This week’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery fires on all cylinders, as Captain Michael Burnham finds herself locked in a deadly battle of wills with the love of her life. “Rubicon” is another high water mark for the season, packed with high emotion, stunning space action, and an affirmation of Star Trek’s values of patience and compromise.

Setting the Board

Book has hidden his ship inside a rogue planet, where his partner in crime Ruon Tarka (Shawn Doyle) needs another six hours to complete construction on the weapon he’s designed to destroy the Dark Matter Anomaly and capture its power source. We’re reminded that Book and Tarka aren’t exactly working towards the same ends — Book just wants to put a stop to whatever Unknown Species 10-C has been doing that’s been wiping out planets like his own Kwejian, whereas Tarka wants to harness their power source to help him travel to the “paradise dimension” where he’s pledged to spend the rest of his life. They’re both dedicated to their goals, but where Book is putting all of his remaining personal relationships on the line, Tarka has no attachment or allegiance to anyone, aside from his missing lab partner who he hopes to find on the other side of the dimensional veil. Even after receiving new intel from Burnham suggesting that the DMA is not an attack but a mining operation, Book’s mission remains unchanged. Regardless of their motivations, the 10-C’s device is putting billions of lives in danger and must be stopped. For Tarka, this revelation means even less, since he needs to steal the DMA’s control device regardless.

After her latest attempt at negotiating with Book fails, Captain Burnham plans a stealth operation to capture his ship without any loss of life. President Rillak and Admiral Vance agree that Burnham and Discovery are the only team capable of completing this mission, but have their doubts that Burnham will be willing to fire at her own partner’s starship if her operation fails. They assign a Federation Security officer to supervise the mission and to take command should things go south. To soften the blow, they send a familiar face, Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), Discovery’s former security chief who traveled with the rest of the crew from the 23rd century before taking a new assignment last season. I don’t get any particular excitement out of seeing Nhan again, since we never got to know her all that well while she was part of the crew, but her familiarity with Burnham helps her to accept her mandated oversight with grace and maturity. On previous Trek series, anyone Starfleet assigns to watch over the Captain’s shoulder is usually painted with suspicion, but Nhan is someone the entire bridge crew knows and respects.

“Rubicon” has one brief subplot that doesn’t pertain directly to the rest of the episode that I’d might as well address here — Saru is having a hard time coping with the stress of the DMA crisis, and calls up Ni’Var President T’Rina (Tara Rosling) for meditation advice. T’Rina politely suggests that Saru might feel better if he went out to dinner with a friend, which is about as forward a romantic overture as a serene 32nd century Vulcan is likely to offer. Fans have noticed the chemistry between these two characters since they first appeared together in “Unification III” last season, and now it seems we’re finally going to see some movement on this front. I’m always happy to see another love story on Discovery, but a chase, courtly romance is not really what the show is missing. We have two happy, stable couples aboard ship and another whose trust and respect is so strong that it survives being on opposite sides of the show’s central conflict, but nobody seems all that hot for each other. (Except for maybe Detmer and Owosekun. Is that ever happening?) We have plenty of hugs and hand-holding already, but if Saru and T’Rina can graduate from awkward middle-aged flirtation to simmering middle-aged sexual tension for an episode, then that would at least be a chance of pace.

Star Trek: Discovery

Check, Mate

Using the tracker she snuck onto Book’s ship last week, Burnham jumps Discovery to his and Tarka’s new hiding spot. Under the cover of a cloaking device, Burnham dispatches a shuttlecraft carrying Saru, Dr. Culber, and two of our regular bridge officers, Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon) and Bryce (Ronnie Rowe), to quietly dock with Book’s ship and sneak aboard to confront him before Tarka can finish building his weapon. Dr. Culber is along to help de-escalate the situation so that no one needs to be phaser-stunned, but ends up breaking up an argument between Rhys and Bryce. Rhys is sympathetic to Book’s motives because his hometown was destroyed by a natural disaster, something that was mentioned a few weeks back in “The Examples,” and Bryce accuses Rhys of “comparing pain,” as if this is the kind of dispute they’ve had before. I enjoy whenever Discovery reminds us that these characters have been working together in the background of nearly every scene set on the bridge for four seasons, and would naturally have their own dynamic even if it’s not highlighted very often.

The infiltration hits a surprise snag when the shuttle docks and is attacked by an autonomous lethal countermeasure that Tarka installed aboard Book’s ship without his knowledge. Seeing that his former shipmates’ lives are in jeopardy, Book coordinates with the shuttle crew and with Discovery (even Tarka lends a hand) to delay the shuttle’s destruction long enough for the four Starfleet officers to beam back to their mother ship. Once the crew is safe, Book jumps his ship to the heart of the DMA, and Discovery gives chase. The meat of the episode is the story of Burnham and Book each looking for a way to complete their missions without anyone getting hurt, while their more pragmatic advisors (Nhan and Tarka, respectively) try to convince them to take more decisive action. It’s a chess match between two players who know each other extremely well, and even delight to see their opponent play their signature gambits. There are moments during the standoff when Burnham and Book even seem to be having fun, up until someone reminds them that they can’t afford to treat this as an exhibition.

