Did anyone notice over the internal coms that a 'Cadet Decker' was paged?
Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x09 - "Into the Forest I Go"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
This was, by far, the best episode of the series. It had practically everything you could want: submarine-tactics-in-space battles, hand-to-hand combat, Klingon-style, standing up for the little guy (Pahvans), Kirk-like action from Lorca in disobeying Starfleet Command by doing the right thing and getting a friggin’ medal for it, romance…what more can you ask?
From the top, however, a couple points:
--Good Lord, the Federation must’ve been hurting something fierce to’ve ordered a general retreat from where they were, ostensibly two episodes ago, in a winning position. Kol’s gambit to spread the cloaking device to and fro’ to capture loyalty worked like a charm and it must’ve been an absolute slaughter to’ve done what the Admiralty commanded.
--Good on Lorca. Whether he’s really Mirror Universe-Lorca or Prime, I don’t care. He did the right thing. And all those folks preaching about how the Federation is soooooo bloody ethically superior and has evolved into a sphere of higher ideals…well, there’s the irony of watching Gabriel Lorca, perhaps a throwback to a “less civilised” era, fulfilling the ethical standards of Starfleet when the fleet, itself, wouldn’t. Think about it: the Federation was going to let an entire civilisation burn. Lorca saved them. I don’t want to hear anymore “Lorca Is A War-Monger!” smack from y’all, ‘kay?
--Burnham, for once, was right. I hate to say it, but Lorca didn’t initially think this through. But, being the good commander he was, when confronted with the logic of the situation, he reversed course. As he should have.
--Heh. I was utterly amused that Admiral Cornwell was unflappable and sanguine that Gabe Lorca would inadvertently save her. If she sat back and thought about it for a moment, maybe she would’ve realised she’d made her judgement in haste, back on the Discovery (seeing how she did not properly diagnose him in the first place, a little guilty conscience would be well-deserved).
--Those flashback sequences were harsh as hell, for a lot of reasons. I actually found them very uncomfortable, having dealt with PTSD, myself, and having the psych degrees behind me to understand the intellectual side as well. I must admit, Cornwell did well with Tyler. That’s a mark on the plus side of her ledger, in my book.
--Now, about those flashbacks. They are teasing the Voq-is-Tyler theory without crossing over into confirmation so much that it’s about ready to become a cliché. There was only one snippet that looked confirmatory, when we say a knife descend into what looked like albino-white skin. Everything else was just Tyler being tortured. But even that snippet was odd. The blood looked red, not purple. What does that mean? A makeup error? Or something else? The thought now crossing my mind is that Tyler is a Manchurian Candidate and that the House Mokai used some kind of variant of the Mind Ripper to implant Voq’s mind into Tyler’s body (or, at least, portions of it). So, from the perspective of Tyler/Voq, we see a merged presentation of what Tyler went through. An overlap of sensory input. That would explain the albino skin that bleeds human-like blood and not Klingon. That’s the Voq part of Tyler/Voq seeing what happened to Tyler’s body. If that’s the case, we can actually save Tyler as a character by somehow banishing the Klingon part of his mind, leaving a more-or-less-whole Tyler left behind.
--…but, having said that, I’m not sure that’s what they’ll do. It might just be a makeup error and Voq was somehow magickally, surgically recreated into Tyler. Or, perhaps, the two were somehow merged. The latter would stretched credulity, but…
--I honestly thought we were going to lose Stamets, for sure. I was steeling myself for it. And yes, I think Lorca pulled the strings brilliantly to get Stamets onboard. And for those who thought that was manipulation…it’s called “leadership” where I come from. That’s the job of a commander; to motivate the troops. To do anything and everything possible to get them to do the job. How much of it was manipulation, though, really? He did keep all that data. He did do a preliminary analysis on it. Seems to me another interpretation would be that he was being honest with Stamets. Or, perhaps, he is from the Mirror Universe, as some think, and he’s trying to get back home. But I wouldn’t even come close to calling asking for Stamets to do the jump as evil or even bad. Lorca was absolutely right in all the points he made. Even so, I really thought Stamets was a goner. He may yet be. However, we still have him, at least for one more episode, perhaps more.
--Stamets and Culber was beautiful. Rapp and Cruz really emoted well. It felt real, to me. I kept on telling my wife “We’re going to lose him…we’re going to lose him…just get ready for it.” Thank God I wasn’t right. At least, not yet.
