It is so awkward when you literally stick a guy in a refrigerator and then his death provides motivation for his grieving partner to go on a rampage. Anika and Liz discuss season 5, episode 7 of Star Trek: Discovery – “Erigah”(!!!).
- It is DEVASTATING that this is Discovery‘s last season and we’re going to lose Rayner as fast as we got him
- Liz accidentally talks herself into shipping Michael/Nahn and also Nahn/Ortegas
- We have unlocked Rayner’s tragic backstory
- Hot take: Michael is now a better captain than (prime) Georgiou
- Anika is here to make it about Jack Crusher
- We aren’t puzzle people, but neither are the Discovery writers, and it kind of shows
- Jett/Pelia has never been more canon
Transcript
Liz: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. Today, we’re discussing Star Trek: Discovery, season 5, episode 7, Erigah.
I have a lot of problems with this episode. First is that for weeks, I’ve had Erigah!!! in my head, so the tune of Florida!!! by Taylor Swift and Florence and the Machine, and it just fits so well. (sings) Erigagh!!! It’s one hell of a drug.
My second problem with this episode is that I love it so much and I’m really mad about how much I love it, and that they gave me Rayner in the last season of the series. How can they do that when I love him and he was made for me? It’s not fair.
Anika: It’s not fair. It’s not fair. This season has been really good.
Liz: I’m so mad. Obviously, I want them to go out on a high note, but did it have to be this good?
Anika: It’s like, no way. I was resigned. I was okay. I was okay with season five being the end of Discovery, and now I’m like, no, wait, there’s so much potential here.
Liz: No, and I understand that this – like, Doug Jones is saying that Saru was his last role in heavy makeup. He doesn’t want to do that anymore. I assume that that is why Saru has a smaller role in this series, that Doug was just having trouble dealing with the makeup. He’s a guy in his 60s and he shouldn’t be wearing giant hoof boots all day.
Anika: Okay, everyone, I’m sorry, but I don’t miss Saru.
Liz: I miss him, but I think that his arc as first officer and captain was done. And I am okay with having him moved to a recurring supporting role. He has joined that echelon of support people outside of the ship. And I think that’s great. I think that is a fabulous resolution to his story. I think it’s where he belongs and it feels really natural and I’m sorry that we’re not going to see more of that arc for him. And I’m really sorry we’re not going to get more of Rayner because I didn’t realize how complete Saru’s story was until a new character came in to take his place.
Anika: Interesting.
Liz: These seasons have been a coming-of-age story for Saru as much as Michael, and he is of age. He’s given up his career to get married, and I think that’s very feminist of him.
Anika: I don’t have anything to say about Saru, so I will just let you talk about him. Thank you.
Liz: Thank you. I really want to emphasize that my love for Rayner doesn’t in any way mean that I dislike Saru or that I’m glad Saru is gone. I just think that it’s a natural progression.
Anika: Again, I’m just going to stay quiet. (laughs)
Liz: Speaking of new people coming in, because we’ve been watching screeners, we watched Whistlepeak last night. I watched it with my flatmate on Paramount Plus. We’ve been way ahead. She finally noticed that Detmer and Owosekun have been replaced.nIf you’re wondering how the casual fan is doing.
Anika: I also don’t have anything to say about Detmer and Owosekun. I’m so sorry. I apologize to all of our fans because I know that I’m weird. I know a lot of people who really loves Saru. I have nothing against the character. As a Star Trek character or as a part of this story, I think that his story is very relevant to Michael’s and to Discovery’s and that he’s been a really good…
Liz: Mm-hmm. Part of the…
Anika: I want to say foil because that’s not… Yeah, part of the ensemble. But I agree with you that his story has come to a nice ending. It’s different than last season, when Tilly left. I was like, okay, I agree with Tilly’s decision, but I want to see her in that role. Whereas I’m okay with Saru being happy off screen.
Liz: No, I think that’s it exactly. Tilly’s story felt incomplete as it was. And the thing about Discovery is that unless they get blown up by a photon torpedo, just because a character leaves doesn’t mean they’re gone. And that’s how we get Nahn back this week.
Anika: That’s great. She’s in the worst uniform ever.
Liz: Oh my gosh. Like, her security officers and her are wearing this ugly gray thing and then the guys guarding L’ak in Sickbay are wearing some sort of leather jacket, like Section 31 cosplayers. Guys, no.
Anika: So bad. I was really excited to see Nahn and I was distraught every time she was on screen because that ugly slate jumpsuit doesn’t look good on anyone. Her entire team looked terrible. Nahn, who is beautiful.
