Nicely, that was a enjoyable little brain-bender of a Star Trek: Discovery episode, wasn’t it? (Harry Mudd plus a repeating time loop is a reasonably dependable system for high quality, in any case.)
Burnham is feeling extra at residence on the Discovery, and even experiencing some unfamiliar emotions in the direction of new crew addition Lt. Ash Tyler. (“I discover him… intriguing,” she narrates.) She nonetheless feels awkward at a crew occasion, however her roomie Tilly is letting free, enjoying beer pong and confessing, “I’m type of going via a musician section proper now.” (You go, Tilly!) She encourages Burnham to speak up Tyler, however they’re interrupted by a name to the bridge: The ship has noticed a gormagander — a type of winged area whale — that appears to be in misery, and so they beam it aboard for Burnham to take a better look.
RELATEDStar Trek: Discovery‘s James Frain on Sarek’s ‘Advanced’ Connection With Burnham and That Spock Title-Drop As soon as the creature is onboard, although, it opens its mouth, and a masked man jumps out, taking pictures crew members whereas Burnham takes cowl. The shooter takes off his masks to disclose: It’s Harry Mudd! He tells Lorca he’s plotting to promote the Discovery to the Klingons as revenge for Lorca ditching him on that jail ship and maintaining him from his beloved Stella: “Additionally, I’m going to kill you as many instances as doable.” He’s not taking the ship proper now, he explains, however simply accumulating knowledge to do it later, “or, slightly, earlier.” Then Mudd triggers an explosion that blows up the complete ship… and we’re again on the occasion once more. Huh? What within the identify of James Tiberius Kirk is occurring right here? The loop begins over, and Stamets tracks down Burnham on the occasion, explaining the temporal loop and theorizing that his newly implanted tardigrade DNA is what’s permitting him to retain his reminiscence via all of the loops. He additionally asks Burnham to inform him a secret, so he can repeat it again to her on the following loop so she is aware of he’s telling the reality. Certain sufficient, on the following loop, he yells at her: “You’ve by no means been in love!” (Ouch. Harsh, however efficient.) He asks Burnham to speak to Tyler about Mudd, since they frolicked collectively in that Klingon jail cell, so she takes Tyler apart for a gradual dance on the occasion and tells him all in regards to the temporal loop. So he figures, since they’re looping anyway… he would possibly as effectively kiss her. (Fast, what’s their shipper identify? “Burnler”?)
Nicely, Trek followers have in all probability caught on by now: The ship is caught in a temporal loop, with a sure time period repeating itself time and again, Groundhog Day-style. The occasion occurs identical to final time, however Stamets stops Burnham and Tyler on their technique to the bridge, ranting in regards to the gormagander… which Burnham and Tyler then hear about on the bridge. They marvel how Stamets might’ve recognized, and later uncover Mudd in engineering, making an attempt to determine how the spore drive works. Stamets manages to kill Mudd, however the ship continues to be rigged to blow up, and earlier than it does, Stamets tells them they’ve already been via this a number of instances — and it at all times ends badly for them.
Burnham must discover a technique to have Mudd restart the loop, so she appeals to his greed: Don’t simply give the Klingons the ship; give them Burnham, too, since she killed their chief T’Kuvma. Mudd sees greenback indicators, however earlier than he can act, Burnham swallows an orb of darkish matter, killing herself and forcing Mudd to start out the loop over. This time, Lorca presents at hand over the Discovery and Burnham to Mudd, if he’ll spare the lives of the crew. Mudd fortunately agrees, sending the ship’s coordinates to the Klingons and letting the time loop finish and his crystal dissolve.Supply hyperlink