It's kind of surprising that we've already reached the season finale. It feels like the season just started a couple of week's ago, but here we go.
Batel, Pike's sort-of (maybe?) girlfriend, appears in this episode for the first time since the beginning of the season. I wasn't expecting to see her again, but she actually plays a somewhat pivotal role at the end when she comes to arrest Una. I wonder if that means she'll be around more in season two, since I'm guessing that Una's arrest is going to be dealt with more then.
Towards the beginning of the episode, Pike meets a kid who will one day be one of the two cadets who doesn't survive in the "incident." The understandably distresses him, and he tries to write a letter to the kid before he gets a visit from his future self warning him against doing it.
As soon as I realized that this episode was going to deal with time travel, I was wary. While I don't automatically hate time travel stories, I often don't like them because they can be so difficult to wrap your mind around, especially when it comes to changing the past or future like this one was. Overall, though, I didn't mind this episode. The story wasn't hard to follow despite the changes that had been made.
Interestingly, the crew of the Enterprise is mostly the same despite seven years having past. The only noticeable differences are that Una is gone (for obvious reasons) and La'an is on a different ship. It was nice to get a glimpse of La'an so soon after she left the Enterprise, but I'm sad that this is a possible sign that she doesn't come back.
It turns out that in this version of the universe La'an is assigned to a ship captained by Kirk. I knew he was going to show up eventually because there was casting news, but I kind of forgot about it before this episode to be honest. It's also interesting that in this version of the future Samuel Kirk is still on the Enterprise too.
The crew of the Enterprise learn that Romulans look like Vulcans for the first time in this episode. This isn't new information to the audience, even me who has limited knowledge about the Star Trek Universe. I wasn't fully aware of when the Federation learns about the common heritage between them, so I was actually surprised about that plot twist for different reasons.
The events of the episode lead to a war between the Romulans and the Federation, which is said to have lead to countless deaths. Spock, it turns out, is one of those deaths, and it's enough to convince Pike not to change his fate. I wonder if this episode is an attempt to make Pike's eventual fate less of a focus in upcoming seasons. I don't think it's realistic for him to stop worrying about it at all, but I wonder if it won't be brought up in the story like it has been throughout this season because it will now be considered "dealt with."
One thing that probably will be a focus of next season is Una's arrest for lying about being Illyrian. I thought it was curious when future Spock said that she'd been in prisoner for nearly seven years, since that would mean she was arrested around the "present" of the show. Still, I really wasn't expecting it in this episode. I thought it might be next season or maybe even two seasons from now.
I'm interested in where this is going to go, but I'm worried that it means Una will eventually go to prison. I know nothing that happened in the timeline that Pike saw is set in stone for the show, but this seems like something that would play out in a similar way considering that it's before the incident.
Either way, I'm curious to see what happens next when we finally get season two.
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