The Book/Discovery confrontation in space is exciting in all the ways that Discovery can be. At times, “Rubicon” feels like the third act nebula battle of Star Trek II, except the participants are trying not to kill each other. This is more thrilling than it sounds. The dance between the ships themselves in the colorful storm clouds of the DMA is some of the most beautiful effects work we’ve seen from the series so far. One might wonder what a chase scene looks like when both parties can transport through space instantaneously, but watching the two ships jockey for position by jumping in and out of real space is fresh and exciting. Onboard the Disco herself, we’re treated to some very old-school Star Trek naval strategy and chatter, but with this show’s signature emotional intensity. It’s a battle that’s also a dilemma, a contest of not only skill but of compassion. Nhan supplies Burnham with some intel that would allow her to destroy Book’s ship with a single shot, but Burnham won’t use it unless she’s exhausted all other hope. Book has the means to fire back and possibly disable Discovery, but doesn’t want the ship to be left defenseless when Tarka’s bomb goes off. Burnham’s skills as a starship commander are pushed to their very limit, and she’s forced to confront the possibility that this is her Kobayashi Maru, her no-win scenario.

Star Trek: Discovery

Flipping the Table

The DMA dilemma works because it allows for both Burnham and Book’s positions to seem reasonable. Unknown Species 10-C appears to be mining our galaxy for its fuel source, boronite, using a tool so huge and destructive that it can tear apart entire planets. They have the ability to utilize this tool anywhere in the galaxy at any time without warning. There’s no indication that they care one way or another that their cosmic drill bit is killing sentient life forms, and they’re just beyond the Federation’s current capacity to communicate. It’ll take time for the Federation to figure out how to even speak to the 10-C, and there’s no guarantee that talking will work. Burnham and Starfleet still think that their best bet is to approach the 10-C peacefully, because the 10-C are so unfathomably powerful that it’s hard to imagine that the Federation could force them to do anything. Book is afraid that, in the time it takes to even make contact, the 10-C will pick up their drill and drop it somewhere else, killing billions, and thinks that destroying the device at the heart of the 10-C sends a clear message that they need to cut this shit out, even if it pisses them off. Either side is defensible, but it’s clear which point of view is more in line with the tenets of “Star Trek.”

Burnham understands that, given the current information, neither she nor Book is going to change their minds. So, logically, she seeks out more information. She realizes that if the DMA is here to mine boronite, then it would probably not move until it had exhausted all of the boronite nearby. Lt. Commander Stamets and Specialist Zora (a.k.a. the ship’s computer) toil to calculate how long it will take for the DMA to gobble up the rest of the region’s boronite, and therefore how long they have before the DMA hops to a potentially habitable area. Moments before Burnham would have no choice but to blast her boyfriend into space dust, Stamets pulls through with strong evidence that the DMA should remain where it is for another week. Now, Burnham can offer Book a compromise — give the Federation that week to try and make peaceful first contact with the 10-C, and if that doesn’t work, there’s still time to deploy Tarka’s weapon. Trusting in Burnham, Book agrees to stand down.

Tarka, however, does not, and takes advantage of the cease fire to beam his weapon into the heart of the DMA and detonate it. He can claim this is about saving the galaxy all he wants, but the Federation convincing the 10-C to pull up their drill and leave doesn’t suit Tarka’s ends. He needs their power source to fuel his escape to his new universe, and while saving the Milky Way would be a nice fringe benefit, it doesn’t really concern him because pretty soon he won’t live here anymore. Tarka’s bomb goes off, both he and Book’s ship and Discovery escape the blast safely (and separately), and Tarka discovers, to his shock, that the power device he’s been looking to collect isn’t even here. The DMA has been powered entirely from 10-C space all along. What’s more, Tarka’s weapon only shuts down the DMA for a matter of minutes, after which it returns to the exact same spot and continues drilling. This entire exercise has accomplished nothing, apart from possibly provoking a violent response from the 10-C.

I like almost everything about this ending. Tarka circumventing Burnham and Book’s agreement to further his own aims makes complete logical and story sense to me, as it allows two of our main characters to save face while also escalating the stakes of the story arc. It demonstrates both the virtue and the limitations of the Starfleet way of doing things — peace and compromise are attainable so long as all parties are acting in good faith, but someone with no regard for your rules can still ruin everything. I like the idea that the DMA would only be gone for as long as it takes to replace the proverbial drill bit and get back to work, as if that’s how inconsequential our characters’ best efforts are to the 10-C, and I suspect that this story will continue to lean into the parallels to our own society’s careless exploitation of the Earth. However, the extra wrinkle of Tarka being denied his ill-gotten prize feels a bit cheap. For weeks, we’ve been told exactly what to expect when Tarka’s device is detonated, and the DMA returning almost immediately is twist enough. It’s not necessary to pull the rug out from under the audience twice in the last five minutes. It also has the side effect of making Tarka look stupid for not foreseeing this outcome, and his intelligence is both the character’s utility and what makes him dangerous.

On the whole, though, “Rubicon” is a terrific episode, intertwining the space action and character conflict in a creative and exciting way. It’ll be difficult to top this episode’s intensity, but with the threat of the 10-C more urgent than ever, I don’t imagine things will be slowing down any time soon.

Bryce: A Review

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