Liz: So beautiful.
Anika: Amazing figure. What a stunning woman. And her makeup was bad. Her costume was hideous. And I was just like, what did they do to you? Why is it like this?
Liz: So this is the first season of Discovery that hasn’t had Gersha Phillips as the costume designer, which is a normal thing in a series that has been running for a few years. You establish the aesthetic, you work on it for a few years, then you go on to a new project and the person behind you steps up and gets that experience. And I think the new costume designer has overall done a great job this season, but this is their first big failure.
Anika: We say fashion in our intro. I have opinions. That uniform was bad.
Liz: Overall, I do not like the fashion aesthetics of Starfleet in the 32nd century, but this is notably awful.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: Other than that, this episode was perfect.
Anika: Yeah, and it was great to see Nahn. Your first text in the chat was “NAHN!!!” in all caps and legitimately, you were smart enough to put spoiler bars, so I didn’t read those until I was already watching this episode. And that was my exact response was all caps, NAHN! So it was very exciting to see her. I love getting people back.
Liz: Yes, and she’s thriving. She’s always had a really interesting position in relation to Michael, in that she came in from the Enterprise and she and Michael were closer to equals than a first officer and subordinate. And I think that’s still the case here. She seems to be the captain of the ship that caught L’ak and Moll.
She speaks to Michael as a peer, and she is wary of Book, but very respectful of him. And she says it’s just because of his relationship with Michael, but honestly, maybe that’s true. I don’t know. It doesn’t really reflect well on Nahn. Maybe you should treat everyone with respect, but, you know, whatevs. This is a woman who got on with Emperor Georgiou to a scary degree, so she kind of does have that edge.
And it made me wonder how she fit in on Pike’s Enterprise, because she seems like someone who has experienced war in the way that most of the people on that ship didn’t. And I wonder if she was a new transfer in and left for Discovery, like, as soon as she could.
Anika: But she honestly would fit in on Lorca’s Discovery?
Liz: Yes, I was just going to say she would get on well with Erika Ortegas. And I also said that Erika would thrive on Lorca’s Discovery. And that’s not a diss again. Okay, it was originally a diss against those characters, against Ortegas. But I’ve come to like her. And I think that she and Nahn are very similar. You know, we sort of have to do our own homework with Ortegas, but this is how I flesh her out by imagining her connecting with other people. Imagine an alternate Strange New Worlds where Nahn has the La’an job.
Anika: Her relationship with Michael is very interesting to me. I agree that she treats Michael more like a peer. And there is this sort of competition, but also teasing.
Liz: Yes, yes.
Anika: And as far as her… I’m just going to say it. The relationship between Nahn and Michael reminds me of the relationship between Alex Cabot and Olivia Benson, which means I ship them.
Liz: I was about to ask.
Anika: That is why she doesn’t get on with Book. That’s my personal headcanon. Sorry. She accepts Book. She’s happy that Michael’s happy. But no.
Liz: But she’s also like, “Hey, technically you are single right now.” No, I can absolutely see that. And, like, they could hook up in season two if we wanted to write that fic. Just saying.
So then we have the plot. Discovery has Moll and L’ak, but the Breen are coming to Fed HQ. I like your roundup in the notes of how the grownups at the table deal with this threat. You say Vance’s instinct is to run and hide. I would say his instinct is to evade and postpone.
Anika: I think that’s the same thing. Those are synonyms. (laughs)
Liz: Fine, okay, fine.
Anika: I’m just saying. It’s more the — actually, you’re right in that he’s pushing Discovery away. He’s sort of like, you guys take that drama away from me. And I don’t fault him for this anymore than I fault Rayner’s inability to get on board with the new Federation.
Liz: No, it sort of reflects Vance’s role as a guy who has to consider the politics. And he very reasonably probably wants to buy time to evacuate the civilians and the Academy from Fed HQ, because they have put all their eggs in that basket. Not completely safe. Whereas Michael is still the woman who tried to do the Vulcan hello and is like, no, we have to force the confrontation now when we choose. I think they both have a point.
And T’Rina is obviously the negotiator and she’s great at it. But again, all she can do is buy time. And then you have Rayner, who is not wholly wrong in his understanding of brain culture and their refusal to accept diplomacy as a solution. But he’s also not coming at it from a reasonable place.
Anika: So, T’Rina as a negotiator — there is a movie, I think I’ve seen it once, it’s not a good movie. There’s a movie called The Negotiator that starts Samuel L. Jackson as some kind of police negotiator. And obviously I watched a lot of copaganda and crime procedurals that engage in this kind of thing as well. The negotiator’s job is only to delay. That is all they do. They keep the perpetrator talking so that the SWAT team can get a place to murder everyone. It’s not good.
