sound creepy, but I have a pretty good idea of where Jason Isaacs is at all times, like, roughly. And when this was being filmed, he was in New York filming The Crowded Room with Tom Holland So I knew that there was no chance of an actual Lorca cameo. I was a little bit more optimistic for Landry, but no, even she is conveniently off the ship. I’m just so happy to have my favorite season acknowledged.
Anika: It’s weird because here we are in episode four of the final season, that they didn’t know was a final season, but it’s kind of acting like it’s a final season.
Liz: It feels so full circle.
Anika: It’s like they secretly knew, or they accidentally knew. They’re calling back to not just season one, but season one, season two.
Liz: Yeah, it’s so nice to see those blue and gold uniforms again.
Anika: Homages to their past in order to bring closure. It’s really beautiful. And Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad, whatever. Whatever that episode is…
Liz: Magic… is the episode where Michael acknowledges her feelings for Ash Tyler, and they had a parallel to that with Michael and Book. And the Michael and Book relationship is so solid.
Anika: Yes, it’s really beautiful to see that progression as well from, like, “I had my very first ever real relationship” to “I could be with this person forever.”
Liz: It feels so intentional that it makes me wonder if Paramount did not cancel Discovery now because of “ha ha ha, we’re evil! Money!” but because someone at the company saw that this was a natural place to end, and wouldn’t it be great to do that before new stories are introduced that won’t be wrapped up basically.
Anika: Right, I would be really upset if last season was the last season.
Liz: Oh yeah, yeah, that felt like a beginning. This — okay, so one of my favorite late Voyager episodes is Shattered, where Chakotay, Season 7 Chakotay, has to travel through time, through Voyager’s own history with Season 1 Janeway, and get her to trust him.
Anika: It’s an excellent episode.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Seska’s in it.
Liz: Seska is in it, it’s so good.
Anika: And adult Naomi.
Liz: I don’t want to say there’s nothing bad in this episode because I haven’t seen it for a few years, but it’s a great episode. And there comes a point in a Star Trek where it has been running long enough to comfortably reference its own history, and I just think overall this was really competently done.
I actually do have one other quibble with this episode and it’s just a little pat to have Rayner quoting trivia back to people that they have only just shared with him. You know, what Rhys said to him last week, what Michael said to him a few hours earlier.
Anika: This is the issue with the short seasons.
Liz: Yes, that’s what I was going to say.
Anika: And not to jump forward, but Airiam appears in this episode. And I was so happy.
Anika: I really loved all of the Airiam stuff, because it made her last episode better. My main problem with her last episode is that she gets all of her characterization and then she dies. It’s all in one episode. And it’s that same problem of, we don’t have enough time to put this out over numerous episodes, and so we’re just going to throw it all in here and pretend like there was character development.
Liz: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, this is a characterization speedrun for Rayner. And so he has to speedrun his knowledge of the characters. Usually I’m in favor of short seasons. I don’t mind them. But in this case, I think that it’s hard to work around.
Anika: Right.
Anika: It’s just difficult. But again, Rayner was introduced, like, three episodes ago.
Liz: Right. And he is already my best friend. So, you know, I’ve only had Rayner for 10 minutes, etc.
Anika: He was great in this episode. All of his interactions were excellent.
Liz: I really do think that the show benefits from having, as he says, someone who is not so comfortable–
Anika: Right.
Liz: –Around the crew.
Anika: But he’s a good person.
Liz: He’s really not a Lorca figure in any way.
Anika: He’s not even a Shaw figure. He is not in any way actually against this crew. Every time he speaks up against them, it’s because he thinks that they’re missing that part, like the information that he has. It’s all very heartfelt. He’s just a gruff personality, and so it comes across as criticism.
Liz: And also, he is used to being a captain. So he needs to stop and think that, “oh, maybe I just can’t criticize my crew member on the bridge. I need to take that offline somehow because I’m not the captain and I don’t have that privilege.” And we’ve talked so much about hierarchies and workplace hierarchies the last couple of seasons that we’ve watched. And it’s so interesting to see that Discovery actually does have a stricter hierarchy than is apparent at first glance. It’s just that Michael runs it with a very light touch.
