Jinaal is all sorts of curious about what’s changed in the 900 years since and takes Burnham and Book on an unnecessarily convoluted mission to find the next puzzle piece. It involves a seemingly unending hike through a random canyon and an unexpected face-off with some very aggressive giant insect creatures with cloaking abilities and laser eyes. Space is awesome, y’all.
In typical Discovery fashion, the face-off with the cloaking creatures isn’t so much a real fight as it is a test. The pair of them are guarding a nest, and Jinaal merely wants to know if Burnham and Book are the sort of people willing to do harm and kill innocents to advance their own agendas and get what they want. When they stand down and apologize to the creatures for invading their space (thank goodness for Book’s handy Doctor Dolittle-style mental abilities!), Jinaal’s convinced they’re trying to find the Progenitors’ tech for the right reasons. Of course, he still won’t just tell them where the group hid whatever the McGuffin is, because that would derail the plot of the entire season we’re watching. (He says it is because whoever retrieves it must be a “worthy seeker” who “followed the full path,” which is probably code for “the real Progenitor tech is the friends we made along the way” or something ridiculous like that, but I guess we’ll find out in seven more episodes.)
Meanwhile, back on the Discovery Captain—now Commander—Rayner arrives to take over as the ship’s first officer, and handles it about as well as anyone who saw last week’s episode probably expected: He’s basically being a jerk to everyone. Fully embracing the Not Here to Make Friends vibe, he resents being told to spend his first day aboard getting to know the crew, and repeatedly clashes with Tilly, who insists that he needs to connect with them to be an effective leader. Rayner, not a huge fan of talking, completely half-asses it, but still manages to glean quite a bit of genuine information out of the literal 20 words he allows each to speak to him. His presence makes for an interesting—and honestly, refreshing—change, particularly as there is (and should be) space on this show for characters who aren’t entirely in favor of excavating every emotional trauma they carry in the name of team cohesion. Rayner isn’t Saru, he shouldn’t have to be, and it’s a bit annoying that his very valid point about friendship and leadership roles being vastly different things gets overwhelmed by Tilly’s repeated insistence that he serve as an emotional support resource for everyone on board.
Speaking of our favorite Kelpian, now that he’s no longer part of the crew of Discovery, Saru is attempting to settle into his new role as a Federation ambassador. Admittedly, it feels a bit strange to have such a central Discovery character so removed from the season’s larger story, but he’s adorably nervous about the whole thing, and it does give us plenty of time to bask in the adorableness of Saru and T’Rina’s relationship, which is something that I, personally, will never complain about. (Is anyone else a bit peeved that we missed the entirety of their romance between them deciding they were into each other and getting engaged? Just me??)
T’Rina is eager to announce their engagement now that Saru has been officially transferred to Federation Headquarters, but he’s taken aback by the political realities of what the sitting president of Ni’Var choosing to marry a Kelpian means. Ni’Var, after all, is a planet of competing factions, and we’ve seen T’Rina have to make compromises to appease the more hardline or conservative Vulcan purists in the past. It doesn’t help that her right-hand advisor is more than a bit pushy about the issue, insisting that Saru’s work could destabilize T’Rina’s position among her people. But T’Rina’s not having it, and rather resents the implication that she needs a minder or doesn’t understand who own political interests. Are our faves having their first fight? Yes, but don’t worry, they’re fine. They’re great, actually, because the one thing Discovery and its love of talking about feelings means is that all its romantic relationships are remarkably mature in the ways they navigate problems and emotional conflict. Within the space of 15 minutes, Saru has his first real disagreement with someone he loves, T’Rina steadfastly refuses to hide something she’s not ashamed of, and it’s all rather lovely in the end.
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