Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Recap: Did La’an and Kirk Alter an Infamous Villain’s Future?
This week’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds asked a provocative question: What would you do if you had the opportunity to go back in time and kill a mass murderer before they grew up to commit such atrocities?
After a gravely wounded stranger appeared aboard the Enterprise, urging La’an to stop an attack before it was too late, the security chief found herself stuck in Toronto in the past, and in an alternate timeline with a version of Captain Kirk who was born in space aboard the U.S.S. Iowa rather than on Earth. (Fun fact: In the 2009 film Star Trek, Kirk — played by Chris Pine — was born on the U.S.S. Kelvin.)
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Kirk and La’an were stranded in the past with only the clothes on their backs, and Kirk knew just what to do. Gambling via chess games with strangers, he won enough money for hot dogs and a nice hotel room for the night. And yes, he slept on the couch while La’an took the bed. The future Enterprise captain was a gentleman, after all.
A massive bridge explosion the next morning provided the first clue for this mystery mission. The technology used in the terrorist attack was far too advanced for the time, and they knew well enough to track where the debris was being taken for more answers. But they needed wheels, so Kirk carjacked a guy using the Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Cue a car chase in the flashy red Dodge Charger, and the pair nearly getting arrested before an activist named Sera intervened.
Sera believed in aliens, which made her an outcast in this timeline since otherworldly beings were considered science fiction. However, she was strikingly close to the truth. Kirk recognized a UFO in her photos as a Romulan ship, and remembered that the Romulans staged their first act of war with a cold fusion reactor explosion.
With help from Pelia, who was confused about why La’an knew her (given that they’d never met in this timeline), La’an and Kirk built a cold fusion detector out of an old watch. This led them to the Noonien-Singh Institute, and La’an realized her family was somehow involved.
As it turned out, Sera led them here to use La’an’s DNA marker to get her inside, where she planned to kill Khan. Sera was a Romulan in disguise, trapped in the past for 30 years with the hope of killing the future mass murderer. Following an algorithm, she looked to set off a chain of events — including the prevention of the Federation ever being formed.
Kirk, recognizing the tight security in place, dared Sera to shoot him (which would trigger the alarms). She called his bluff and fired anyway, and the Enterprise captain bled out. In his last breath, he asked La’an to say hi to his brother Sam.
Forced to change her plans, Sera used La’an to get inside, stopping right outside of Khan’s door. And when she tried to convince La’an to help her open it, La’an revealed her connection to the future homicidal maniac. Sera in turn laid out a convincing argument: With Khan’s death (and because La’an held a device that protected her from any changes to the timeline), the Starfleet officer could be free of her criminal ancestor and live whatever life she wanted.
But that meant killing a child, something La’an was unwilling to do. Instead, she killed Sera and then sat down with a young Khan. When the boy asked if she was there to take him away, she told him, “You are right where you need to be.”
With that, La’an completed her mission — which was to stop Sera from murdering her ancestor — and was sent back aboard the Enterprise in her correct timeline. Agent Ymalay from the Department of Temporal Investigations (a future division in the Federation tasked with repairing damage to the timeline) thanked La’an for filling in for her dead colleague, and warned that telling anyone about what transpired would undo everything.
Overwhelmed by the experience yet unable to talk about it, La’an called Kirk under the guise of checking Sam’s security file. In true Kirk fashion, he invited her for drinks the next time they were on starbase together to share embarrassing stories about his brother.
When they hung up, she sobbed. The security head had no proof of her journey with Kirk, except for the cold fusion reactor detector they built together.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Are you now ‘shipping La’an and Kirk? Sound off below!
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