Anika: She pretty much says that she runs her ship as a collaboration.
Liz: She does.
Anika: She encourages people to speak up and to bring things up, to speak freely without permission. That they just always have permission.
Liz: But the unspoken rule is that if you’re a senior officer shitting on a junior officer’s idea, you don’t do that in front of everyone else. Criticism can flow up, but if it has to flow down, that should be in privacy to protect the dignity of your staff.
Anika: Can we just go back to Strange New Worlds briefly? Remember when Captain Pike told Ortegas that she wasn’t going to get to do the thing that she wanted to do in the middle of the corridor?
Liz: Yeah, in front of everyone.
Anika: Whoever was just wandering by. Don’t do that.
Liz: He’s bad at his job.
Anika: He’s terrible at his job. Michael is great.
Liz: You contrast Michael’s command style with Shaw and Pike, the massively popular, mediocre white men of Star Trek, and it’s just a bit sad. You know, we’ve had a whole bunch of professional articles lately going, “Oh, actually Discovery is quite good. Actually, Michael Burnham is a really good captain.” And it’s like, season five isn’t doing anything that’s new. It’s building on what it’s done before. I would say last episode, episode three, was actually subpar by Discovery standards. It’s always been this good.
Anika: Michael is the collaborative captain that Pike pretends he is. Pike thinks that he is collaborating, but he’s actually forcing everybody else to do his job for him.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah.
Anika: Whereas Michael is creating an atmosphere for everyone to discuss command decisions. And then she makes them and takes full responsibility.
Liz: Yes. And this whole adventure is basically how Rayner learns to understand that, and how he sees — you know, it’s one thing to have read Michael’s record. It’s another thing to come face to face with season one Michael, who, you know, at this point in season one, even the spore drive isn’t working. Landry is alive and probably bullying Michael every day. I would say, just from the wig continuity, that — I know they say a few weeks, but I actually think this is right after she comes on board, just because she did not–
Anika: Because she brings it up with Tilly, like, “You don’t want to have a mutineer as your roommate.” And it really feels like Tilly has had her for two days.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And is upset about it.
Liz: Yeah. But also, those looser curls in her afro, that was, like, episode three hair. And then by episode four, she was in that uniform and she had the tighter, neater little puff. So yeah, this is right after the Glenn. There is a living tardigrade on that ship somewhere in Lorca’s menagerie. And I kind of did expect Rayner to like turn a quarter and go, “why are there all these dead animals on this ship? What is happening?”
Anika: This is disturbing.” The whole Michael — sort of like just random trivia. “Oh, you know, Paul has tardigrade DNA so he can escape time.” I think Rayner is just like, “Okay. Sure.”
Liz: “We don’t have time to unpack that right now.”
Anika: “Okie dokie.” It’s just delightful.
Liz: It’s absolutely fantastic. I’m sure there are more problems with this episode, but truly I had so much fun watching it that I don’t care. I said yesterday as we were wrapping up our recording that I had put off watching screeners because I wanted to watch it with everything else. And then I knew we were recording today, so I edited for a few hours, my ankle hurt, I fired up the screener, and it was like, you know, the quality is not as good as the actual release.
And I’m like, I’m just going to put up with this, I will say something about… No. I was enthralled from the very first scene, which is just Moll and L’ak being ruthless and evil, and kind of showing how damaged Moll is.
And there was a point, I had to pause, I was like, there is no way they can wrap this story up in the time they have left. I paused, I went to see what episode 5 was titled. Oh, that was Mirrors. And we know from the trailer for the season that there is an ISS Enterprise hanging around. “Oh no, they’re going to end up in the Mirror Universe at the end!” And then they didn’t, but it was all I could do to stop myself from just binging the rest of our screeners.
Anika: The next one, yes. It’s funny because I actually clicked on five first.
Liz: Oh no.
Anika: And it was like, “Last week on Discovery…” and I was like, wait a minute, I haven’t seen this. And I exed out immediately.
Liz: Confession time. Confession time. I actually had a quick scramble through the screener for five, just to see if we saw, like, Anson Mount or Mirror Enterprise people. And out of respect for the rules of our screeners, I’m not going to say what I found, but that’s how excited I was watching this episode. It really did feel – like, after episode three, which was fine.