--Lorca dosing his eyes just before the Ship of the Dead blew up. Absofuckin’lutely badass! For the Buran!
--On a more serious note: Tyler’s story. I admit, I am trying not to become invested in Tyler because I am really afraid he’ll turn out to be Voq…but this episode hit really, really close to home for me. It is not easy for a man to deal with sexual abuse. It’s not easy for anyone to deal with it. What I am afraid of is that they will undo what could be a valuable discussion, a valuable moment to talk about what often does not get talked about: men being sexually abused by women. It does happen. I just think, having developed the plotline thus far, to undo it like that…I just don’t feel comfortable with it. I hope they don’t go down that route. Make him a Manchurian Candidate, fine. But Voq-as-Tyler with it just being a case of surgical chicanery—however implausible that is—and those memories being implants or false makes it feel…exploitive.
--“Override.” Yes, I caught that. I could be misdirection from the writing team (they do like doing that, methinks…) or just an unusual shot. But why “destination unknown”? To me, that would be the strongest indication we’ve seen thus far that Lorca may be from elsewhere (Mirror Universe or some other alternate timeline). Or, how about this: what if he was taking the Discovery to a Section 31 base? Somewhere “off the books” of Starfleet’s navigation grid? After all, they still haven’t explained the scars on his back. Triangle and dash. Three lines (triangle) plus one line. And yes, I know it’s cheesy that presume Section 31 would brand their agents, but…who knows? Maybe we’ll combine the two fan theories: how about, instead of a Prime Section 31, maybe Lorca is from the Mirror Universe’s Section 31?
Hey, we’re Trekkers and Trekkies! If we cannot analyse to the Nth degree, we wouldn’t be fans!
And, thusly, I give this episode my first 10. Bravo, crew!
From the top, however, a couple points:
--Good Lord, the Federation must’ve been hurting something fierce to’ve ordered a general retreat from where they were, ostensibly two episodes ago, in a winning position. Kol’s gambit to spread the cloaking device to and fro’ to capture loyalty worked like a charm and it must’ve been an absolute slaughter to’ve done what the Admiralty commanded.
--Good on Lorca. Whether he’s really Mirror Universe-Lorca or Prime, I don’t care. He did the right thing. And all those folks preaching about how the Federation is soooooo bloody ethically superior and has evolved into a sphere of higher ideals…well, there’s the irony of watching Gabriel Lorca, perhaps a throwback to a “less civilised” era, fulfilling the ethical standards of Starfleet when the fleet, itself, wouldn’t. Think about it: the Federation was going to let an entire civilisation burn. Lorca saved them. I don’t want to hear anymore “Lorca Is A War-Monger!” smack from y’all, ‘kay?
--Burnham, for once, was right. I hate to say it, but Lorca didn’t initially think this through. But, being the good commander he was, when confronted with the logic of the situation, he reversed course. As he should have.
--Heh. I was utterly amused that Admiral Cornwell was unflappable and sanguine that Gabe Lorca would inadvertently save her. If she sat back and thought about it for a moment, maybe she would’ve realised she’d made her judgement in haste, back on the Discovery (seeing how she did not properly diagnose him in the first place, a little guilty conscience would be well-deserved).
--Those flashback sequences were harsh as hell, for a lot of reasons. I actually found them very uncomfortable, having dealt with PTSD, myself, and having the psych degrees behind me to understand the intellectual side as well. I must admit, Cornwell did well with Tyler. That’s a mark on the plus side of her ledger, in my book.
--Now, about those flashbacks. They are teasing the Voq-is-Tyler theory without crossing over into confirmation so much that it’s about ready to become a cliché. There was only one snippet that looked confirmatory, when we say a knife descend into what looked like albino-white skin. Everything else was just Tyler being tortured. But even that snippet was odd. The blood looked red, not purple. What does that mean? A makeup error? Or something else? The thought now crossing my mind is that Tyler is a Manchurian Candidate and that the House Mokai used some kind of variant of the Mind Ripper to implant Voq’s mind into Tyler’s body (or, at least, portions of it). So, from the perspective of Tyler/Voq, we see a merged presentation of what Tyler went through. An overlap of sensory input. That would explain the albino skin that bleeds human-like blood and not Klingon. That’s the Voq part of Tyler/Voq seeing what happened to Tyler’s body. If that’s the case, we can actually save Tyler as a character by somehow banishing the Klingon part of his mind, leaving a more-or-less-whole Tyler left behind.
