WiC Watches—Star Trek: Discovery season 2
Episode 211: “Perpetual Infinity”
Burnham’s reunion with her long-thought-dead mother doesn’t go as planned, while Control — a Section 31 artificial intelligence that wants to destroy all life in the universe — has found the perfect human vessel to inhabit. This was another emotional roller coaster of an episode for Star Trek: Discovery.
Episode 211 picks up with Burnham waking up aboard the Discovery. Dr. Culber is giving her a full scan to make sure she’s got a clean bill of health. Momentarily disoriented, Burnham believes the fact that she saw her mother fall out of the Red Angel suit was a dream, but Captain Pike reassures her that she wasn’t dreaming and that her mother, Gabrielle (played by Sonja Sohn from The Wire) really is alive but unconscious on the planet below.
Burnham immediately wants to beam down to talk to her mother, but Dr. Culber informs her she has a bit more healing to do. Spock walks in with a datapad and reveals that as the Red Angel, Gabrielle Burnham has time jumped over 800 times. He hands the datapad — filled with all the mission logs Gabrielle kept — to Burnham, so she can sort through it to try and find a reason her mother has been traveling through space and time.
According to the mission logs, when the Klingons attacked Burnam’s mother and father — looking for the time crystal Captain Leland has Section 31 steal so it could power the Red Angel suit — Gabrielle thought she could travel back in time a day or so, so that she could warn her family of what was about to happen. Only when she came through the time jump, she realized she had jumped 950 years into the future, a future where all life in the universe had been wiped out.
Sidenote: Burnham’s father is played by Kenric Green, Sonequa Martin-Green’s husband, who was also part of The Walking Dead, where Martin-Green played Sasha. And now you know.
For some reason, that initial time jump tethered Gabrielle to a fixed point 950 years into the future, so no matter how many times she tried to travel back in time and stay there, she would always be pulled back to the future. At this point, if you want to take a break for some aspirin because the rules of time travel give you a headache, be my guest.
Anyway, aboard the Section 31 ship, we find that Leland was not killed by that needle Control used to puncture his eye last week; rather, Control kept him alive so he could inhabit his body and use him to further its plans to eradicate all life in the universe. Once again, shoutout to WiC reader Wyllis for nailing that one, because I for sure thought Leland was dead.
So, Control-Leland is very aggressive and wants to blow up the Red Angel suit and steal the data from that massive sphere that uploaded all its memory to Discovery earlier in the season. Apparently, Gabrielle put the sphere in the Discovery’s path so its valuable knowledge could be shared and Burnham and her crewmates could help find a way to sever the tether keeping Gabrielle stuck in the far future. Georgiou notices the difference in Leland’s demeanor, and you can tell she’s keeping her eye on him.
Gabrielle wants to talk to Captain Pike…and only Captain Pike. This upsets Burnham, who wants nothing more than to be reunited with her mother, but when she finally gets her chance, she learns why her mother is being distant: she had to cut emotional ties with her daughter long ago so she could focus on saving the universe. Everyone is a ghost to her, she says.
Meanwhile, Leland orders Georgiou to plant a remote memory core near the Red Angel suit, because Tyler tells him that Stamets, Burnham and Spock’s plan is to upload the Sphere’s data into the suit then send it 950 years into the future and set it to continually jump into perpetual infinity so that Control could never get the information it needs to commit genocide on…everything.
Discovery begins uploading the data, which is hijacked by Control’s remote memory core, which will then send all that pilfered data to the Section 31 ship and then detonate, killing Gabrielle and anyone else in range.
Georgiou finally figures out that Leland is Control. She opens a private line to Tyler and tells him to find Leland and stop him at all costs. She then disables the remote memory core (think thumb drive, only, much deadlier). Tyler finds Leland plugged into the computer system and draws his phaser so he can kill Control right then and there, but Leland has been enhanced, and he beats the hell out of Tyler before stabbing him in the gut.
Tyler gets an emergency message to the Discovery and utters one word before collapsing: “Leland.” Captain Pike immediately knows what’s going on. He alerts the away team on the planet below, but Control-Leland is already there and he’s killing everyone. Oh, and he also turned the remote memory core back on which allows Control to get about 50% of the Sphere’s data before Burnham and Georgiou help free Gabrielle from the containment platform, allowing the tether to snap her back to the future…
…only she doesn’t have her suit when she gets pulled back. The Red Angel suit gets snapped back to the future first. Burnham is worried she’ll never see her mother again, but my theory is that Gabrielle will either find the suit somehow, or she’ll have 950 years to build another one. Either way, I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of Gabrielle Burnham.
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Control takes its stolen data (only 50% of what it needed) and warps out of there. Pike wants the Discovery to give chase, but he’s informed that the Section 31 ship’s warp signature is masked and they can’t follow it. However, the crew does intercept a distress call from an escape pod; it’s Tyler and he’s in dire need of medical attention.
At this point into season 2, I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over, but this was another fantastic episode of Star Trek: Discovery. The action was intense, the acting superb, and the fact that Control has emerged as the big bad of season 2 a nice twist. Only three episodes are left until this season is over, and I’m looking forward to a big finish.