Anika: It was fine.
Liz: But this was great.
Anika: It was fine. This was great. This was fun. Comparing it to Shattered is really good, because that is also an episode where it’s like, I don’t actually care what the plot is or what’s happening here. It’s just delightful to time hop with these people and to watch the relationship happen between people who are in different places. And we sort of got that here too because it was Rayner’s arc. Rayner got like this speedrun arc of Michael, while we were like –you know, it was blatantly in front of us how far Michael has come.
Liz: Yes. And we were saying that in the premiere that she has come so far and the show has just made it obvious. There’s no subtlety here.
I forgot what I was going to say. It was very smart.
Anika: Well, I will go back to the very beginning and say that there was a content warning for flashing.
Liz: A content warning! In this economy!
Anika: Gosh, Paramount Plus. I’ve never been so excited to see a warning about flashes on screen.
Liz: No, I paused and jumped into Discord to shout at you about it. In fact, this whole episode, I do wish that I’d been able to watch it with the rest of the fandom because all I want to do is shout about it.
Anika: It’s delightful.
Liz: Yeah. I want to say, I think that overall, Michael’s wig aside, the continuity between seasons was great. Not just the uniforms, but Tilly’s hair. And Mary Wiseman has visibly gained weight between season one and now, but through makeup and contouring, she looks like season one Tilly. It was fantastic.
Anika: Like the physicality, I’m going to put it all on Mary Wiseman that she was able to act naïve Tilly instead of confident Tilly.
Liz: Yes, that’s it. And not just because her hair was slicked back. The only thing they could have done to make it better was get original Airiam back in her makeup, but I guess we’re just going to pretend it was Hannah Cheeseman all along.
Anika: It was great to see Airiam.
Liz: I was thinking of Jordan LaFordan, who is a massive Discovery superfan, and Airiam is to her as Katrina Cornwell is to me. So I was really happy for her that she gets more time with her fave and more characterization.
Anika: And it was so good. I loved her. Everybody was like, no, we wouldn’t let that happen. And that was the episode. That was the arc of her episode was that everyone was like, no. And it was specifically Michael was refusing to let the sacrifice happen. But it had to happen. And Airiam, you know, just straight up said, “No, absolutely. That is what I would do. All of you are wrong.”
Liz: And also, Airiam as someone who has been through immense physical trauma and sort of has that experience that most of them don’t — maybe Detmer to some extent — but she knows that there is a point where the body can’t go on and where the soul can’t go on, and where it’s better for the mission and the greater good to stop and sacrifice yourself. I thought, as you say, this makes the episode of her death better.
Anika: So much better. It was just — and it was great to see her. It was great to hear her.
Liz: Yes, that purring noise that happens when she moves. I forgot how much I missed it.
Anika: It was just absolutely –I was so happy. Airiam is not my favorite. I get upset because I want to like her more. It feels like she was more of a missed opportunity. And this was like, okay, we’re going to close that circle in a beautiful way.
Liz: Yeah, it was also great to see Bryce again. I’ve missed him. The actor is a major character in a Canadian drama, which I’m really enjoying. Super happy for him, but I miss seeing his face. You know, I like that the bridge crew come and go as the actors get better roles.
Anika: Yeah, that’s what we want. And again, it makes the crew bigger if you see different people all the time.
Liz: Exactly.
Anika: It makes it feel like an actual working ship.
Liz: Yeah, you know, a ship like this, people are transferring in and out all the time and it’s not a big deal. And that’s why I was so happy to see Beta Shift last week and to see Rhys hanging with Beta Shift instead of the people that we know. I also really appreciate this week, the hair continuity on Owosekun and Detmer. I didn’t appreciate until this episode how much Detmer’s hair has changed. Owosekun has a different look every season and it’s fantastic, but Detmer’s changes are more subtle.
Anika: But it’s also really, like, I can read a lot into Detmer’s hair when it’s presented in this way because remember how angry she was in season one?
Liz: Oh, she was so shut down and cruel, not overtly cruel, but cold to Michael.
Anika: And then she was, like, a daredevil who was reckless in season three. Actually, I know you don’t like Detmer, Detmer’s your Nilsson. But I like Detmer a lot and I like to see these… I love background characters who have an arc and that’s how I feel that she participates in the Discovery crew.