--…but, having said that, I’m not sure that’s what they’ll do. It might just be a makeup error and Voq was somehow magickally, surgically recreated into Tyler. Or, perhaps, the two were somehow merged. The latter would stretched credulity, but…
--I honestly thought we were going to lose Stamets, for sure. I was steeling myself for it. And yes, I think Lorca pulled the strings brilliantly to get Stamets onboard. And for those who thought that was manipulation…it’s called “leadership” where I come from. That’s the job of a commander; to motivate the troops. To do anything and everything possible to get them to do the job. How much of it was manipulation, though, really? He did keep all that data. He did do a preliminary analysis on it. Seems to me another interpretation would be that he was being honest with Stamets. Or, perhaps, he is from the Mirror Universe, as some think, and he’s trying to get back home. But I wouldn’t even come close to calling asking for Stamets to do the jump as evil or even bad. Lorca was absolutely right in all the points he made. Even so, I really thought Stamets was a goner. He may yet be. However, we still have him, at least for one more episode, perhaps more.
--Stamets and Culber was beautiful. Rapp and Cruz really emoted well. It felt real, to me. I kept on telling my wife “We’re going to lose him…we’re going to lose him…just get ready for it.” Thank God I wasn’t right. At least, not yet.
--Lorca dosing his eyes just before the Ship of the Dead blew up. Absofuckin’lutely badass! For the Buran!
--On a more serious note: Tyler’s story. I admit, I am trying not to become invested in Tyler because I am really afraid he’ll turn out to be Voq…but this episode hit really, really close to home for me. It is not easy for a man to deal with sexual abuse. It’s not easy for anyone to deal with it. What I am afraid of is that they will undo what could be a valuable discussion, a valuable moment to talk about what often does not get talked about: men being sexually abused by women. It does happen. I just think, having developed the plotline thus far, to undo it like that…I just don’t feel comfortable with it. I hope they don’t go down that route. Make him a Manchurian Candidate, fine. But Voq-as-Tyler with it just being a case of surgical chicanery—however implausible that is—and those memories being implants or false makes it feel…exploitive.
--“Override.” Yes, I caught that. I could be misdirection from the writing team (they do like doing that, methinks…) or just an unusual shot. But why “destination unknown”? To me, that would be the strongest indication we’ve seen thus far that Lorca may be from elsewhere (Mirror Universe or some other alternate timeline). Or, how about this: what if he was taking the Discovery to a Section 31 base? Somewhere “off the books” of Starfleet’s navigation grid? After all, they still haven’t explained the scars on his back. Triangle and dash. Three lines (triangle) plus one line. And yes, I know it’s cheesy that presume Section 31 would brand their agents, but…who knows? Maybe we’ll combine the two fan theories: how about, instead of a Prime Section 31, maybe Lorca is from the Mirror Universe’s Section 31?
Hey, we’re Trekkers and Trekkies! If we cannot analyse to the Nth degree, we wouldn’t be fans!
And, thusly, I give this episode my first 10. Bravo, crew!
Last edited:
A couple people have mentioned it in this thread, yes.
TrekCore has pointed out, the first publicity shot of Kol was from this episode, and you can barely make out Georgiou’s badge on him.
Here's one of the central problems I have with the "Mirror Lorca" theory: If he's from the Mirror Universe, why does he give a shit about the Klingon war? Shouldn't he just have used the Discovery to skip off back to his home universe ASAP? The very fact that he's risked his own life numerous times for Starfleet completely undercuts this hypothesis.
Last edited:
There's no way he's from the MU. People are grasping at really weird, far-away straws on that one.
Klingon blood is not canonically pink/purple. The only time it appeared as such was in The Undiscovered Country. This was done, IIRC, in post-production because the scenes were considered too gory and changing the blood color allowed them to get a lower rating. But in every other depiction of Klingons (including Discovery - remember Voq's eye injury?) they bleed red.
That is still a big if, IMHO.
What we do know from this episode is that Lorca was willing to risk destroying his career completely in order to defend Pahvo, while the all so noble Starfleet brass were ready to toss them under the Dead Ship bus.
And we saw that he wasn't in it for the fame, his moment telling Stamets that he asked for them to give the medal to him was very touching.
Have we gotten a good look at the color of Klingon blood in DSC? Up until now, it was always red except in TUC where, admittedly, it was a major plot-point that it was visibly different from human blood. Of course, we've also seen Klingons weep, also something that contradicts TUC.
