‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Recap – ‘Memento Mori’

Written by Shae Rufe

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Four of ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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The Enterprise has a very simple mission this time, deliver a machine that helps make the air breathable for a colony. Not too hard, right? Nothing is ever simple, and when the Enterprise is unable to hail the planet, so they send down an away team. It’s La’An who has a sneaking suspicion as to what happened when they find a devastated colony. The away team is beamed back to the Enterprise when another ship approaches and ignores their attempted hail. Finally, the ship hails them. They’re the survivors of the planet. They’d been attacked but they didn’t know by what or whom. La’An knows. As they’re manually boarding the refugees from their ship to the Enterprise, they’re attacked by rogue ship. It’s the Gorn.

La’An and Una are both on the tethering tube leading to the refugee ship when they’re attacked. La’An is scraped but fine, Una on the other hand, is worse with multiple abdominal wounds. The attack also has Uhura, and Hemmer trapped in the main cargo bay. Uhura was spending the day with the Chief Engineer, not expecting to be trapped in a dire situation. Hemmer’s hand is broken, and the machine they were taking with them, is damaged and they have to fight to keep it from exploding. Thankfully, Uhura treats the problem she’s handed, with the same determination she does everything, and with Hemmer’s help, they’re able to fix the problem, for the time being.

On the bridge, La’An informs Pike of who is attacking them. She survived being captured by the Gorn as a child, and she knows how they work. They don’t give up. Neither does Pike. The ship is close enough to a brown dwarf for them to hide in, which works for a short time. Unfortunately, most of the ship’s sensor functions have been disabled by the attack and the gas giant they’re hiding in. Several of the lower decks start to crumple under the pressure without their proper shielding, and they only have one photon torpedo left aboard. Turns out, a Gorn ship had followed them into the gas giant, but they have lost their ability to use sensors as well. Pike is anything if not clever, and he angles the ship just so, releasing the torpedo in such a way that it’s pulled down onto the Gorn ship with gravity. That was not the only ship, however, several small and large Gorn ships appear, now knowing where the Enterprise is, forcing the ship down further into the gas giant. The Enterprise is holding but barely. The pressure is going to get them. That or the black hole that’s currently eating the gas giant.

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Ortegas does her best to keep the ship steady, but if the Gorn find them, they’re dead. So La’An and Spock take a singular shuttle to see where the Gorn ships are and to get a better idea of how to attack them. La’An is still living with the trauma of surviving them before, but she needs to get a better grip on her thoughts and memories. She suggests a mind meld, and Spock agrees only because their other options are so limited. In a memory, La’An and her brother are running from the Gorn on one of their breeding planets. He hands her a small cluster of notes and tells her to go. In the notes, he discovered that the Gorn use light to communicate with each other. In the same memory, La’An gets some of Spock’s, specifically him saying goodbye to Michael. It’s a sweet bonding moment since they’ve both lost a sibling. La’An uses lights to transmit a misleading signal to the bigger ship, making it look as though it comes from the small one. She tells the big ship that the little one has been boarded by humans. They watch as the big ship destroys the big ship without remorse. La’An believes they are pure evil that can never be reconciled or empathized with.

The big ship is still out there and the Enterprise needs repairs in a bad way and they’re struggling to keep the ship from being crushed. La’An and Pike decide the best course of action is to fly close to the black holes event horizon, empty the main cargo bay with the broken device they were supposed to deliver. Uhura had it stable for the time being, but it’s still about to explode. It’s a good plan, the only problem is Uhura, and Hemmer are still trapped down there. The good news is they have space suits they can put on and they can tether to the cargo bay floor, which is what they do. The maneuver is tricky, as are most.

Enterprise does everything with drama and flair and escaping the Gorn is no different. They also have the best pilot around, who is able to swing them just so, while dropping the device into the black hole, where it explodes. Giving the Gorn good reason to fly off since it seems their prey is gone, while the Enterprise escapes to live another day. They lose 7 crew members however, in a twist of irony. It is Remembrance Day, a day in which Starfleet remembers their fallen, wearing special pins with their badges. To lose 7 people on this day… puts a heavy burden on Captain Christopher Pike. At least Una is okay!

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