Liz: Honestly, I like her better now, having had her arc put right up in front of me where I can’t ignore or sideline it. That she has really grown, not just in her relationship with Michael, but in how she carries herself, how she interacts with others, and she’s not just on the sidelines smirking at Owo. I think she’s really grown as a character and I think that if I rewatch the whole series, I will have much warmer feelings towards Detmer.
Anika: I can ship her with Rayner too.
Liz: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Liz: Unfortunately, I kind of ship Rayner/ Reno, which is really hard to say, and just because…
Anika: It also feels wrong.
Liz: It feels very wrong. But there’s no denying that they have chemistry. Maybe they can be BFFs. I can ship it platonically.
Anika: They can be bros who help each other through their other relationships.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. You know, back to our third episode, and Reno can be his wing-woman and he can be her wingman.
Anika: That would be great.
Liz: They can just hang out as middle-aged commanders on a ship of relatively young people.
Anika: He was sort of actively trying not to connect with people last episode. And this episode, in that scene where he was forced to interact with her in a vaguely organic way so that she wouldn’t suspect anything, it was like, oh, you guys should be friends.
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Anika: You should go back and befriend her now because that would be a sounding board for you. And yeah, a wing-woman who would help you out with this crew, because she also was sort of abrasive when she first arrived.
Liz: Absolutely. I can totally see them sitting in the bar, nursing their drinks and gently talking shit about all the thirtysomething nonsense happening around them.
Anika: Absolutely. Just like, you know, picking everybody apart, but in a very, you know, gentle and affectionate way.
Liz: Yes.
Paul sort of coming face to face with, (a) the fact that his staff needs some retraining; and (b) that he kind of was an asshole before the tardigrade DNA. I think that was very sweet. Hugh must have the patience of a saint. We’ve said this before, but you know.
Anika: No, but I mean, again, so that also calls back to Magic…
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Because that was the episode where he learned to have friends and depend on people, and remembered that actually he loved Hugh from the beginning, and that that relationship was important to him. And that like it wasn’t just this “because I have a relationship,” it was, “oh wait, actually, I love him.”
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: I loved the scene between Rayner and Paul where Paul was like — you know, he lost it. He was like, “Look, I can’t deal with you right now. I have to deal with me and all of this nonsense. Can you get on board?” And Rayner was actually affected by that.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: More so than he had been with all of the other interactions. But Michael was definitely chipping away at him throughout the episode. But Paul was just like, I don’t have time to chip. This is the way it is. And they can be bros too. Like it can be a trio of snarky commentary in the bar that I would 100% watch and would be very enjoyable for them, but like not offensive. It wouldn’t be like, “we’re trying to tear these people down.” It would be, “let’s bond over making fun of these people in a gentle and kind way.”
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Because everybody else is making fun of them too.
Liz: Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s the thing. This is that sort of family sibling relationship aboard the ship, which is not to say that I’m not shipping people. I want to say that Rayner and Lorca is basically canon, in that they existed in the same timeline briefly, which counts.
Anika: I look forward to your fic.
Liz: Thank you. Ihaven’t even talked about how easily they could have just beamed Kat out of that torpedo bay thing and brought her to the future. Guys, come on.
Anika: I look forward to that fic as well.
Liz: All I’m saying is…
Anika: I’ll also ship her with Rayner.
Liz: Oh, absolutely. But also Vance, because as we know, Vance…
Anika: Yeah, I think Kat and Vance look…
Liz: Anyway, I really do appreciate this episode for giving me new ways to save Admiral Cornwell, new perspectives on season one, which I really do miss, even though I’m glad that we’ve moved on from that stage and that mood. But it’s like, sometimes you need to listen to a sad song and have some feelings. Sometimes you need to be in season one.
Anika: I have friends who just have not watched season three through five because they were like, you know, “I didn’t want to go into the future and I didn’t want to deal with that and I’m just not interested in so I’ve opted out.”
Liz: I completely understand. Remember, I was really against the time jump.