Yeah, he's a complex man, and appears to have a belief in the benevolence of Starfleet that I like.
But... apart of me still believes that that scene with Stamets was him manipulating Stamets into performing that jump so he can go exploring other universes just a little earlier than originally planned.
Seriously, I just don't get it. It's like Lorca does something nice and/or heroic and people are like "OMG, look at how manipulative he is!"
Is this all just because Jason Isaacs has mostly played villains up until now?
In what is admittedly a bit odd and circuitous logic, it was the torture scene that made me think that: a Star Trek willing to show such a brutal torture (albeit unclear and brief) scene showing both flashes of nudity and sexual abuse, is a show that very well may kill off a very well liked character. First time I can remember actually thinking a main character was in real peril.
As I said, Voq notably hurt his eye in the second episode, and bled red. This means that either Klingons canonically bleed red, or that Voq was somehow modified from a human into a Klingon, and then changed back again.
Had some major streaming issues with this one- first time for me.
Fans like their conspiracy theories. Lorca being a Mirror Universe Section 31 villain bad guy agent possessed addict Garth of Izar would be fun for some, I suppose.
But I don't think any of it is true.
Lorca would still have needed the data from multiple jumps to build his multi-dimensional dataset to 'get home' if the mirror Lorca theory holds. He got those jumps in and then destroyed the Klingon vessel. Nothing that happened really indicates which theory is right.
Maybe Lorca wants to find a timeline where he saved his old ship. Maybe this is Star Trek: Flashpoint.
This was predictable but well-executed, at least until the dull final 15 minutes. Whatever they're paying Jason Isaacs, it's not enough. His Lorca is spectacular, and Lorca's character development here was the best part of the episode. I will be sad when he makes his exit, which I suspect this ep lays the groundwork for.
I really enjoyed the Stamets/Culbert interactions as well. And I was most happy to see the end of the Klingons, though not in the way the writers intended. Let's hope the second half of the season is free from their tedious speechifying.
I wonder if Frakes was instructed to drop the MU spoiler to keep fans onboard for the second half. The cliffhanger we got here was OK but not exactly thrilling -- Voyager/Lost in Space guest starring Gary Mitchell, with the overly telegraphed Tyler "mystery" all but explicitly answered.
I will be tremendously disappointed if both Lorca and Stamets go -- they are, by far, my favorite parts of the show.
I really enjoyed the Stamets/Culbert interactions as well. And I was most happy to see the end of the Klingons, though not in the way the writers intended. Let's hope the second half of the season is free from their tedious speechifying.
I wonder if Frakes was instructed to drop the MU spoiler to keep fans onboard for the second half. The cliffhanger we got here was OK but not exactly thrilling -- Voyager/Lost in Space guest starring Gary Mitchell, with the overly telegraphed Tyler "mystery" all but explicitly answered.
I will be tremendously disappointed if both Lorca and Stamets go -- they are, by far, my favorite parts of the show.
Last edited:
I'm not saying it's not impossible. There are still those weird scars/brands on his back which aren't explained. But I do just find it funny how people continually make out Lorca as being a much darker shade of gray than he appears to be so far.
And that's the problem I have. Heck, Col. Worf even said that Col. West's blood wasn't Klingon, presumably based solely on the colour. So, yeah, there's all sorts of canon problems, either way you look. If it's red, then a major plot point of TUC makes no sense. If it's dark pink or lavender, what about all the times it was red?
My point, though, was that the blood in that scene looked identical to the blood that came out of a human body, even though that one shot that I saw had albino skin. Given that Vulcan blood has undergone several different tint changes--green, lime green, whatever--we cannot be sure that what we were seeing was, indeed, what actually happened. It might have been, for all we know, L'Rell attempting to brainwash Ash after whatever happened to Voq failed. Maybe the original intent was to use the augment virus or something like that, to make a more human-seeming infiltrator. Maybe it failed and she had Tyler left and came up with Plan B. Perhaps she tried to implant Voq's...consciousness? katra analogue?...into Tyler, with mixed results. Then we'd see these weird flashbacks with Tyler/Voq "seeing" a torture scene from a subjective POV. Tyler would see it has him being tortured and the remnants of Voq would see it as him being carved up.
But, yeah, Klingon blood has a varied history, colour-wise. I'm not sure if they're using that to their advantage--the writers--and they've made the decision to muddy the waters or it's just one of those things that only Trekkers would care about and they made a mistake.
Similar threads
- Poll
- Poll
- Poll