But it’s a very Vulcan responsibility. That is a Vulcan role and T’Rina takes it on and does well at it. I don’t think that T’Rina has any desire to murder anybody or get anyone killed. She is trying to save as many people as possible.
Liz: Look, I think T’Rina is low-key homicidal at all times, but…
Anika: I really enjoyed… Rayner was like, well, what about the Romulan part of your job? That was great to me, because he was like, oh, by the way, you might be Vulcan, but you’re representing Ni’Var, and that means that there are also Romulans, and you should take on the Romulan point of view, and I want to join them. That was great. That was for me.
Liz: Obviously, it’s shocking when a senior Starfleet officer comes out with the xenophobia and all of that, but Rayner, it turns out, is Kira Nerys. And I think that’s very sexy of him.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: His planet was occupied by a force that used violence and oppression, and he was part of the resistance that fought him off. And then, unlike Kira, who sticks around to rebuild, he seems to have run away and joined Starfleet. And we don’t have the exact timeline on that, but we can imagine that it was when he was quite young.
Look, I’m going to give Starfleet maybe more credit than it deserves. I’m going to assume they didn’t give him a captaincy and a starship if he had not dealt with his trauma in any way at all. I assume that the Antares had a ship’s counsellor, and Rayner overall seems like a pretty together guy, whereas, like, Lorca would walk into the room and it would just be like, you’re hit by a wave of man pain. Rayner is not that. It’s only in this specific situation that his issues come out. So I think he’s obviously overall in a good place, but because he wasn’t around to see his planet rebuild, he himself has on some level not recovered from the trauma of losing his entire family.
And, okay, the audio was muddy here, so I didn’t catch his exact dialogue and I’d already watched the episode twice, so I didn’t want to use up all of our limited screeners, but it sounds like he was sort of adopted by the Primarch as a little pet. Please, someone write that fic. I’m probably extrapolating. Like I said, the audio was muddy and I was having a lot of feelings.
Anika: Of course Rayner had a tragic backstory. We all knew that was coming. And of course he was going to be orphaned, because everyone in Starfleet is an orphan. That’s just how it is. Starfleet is made up of traumatized orphans. If you don’t know someone’s backstory, just assume they’re a traumatized orphan who Starfleet stepped in and helped. And therefore they joined Starfleet. The end. That’s all of them.
But I was already predisposed to love Rayner. And I was glad. I’m thrilled that he has a lot going for him. He does have a tragic backstory. He apologizes for his xenophobia. He works at getting better. He has become a Discovery crew person who asks for help on the bridge and then praises people when they give an answer. He’s all in on the Discovery way because that’s where he is.
I do not give Starfleet credit. I think that they were hurting for people, that he was good at his job and probably could have gotten up in the ranks pretty quickly without going through his recommended Starfleet counselling. But I do think that he is clearly healthy enough, because he is capable of changing. He is capable of saying when he’s wrong, and he’s capable of having these conversations. He opens up to Michael and says, like, this is why, and trusts her with that story. And Kira didn’t.
Liz: No, no.
Liz: You know who else didn’t, and you know who couldn’t change? Liam Shaw, the other grumpy white guy captain that was introduced in the last season and everyone loves.
Anika: He is winning a poll against Rayner on X, and I object strongly.
Liz: I’m really mad to hear that. And I blame Elon Musk for driving all the sensible people away.
Anika: I blame Elon Musk as well. I am pretty sure that everybody, that they’re not watching Discovery.
Liz: I’m going to assume that.
Anika: That’s the only explanation that I have for why you would choose Liam Shaw over Rayner. And that’s nothing against Todd Stashwick.
Liz: Oh, no.
Anika: Just the character and the writing.
Liz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, when we’re done recording, I am going to go to my Mastodon instance and I am going to run a Shaw versus Rayner poll. And Shaw might win because people are allowed to be wrong on the internet. And by wrong, I mean having different opinions to me. But I think it will be closer.
Anika: I think it’s just wrong. I think it’s objectively wrong.
Liz: The thing about Rayner is he is Michael, and she straight up says he is where she was at the beginning of the series when she couldn’t deal with the Klingons.
Anika: That right there is the reason for season six.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: This story is not going to… We don’t have enough time for that story to get to its conclusion.
