‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Recap – ‘Light and Shadows’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

If there’s one thing I’ve always enjoyed when it comes to the Star Trek franchise as a whole, it’s crossover episodes/storylines that feature cast members or characters from other entries in this storied saga. Because having those iconic people pop up in other parts of the story, only strengthens the connective tissue of this already rich franchise and that’s precisely why I was super excited to watch this season of Star Trek: Discovery, because of the fact that this year’s adventures were going to feature the legendary Spock, a good ten years before he was Kirk’s right hand man in The Original Series.
 
Which quite frankly, is a fascinating prospect to say the least, for we know little of this iconic character outside of his career as First Officer/Captain of the Enterprise, and the Ambassdor-ship he took part in after he left Starfleet. So, if anything, I’ve been dying to see Ethan Peck’s interpretation of the character arrive on the series, but alas, the search for Spock has been an elusive ride on this show, that is until last night. For ‘Light and Shadows’ finally brought this legend into the forefront of the story in fascinating fashion, but before we can dive too deeply into Spock’s return, we do need to take a moment and talk about the interesting twists and turns that happened over Kaminar while Burnham continued the search for her brother.
 
For the Discovery was asked to stay in orbit of the planet and study the tachyon emissions that the Red Angel left behind and well, this simple survey mission did not go as planned, in the slightest. Because a surprise anomaly did everything within its power to keep the crew from learning its secrets, to the point where the ship had to keep its distance to remain safe from its volatile effects, prompting Captain Pike and Tyler to take a shuttle out to launch a probe, and even that plan went to some wild places. For the shuttle was eventually sucked into the anomaly, wherein Tyler and Pike had a strange encounter with a souped up version of their own probe, and it quickly tried to download any and all data from the Discovery, further complicating their mission. But thanks to Stamets’ quick thinking, he was able to save the shuttle from further peril and on the surface, it seems all is well, save for the fact that the probe seemingly transferred its consciousness into Airiam…

---

​However, while the crew dealt with that wild little mess, Burnham arrived on Vulcan in order to see if her mother had uncovered any clues regarding her brother’s whereabouts and wouldn’t you know it? It turns out that Amanda was able to locate her son with ease and he just so happened to be on Vulcan, allowing for the family reunion we’ve been waiting for to finally happen, but it definitely didn’t turn out as we expected. Because when Burnham finally came face to face with Spock once again, there was no meaningful conversation or tearful forgiveness to be found, just ramblings and distress from the Lieutenant and thankfully, both Michael and Sarek agreed that Spock needed immediate medical attention, but where he ended up for treatment is what made this part of the story so incredibly fascinating.
 
For Burnham brought her brother to Section 31, so that Leland and his team could heal his mind with their secretive state of the art technology. But just when it seemed as though all would be well and Spock would fine in a bit, a surprise admission from Captain Georgiou, in that Leland’s methods and goals were unsavory and harmful toward Spock, changed Burnham’s outlook on having him be helped by Section 31, and with an assist from the former Emperor, Michael was able to escape with her brother, unharmed. And now that she and Spock were free of any interference from Starfleet, the opportunity arose to start her own investigation on how to help Spock, and she was able to decipher that some of his ramblings, were actually coordinates, prompting her to load them into the computer and set a course for the legendary Talos IV…
 
So, I won’t lie, I pretty much freaked out over the fact that Talos IV is popping up once again in the Star Trek universe, because that means we are going to see the Talosians well before Pike and Kirk ever run into them and who knows what shenanigans Burnham and Spock will get into when they visit this mysterious planet and in continuing in this thread of honesty, I basically geeked out this entire episode because…Spock. For at long last, this icon has returned to the universe he helped establish, and it was just so cool to see him back on the small screen. But all nerdy moments aside, with Spock now entering the fold, I would imagine the Red Angel plot line is only going to accelerate since Talos IV is clearly the key to some important plot points and I simply cannot wait to see what we will find on this legendary planet come next week. Until then.   

---