WiC Watches—Star Trek: Discovery season 2
Episode 204: “An Obol For Charon”
Star Trek: Discovery takes a trip down memory lane with “An Obol For Charon.” A character from the original 1965 pilot episode “The Cage,” Number One, makes an appearance. Played by Rebecca Romijn, Number One gives Captain Pike some valuable intel on Spock’s location and the mysterious events surrounding his disappearance from Starbase 5.
The episode basically takes place in two rooms on the Discovery. We get some new info about the Red Angels and Red Signals, but “An Obol For Charon” is mostly an episode about the big questions: life, death, and Tig Notaro being hialirous.
First things first: The Discovery is hot on the warp trail of Spock’s shuttle and is violently jerked out of warp speed by a huge pulsating red orb of light. At first, the crew believes it to be a star or some type of meteor, but upon further investigation, Burnham and Saru realize it’s a sentient being over 100,000 years old, and on the verge of death.
Saru starts to get sick and reveals that this is how his species, the Kelpiens, begin to die. His body is shutting down and his eyes extremely sensitive to ultraviolet lights. Meanwhile, the red light orb is pulling the ship into its orbit. Pike is on the verge of firing torpedoes when Saru has a breakthrough; the orb isn’t trying to hurt the Discovery, it’s trying to impart its millennia of wisdom and experiences to another living being so it won’t die alone.
Burnham and Saru convince Pike to drop the shields and allow the orb to upload all of its memories into the ship’s databanks before it explodes. It’s final gift is a protective shield that allows the Discovery to remain unharmed during that catastrophic event.
In Engineering, Stamets and Tilly are just hanging out when Jet Reno (Tig Notaro) shows up to help them with a power outage caused by the red orb. While she’s there, Reno throws some hilarious zingers at the pair, calling them science nerds and threatening to duct tape their various holes shut and generally being a smartass.
Seriously though, bringing Tig Notaro on board for season 2 was the best decision the showrunners have made since having Rainn Wilson play Harry Mudd in season 1. These comedic moments in an otherwise serious episode help set Discovery apart from other Star Trek shows.
Anyway, due to the power outage, the gross-ass blob thing that inhabited Tilly last week and made her hallucinate her dead friend May is released from its cage (another callback to the 1965 pilot) It reattaches itself to Tilly. Reno freaks out and wants to use a laser torch to cut it off, but Stamets doesn’t want to harm it because it’s clearly a sentient being. They try different approaches and Reno makes more duct tape jokes.
Eventually, Stamets and Reno rig up a link to talk to the blob, who tells them they’ve been wrecking its home by using the spore drive. Stamets promises never to use it again, but the blob is angry and swallows Tilly whole. Yeah, it’s pretty much my worst nightmare. And that’s the last we see of Tilly, Stamets, and Reno’s duct tape in this episode.
Now for the big finish: after Saru and Burnham solve the red orb problem, he asks her to take him back to his room so he can die in peace. As she helps him walk off the Bridge, every member of the crew stands and salutes him as a sign of respect. Uh oh, I’m starting to get something in my eye.
RELATED PRODUCT
Milwaukee Brewers Ryan Braun Game Of Thrones Night's Watch Bobblehead
Buy Now!
Buy Now!
Once in his room, Saru explains how he’s pretty much the only Kelpien in Starfleet, and that his people have always been harvested as food for a much stronger race on his home planet. Burnham tells him he’s her only real family, and that she loves him, and now I’m straight up ugly crying. Saru asks her to use a ritualistic knife and sever his ganglia so he can die painlessly, but when she touches the knife to his head to perform the operation, the ganglia fall off by themselves.
Saru and Burnham are crying, I’m crying because I have no idea what’s going on, and now my wife is crying because she doesn’t understand why I’m crying. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME, STAR TREK?
Apparently, Saru’s ganglia falling off is something new for his people, and he’s now regaining his strength. In fact, he’s got more power than ever before. For now, all is well aboard the Discovery…except that Tilly is encased in a giant blob. Check back next week.
This was a surprisingly great, character-driven episode of Star Trek: Discovery. This season just keeps getting better, and we haven’t even met Spock.