Liz: Yeah. Callum Keith Rennie has said that if there had been a series six, he would have been a regular. And honestly, this is the main reason I am angry that we don’t get a season six because I want that story. I want to get to know this character better. I want to see more new people come in and see how this crew evolves. Maybe he can be in the Starfleet Academy show. I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like the teacher type, but he gets on with Tilly. So who knows? I just, I like this guy. I want more of him. And frankly, it’s been a while since I was this enthusiastic about a fictional character who wasn’t Katrina Cornwell. Related, I wrote fic where he hooks up with Cornwell. Which is like, shipping a new character with my Blorbo is the highest praise I can give that new character.
But yeah, I’m going to say something controversial now. I think Michael dealing with Rayner does a better job than Georgiou dealing with Michael in the premiere.
Anika: That’s very controversial.
Liz: Well, they’re both kind of coming at it from the same place. You know, hi, I have this trauma and I think we need to attack these people head on. And Georgiou is like, “No, how can you say that? That is wrong. That is a bad, you know, we’re Starfleet and we don’t fire first.”
And Michael very reasonably objects [to Rayner’s behaviour]. She gets him to leave the room and that’s embarrassing, but it also gives him space to get control of himself and to decompress. And then she comes and says, I understand where you’re coming from and I’ve been in the same place. And your solution is not the right one now, but it’s not necessarily — you are not a bad person for having that instinct.
Anika: And I think that Michael having gone through it with Georgiou how she can have that insight.
Liz: Yeah, I’m not saying Georgiou is a bad captain, but she maybe didn’t have the experience to support or to deal with Michael in that moment, the way Michael does now.
Anika: I mean, my Ice Cold Hot Take is that crime Georgiou is not a character. We know nothing about her. We can make up whatever we want about her. She has been idealized by the series and the fandom, and I have less to say her about her than Saru or Detmer and Owosekun.
Liz: Like you say, she’s not really a character, and when you put someone on a pedestal, the only place they can go is down.
Anika: Right.
Liz: Which is interesting. Like, Georgiou, as a brilliant captain who makes mistakes, that’s what makes her a character. But it’s not until I saw Michael dealing with Rayner that I appreciated the depth of Georgiou’s error.
Anika: Yeah, you’re right. Starfleet doesn’t fire first. She has this conviction, and it is naive in the way that Edith Keeler is naive.
Liz: I’m going to say that it’s not coincidence that she and Pike were in the same class at the Academy and are both in the ranks of best captain ever. Like, clearly they embody something that Starfleet wants and aspires to, but they themselves don’t always meet that lofty goal. And neither does Michael. Michael is also not a perfect captain, but through hardship, she has developed skills that Pike and Georgiou never could. And that’s why she’s the best captain.
Anika: Other than Freeman.
Liz: Other than Freeman.
Anika: The actual best captain.
Liz: If I’m ranking captains, it’s Michael and Freeman together on the top of the podium and then everyone else just standing around on the ground. And that’s not to say that everyone else is bad. It’s just, you know, anyway.
You called a few weeks ago that L’ak was going to sacrifice himself. And then we thought we got a reprieve. I kind of love that L’ak did sacrifice himself and it was stupid and pointless and a mistake.
Anika: It’s very L’ak of him.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: L’ak comes across as a child who is trying to be an adult. He reminds me of my first year college students who are very earnest and have a lot of ambition and a lot of joy. And don’t know anything.
Liz: And don’t know what they don’t know.
Anika: And don’t know what they don’t know. And make stupid mistakes.
Liz: And that is also Moll. Moll is a bit older, I think, and has more experience. But she is also really, really young. And we talked about Adira and Gray cosplaying maturity. L’ak and Moll are also playing at being adults. And in a really dangerous way.
Anika: Yes. Because they come across as adults.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: In terms of what they look like and their experience levels and where they are, compared to Adira and Gray.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Moll comes across as someone who was forced to grow up when she was, you know, 11. And so hasn’t had a childhood really. And so she not only doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, but she’s also like thinks that her streetwise parts are better than everybody else. And she won’t back down.
Liz: Yeah. And she sort of, because she had to be an independent adult at 14, she sort of hasn’t had the chance to naturally grow past that teenage immaturity. She is still in many respects frozen as that 14-year-old.
Anika: There are multiple Taylor Swift songs about this that are great for Moll. And now I want to make one.
Liz: I think that if there’s one thing we can take from this episode, it’s that Moll can indeed do it with a broken heart.
