WiC Watches—Star Trek: Discovery season 2
Episode 410: “The Red Angel”
Burnham and Spock share a few tender brother-sister moments, Tyler and Burnham reignite their relationship, and Georgiou and Burnham put the past behind them. All this happens, and then Burnham dies. This was an emotional rollercoaster of an episode for Star Trek: Discovery, and it might just be the best one of the season.
“The Red Angel” opens with the crew of the Discovery saying goodbye to Airiam, who died last week. It was a heartwrenching moment as Airiam’s friends each said something touching about her before her casket was shot into space. It’s the opening moments and already I’ve got tears in my eyes. I should have known then, I should have known…
Later, in a meeting in Captain Pike’s quarters, Admiral Cornwell, Spock, and Burnham are discussing Airiam’s last words to Burnham: she said she needed to find Project Daedalus, which had everything to do with her. Just then, Tilly provides a bit of levity in an otherwise dark and serious episode by barging in and stammering through a bunch of facts about the automatic opening doors on the ship.
After she gets through her bit, she reveals that she found vital information in Airiam’s memory core while she was wiping it, checking for the virus that allowed Control to take over Section 31. According to the information, the Project Daedalus file in Airiam’s head had a biometric signature of the Red Angel in it, and it matches Burnham exactly.
Burnham is the Red Angel?
After several tests, it does appear as if a future version of Burnham gets her hands on a special suit with the ability to open wormholes in the very fabric of space and time and travel to certain points in her past to help where she’s needed. After much debate, Captain Leland of Section 31 reveals the suit the Red Angel uses was a prototype created by Section 31 that uses a time crystal stolen from the Klingon Empire which allows it to travel through time.
Burnham doesn’t believe Leland is telling the whole truth, so she confronts him when they’re alone and he reveals that he knew her parents. Apparently, Burnham’s parents were recruited by Section 31 to build the Red Angel suit, and when they died it was because Leland carelessly led the Klingons to the planet they were on.
Here’s where Sonequa Martin-Green really shines; we can see her anguish and grief slowly turn to resolve and rage on her face. Oh, and then she punches Leland in the face twice, once for her mother and once for her father. Martin-Green delivers these lines like a badass, drawing them out in a hoarse whisper. This really was a masterclass in acting, and I’m grateful I got to watch it.
Everyone decides the best thing to do is to capture the Red Angel. She revealed to Spock that the end of the universe was coming, and now that they know it’s a future version of Burnham, they need to trick her into showing up, trap her, then make her stop time traveling. If she doesn’t, then there’s a possibility that what remains of the Control artificial intelligence can track the Red Angel’s time jumps, piggyback through one, rebuild itself and threaten all life again. Man, time travel is tricky, you guys.
Anyway, the best way to trick and trap the Red Angel is to put Burnham in danger. The thought process behind this is, if current timeline Burnham dies, the future Burnham ceases to exist, so the Red Angel would be forced to show up if Burnham was somehow in peril and about to die. The plan is to go to a planet with an atmosphere that is toxic to humans and expose Burnham to the air. It’s a risky plan, but if it works, the team will be able to stop the impending apocalypse.
Burnham needs to let off steam, so she goes to the gym and kicks the crap out of a sparring dummy. Spock arrives to check on her and the two have a very nice brother-sister bonding moment. Finally, Spock and Burnham’s relationship has been healed. Later, Burnham and Tyler have a moment where he pleads with her not to die, they kiss, and all seems well.
On the planet’s surface, Georgiou and Burnham have a very nice moment where the former Terran Emperor and alternate reality Georgiou tells Burnham she doesn’t want her to die and that she will be there ready to save her if needed. I guess even an evil empress can take a turn for the good.
As Spock and Burnham walk to the chair where she’ll be strapped down and exposed to the toxic atmosphere, Burnham has a moment of weakness and asks Spock what would happen if the Red Angel didn’t show up and she died. “Then I’ll be charged with the murder of a Starfleet captain,” he replied. Aww, Spock is protective of his sister and now I’m all up in my feels about this.
The plan is put into motion. Burnham will only be able to withstand two minutes of the toxic atmosphere before she dies. The Red Angel should show up, and the magnetic arrays stationed around Burnham’s chair should trap her. Here we go…
Burnham starts to scream in pain, as the atmosphere is not only suffocating her but searing her face and lungs. Nearly two minutes in and Georgiou tells the team to stop and pull Burnham out, but Spock pulls a phaser on them and tells them all that it is Burnham’s wish to go all the way to death and back in she needs to, in order to get the Red Angel to appear. Burnham then takes her last breath and dies.
Just when all hope seems lost, a red wormhole opens up above the planet and the Red Angel appears to Burnham. She shoots her with a red laser and revives her. The away team sets the magnets in place and they trap the Red Angel. The magnets bring her down to the platform and she is drawn out of the suit. Burnham looks at the person in front of her with a look of shock on her face and utters one word: “Mom?”
Yep, the Red Angel is, in fact, Burnham’s long-thought-dead mother.
Side note: aboard the Section 31 ship, Tyler and Leland are trying to close the wormhole created by the Red Angel so Control can’t get through again. He runs to engineering to authorize more power, and when he does the retinal scan, he has to also give a voice command. For a split second, the ship’s computer goes offline, but when it comes back up, he gives the command and a voice repeats his words changing in tone to match his own. This shocks him, and just as he’s about to pull back, a needle shoots out of the retinal scanner and punctures his eye, killing him. It looks like Control is back.
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This was a phenomenal episode of Star Trek: Discovery. Sonequa Martin-Green really carried it, even though the other performances by her castmates were great, as well. The emotional highs and lows kept me riveted, and the reveal that the Red Angel is Burnham’s mother was a very nice twist that I did not see coming.
There are only four episodes left in season 2. Whatever happens, I’m very excited to see how it all shakes out.