Anika: It’s like this bittersweet — because it was like, actually, I really like what happened after the time jump. I quibble more. I mean, obviously I don’t quibble more over season two. But I quibble more about how things happen in the later seasons because they’re taking really big swings.
Liz: Yeah, which means some really big misses.
Anika: Which makes it easy to quibble. But I think that this season, coming out of the last season, which ended really strongly, even though I had issues getting there. But I thought that the — like you said, it was a new beginning. And I think that that’s true. And it was like a nice like, oh, we have gotten past this. And that’s what this season seems to be all about, is sort of like, we are past the Burn, we are past the growing pains. And now we are getting into like, let’s try to make the Federation sustainable. That’s interesting to me. I love all of the drama that it’s creating. And I like that we’re getting to this footing.
And if a Paramount executive watched this season and was like, “oh, that’s a good place to end,” I can’t fault them–
Liz: No.
Anika: –For that as someone who likes when things end well.
Liz: Yes. I think it was the Avatar creators — that show ended after three seasons, it was only meant to have three seasons. And the Avatar creators were like, can you imagine anything as awful as a story without an end?
Anika: Yeah, exactly. And that’s my reference for modern television. And there are a lot of problems with the streaming model and how it constrains. But the freedoms that it can provide if you use things well. If you do say, I am going to make four seasons of this show, and it is going to be a complete story, and I know how it ends, and I am not going to be forced into continuing. Which is, it’s a television problem. I love television. It’s the messiest medium because it has this same tension between “we want to tell a complete story,” and “we want to go on forever and ever.” And that affords a lot of interesting things that happen. I do like long running series because they become something else, and it’s interesting to me.
Liz: Absolutely. But speaking of endings, Succession was renewed for a season four and five, and then they were like, actually we could end this better in one season. And so it ended after season four, and that was outstanding. I think the problem with the streaming model is not that maybe a series doesn’t go for so long, it’s that too often series are cancelled with no warning.
Anika: I think that’s the issue. And that’s been the issue on non-streaming, like, broadcast television also has that problem. And it’s — again, you know, I said it last week, I prefer when a series is given, okay, this is the final season, make it count. And it can be a short season. It can be, you know, you have less of a budget or whatever. That’s fine. I just want them to get that ending.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of the problem with Enterprise ending with These Are The Voyages… I think that is a perfectly cromulent episode, but it should not have been the finale for that series.
Anika: No, I mean, everyone agrees.
Liz: People only disagree with me that it’s a cromulent episode. It’s not a great episode, but I think like as a very special sweeps episode back when they had sweeps, it would have done really well.
Anika: Oh my gosh, remember when we had sweeps?
Liz: Actually, no. If Paramount Plus wanted to do a three-episode miniseries wrapping up Enterprise, you know, 20 years later, I would be totally there for it.
Anika: I’m ready for it. Make that happen.
Liz: Honestly, the only mystery is whether Jolene Blalock would be there for it.
Anika: Give her the money. Just do it. Make it happen. Although I think she’s like super rich. If I remember correctly, I think she married wealthy.
Liz: She married a super rich man. I think that the question is not, could they give her enough money? It’s could they give her enough support and go, hey, we know you haven’t acted in a really long time. We will make sure you have coaching and rehearsals and you can have as much support as you need to do the job.
Anika: And you know what? They should do that anyway.
Liz: I know!
Anika: Let’s be honest.
Liz: Let’s talk about how Book’s entire role in this episode is to turn up, take his shirt off and support Michael.
Anika: And I love him for it.
Liz: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, this is perfect boyfriend material.
Anika: That was such a beautiful scene. I was just sitting there going, endgame. This is the most – like, I’m planting a flag in the storyline that says, this relationship is the happy ending, everybody! And we knew that, but this was blatant. This was just, I am putting it all out there. There is no argument.
Liz: And I think for Michael, it’s her moment to go, you’ve hurt me and I’ve been angry with you and I let you down in some ways. But I love you and I will fight for that.
Anika: Exactly.
Liz: And I think she has not that moment yet.
Anika: No, because she hasn’t been confronted with it. Because Book, in a very – like, Book is perfect, boyfriend material – he’s actually been like letting her be and backing off and letting it — it’s fine, whatever you are comfortable with, I am comfortable with. But this Book didn’t know that they weren’t together. So he was just being amazing. And she was reminded of how much that relationship meant.
