Three important things happened on Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 4 and, while you might counter that many things happen in each installment, let me reiterate: Three. Important. Things.
Overall, it's a somber episode with a lot of introspection and exposition and that level of narrative baggage often bogs a story down. But it might be the muted action of the episode that effectively showcases the crucial developments.
This is a traumatized crew, as the Culber-voiced-over opening scenes describes, that needs to heal. Adira, new to the crew but key to their mission, is even more complicated.
And, at long last, we get the first real glimpse of what the sphere data's effect on the ship is and how we will eventually get to the events of Star Trek: Short Trek: Calypso.
First, and most obviously, Adira/Gray/Tal are all tuned up and ready to fly. Relatedly, the crew's getting their head back into it too.
Despite the inclusion of Dax and its hosts in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's core cast, and Odan being one of the more interesting Dr. Crusher love interests on Star Trek: The Next Generation, we have never had a Trill symbiont host as a protagonist in the Trek-verse.
It's protecting me. Every critical system in my body is connected to Tal. Wake up with a squid in your abdominal cavity, you'll do your homework too.
Adira
Forcing Adira (and Burnham) to travel into the symbiont dimension (? can't think of a better term) in order to unlock the repressed memory of Gray's death and the Tal symbiont's transfer to Adira packed a lot of emotion and mysticism into a weirdly familiar expository trope.
Whether seeing and interacting with Gray is part of the healing or just how hosts learn to be hosts, it remains to be determined.
Saru's attempt to bring the bridge crew together for a team-bonding dinner is almost as peculiar a situation as taking a dive into the pools of the Caves of Mak'ala.
The continued absence of Jett Reno remains a hole in the landscape for me but, as with Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 3, I understand that she'd make the conflict at the table inauthentic because she'd singlehandedly perform interventions on Detmer, Stamets, and probably Tilly too.
I asked all of you here because we work mostly closely and have not had a moment. In fact, we have lost quite a few. Almost every culture has a ritual that gathers its moments when it can. Holds them dear. A time to take measure of loved one and what we have all accomplished together.
Saru
Before Detmer has her long-expected breakdown, there is a brief and beautiful moment of camaraderie and shared grieving among the crew.
That overarching theme of connectedness between both Adira's memory mission and Saru's Captain's Table experiment shares the stage with a recurrent messaging that everyone feels responsible for everything.
You know what I love about you most? You're a responsibility hoarder.
Culber
Burnham's always felt it. Culber feels it but, maybe because he's a doctor, he's cognizant of its weight.
Stamets, as the spore drive navigator, feels it.
Detmer, as the pilot, feels it.
Saru, as the captain, feels it.
Georgiou, as the resident sociopath and pain junkie, recognizes it in everyone around her and probably revels in the chaos it sows.
There's healing that needs to happen and no one wants to be the first to admit their vulnerability or to share their load.
But we do see progress. Detmer seeking out Culber, Stamets acknowledging and apologizing to Tilly, Saru turning to the computer (or should I say,"Zora"?) for advice.
Saru: It fills the room.
Culber: Joy? Yeah. We all had to stop pretending we were fine first.
Saru: We are not, are we?
Culber: How could we be? But we'll get there.
For the crew, that acceptance of their fear and pain is as hard a step as Adira reliving Gray's death.
Both instances involve that growth through trauma Culber references. That could very well turn out to be the motto of the season.
The second Important Thing is Zora's emergence.
A little filler info for those of you who missed or eschewed the mini-episodes:
Between Star Trek: Discovery's Season 1 and 2, a series of Short Treks was aired that provided backstory for Tilly's friendship with Po (who became important at the conclusion of Season 2) and Saru's life before Starfleet (which also came into play at multiple points in Season 2).
The relevant Short Trek here is Episode 2, entitled "Calypso," a classical reference to Odysseus's sojourn on an idyllic island during his journey home and the goddess he left behind who had fallen in love with him.
"Calypso" revealed that the Discovery will one day be abandoned by her crew, having achieved sentience and developed a distinctive personality only to exist in isolation.
So when Saru queries effective ways to help his crew to heal and the voice of the ship's computer changes significantly, it was with great excitement that I recognized it as that of the future "Calypso" Discovery who self-identifies as "Zora".
It's a tantalizing tidbit for those of us who have wondered for YEARS about how that Short Trek would be realized.
The final Important Thing is one I didn't catch on my first viewing.
When Adira gives Burnham the coordinates of the Federation homebase planet, Burnham looks at them and clearly recognizes them.
She begins to form a question but Adira cuts her off by emphasizing that they'll get her where she needs to go. It's sort of nice to see how far their relationship's progressed that Burnham accepts the information without further interrogation.
Burnham: So you're saying you trust Dr. Culber because you like him, not because he's a doctor?
Adira: Ok, look, I have a squid and you threw up in a wormhole. Things are pretty weird out here but human connection is at least one thing I understand.
So, where is Starfleet lurking that Burnham was uncertain about the coordinates?
Are they hiding out on Q'onoS? Vulcan? Risa?
Much of what we can expect to find is heavily dependent on how Starfleet's managed to limp through the last hundred and fifty years.
But first, let's see how Adira fits in now that she's got memories and sees ghosts.
Also, #BringJetBack.
When you watch Star Trek: Discovery online, how much Trill culture did you take in?
What are you hoping to see when they find Starfleet?
How long will it take Tilly to create a dark matter navigation system? One episode? Maybe two?
Give us your best predictions and reactions in the comments!
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