Discovery Took the Best Episode of Its Season and Gave Us a Much Less Interesting Version of It

Since it aired a few weeks ago, I keep touching on what still remains the standout episode of Discovery’s final season so far: “Face the Strange,” an incredible hour of television that used a format the series excels at to reflect on how far its central character and the series itself has come. This week, the show kind of does that idea again… it’s just nowhere near as actually good at it.

That’s not to say there isn’t some enjoyable stuff in “Labyrinths,” which chases up last week’s simmering tension with the Breen in the hunt for the final Progenitor clue into a full on shoot out aboard and around the secret interstellar library housing the ancient knowledge of millions of species. There’s actually quite a bit!

The library setting itself is a fun one, especially anchored in a delightful guest performance by Elena Juatco as Hy’Rell, a remarkably chipper librarian who slides effortlessly into a time-honored Star Trek guest role slot of “little alien sicko” as she leads Michael Burnham toward the clue. When the time eventually comes for the episode to turn into a full on fight with the Breen, the action is thick and fast and effectively pays off on a lot of the tension and threat established last week—mostly in that, boy howdy do our heroes not want to mess with the Breen—while also delivering a brief, but compelling twist in the villain’s subplot as Moll and the rest of the Breen crew begin to realize how completely unhinged Primarch Rhun has become in his quest for power over the Imperium. The problem is that, Hy’Rell aside, these exciting developments come entirely in the last 15 minutes of “Labyrinths.” Most of the 40 before that involve a clue “puzzle” that requires a lot of re-treading ground for Burnham that’s just done in a far less interesting way than this season already has.

Upon locating the rare Betazoid text she was hunting in the library’s archives, Michael opens it up to discover a metallic card that, upon her activation, basically sends her into a coma in the real world, while whisking her subconscious away into a psionic replica of the library and its myriad hallways. There, guided by a distinctly unhelpful representation of Book, she has to figure out what test she’s facing that will deem her worthy of locating the final clue. And here’s the problem that this season of Discovery has had more than a few times so far: a season about solving clues on a treasure hunt is only interesting if the puzzles themselves don’t involve our characters needing to act like they’re dumb. Writing a good puzzle then, is incredibly hard, and the show… does not really do that here.

Michael, almost as annoyed as the audience inevitability comes to be, is left to spend the bulk of “Labyrinths” wandering between bookshelves as she wonders out loud what’s going on, if she’s figured out what the test is, and then the psionic Book-alike coquettishly going “maaaaaybe” before revealing that she has, in fact, not figured it out yet. Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala do their best here—Martin-Green certainly conveys a great deal of frustration at not figuring out the puzzle, given the tension and stakes around her, that resonates with the audience, and Ajala has a good deal of fun breaking out of Book’s usual characterization to deliver this mind-facsimile of him with a funny, effectively annoying grace. But because the scenario largely leaves Michael trapped on her own trying to figure out what she’s even meant to be doing, there’s no one for her to really bounce off of: the Not-Book is there to be a frustrating obstacle rather than a sounding board as part of the test, so conveying Michael working through the logic of it all becomes rather moot.

Eventually, just in time, she snaps—and realizes the test is less of a puzzle, and more about her own character. As relentlessly self-critical as she is, she begins to rail at the Not-Book about her fears and doubts, her need to seek validation for a role as a leader that she somehow still views as precarious, despite earning it many times over, or ability to push people away to save the disappointment and fear that she might have failed them (Actual Book in particular). As things look increasingly dire for her inside her mind and out as the Breen launch their assault on the library, it’s revealed that this indeed was the test, not a labyrinth to escape or a puzzle to decode, but a judgment of her character, to seek assurance that she can be trusted to do the right thing with the great power that she seeks.

All this would be good if that wasn’t also almost exactly what “Face the Strange” was about a few weeks ago, and done much more effectively. The time-loop structure of the episode was better paced and a stronger format for a puzzle for our heroes to solve, and in giving her Commander Rayner as a support character to bounce off—and eventually literally having to face her former self from Discovery’s earliest days—Michael had actual characters to work things through and learn things about herself, and them, along the way. All Michael learns here is that she has her heart in the right place, but needs to face her fear of disappointing those around her by realizing that those people are around her because they care about and respect her and the journey she’s gone on over the last five seasons. This is the lesson she’d already learned in “Face the Strange”— it’s just that this time, she was rewarded with the knowledge of how to get the last clue. And even then, it’s still much less satisfying because, beyond being a journey we’ve already seen her take on this season, the route to get there was just nowhere near as engaging. There’s a difference between reinforcing a character beat and rehashing it, and “Labyrinths” definitely leans towards the latter, unfortunately.

Thankfully though, as we said, the puzzle arc of the episode wraps up right as we get into the action with the Breen—and there’s an interesting mirror at least between Michael and Primarch Rhun, who we see eventually pay the ultimate price for not realizing how the promise of the Progenitor tech’s power has made him blind to his own connections and failings. As he becomes increasingly more bullish and violent, first assaulting the peaceful library and then attempting to renege on a Breen honor-oath to Michael to prevent further harm in exchange for the clue materials, we get to see Moll slowly convince Rhun’s men that things are going sideways. When the time comes that Rhun takes a step too far, she’s able to lead a brief but effective uprising to depose Rhun and take his place, operating on the belief that she can use the Progenitor tech to restore L’ak to life and take her place as the legitimate wife of the heir to the Breen throne.

It sets the stage for Discovery’s final showdown by giving us a much more personal antagonist than Rhun—who served his purpose over the last few episodes well enough anyway—and by bringing it back to two figures driven by a need to connect and find strength in love in Moll and Michael. It’s a shame the setup to get there was a bit of a dud, but at least that’s out of the way now. As we head into Discovery’s last two episodes, we can put the puzzles aside and get to the heart of what the show wants to end its journey saying.

Star Trek: Discovery is available to stream now on Paramount+.

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