I enjoyed this episode, both as a GWOT veteran and M'Benga fan. M'Benga really embodied a man of duty who still worked hard to fit the mold of Starfleet even with the trauma he was holding inside. My take from this is a man who once killed others that chose to become a doctor, take an oath of preserving life to save the Federation he believes in during the height of a bloody war only to break that oath in a deeply painful way to stop the atrocities on J'gal, he hates the blood he has on his hands and I respect him for understanding the consequences of his own choices even when they hurt but produce a better outcome.
Flash forward to his interactions with Rah on the Enterprise and he is not only doing his best to face resurfaced traumas from only a couple of years back but also facing the cowardly man now masquerading as a reformed diplomat who drove him to break his oath as a doctor and go on the warpath to wipe J'gal of the marauding Klingon commanders, a man sitting on a throne of make-believe and false glories soaking up the sun as his world of lies built on injustices insults the very real sacrifice made of both Federation and Klingon on that distant blood soaked moon.
The sparing match again shows Rah as powerful and abusive yet weak in his resolve as he has nothing to stand on in the lies and shame he's surrounded himself with, a facade of a person where M'Benga is humanly vulnerable and physically weaker yet enduring, standing by his experiences knowing the truth, living with it and drawing strength from his sense of resolve and integrity in the face of evil tempting him to break and be just as weak as it is, as weak as Rah knows himself to be inside propping up a convenient lie for his own benefit.
As we see M'Benga suffer both in the present and in the past he remains the believer struggling to do right. In the end I feel he grabbed the knife from storage not only as a touchstone to his past, an item of pain from a time where the world seemed so far away and nothing felt right but also proof, proof that he was the one who killed those commanders on J'gal, proof that he was the one who had to make a hard decision and kill for what he felt was right, and foremost proof that Rah was a liar and he could prove it to the world with the evidence that very blade carried if he so decided. Rah confronting M'Benga in the face of that proof showed Rah for the evil he is, a coward who knows he can't bully M'Benga into siding with him and knowing full well that M'Benga is the key to his demise and that d'k tahg is all he needs to show Rah for who he truly is to everyone. Rah calls M'Benga a selfish human in a raised voice showing that he finds M'Benga's unwillingness to let the truth of the past go to be revolting to him in the light of possibly being exposed. While we don't see the fight unfold in detail my personal take away was that Rah attempted to take the knife away so that no evidence would exist of his lies, M'Benga wanting to preserve not only that evidence but a touchstone to his own moral choices wrestled with Rah to keep possession of the knife and in the ensuing bout over it Rah was accidentally impaled subsequently killing him.
While M'Benga may not have started the struggle, or even intentionally killed Rah, he's honest that the outcome is something he can live with as in a way justice was served in his eyes. That's why in the end when he addresses Pike as friends about the fight he isn't lying or covering up as he still is a man of genuine integrity, still a believer in the good of Starfleet, yet human enough to admit that Rah's death felt good to him in a way Pike will never be able to understand. Consequences are obviously likely on the horizon for M'Benga even in the accidental death of an individual but I appreciate that the priority of the story is not will M'Benga get in trouble but instead that he is only human, a scarred human, who spends his hard days trying to fix biobed number 2 yet can never seem to fix the problem. That these demons live with us regardless of time, distance, justice served or given even as we continually try and work on ourselves to be more, be better. This story really stuck with me and my own experiences of war and living, but more so embodies the little thing I love the most about Trek, and that is regardless of the hill to climb, enemy to face, hardship to endure, there is always more awe and beauty to be found out there, and that the victories come in the form of friendship, discovery, love, and growth. An episode that makes you appreciate the happy episodes even more.
