If there is any doubt that Star Trek: Discovery is improving with each episode, is finding a way to get better and better, then “Light And Shadows” punches that doubt right in the emperor’s gut. Episode 7 of this second season hits all the right marks and balances, proving that this show has a future and may yet have an interesting story to tell. And, finally, we get to meet Spock — well, sort of.

Split into a classic A story / B story structure, “Light And Shadows” spends a little bit of quality time with all of our major characters. There is great balance on pacing, on camera work and cinematography. It contains fantastic visual effects (did you see the planet Vulcan?!). All around, this episode could be a contender for the best outing of Season 2 so far. And we even opened the episode with a personal log — icing on the cake.

Speaking of that quality time with characters, Captain Pike and AshVoq have themselves a little ego fight, stare death in its squid-like robot face together, and then make up like men of the 23rd century should. Ash may have even changed Pike’s mind about the intentions of the Red Angel. Lovely to see men behave like men. Captain Pike is good like that.

AshVoq and Captain Pike pilot their shuttle over rocky masculinity.

We also get to see some heart connected to other characters as well. Pike has a soft spot for Ensign Tilly. He’s amused by her attempts (and failures) to control her outbursts and even joins her in acknowledging that everything sounds cooler with “time” in front of it. And we see that Tilly and Commander Stamets work really well as a team, part of a trend this season. It looks like a competition is brewing between them to see who can best render complicated technobabble into plain English translations.

We are shown that the former emperor Georgiou might have a heart. We also get to see the outlines of a Captain Saru, commanding post-ganglia, and it really works. The Kelpien is coming into his own power and will clearly lead well when he gets his own ship.

We also check in on our favorite mostly-functional human-Vulcan family. The flashbacks with Michael Burnham and Spock are touching. And it is clear that Sarek makes a pretty iffy dad, maybe even a bad one, at least from a human perspective. In his scenes with his wife and children, we see how the Vulcan over-reliance on logic has some serious shortcomings. Did you see how fast Sarek was willing to turn Spock over to the authorities? It was the logical move, sure, but almost a heartless one. And yet: that does remind us of someone. Perhaps a certain mutinous Commander Burnham from “The Vulcan Hello”? The Human apple didn’t fall far from the Vulcan tree.

Amanda and Sarek’s home on Vulcan, during a rare rainstorm.

Other pieces of the characters’ backstories are effectively played as well. For example, Michael Burnham figures out that she and Spock share Through The Looking Glass, a book about Alice’s adventures in Wonderland that their mother Amanda read to each of them separately when they were children. That connection allows her to communicate with Spock through his scrambled speech, even if only a little. Discovery’s experience with Alice goes back to Season 1, in which the themes of that book are interwoven.

And AshVoq, the combined version of human Ash Tyler and Klingon Voq, spits out some Klingon when he is attacked by the squid probe. Even in the future, people default to their native tongues in times of emotional distress. AshVoq also takes to beating the squid probe tentacle with a wrench as the probe engages with the shuttlecraft computer. Totally a Klingon move.

Spock, trying to regain himself in the family crypt on Vulcan.

Another lovely touch on display in this episode is how the larger bridge crew is being included more and more. This time, it looks like Ariam, the quasi-android character, might be up for a prime spotlight as something like a computer virus has been deposited in her from the squid probe. If Ariam is about to be affected by a squid probe from the future, does that mean that the Discovery’s main computer might also be affected in the same way? Is that how we get the intelligent ship’s computer we saw in the “Calypso” Short Trek? Or, going in a different direction and reaching much further…maybe that squid probe is proto-Borg?

We can see clearly now that the four Short Treks CBS All Access put out are connected to Season 2. The question is how. And since the Red Angel appears to be a time-traveling being, then connections to the events of “Calypso” are very much on the table. Maybe the time period featured in “Calypso” is a timeline the Red Angel is working to prevent?

Squid probe Quo — a Latin term for when you send out a probe and it comes back from the future to kill you.

Since we’ve brought up the squid probe, let’s unpack that for a moment. Discovery sent out a probe to take readings on the time rift, which opened up possibly in connection to the Red Angel appearance in the previous episode. In “Light and Shadows,” that probe vanishes, prompting Captain Pike and AshVoq to take a shuttle to find out why. The probe then comes back from 500 years in the future, upgraded with squid-like tentacles and a malicious intent (a move we’d like to call “Squid Probe Quo” — a Latin term for when you send out a probe and it comes back from the future to kill you). The probe smashes its way into the shuttlecraft computer and begins downloading files.