Liz: Yes. And I sort of contrast it with her relationship with Ash and how that ended. And look, no hate to Ash. I shipped it then. I think it was a really important relationship in Michael’s life. But sometimes, as Adira and Gray know, the most important relationship in your life still has to come to an end. And when Ash, the secrets were revealed, everyone was pressuring Michael to talk to him. He was pressuring her, and Book hasn’t done any of that. Even in season two, Michael’s relationship with Ash was really fraught because they couldn’t talk about it. Like, they were just not people who could have that conversation. And now Michael is realizing that she has to have that conversation and it’s going to be better than not.
Anika: Right. There was too much trauma because both Ash and Michael were dealing with their own personal trauma, separate from their relationship trauma. And it was too much, and it couldn’t blossom in that.
Liz: And also, they really hurt each other. He tried to strangle her. It was terrible. And when they fell in love, they were not fully aware of all of that in their history, but once it was there, you know, how can you move on? How can you have a healthy romantic relationship? You can’t. All you can do is part as friends, which they eventually do. But that’s it. Then they’re in separate time zones and can never speak.
Anika: Oh, well.
Liz: Yeah.
Liz: Oh, well. [laughs] I just want to point out that you were wrong and we saw Gray instantly.
Anika: I mean, we didn’t see Gray.
Liz: We heard his voice.
Anika: We heard his voice.
Liz: He’s still an important part of the story.
Anika: I’m so sorry. This is again — it’s just trauma from completely different television series and how listening to voicemails is not actually enough.
Liz: I mean, that’s why their romantic relationship ended and how they are now friends. They’re doing a better job at maintaining a friendship after a breakup than Michael and Book have been. And this is the turning point for Michael and Book to do better, to put the work in. The children will lead the way.
Anika: Can we talk about Moll and L’ak a little bit?
Liz: I love Moll. I would die for her. She has probably had many people die for her already, usually because she killed them. I actually like that she seems to be not entirely excited about being a murderer. She’s not doing it for fun, but she’s very pragmatic and not entirely opposed to a bit of vengeance. L’ak is a more pure soul who is definitely going to die.
Anika: This is my problem. L’ak will be sacrifice coded, and therefore I cannot ship it. I cannot care about him. I don’t have it in me. I wish that I could for Moll’s sake, but not even for Moll. I can’t do it. I have to protect myself. That means that I can’t care about L’ak at all, which makes it hard to be invested in their part of the story.
Liz: Yeah, I want to spend more time with Moll and her perspective and stuff. L’ak definitely feels like a side character in the Moll story, which is fine. She is definitely the more interesting and dynamic character. But yeah, we’re almost halfway through the season, and I want to learn more about them. And I want to learn from watching Moll herself rather than just what Book knows about her.
Anika: Yeah, I just – like, that scene, their opening scene, where they kissed? I was like, nope, I can’t do it. That guy’s gonna die. That guy’s gonna die a horrible death that pushes her over the edge. And then Book has to bring her back from it by reminding her about love and that it’s worth it. And I just can’t watch that story anymore.
Liz: Even though her deadbeat dad abandoned her, and yet basically raised Book or mentored Book. Like, this is a whole, am I the asshole, best of Redditor updates scenario waiting to happen.
Anika: I want to care. At the very least, I want to care for her sake. I have it written here that I am too broken. And that is the truth. Is that I don’t like in order to protect myself as a like a person who engages with fiction.
Liz: Too many of your beloved characters have sacrificed themselves. And you don’t need more of that nonsense. I completely understand.
I was very distracted by their kiss because obviously L’ak is in full makeup. And I was like, oh, so these two can kiss, but Saru and T’Rina can’t because all this time I have assumed that we haven’t seen a Saru, T’Rina kiss because Doug Jones is in such heavy makeup that the logistics of it would be challenging or it would look fake or silly.
Anika: I thought it was because that’s a thing that humans do and neither of them are human.
Liz: I mean, yes, but we saw in the opening episode of Strange New Worlds that Spock and T’Pring were, like, making out at a restaurant.
Anika: Liz, Spock is half human.
