This episode starts with a narration about how it's a holiday to honor Starfleet officers who have died. I wonder if the episode was purposefully timed to air close to Memorial Day in the US because it kind of feels like it, but the holiday also provides a reason to hint at La'an's past, which ends up being relevant throughout the episode.
At the beginning of the episode, Una encourages La'an to talk to a doctor because it's clear she's not processing her grief well, but La'an refuses and says she's not broken. I appreciate that Strange New Worlds seems to be dealing with mental health just like Discovery has, and I actually like the way that it's handled in this episode better than I do many of the times it was brought up in Discovery.
I was curious of the mention of La'an's mental health was going to be mentioned and then not brought up again for quite a while, but it actually ended up being relevant to the entire episode as they encounter the Gorn.
The Gorn conceal themselves, and La'an only figures out they're there right before they attack. A few people are killed, and Una gets some deep wounds. Because of problems on the ship, she has to get stitches, which leads to a comment about "archaeological medicine" that was amusing. (Even living in a time where stitches are common and as someone who's had them before, stitches feel bizarre to me, so I can understand how especially weird they would sound in the future.)
While La'an's backstory gets developed more than anyone else's in this episode, we get quite a bit of character development or backstory for a lot of people. One of the people we learn the most about is Hemmer. Him and Uhura get trapped, and his hands are damaged, which forces him to rely on Uhura. It's mentioned that he's a pacifist, which I don't think came up in earlier episodes. Uhura mentions this not aligning with Starfleet, and he talks about pacifism being active. I'm curious to see how this comes up in the future and how it might influence later episodes.
The whole subplot also allows Uhura to help save the day, so her confidence is increasing even more. At this point, I think she may be the crew member whose story I'm most interested in seeing progress as she grows and becomes more comfortable in her role.
Unsurprisingly, the Enterprise manages to destroy the Gorn after a few wrong turns, and Pike makes a comment about them being ready if the Gorn appear again. Which means I kind of expect them to appear again. If they do, maybe we'll get to see their faces next time, since we never actually see any of them in this episode.
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode especially for the character development it provided.
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