Star Trek: Prodigy begins its two-part season finale with “Supernova, Part 1,” a thrilling installment that has our heroes seeming to exhausting every last option to save themselves — and Starfleet — from annihilation from the Vau N’Akat weapon. Prodigy is almost indistinguishable from live action Trek here, as this episode has all the hallmarks of a great year-ending climax.
 
The action, the villain, the writing, the direction, and the starships(!) all transcend what you would expect from an all-ages animated program. It’s an incredibly successful cliffhanger, leaving you wondering where the Prodigy story can possibly go from here.
 
No time to ease into things, we start the episode with Admiral Janeway in the Dauntless brig while the Protostar is surrounded by Federation ships. Admiral Jellico is back on the Dauntless viewscreen, he’s furious about the Protostar being in Federation space. It’s almost a comforting presence to have someone connected to the greater Trek universe here — even someone I love to hate, like Jellico.
 
It grounds the episode in the reality that they are close to “our” part of the universe, and really ups the danger quotient. It’s also great that he ends up being wrong, as he approves Asencia’s plan to disrupt the Protostar’s shields and board the ship.
 

The crew’s practicing in the holodeck has paid off as they perform like any good Starfleet crew — doing things like rerouting power to the shields and taking evasive maneuvers. Dal and Zero take advantage of the Protostar’s small size and weave around the bigger ships, avoiding fire and correcting course as necessary. It’s great to be at this point with these characters, and it feels like they really earned it over these last 18 episodes.

More than ever they seem like true Starfeet material — and it doesn’t seem so far fetched when Dal talks about them “laughing about it one day at Starfleet Academy.” Knowing about the Augment ban, however, his words are an effective punch to the gut as Rok wants to tell Dal that future isn’t possible, when Gwyn stops her: it’s not the right moment.

We don’t have to wait long for that shoe to drop, however. When their shields drop and Gwyn finds herself alone with Dal in the armory, the takes that moment to tell him about the Augment ban. Unfortunately, what could have just remained a sweet moment of compassion is ruined by having Dal misconstrue the situation and kiss Gwyn — uninvited — full on the lips.

Gwyn is surprised, and asks him what he’s doing; Dal immediately apologizes, but its still a real disappointment. Dal thought they were “having a moment,” which they were… just not a physical one.

Gwyn wanting to break the news to him herself alone is intimate and loving, and I can see why it might have stirred Dal’s feelings, but that is why you ask first. With Gwyn and Dal, Prodigy had a real opportunity to model positive consent in their first kiss.

I had been looking forward to a cute, awkward moment between the two when it finally happened. Instead, I had to use it as a teachable moment for my kids and remind them that you never kiss anyone without their permission. (That’s not something I thought would come up watching this, of all shows.)

On a positive note, we get a completely unexpected, touching moment while Janeway is in the brig. The Dauntless ensign guarding her simply lets her out, and her explanation why is a wonderful deep-cut reveal. The ensign is Brenari, and as a child was one of the refugees Janeway smuggled out of Devore space in “Counterpoint” — one of Janeway’s finest moments. The “Counterpoint” reference is welcome, yet surprising, and I was equal parts delighted at a favorite episode being referenced this way and taken aback by the seemingly randomness of it — which is completely the point.

One of Prodigy’s themes is that if you put good out into the world, than good might find you back when you most need it. We saw it last week when Janeway’s kindness inspired even The Diviner to help her and we see this theme again in a big way at the end of this episode. This seemingly random encounter actually ties the theme together nicely.

Meanwhile, the Vindicator has given up her Asencia persona, revealing herself in the Dauntless transporter room. She’s all business as she incapacitates two officers and gives an evil little grin as Drednok takes out the third. Jameela Jamil’s delicious performance lends an air of sinister finesse to the Vindicator, calling to mind performances of other classic Trek villains — Khan and Nero in particular— as larger than life characters with pure revenge on their minds.

The scenes on the Protostar really showcase what a fantastic villain the Vindicator is. Singularly focused on her mission, she locks the Diviner in with the Living Construct, and tries to take out Gwyn — her only remaining obstacle. The Vindicator is a perfect counterpart to Gwyn, and their fight is as fascinating visually as it is psychologically. Both fight with a version of Gwyn’s fretwork, with Gwyn’s youth and the Vindicator’s experience giving each one Vau N’Akat an advantage.

Once again, Prodigy takes full advantage of the idea of this unique item, as we see it morph into different shapes throughout the fight. At one point, Gwyn manages to land a blow, giving the Vindicator a long scar across one eye — adding a wonderfully gritty detail to the design of the character, hopefully to be seen again in a future season.

Eventually the Vindicator overpowers Gwyn, and uses her as a hostage to control the Diviner. He uses his mind to send the fretwork screaming towards the Vindicator’s face, and she nimbly catches it, sending it careening straight into his abdomen.

It’s the last minute act of a father trying to protect his daughter, and if I didn’t witness him abandon her to die on murder planet back in “Terror Firma,” I might even find it heartwarming. As it is, his death is not a mournful one for me, but one that might give Gwyn some comfort in her grief at least. Him dissipating into a fizz of blue energy was really unexpected, and leaves me wondering if he somehow imbued Gwyn with some of his power as it touched her.

Outside the bridge, Drednok is keeping the other members of the Protostar crew occupied in another exciting fight sequence. Drednok “bugs out” again with extra limbs like we saw back in “Lost and Found” — as far as killer robots go, it’s one really cool and threatening design. He incapacitates Jankom and Rok with a gravity mine, and Zero with some kind of energy disruptor. It’s very realistic that the crew is no match for the killer bot, but very Starfleet that they try anyway.