Liz: Fake news, says Sarek.
Anika: I’m pretty sure that that entire thing was about T’Pring trying to meet Spock at his level.
Liz: No, that’s fair.
Anika: And kiss him in a human way.
Liz: The other couple who haven’t kissed was Gray and Adira. I guess they’re not going to, now. I just think this show needs more kissing, but less of it should be more and more.
Anika: Literally every series on television needs more kissing. I am extremely upset with the lack of kissing.
Liz: How much of it do you think is to do with the COVID landscape and you just don’t want your actors to be literally, you know, mouth to mouth?
Anika: I mean, okay, so I have two things to say about that.
Anika: One, obviously I want everyone to be safe and I want everyone to be healthy. Two, people are doing stunts and stuff where they’re like spitting in each other’s faces.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And I don’t see the difference.
Liz: No, no, and there is just overall less… People talk about how much overt sex there is in film and television now, but it is kind of not.
Anika: No, where?
Liz: Where?
Anika: Literally where?
Liz: Yeah, I watched Poor Things a few months ago, which was, you know, scandalously explicit, and it wasn’t that explicit. Like, I wouldn’t see it with my mum, but it like I’ve seen racier stuff from the 70s and the 80s and 90s.
Anika: So there’s this – like, I don’t want every series to be Game of Thrones levels of sex.
Liz: No, no.
Anika: Because that was, you know, sex for the sake of, look, a naked lady. And that, you know, I don’t want that. But I just, I have noticed over my lifetime, it’s been downgraded as like romance is not as important.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: That feels significant and problematic.
Liz: No, that’s it. It’s not so much a lack of sex. It’s a lack of romance. And, you know, we were just talking about how there’s no kissing.
Anika: It’s not every — it’s just sort of like the mainstream. People say that it’s an MCU problem. The most popular thing that everyone goes to see–
Liz: Is PG-13.
Anika: Right.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And in terms of like relationships. I mean, obviously we started this conversation with like Moll and L’ak kissed. So obviously it’s not a universal thing. And again, I wish that I could ship Moll and L’ak. Maybe if someone convinced me. I just can’t do it.
Liz: No, maybe we’ll see more of them next week and learn enough to get our hooks into the characters. I just think at this point, they’re both kind of ciphers.
Anika: Yeah, right. I think that’s true. That’s also that we don’t know who they are. And so I want people that I care about to be kissing instead of these people.
Liz: Also, I think it’s arguably sensible to spend more time developing Rayner first and Moll and L’ak second. Like, that is a reasonable choice to me.
Liz: Do you have anything more to say about this episode?
Anika: I like the idea of a time bug. Sometimes I wish I could have one.
Liz: Oh, that would be nice.
Anika: I know it actually sounds horrible to be like trapped in a time loop for six months, or whatever, but sometimes I would like to escape my life.
Liz: No, no.
Anika: And be forced to revisit my past and think about my choices and see like, you know, these are the things that went well and these are the things that maybe I can regret, but I can set aside those regrets because now I’ve gone back and seen what they really are instead of what I think of them in my head.
That sounds nice.
Liz: I just think that if you have to relive a day over and over again and, like, change something slightly so that you get out of it, but in the meantime, whatever you do, the ship blows up, you go back to where you were… I would take a few cycles to have a nap. I’ll just take some time off. I also like that the Krenim were part of the Temporal Wars. They were the time travel aliens of Year of Hell in Voyager. So obviously they have some pretty cool stuff. And I like that there is still Temporal War technology floating around, as happens after a war. And for all of the Federation is like, “Oh no, we banned time travel. You can’t even talk about it,” obviously other people have different ideas.
Anika: I’m into like the acknowledgement that the dark web still exists. That’s great. And just, you know, my favorite episode of Agents of Shield is a time warp episode where they’re in a bubble and Daisy makes the decision — she’s like, you know what? I can take one of these loops to just make out with this guy. And she does. And I just want to, you know, in terms of thing, you know, that’s an MCU property that did it right. So good job and always take one time loop to just make out with the hot guy who wants to make out with you.
Liz: I mean, isn’t that basically what Michael did in Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad? Like, she uses the time loops to practice talking to Ash and connecting with him.
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