Anika: Yes. So L’ak dying, I legitimately thought it was fake. I thought that Moll and L’ak were faking his death. I thought that Hugh Culber was faking his death. I thought that it was some kind of weird conspiracy. Maybe even the Breen were faking his death so that they could steal him. Like, I did not understand. That’s why there are two question marks after my note. I was like, wait, what? L’ak died? He’s actually dead? That’s real?
Liz: I think what’s great about this is that you totally called that he was going to die. And yet we were taken by surprise.
Anika: Exactly. I was expecting it. And I was still like, no, that didn’t happen. In fairness, Moll’s also like, well, that’s fake. We’re going to fix it. So I’m on Moll’s side because I don’t understand. That’s not how the story is supposed to go. It was how I was expecting the story to go. And yet I refuse.
Liz: No, no, I think that is great writing. And I was watching him die thinking, well, he’s died in the care of a Breen doctor and all of these Breen are watching. So they definitely can’t blame the Federation. Oh, yeah, we live in a post-reality world and the Breen are just going to blame the Federation.
Anika: The Breen are definitely blaming, like, by name. They would have just executed Hugh right then and there if they had their way.
Liz: I really hate Primark Ruhn as a character, but I love the way he is kind of stupid. For one thing, you have your nephew, the Scion, the guy around whom all Breen will rally. And instead of keeping him close and making him love you and looking after him, you demote him to shuttle duty and send him out where he can look… I mean, he’s lucky that what L’ak wanted was to hook up with a human because that’s how you get a Scion with an incredibly loyal army behind him if L’ak had been interested in building that. And obviously the Runaway Prince is a great trope. I love it. I just … Ruhn. You’re not a smart guy.
Anika: He’s not a smart guy. He’s not a nice guy. I was sort of, you know, I was like, oh, you know, L’ak — Moll says in the previous episode, why didn’t you kill him? And he’s like, well, he raised me. You know, what am I supposed to, I’m supposed to like murder my uncle who is the only family. I was like, oh, that’s sweet. And then, but he’s not worth it. You should’ve cut off his head back then, because this guy doesn’t care about you at all.
And it was obvious then, you don’t put your prince to work as like a, you know, grunt. He’s hiding, I guess, but it was bad. It was all bad. It was like, you know, you’re going to work in the mail room, even though you’re my son, nonsense. And he didn’t care about anything that was happening with L’ak. And then he puts up this stupid Erigah — which also, that’s a stupid word. It’s fine. It’s just so funny to me. Anytime they write languages for fantasy races, they sound silly to me.
Liz: I am loosely acquainted with a linguist who has a side hustle creating languages for fantasy and science fiction writers. And she actually has a whole rant on this subject. It goes over my head because linguistics is very complicated.
Anika: But it’s just, like you said, you know, you think of a silly song, instead of a vendetta. It’s a murder vendetta. Like we’re going to hunt you down forever. And it’s a silly word. It’s not conveying that to me.
Liz: And it doesn’t stick in the mind because it’s a made up word. Remember last, last time we recorded, we were like, what’s, what’s Erigah? Is that the planet where we’ll find them?
Anika: And they definitely said it.
Liz: No, they did.
Anika: They said it during that episode.
Anika: And yet, so I’m like, yeah, I don’t like Primark Ruhn at all. And I feel so badly for L’ak and for Moll, who only had each other. And now we can’t root for Moll getting the Progenitor power and using it for selfish reasons of bringing her husband back to life. Again, that is not how the story goes.
Liz: Oh, I very much suspect that it will come down to, we can only use this device once. And do we use it to create a whole race? Or, I don’t know, I’m just looking at Book, bring a race back from extinction or bring one man back to life? And ultimately, Moll chooses L’ak.
Anika: Okay, but here’s the thing. The correct answer is neither.
Liz: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I just don’t think Moll is the sort of person who’s going to go, “death is a really difficult part of life,” and move on. Like me with Katrina Cornwell, she’s not going to be normal about this.
Anika: I’m going to be angry about that being the end. I’m not going to like that. I’m just warning everyone ahead of time.
Liz: Yeah, I don’t like that this is the Progenitor power, and I hope that Moll has in some way misunderstood what it’s about.
Anika: And yet, I also want L’ak to be brought back to life. It’s horrible. I want L’ak to be brought back to life more than I want Book’s entire planet to be brought back to life.
Liz: Same, and it’s because I have logistical questions. Like, do you just bring the people themselves who were already alive back, or do you create a new planet and new Kweijian people who have no idea who book is, and maybe they will evolve a different culture? There are too many logistical questions with that. One guy, that’s just one guy. Go for your life. Do it.
