Star Trek: Discovery season 2, episode 3 recap: Point of Light

There is dissent among the Klingons in the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery. But help is at hand from an unlikely ally.

"What saved you; hurt your brother. – Amanda Grayson"

The third episode of Star Trek: Discovery begins with Michael Burnham struggling with her inability to understand the Red Signals and feeling she has failed to reconnect with her brother, Spock.

But her thoughts are interrupted by the ship’s half-marathon. Among the competitors is Sylvia Tilly, who is still seeing her dead schoolmate May. Despite the hallucination, Tilly wins the race. But why is Tilly seeing May at all?

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On the Discovery bridge, the ship is contacted by a diplomatic vessel – Sarek’s ship. But it isn’t the Ambassador who beams aboard – Burnham and Spock’s mother Amanda has come for help.

Amanda went to Starbase-5 to meet Spock, but when she wasn’t provided any information about him, she did the only logical thing – she stole his medical file. Amanda gives the encrypted file to Burnham, who takes it to Captain Christopher Pike.

Pike instead reaches out to the Starbase to find out about Spock and receives shocking news. It turns out Spock is wanted for murder for killing three doctors on the base! Amanda doesn’t believe it, neither do Burnham or Pike. Seems like a good enough reason to authorize breaking into that file.

According to Spock’s files, he is diagnosed with having ‘extreme empathy deficits’. Could this have led him to attack the doctors? Amanda believes he was diagnosed with psychopathy, fueled by the lack of love from his parents – Amanda wasn’t permitted to show affection towards Spock, and instead showered Burnham with all the love she had. Brother and sister thus had very different upbringings.

The files also show Spock’s drawings of the Red Angel. According to Amanda, he started drawing them as a boy. Spock first saw the red angel the day that Burnham ran away from home. He was adamant the angel had told him where to find Burnham.

Amanda believes the vision changed him forever, but Burnham tells her mother about seeing the red angel in the season two premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, and how she felt no malicious intent from it.  The reason Spock changed wasn’t because of the red angel – it was because of Burnham.

Something was after her, and since Spock was her shadow, she hurt him to protect him. Years later, their relationship is practically irreparable. Furious, Amanda leaves to find her son.

On the Klingon world, Chancellor L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) and her Torchbearer Ash Tyler/ Voq (Shazad Latif) are proposing the creation of a formidable ship – one that will bear a unified Klingon symbol. But there are dissidents among the Klingons who take umbrage to Tyler’s high position among their people.

But Tyler’s loyalty to L’Rell gives him strength; when KOL-Sha (father of Kol, the Klingon leader who died in season one of Star Trek: Discovery) opposes L’Rell, Tyler follows L’Rell’s command and wipes the war paint off KOL-Sha.

But, Tyler’s struggle with his place in the Klingon kingdom goes beyond strength. His Voq personality wants to be accepted as a Klingon, and L’Rell sees this as an opportunity to rekindle their past romance. That is not what Tyler meant, however. His only association with L’Rell’s brand of intimacy feels like a violation to him.

Tyler later contacts Burnham, informing her that there could be an insurgency on the horizon from the Klingons. Burnham agrees to tell Starfleet immediately and then compliments him on his beard. They struggle to say goodbye, their feelings for each other still bubbling at the surface.

Following the call, Tyler finds someone snooping in his chamber – L’Rell’s uncle. He demands the truth and finds out L’Rell had a son with Voq. This will complicate matters between them.

L’Rell explains that she found out about the child just as Voq was being transformed. He was placed in a stasis chamber, which is why he isn’t even a toddler yet. She doesn’t seem to have much of a connection with her son, but Tyler does.

He saw the pale skin on the infant and recalled Voq’s life as an outcast due to his skin tone – it’s how Tyler feels now because of his human form. Following this outpouring of love, Tyler vows to devote himself to his son, and to L’Rell.

But their new union is interrupted by KOL-Sha. Turns out, the warpaint that Tyler had rubbed off was a tracker and a bug. Now, KOL-Sha has killed L’Rell’s uncle and kidnapped her son. To get him back, and to ensure the rest of the Klingons don’t find out that Tyler was communicating with Starfleet, KOL-Sha wants L’Rell to abdicate her position as chancellor for him.

Of course, L’Rell and Tyler are not willing to give up without a fight. They battle KOL-Sha’s people and easily defeat them. But this Klingon villain has another ace up his sleeve – KOL-Sha paralyzes the two of them and signs the transfer with L’Rell’s thumb. Just as he is about to gloat, however, a mysterious figure appears and kills him.

Who is this unlikely saviour? Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) – Starfleet Security Consultant! Georgiou speaks to L’Rell in private about how to best avoid future civil war among the Klingons. For L’Rell to be taken seriously in the misogynistic Klingon society she has to get rid of Tyler, and her son.

L’Rell does exactly that – she presents to the Klingon council the severed heads of her partner and her child, declaring Tyler as the traitor who killed her son and KOL-Sha. She relinquishes the mantle of Chancellor, now taking on the more ‘powerful’ title of Mother.

All of this is an act, of course. Philippa works with Section 31 (she owns a cool black badge too) and they have the technology to make any decapitation convincing. A heart-broken Tyler leaves his son at a monastery as per L’Rell’s wish, and gets ready to embrace a new life with Section 31. Philippa’s recruiting style may need some work, but as she tells her colleague Leland (Alan Van Sprang), ‘he’s in’.

Back on Discovery, May interrogates Tilly during a training exercise about their Captain. She was expecting someone shorter, whiter and blonde – that’s not Pike. With May’s constant badgering, Tilly is no longer able to hold it together. She unleashes a barrage of insults at May, but it looks like she’s yelling at Pike instead. Oops. Distraught, Tilly announces her resignation and leaves the Bridge.

Tilly turns to the only person she can – Burnham. May continues to harangue her, but Tilly powers through it to tell Burnham that ever since she was hit with the Dark Matter energy, May has appeared. But May doesn’t know simple things like what tears are. How can that be? It’s obvious that May is not a figment of Tilly’s imagination – she must be a creation of the Dark Matter asteroid reacting with the spores.

It turns out that May’s ‘Captain’ is Paul Stamets. She is actually a parasite from the Spores that infected Discovery in the Mirror Universe. While Stamets is able to remove her from Tilly, it’s a painful procedure that causes Tilly to collapse. The entity floats away before being trapped in a bubble. Is this the end of May, or the start of something worse?