Star Trek: Discovery Gave Burnham Her Best Foil, For a Minute

If final week’s Star Trek: Discovery was the present’s most profitable try at making Michael Burnham’s private life the primary character of the present in a enjoyable method, “Rubicon,” episode 9 of season 4, is lastly the achievement the present has longed for since its very starting: the possibility to make that non-public involvement work in a high-stakes, excessive drama situation.

Now that the enjoyable dancing round one another is over for now and the chase is actually on between Discovery and Booker and Tarka as they each race in direction of the DMA—and potential first contact/battle with the mysterious Species 10-C—every thing has gotten a bit extra critical in “Rubicon.” The Discovery crew is beneath much more stress, as divided as Michael herself is about whether or not or not they need to be forcefully attempting to cease the anomaly from mining boronite and destroying planets with out a care on this planet, or looking for a peaceable method to start contact with an unknown civilization. Michael’s private stakes in stopping her accomplice have now grow to be an operational challenge, with Admiral Vance assigning a “neutral” third celebration from Starfleet Security—returning former Enterprise safety chief turned Discovery tagalong Nhan, performed by Rachael Ancheril—to the ship to make sure powerful selections might be made ought to Michael be compromised. And even aboard Book’s ship, the connection between him and Tarka has began breaking down, cracks in belief rising as Book feels the load of his battle with Michael much more, and Tarka begins working for his personal acquire.

“Rubicon” mines all this stress for every thing it’s value, simply because it reveled within the lighter humor in “All In” final week, making it one thing of an enchanting pair of episodes as foils to one another. The battle has remained the identical—Discovery has to cease Booker and Tarka from attacking the DMA’s management unit—however as an alternative of this being a looser, much less Starfleet-y method to coping with antagonism from allies, letting our heroes loosen up slightly within the course of, every thing in “Rubicon” is laced with the lingering shadow of what failure will imply for both facet. No one is getting out of this clear no matter whether or not or not Michael stops Book, or Tarka’s weapon stops the DMA—it’s recreation time, and from the minute that recreation stops, “Rubicon” doesn’t let up.

What makes it fascinating although is that it nonetheless facilities Michael and Book’s private bond all through all this cat-and-mouse chasing, as Discovery hunts Book and Tarka down from hidey-holes to the DMA itself. In the previous, Michael’s feelings and her private relationship to the disaster at hand have left her vacillating, unable to actually extricate herself and take care of the duty at hand. Here, as she was final week, Michael remains to be emotionally invested in saving the love of her life, however as she makes repeatedly clear to Nhan and the remainder of the crew, she’s now grown sufficient in herself and in her management to have the ability to decide to discovering the answer she must. And in doing so, as an alternative Michael takes her private and intimate data of Book and makes use of it to her personal acquire. She attracts on their shared historical past to play his personal methods towards him, avoids being undercut by his non-traditional ways, and is in a position to guess each certainly one of his strikes—even after he disables the sneaky tracker she implanted on his ship final week.

It’s nice, as a result of Book actually is the strongest foil Michael’s had within the present since her push-and-pull relationship with Emperor Georgiou—however as an alternative of one thing like that, the place antagonism gave method to nice care finally, Michael and Book’s rivalry right here simply makes them one thing of a mirror match, and it’s a pleasure to look at. Discovery clearly revels in it too, as the ultimate battle between the 2 ships on the fringe of the DMA results in a number of the most enjoyable motion the present has ever delivered, using the the truth that each ships have entry to Spore Drive tech to supply a dizzying, dazzling array of photographs at they jump-dance round one another firing torpedo volleys, either side prepared to reveal their enamel if not totally sink them into the opposite. It’s a quick battle, however one that actually appears like Discovery is lastly leveraging the technological freedoms this thirty first century setting has supplied it to ship one thing that you just don’t sometimes see in Star Trek fight.

So it’s maybe a disgrace that this Michael/Book rivalry has to finish so rapidly, however that is Star Trek in spite of everything—the collection loves battle decision a lot, way more than it does battle. Making a last enchantment to his feelings by sending herself out in a shuttle, Michael efficiently manages to persuade Book to face down, each figuring out due to some calculations from Zora aboard Discovery that they’ve time earlier than the DMA is predicted to maneuver once more. But for in addition to the duo know one another, neither know Tarka nicely sufficient to imagine that he’s certain by the constraints of Federation protocol and method—so he promptly takes the pause in motion as an opportunity to fireside his weapon anyway, destabilising the DMA and leaving each Book and Michael in shock.

It’s maybe slightly low cost—Tarka being the one to go rogue undercuts the significance of getting a personality we truly know and like in Book having been the one to go towards the Federation’s needs within the first place. It additionally conveniently absolves each Book and Michael’s place within the battle, putting the escalation of occasions solely on Tarka’s shoulders. Especially because it seems Tarka, who we’ve been instructed in an distinctive scientist, is made to appear to be a idiot when he’s shocked to find that the facility supply to the DMA he anticipated to seek out after disabling the anomaly simply… isn’t there. But even when the decision of this chase over the previous few episodes pushes Michael’s inside battle out of the way in which of wider occasions, the decision we received was nonetheless a satisfying one for each her and Book. It went nice lengths to indicate how far Michael has come as a personality, making selections that in prior seasons would’ve been an excessive amount of for her to bear, however not shedding her sense of righteousness and willingness to search for essentially the most balanced resolution within the course of.

But now a minimum of, with that non-public battle settled for now—it stays to be seen what sort of punishment Book may face for his half in all this, even when blame can largely be placed on Tarka’s shoulders—issues are allowed to get much more tense, on a a lot grander scale. Species 10-C reveals simply how far past even this superior thirty first century Federation it’s by responding to the DMA’s seeming destruction by promptly organising a brand new DMA as an alternative, heralding the uneasy opening to first contact, and now the Federation and Michael are left within the grim prospects of beginning that dialogue off on the worst doable footing. If “Rubicon” was a tense escalation on a private scale, the stage is ready for that escalation to have interstellar ramifications—however a minimum of we all know, having confronted her hardest match up but, Michael will likely be able to reply.

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