(courtesy IMP Awards)
If you thought getting bounced around centuries of time and space was a LOT for Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of Discovery to put up with “Face the Strange”) and as weird and out there as this season could get, then think again! “Mirrors” sees Michael and Book (David Ajala) sent into interdimensional space to retrieve a clue from a Mirror Universe Enterprise where they encounter Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) who have taken refuge on the ship after their shuttle went kaput. Quite apart from trying to get the clue, Book is obsessed with “rescuing” Moll, just like her estranged father Cleveland Book IV rescued him but even though he attempts a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation, Moll and L’ak have other ideas and after escaping almost certain death as the interdimensional space pocket’s aperture tries to smash the ship to pieces, the roguish and much-in-love duo scoot off again, refusing to give Book his happy-ever-after moment of do-goodism and ensuring the chase for the Progenitors’ tech begins anew.
VERDICT: An episode that spent as much time in the past as the present as we see how Moll and L’ak, two freethinking survivalists who never fit into their respective cultures, fell in love, “Mirrors” a solid enough story that really serves as another creative way to keep the “grab the clues” narrative humming along. Nothing massively new is learned but one interesting thing is how the writers don’t serve up the usual neat and tidy Star Trek ending to an adversarial relationship all while doing an impressive of humanising Moll and L’ak so they’re not just cardboard cutout characters. An epically space operatic rom-com thread is injected into proceedings and it actually works a treat to enlarge and deepen the storytelling in some fairly emotionally compelling ways that keep you engaged through the more enjoyably pedestrian aspects of the plot.
All the clue finding momentum of the previous episode has not, alas, resulted in clue-solving success. Commander Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Michael and Lieutenant Silvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) are stumped about what the vial of distilled water can mean; that is until some super out-of-the-the box thinking sends them off looking for planets and cultures where water held an almost holy significance 800 years earlier when the scientists who secreted the clues were active. All that rather narratively convenient thinking – gotta say much as this reviewer loves a narrative twist, there are moments when the great leaps of deduction seem a little too good to be true – sends them to a Denobulan rain-seeded world called Halem’no where giant towers turned a dry world into something verdant and capable of sustaining life. Good news – they have the right place! Bad news – it’s in a temple of sorts that they need to perform an exhaustingly thirsty pilgrimage to reach. Michael and Tilly head to the planet all dolled up to look after the native population who are actually rather lovely if a tad fundamentalist, and while they find success retrieving the clue, it comes at the cost of breaking the Prime Directive. Oops!
VERDICT: While it not a massively involved story, there’s something quite lovely and calming about this episode which doesn’t involved any besting Moll and L’ak shenanigans and which focuses more on the relationship between Tilly and the Captain, close friends from the start, and how they, and thus the crew overall, interact with and save a reasonably wholesome pre-warp culture. Rather than damning religion with science, Michael gently suggests to the chief priest of the planet that he can hold both close, a rather sweet compromise that means the revelation of the truth about what the tower that creates rain doesn’t necessarily rip apart what the people of Halem’no believe. It’s relatively meandering sort of episode which puts the pedal to the metal when Moll and L’ak are tracked down and Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) sends Discovery off immediately to intercept them.
We go full on Breen in this one and it’s definitely FULL ON. After all, this is a culture that somehow makes the Klingons look like a walk in the peacenik park and so an episode where they are bristling and posturing and demanding things is never going to be any sort of chill pill. In short, Discovery rescues Moll and L’ak from certain death after they transmit a distress call on courier channels, and set about fixing L’ak of a serious life-threatening injury he’s sustained while Starfleet HQ set about trying to stop L’ak’s rather nasty uncle, Primarch Ruhn (Tony Nappo), who battling five other Primarchs for control of the Breen Imperium, from forcibly seizing La’k off Discovery. Why is he so keen to get his hands on L’ak? Well as the sole remaining scion of the almost-exterminated royal family, he’s need to give any Primarch a veneer of legitimacy to their claim to the throne and so badly does Ruhn want his nephew in his hands, that hell do whatever it takes to get it. Cue all sorts of diplomatic posturing, both from the Federation and Moll who, bereft over a great loss, ends up making the riskiest of gambits and endangering everything Burnham and the others have worked hard for.
VERDICT: In some ways, “Erigah”, which refers to an unbreakable Breen blood oath (thought Ruhn is happy to smash it to bits if it gets him the power he wants, no, CRAVES), is a by-the numbers piece of Star trek brinkmanship as the Federation trying to diplomatically solve a potentially catastrophic military situation. But woven into this power play is really affecting humanity, on a small but important scale when Stamets tell Tilly he needs her to stick around but also on a grander more affecting scale when Moll ———- SPOILER !!!!! ———- loses L’ak to his injuries and caught up in powerful, judgement-f**king grief, dares to risk it all on a deal with the Breen who, yup, know all about the Progenitors’ tech. The diplomacy and power playing aspects of the aspects are well played but what really hits home is how the people in the story handle all the many twists and turns and it’s that powerful emotional statement that really stays with you.
Tipped off in “Erigah” by the artefact recovered on Halem’no that they need to track down a copy of Labyrinths of the Mind, a Betazoid manuscript written by one of the Progenitor tech-hiding scientists Dr. Marina Derex in 2371, Discovery sleuths and sleuths and with the help of Reno (Tig Notaro who is a JOY in the role and even gets to make a joke about a cocktail she makes called “Seven of Limes” … get it? Get it? Of course you do) ends up at this super cool and mysterious library called the Eternal Gallery and Archive where an order sworn to protect knowledge and learning, represented by the gorgeous person of Hy’rell (Elena Juatco) – she’s an Efrosian; why is this a big deal? Find out here – helps them to find the book and hopefully, the FINAL CLUE. Big massive moment! Alas to get it Michael is plunged into a state where she and only she can see the programmed being who will help her locate the last clue and thus, keep the Progenitors’ tech out of the hands of the bad guys. To Book and First Officer Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) she’s look unconscious but Culber assures them she’s fine and they’ll need to wait until what state she’s in is done and dusted. A lovely sedate plan of action but then the Breen arrive and well, we’ve seen how patient Primarch Ruhn is NOT. While he’s blasting and pummeling the Archive, which frankly you aren’t supposed to do since its technically neutral, Rayner, Book etc try to hold them off long enough for Michael to finish whatever the hell she’s doing, and while Michael succeeds in her quest, the episode ends with the Breen holding all the clues – relax, they don’t know one crucial thing that Michael does meaning the Federation still has the edge – Moll inciting a mutiny against Ruhn and the stage set for one final frantic run to the finish line!
VERDICT: This was actually a brilliantly calibrated episode. While, yes, it does pull the whole “caught in a dream state” narrative ploy, it executed it well, giving Michael a chance to absolutely and affectingly bare her soul in some pretty powerful ways. She admitted that she’s often afraid and lost, a major piece of inward-looking revelation that sets the scene for her and Book to reunite in love because hey that’s one of the big personal threads of the final season – getting our estranged-not-estranged lovebirds back together. It’s actually pretty ballsy to do some deep therapy in the midst of an edge-of-the-seat action episode but it works, bolstered in its raw emotionality by Moll’s grief which continues to act as a major driver of the plot going forward. This is yet another episode where some really affecting humanity really drove the plot more than the ostensible main game in the narrative town and it worked a treat in an episode that rally ratcheted up the stakes and the pressure in some fairly profound ways.