To cross the Rubicon is to reach a point of no return; to make such significant forward progress toward an outcome that it can’t be reversed. A strange choice of title, then, for a Star Trek: Discovery episode which brings the season-long quest to avert the DMA to a standstill — and when action does occur, takes the story two steps forward… and then two steps right on back again.
Very little actually happens in “Rubicon,” as far as Season 4’s overarching plot is concerned, and what does happen doesn’t seem to warrant an entire episode. Chasing after Book (David Ajala) and Tarka (Shawn Doyle) and their dangerous isolynium acquired last week, Discovery first attempts to stop the pair at a rogue planet, sneaking up using the new cloaking device installed last season.
After that fails, the ship follows them inside the DMA itself, accompanied by a returning Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril) — yay! — and after another failed plan, Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Book continue their wistful attempts to talk each other down. Understandably annoyed, Tarka sends his weapon into the heart of the DMA, seemingly setting the Federation’s course of action all by himself — there’s that Rubicon — but just moments later, a replacement DMA appears where the first collapsed.
Oh well, never mind.
All of this is fine, but did this really need to take up an entire episode? My first thought upon finishing “Rubicon” was that the whole thing could have been easily compressed into 15 minutes. Or, even better, could it have served as the last act to last week’s “All In,” where this could have been a lot more fun as a cat-and-mouse chase sequence following the Burnham/Booker hustle and poker showdown on the Karma Barge?
Attached to “All In,” the events of “Rubicon” would have retained the former episode’s sense of fast-paced fun and become invigorating, the failure to stop the DMA becoming a taunt with a promise of payback. Detached, “Rubicon” simply feels meaningless and ultimately futile.
Slow pacing is something that I quite enjoy when it gives viewers the chance to contemplate a story that needs the time and space to present itself, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. “Rubicon” doesn’t add any new dimension to the dynamic between Book and Burnham, or to Tarka’s motivations — and how they both differ and align with Book’s.
Aside from Tarka’s defeat as he realizes the DMA is powered from the “other side” of Species 10C’s connection to the Milky Way, we learn nothing new about the mysterious aliens (other than the fact that for them, replacing a DMA is as much of a hassle as replacing a burned out lightbulb), and we know nothing more about the specifics of Starfleet’s strategy to find and communicate with them.
Lingering on a mystery is fine, but at this point in the season it’s hard not to be frustrated by the continuing lack of answers instead of intrigued.
The strange pacing of “Rubicon” doesn’t just exist externally as a ‘chapter’ within the season, but internally as well. We learn this week that the DMA, which is currently churning along in an uninhabited sector of space, won’t be moving on for another week as it continues to eat up boronite during its ‘mining operation.’
Earlier in the season many tens of billions of people were at risk of being annihilated in an instant, but now that Stamets (Anthony Rapp) can calculate how long the anomaly will stay in one place, the stakes are now essentially nonexistent. Yes, Book and Tarka’s actions would upset the plan for peaceful first contact, but with the continuing lack of any progress on that front, it’s difficult to mind too much about that… because at this point, I just want to see something happen.
Everything in “Rubicon” either stops before it’s started — or is immediately rendered irrelevant. We hear about the plans for a boarding team to get aboard Book’s ship to talk the Kwejian down, but we never actually get to see it happen. Upon docking with Book’s ship, the shuttle manned by Saru (Doug Jones), Culber (Wilson Cruz), Bryce (Ronnie Rowe, Jr.) and Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon) is attacked and eventually crushed by a swarm of programmable matter — a defense system that Tarka secretly installed and which, unbelievably, doesn’t have an off switch.
(Why Tarka decided to design it this way, I have no idea. Pretty dumb for a smart guy.)
Similarly, Nhan’s entire purpose in the episode is to serve as an emergency “backup” command officer in case Burnham’s closeness with Book becomes a problem. After her time going rogue last season, it’s understandable that despite her growth as a captain, Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) still wants to keep a hand on the wheel for such a critical situation where Burnham’s emotions are involved.
It’s heavily foreshadowed that Nhan is going to have to take charge at some point, but though she walks up to that line several times — or should I say river — she never actually crosses it. Even with Book’s ship repeatedly firing on Discovery, including an unquestionably aggressive full-spread volley of quantum torpedoes (!), Nhan accepts Burnham’s insistence that Book doesn’t really mean it and that this time will be the time she can reason with him.