Murf, our cute little security officer comes closest, distracting Drednok from choking Dal with some crazy moves of his own before Drednok freezes him to the wall and cuffs Dal to the wall by his neck. They couldn’t have done a better job of making it seem hopeless for our crew — I almost wondered if time travel was going to be involved to walk it back.

But luckily, the Brikar has brains, and sets into motion a Rube Goldberg-esque sequence where Rok uses Jankom’s multi-mitt torch to melt the frosty Murf, Murf frees Zero from the energy disrupter, Zero frees Dal, and Dal knocks away the gravity mine with his restraint. It’s such a lovely moment of teamwork and togetherness for our crew.

They make it to the bridge… but not before the Vindicator deploys the Living Construct weapon against the Federation fleet, grinning manically as her plan comes to fruition. Time for one more spectacular villain moment: the crew sets her up with a classic “You’ll pay for this,” and her delivery of “Maybe. But not today!” is an all-time line reading. Drednok ups his transformer cred by turning into an escape pod.

The Vindicator doesn’t even turn around — she just nonchalantly steps back into it, grins again, and blasts straight out of the top of the Protostar, breaching the hull. What an exit. What a villain. (More, more, more of her, please!)

How this episode is only 20+ minutes long is baffling, because there’s somehow still time for one last moment of excitement and emotion as the universal translators break as part of the deployment of the Living Construct. It’s a lovely callback to the beginning of “Lost and Found” when no one on Tars Lamora could understand each other.

Dal and Janeway work together — it’s great to see — to come up with a plan of asking ships with non-Federation signatures to help. It’s Gwyn’s time to shine, as she can speak the languages. She gives an impassioned plea for assistance to a nearby Klingon captain.

My cold, cynical Grinch heart does not believe this would have worked, but it doesn’t matter – my kids watching people help each other is what matters. The whole over-arching theme of why Starfleet is important matters.

Doing your best to help people when you can, and them helping you when they can, is something I want to believe in and want my kids to believe in. Seeing all those different ships helping was pretty powerful imagery of that, especially when the Klingon Bird of Prey steps between the Dauntless and a phaser blast at the last second which took my breath away. A really heartfelt moment.

The relief and joy is short-lived, however, as more Starfleet ships come too, in response to the automatic distress signals being sent out by the infected ships. They will keep coming, until the entirety of Starfleet will eventually be infected. The word ‘annihilation’ is used, and it’s hard to see how Dal and the gang will get out of this one — and how Starfleet and the Federation will avoid total destruction.

Now that’s how you set up a season finale!

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• When Janeway is in the brig, she uses the phrase “Blink of an Eye,” which happens to be the title of one of the best episodes of Star Trek: Voyager.
• The Brenari ensign references Starfleet Order 104, Section C; this regulation for removing officers deemed medically unfit for command has been mentioned previously in “The Doomsday Machine,” “Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy,” and “Hatchery.”
• “The Slippery Dipsy-Doodle” may not work so well as the name for a starship flight maneuver, but it would be a great name for a Prodigy-themed beverage or ice cream sundae!
• The Protostar armory is stocked with multiple sizes of phaser rifles, along with the hand phasers introduced earlier this season.
• The massive transporter room aboard the Dauntless is houses a huge control station that seems like it would need two officers to properly manage.

• Both the Vau Nu’kat fretwork and Drednok technologies get great moments in this episode, and it’s such a terrific detail that both transforming technologies originate on the same planet.
• Language buffs are fed well, as we hear snippets of Klingon, Tellarite, Brikar, and Andorian languages.
• Klingon Captain Trij is played by Debra Wilson, the former MADtv star who lent her voice to marooned Starfleet captain Lisa Cusak in Deep Space Nine’s “The Sound of Her Voice.”
• Along with the Dauntless, the Starfleet armada surrounding the Protostar is made up of Centaur, Sovereign, Akira, and Defiant-class starships. Identifiable ships include the Akira-class USS Thunderchild (NCC-63549), the Centaur-class USS Centaur (NCC-42043), and the Sovereign-class USS Sovereign (NCC-73811), whose registry number comes from the Star Trek: Bridge Commander video game.

• A few starships duplicate the legible ship registries — there are at least two USS Sovereigns — likely due to animation production time constraints; digital models like the Sovereign design are missing the red impulse engine grilles in the back of its saucer section.
• Several alien vessels come to Starfleet’s aid, including multiple Klingon Birds of Prey, civilian-controlled Vulcan Suurak-class ring ships, a Gorn trading vessel, an old Petarian bulk freighter, a D’Kora-class Ferengi marauder and a Tellarite freighter.
• Of course we can’t ignore the appearance of the Defiant-class USS Defiant (NX-74205), the hero starship assigned to starbase Deep Space 9! Last seen in 1999’s “What You Leave Behind,” this is the first appearance of the starship Defiant in modern Trek, as the ship was not docked at DS9 when the Cerritos visited in “Hear All, Trust Nothing.”
   
  (Star Trek: Prodigy is set in 2384, which means the second Defiant has remained in service for at least nine years — “What You Leave Behind” takes place in 2375.)

“Supernova, Part 1” is emotional, exciting, and everything you could want from the start of a season finale. It also manages to drive home the very heart of the show: found family, belonging, and helping others, with enough good feelings to revel in for a week even though everyone is in danger still. That’s a problem for next week’s conclusion!

Star Trek: Prodigy will conclude its first season with “Supernova, Part 2” on Thursday, December 29 on Paramount+ in the United States, and on December 30 in Paramount+ international territories. Prodigy Season 2 is expected to air sometime in late 2023.