TV Review — ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5, Episode 8 Continues To Set Up Endgame
by Frank Martin
After a politically charged episode that changed the season’s status quo, Star Trek: Discovery seemed to give audiences a similar episode, but in a very different format. The chess pieces are still being moved around to position all the players for a grand conflict. Although they’ve been absent for a large part of the season thus far, the Breen are turning out to be a formidable foe for Starfleet. They are very reminiscence of the Klingons from the first season, especially in terms of their authoritarian culture and language. This is setting them on the course for war, just like with the Klingon Empire, but maybe the lesson is that Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) will learn to avoid it this time around.
Following the latest clue, Burnham and the Discovery crew head to an archive hidden in space. It is supposed to be a place of knowledge and learning, so conflict is not supposed to exist. But the Breen are not a species known for following the rules of others. As Burnham entered a mind labyrinth to gain the final puzzle piece as part of a test, the rest of the Discovery crew is forced to defend the archive from the Breen. They managed to succeed, but had to give up the clue so that the Breen would spare the archive. In the episode’s closing moments, Moll (Eve Harlow) manages to overthrow the Breen’s leader, pledging the remaining forces that she will bring back her dead husband.
Compared to other test that Burnham had to go through in order to find the puzzle piece she was looking for, this one was fairly mundane. She was stuck in a mind program, and the test was never explicitly stated for her. It was an open-ended lesson that she had to figure out on her own, which didn’t make for a very interesting story. In the real world, the action and conflict kept the story engaging, but it was more or less inconsequential. It seems the entire episode existed so that Moll could take over as leader of the Breen. She was formidable enough when it was just her and her partner. Now that she has an entire army at her disposal, Discovery is setting itself up for a very climactic end.
Star Trek: Discovery streams Thursdays on Paramount+.