I definitely think it makes it harder to root against Moll. I want her to be okay and I want her to be happy. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s done nothing wrong ever in her entire life, but I want her to have a happy ending.
Anika: She has reasons.
Liz: Yeah, yeah, and one of those reasons is she has been on her own since she was 14, and in a society where you don’t get to be raised in a safe or stable environment, you have to look out for yourself at every turn. How can a society like that produce a good person? There is a reason, in my opinion, that her costume involves a leather harness very similar to, if not the literal costume worn by Emperor Georgiou.
I’ve seen a lot of people complain that this season is a soap opera. And first, I think that’s a sort of cultural illiteracy, using soap opera as shorthand for bad, because Succession is a soap opera. And Succession, I’m going to say, is one of the greatest television shows ever made. But also, this is a video game, not a soap opera. But also, if you think that people having conversations about their feelings makes something a soap, I’m just going to say that’s how you avoid coming back in 30 years to find Book has secretly had Michael’s baby.
Anika: All of my copaganda crime procedurals, people are up in arms about the fact that they’re not talking about feelings enough.
Liz: I mean, if the police were more emotionally in tune, maybe copaganda would be less of a terrifying concept.
Anika: It’s really wild to me. Society is broken. We already knew that, but society is very broken in terms of media literacy and knowing what they want. And it’s definitely broken. Like, the people who are making the media, it’s hard to tune out all of the nonsense that people are throwing at them all the time. That they say that they want, which is not true usually, because people don’t know what they want until they get it. They can think they know something that they want, but then they get that and they’re like, wait, I didn’t want that. That’s wrong. And at the same time, they can get something that they didn’t expect to want. And it turns out to be correct.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And that’s the magic of storytelling.
Liz: Yeah, it’s amazing. And also, I just think that a lot of Star Trek fans think that they’re meant to prize logic over emotion, even though that is a total misunderstanding of Spock’s arc. And if they went back and watched The Original Series, so many episodes are literally just men standing around talking about their feelings.
Anika: Talking about their feelings.
Liz: I mean, that’s one of the things that makes The Original Series revolutionary that…
Anika: And Next Generation.
Liz: Yes, but particularly The Original Series because that was the 1960s and made by fairly conservative guys, but it’s still all about the feelings and the ethics and where those two things meet and separate.
Your note here, Moll and Jack Road Trip, I would say I wouldn’t trust those two alone together because they’re going to steal a lot.
Anika: That’s what would make it so good. The Chaos Twins. Okay, that’s why I want it.
Liz: Some kind of heist situation.
Anika: Exactly. It would be so good. It would be Leverage in Space, which is something I always want, but the beginning of that conversation is that poor Book gets to go to this counselor meeting about what are we going to do with Moll? Book has zero power and is lucky to be in the room at all. But he gets the short end of everything in that conversation. He just wants Moll to be safe. He wants to keep her where he can see her, where he can talk to her, where he can save her. And everyone agrees that, well, giving Moll to the Breen is probably the best option of our bad options, to be fair.
Liz: I am going to say, I think that they did not give Moll to the Breen. She wanted to go to the Breen. And yes, as Book says, she’s grieving and she’s not thinking straight, but she is an adult. And she is allowed to make that bad choice. And tactically and ethically, it’s the right thing to do. But also, “this person is grieving and I want to keep them close and protect them and keep them from making bad choices” is exactly where Michael was with Book in season four.
Anika: So this is where Jack Crusher comes in.
Liz: I was curious!
Anika: It is a mirror circumstance to the beginning of Star Trek: Picard where Jack Crusher breaks out of jail to give himself up to Vadic. And Shaw’s like, fine. Good idea. Let’s get rid of that and then we’ll go on our merry way, bring you guys to, you know, arrest you too and bring you back to Starfleet. And it’ll be a great day for Captain Shaw. And then Admiral Picard is like, but he’s my son. And Shaw immediately is like, fine, I guess we’ll go to war for him instead. And so I was just like, darn, it’s a shame that Book is not Admiral Picard because then he would have gotten his way and it would have been not necessarily the right decision. So I’m just saying, I’m calling out Shaw and Picard. I’m not calling out Jack or Book or Moll.
Liz: Or Michael or Vance.
Anika: Or Michael, exactly.
Liz: Let’s pretend that in the 800 years between then and now, Starfleet has grown past its nepotism era and we’ll just have to see what happens when Admiral Vance’s daughter joins Starfleet and what privileges she gets. Oh, oh, there’s a concept for like season four of the Academy series.