It seems likely that the squid probe is interested in getting intelligence on the Red Angel. From this, we can further speculate that the probe is working against the Red Angel. And that complicates the picture a bit. Now, a 23rd century Starfleet and a 27th century entity or group is trying to learn all about the Red Angel’s agenda. Do tell, Red Angel, do tell.

Captain Pike watches a time echo of himself and AshVoq on the bridge.

We don’t know a lot about the 27th century in Star Trek, but there are some references to it in other sources of canon. From a TNG episode called “Captain’s Holiday,” one connection rises above the others. In that episode, Kal Dano, the inventor of the Tox Uthat, a weapon powerful enough to destroy a star, transported that weapon back in time to the 22nd century. He took it to the planet Risa in order to hide it. In the 24th century it was found and destroyed by Captain Jean-luc Picard, mostly to keep it out of the hands of two Vorgons. It is also worth noting that Kal Dano, the inventor, might also have been the corpse seated in a time travel ship found by the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 in the 22nd century (ENT “Future Tense”), an assertion that Star Trek Online has added to its story. It is one hell of a long shot, but might there be a chance that the Red Angel is connected to the Tox Uthat weapon of “Captain’s Holiday”? And that this might be a way to launch the Picard series, which is reportedly connected to Jean-luc’s love of archaeology? Yea, we know…but crazier things have happened in Star Trek. And it would be a total Marvel Universe move to connect all these future Star Trek series together like this.

The Tox Uthat artifact (TNG “Captain’s Holiday”) on the left & a dead pilot of a time travel ship which could be Kal Dano (ENT “Future tense”).

Back to “Light And Shadows” — our knowledge of the Red Angel has increased in that we’ve learned it might have an antagonist in whatever entity or being sent the squid probe back. But we still don’t know the identity or the agenda of the Red Angel. Is it the “Future Guy” from Enterprise’s Temporal Cold War storyline (which means it is probably Captain Archer — a long standing fan theory)? Is it Captain Pike reaching back from the past using regret and Talosian technology in order to change the timeline so he doesn’t wind up in a wheelchair?

Perhaps it is a future Michael Burnham, trying to correct the timeline so her and Spock could have a relationship — another long shot, we agree. But, the Red Angel has intimate details about Sarek’s family, about Discovery’s crew and about the Kelpien people. Michael Burnham would know those details. So would Captain Pike.

The USS Discovery faces down the time rift in orbit above Kaminar.

One thing seems to be an increasing possibility: someone is either altering or repairing the timeline around Spock and Michael Burnham. If this is true, then the original timeline, the TOS timeline, might have had Burnham running away from Sarek and Amanda’s home as a child, never to return. Then, in Discovery’s version, the Red Angel appeared, altering the timeline and guiding Spock and family to find Burnham. Perhaps, in the original timeline, Burnham was successful and Spock never got to know her (which is why Spock never mentions her in The Original Series). And now that the Red Angel has interfered, perhaps Burnham’s destiny has been changed so that she grows up with Spock. This would affect everything downstream — the Spore Drive, the Klingon war, the fate of the USS Glenn, the Mirror Universe encounter, etc… This is what we are calling the Curran-Ketwolski Theory and it might have some legs. You can find out more details on this possibility here in this video on the Ketwolski YouTube channel.

Lt. Commander Paul Stamets saves the day against the Squid probe.

No doubt writers and showrunners have us exactly where they want us — obsessing over the agenda and identity of the Red Angel. And no doubt that the next episode, “If Memory Serves”, will feed us further tantalizing details. We will be here to help unpack those details. For example, one detail seems to be that we get to hang out with some Talosians?! On Talos IV?! After 52 years?! Cannot wait to see that how that connects with everything.

Until then, we will leave you with our favorite quote from “Light And Shadows,” from Captain Pike: “Always, Mister Tyler. We are always in a fight for the future.”

Written by Kyle Sullivan & Katie Boyer.

www.trekspertise.com

Talosians are slated to make an appearance after 52 years of Star Trek. Ought to be interesting.

Postscript — What did that time rift and time tsunami do to the planet Kaminar? Are the Kelpiens OK? Did their planet experience a time distortion? Are multiple time period echoes happening all over the planet?