It’s not so much that I wanted Nhan to take over, but again, I wanted something, anything that the writers set up to actually pay off. Even what should be the biggest moment of the episode — Tarka’s unilateral choice to use the weapon and destroy the DMA’s controller — means nothing. A new controller is in place within minutes, and the only consequence Tarka faces is the terrible realization that the power source he so coveted was never in this galaxy to begin with.
It’s been on the other side of the wormhole this entire time, out of reach. At least for now, his “home” remains out of reach. Does Tarka’s use of “home” mean that he hails from another universe? Or is he using “home” in a more figurative manner, saying that home is wherever his other person is? (As a secret romantic, I’m choosing the go with the latter.)
This isn’t to say there aren’t good elements in “Rubicon.” The inside of the DMA is beautiful, both the rainbow-colored dust clouds and the jagged glowing shards of space around the core. The spore drive jump chase is also a lot of fun, though it had to be at least a little unpleasant for Book and Stamets, right? (And what must the Jah’Sepp think about it?!)
Plus, as a devout T’Rina/Saru shipper — I bestow upon them the ship name Tru — I was extremely happy to see Ni’Var’s Vulcan president T’Rina (Tara Rosling) pop into Saru’s quarters via hologram, her first return since the Kelpien gave her a potted plant. With all the plantlife in Saru’s lovely quarters, it’s an immediately calming set and a welcome respite from the clean sterility of the rest of the ship’s interiors. (Someone, please, just put a little potted cactus or something in the corner of your bridge station!)
Anyway, when the president of an entire planet drops everything to call you back when you send her a text message, you know things are getting serious! After a brief meditation session, T’Rina asks Saru to lunch, which he is adorably flustered about. Later on, Saru seeks out Culber’s advice on how to gracefully decline T’Rina’s offer (nooo!) because he feels he is simply too busy to allow himself something nice — despite the fact that he does have feelings for her (whew, okay).
Culber’s professional opinion is that Saru is “an idiot” so it seems that that lunch will be happening at some point in the future.
And of course, the return of Nhan, now a member of Starfleet security, is entirely welcomed. Admiral Vance notes that many Barzan officers fill the security-division ranks, as they pay heed to the notion of “duty, above all.” In fact, the one drawback I can see to my assertion that “Rubicon” should have been condensed and added to “All In” is that we would have likely lost out on seeing Nhan again.
When we last left her, she had chosen to stay aboard the USS Tikhov to shepherd its seed vault back into Federation hands. We learn that once that mission was completed, she returned to Barzan and attempted to connect with her family but was unable to overcome the sense of separation created by her need to keep certain things — like her origin — a secret.
This notion of meeting very distant descendants with the expectation of creating familial connections with them has been mentioned a few times since Discovery made its way to the 32nd century, and it’s something that certainly seems odd and unsettling — but still, you’d think some more of the Discovery crew would have explored their family’s legacy after such a long journey from the 23rd century.
Finally, the writing for the bridge officers thankfully continues to improve, as the quite natural-sounding debate between Nilsson (Sara Mitich) and Rhys (and later Rhys and Bryce) over the Book/Tarka situation is a marked step up from the “Hi, I work here too!” statements that made some of the early-episode scenes screech to a grinding halt.
“Rubicon” ends right back where it started, with the Federation finishing up its plans for finding and contacting Species 10C, and Discovery ready to embark on the mission as soon as everything is in place. And despite the destruction of the DMA, even the tone of that mission feels unchanged. Given how quickly and calmly they replaced the destroyed DMA controller, one must wonder if Species 10C is so incredibly powerful that they may not have even noticed.
So I suppose the question is — peaceful or not — why should Species 10C even care about the Federation’s concerns for its own self-preservation? A technological response seems out the window, so I’m not sure how this season’s main story could possibly get resolved other than through an impassioned speech about the value of all life. A perfectly good philosophy and one that I, as an inhabitant of the galaxy being ravaged by the DMA, have stake in of course, but not one I’m sure is going to justify this level of prolonged buildup.
With four more episodes to go, I’m not sure what else the season has to offer. The longer this mystery about the identity of Species 10C is drawn out, the more amazing the reveal is going to have to be to justify it. Unfortunately, the more amazing they are, the more ant-like our Alpha Quadrant friends are going to feel in comparison — and now I’m back to wondering why they’d even bother to listen to us.
Four episodes is either way too much time to resolve all this… or not nearly enough, and I’m not sure which it’ll turn out to be.
Star Trek: Discovery returns February 24 on Paramount+ in the United States, and on CTV Sci Fi Channel and Crave in Canada. Outside of North America, the series is available on Paramount+ and on Pluto TV in select international locations.