I think Book is in a really unpleasant place, but it’s exactly where Michael was last season, and turnabout is fair play. And I like that there are still the ripples of his choices last season, that it’s not one and done, but it’s also not like we’re going to hold this over you forever.
Anika: Yeah, it’s actually a very healthy portrayal of what I’m always asking for.
Liz: Redemptive justice.
Anika: Right. So yeah, I don’t disagree with their decision. I actually think that, I mean, certainly for the story, it’s way more interesting for Moll to be over with the Breen and taking care of that side. It’s just, I just wanted to give Book a hug, that’s all.
Liz: Oh yeah, no, no.
Anika: I just felt really badly for Book.
Liz: His feelings are completely reasonable and valid, and I hope that someone, possibly Paul or Hugh, gives him a hug.
Let’s talk about the puzzle side of it. And I’ve got to say, like, this whole season, the puzzles aren’t really doing it for me. I am not a puzzle person, I’m not a riddle person, but I have a friend who is very into the annual MIT Mystery Hunt where teams create really elaborate puzzles, and I so wish that Discovery had, like, brought some Mystery Hunt type nerds on as consultants to help build this.
Anika: Nice.
Liz: Because it really does feel like a video game.
Anika: Oh, absolutely.
Liz: On easy mode.
Anika: The entire thing is just, go to this place, help these people get this thing.
Liz: Yes, yes.
Anika: Get another part and you’re building a map to the ultimate goal, where you will meet the boss and do it all again. And it’s sort of tedious.
Liz: Look, I don’t hate it. I think that the individual stories and the character stuff is great. I just wish that the technical side of the puzzle had a little bit more complexity to it. And instead you have episodes where they’re like, well, we’ve got this metal library card and like, don’t get me wrong. I love learning about Jettt’s past. Obviously, Pelia should have been in this episode and Jett/Pelia has never been more canon.
Anika: I like that it’s like a shout out to the Internet Archive.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I’m like, nice. And it’s funny because it’s Star Trek, and it’s Paramount, and Paramount is going to bat for killing copyright. That’s sort of like, cool.
Liz: I’m into it.
Anika: I don’t know if the writers got that past them and they didn’t notice.
Liz: It’s like how Apple TV doesn’t know how many of its series are advocating for the right to repair.
Anika: I enjoy it. I enjoy when a television show is used to say something about the society that is creating the television show. Not society as a whole, but specific to what is the people behind that show. That’s very entertaining to me. I love it.
And so as you were talking, I was thinking about the puzzles and you said they’re not in easy mode. I think that’s true. And then I was thinking, you know, I don’t care. I don’t care about the puzzles at all. I don’t care about finding the Progenitors’ power. I actually, I think it should be clear by now that I don’t want them to find the Progenitors’ power. I want it to be a ruse. And there is no Progenitors’ power. The Progenitors never existed. And that whole episode was fake. And like, I’m horrible. I’m sorry.
Liz: No, no, they find it. And all they find is a hologram of Jean-Luc Picard from Who Watches the Watchers saying humanity has outgrown the need for gods. Like, that is the one acceptable use of that line.
Anika: But as you were speaking and I was thinking about it, I was like, you know what? If the puzzles were harder and the entire internet was trying really hard to figure them out before we were told the answers, I would hate that more. I would have negative feelings towards the puzzles in that case, whereas right now I’m just like, I don’t care. I have no feelings.
Liz: That’s interesting because I think I might find it fun. I don’t know. And we’re talking about a hypothetical, so who knows? I just think, like, I see my friend do the Mystery Hunt and I am not engaged with the puzzles, but I’m engaged with the story of the people trying to get to the prize. And that is fun. And there could be more of that. I’m not mad that they’ve prioritized characterization, obviously. I just think there could be more to this.
On the other hand, ever since season two, I’ve had this headcanon that Jett Reno did not join Starfleet as a wide-eyed patriotic 18-year-old attending the Academy. And I feel very, very vindicated.
Anika: That’s fair. I’m glad. Jett Reno, potentially not a traumatized orphan.
Liz: Look, I’m going to say orphan, not traumatized. That’s my take. Whereas Vance…
Anika: I can see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Liz: Vance definitely lost his parents in a deeply traumatic replicator accident.
Anika: I have to say, Vance was flawed in this episode, and I loved it.
Liz: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was really, really excited to see Vance hesitant.
Anika: Vance jumping to action that he ends up not taking because he listens to his people, which is like… A+ admiral. He just rocketed up the admiral’s pyramid there because…
Liz: Respectfully, Kat had to have a near mutiny before she would listen to Michael.
Anika: It was really good. But also, I just really liked seeing cracks.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I don’t like badmirals and I don’t like idealized… Flawless. I like actual people.
Liz: I agree, and I think this is a really good glimpse of the generation of Starfleet officers represented by Rayner and Vance. That Rayner is all in for war, and Vance, who probably has a similar… Is of a similar age. We know they’ve been friends for 30 years. He’s probably been a captain, but Vance seems like a guy who has been more sheltered than Rayner. He has been in Federation HQ for a really long time. And like I said, he’s political. He has to think about the wider consequences. And that’s his job. He needs to think about that stuff, so Michael doesn’t have to.
Anika: Right. And it’s good. You know, we’re always asking for more politics in our Star Trek. And yeah, it’s his job. And he was isolated in that position for a really long time. He couldn’t have his family. His only friends were the captains who would come and they would visit, and he would see them. But they were always under his command, and he always had to keep the umbrella and then the bird’s eye view. And so he couldn’t have that same relationship with people. And it was the only thing he was living for. It was like keeping the Federation from completely disappearing.
Liz: Especially because it seems like in that last year of the Burn era, even the Federation president wasn’t present on HQ. I’m going to say that’s for security reasons. The same way Vance’s family weren’t.
Anika: He was very alone. And it was hard. And so of course he’s going to be very protective of that. Because it was the only thing he had for so long. And it was his job to make sure it kept going.
Liz: And it makes sense that his first instinct is to postpone the conflict. Because the stakes of that conflict are so high. And even higher in most of the years of his life. As with Rayner, it’s hard to go from a position of instability to safety.
Anika: Yeah, so the only thing I have left to say is I need to get my dig on Sarek into our podcast. I really liked Michael from the beginning to the end of the episode because she straight up was like, no advance, we need to confront them. That is the correct way to go. Even if that antagonizes them, that’s the correct thing. As you said, it’s the Vulcan hello all over again. She’s very much Sarek’s daughter throughout this entire episode. Right to in the end, where compromising in order to continue the negotiations, as it were, with the hostile hurts someone she loves. And she’s like, well, I was against it until someone I love was hurt, but now I’m going to be for it. I don’t mean that to be how it is. I didn’t mean that, Spock slash Amanda slash Sybok slash Michael, but — and Michael’s doing the same thing. And I just love that Michael is more Serek’s daughter than Spock was ever Serek’s son.
Liz: Oh yeah, yeah. He did a great job with one kid. I kind of like the idea of Vance going to T’Rina, “Why is she like this?” And T’Rina going, okay, you have to understand that the 23rd century Vulcan ambassador was just kind of weird. And that’s the guy who raised Michael.
But I’m going to say both delaying strategies hurt someone ,because Rayner also had to be like, hey, this is the Primarch that we’re dealing with. And it’s the woman who traumatized him as a kid.
Anika: Like true.
Liz: I am not opposed to Michael leaving a very small trail of destruction in her wake for the greater good. It makes her more complicated and I like that.
My final observation is that it’s interesting that Paul’s role in this episode is basically to remind Tilly and then Book that their focus is the puzzle, not any of the other things they have going on, even though those other things are important.
Anika: This is what Paul is doing, which is wild because he was always the person who was too focused on the wrong things in the beginning, and now he is the person who pulls people out of that.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. And he is very much a single minded, obsessive sort of guy, but he is obsessing about the right thing, which is interesting because I feel like with Paul and Hugh we started this season really concerned for them and they hit a rough patch and they negotiated their way through it and came out stronger and it was low key and not a crisis and not dramatic. I know that’s maybe boring storytelling, but I’m really into it for them. Their crises have been so epic. Hugh literally died. Everything else seems small by comparison and I’m really into that. And that feels reasonable.
Anika: I had this conversation with my own therapist recently. She asked me what I was afraid of and I was like, nothing. I thought about it. There was this hesitation and I was like, no, I can’t answer anything truthfully because I’ve just, I’ve been through enough that I am no longer afraid. I have anxiety, but I’m no longer afraid. And I feel like that is a good descriptor for Paul.
Liz: Paul and Hugh, frankly.
Anika: I don’t relate to either Paul or Hugh.
Liz: No, no, but you can empathize with them.
Anika: Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.com, including links to our social media credits for our theme music and transcripts of our episodes. You can follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Blue Sky all at antimatterpod, and on Mastodon at @antimatterpod@tenforward.social.
If you like us, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you consume your podcasts. The more reviews, the easier it is for new listeners to find us. Join us next week when we will be discussing the next episode of Star Trek: Discovery, Labyrinth.