Oh, the layers of meaning and nuance on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 3 are truly impressive.
For an offering that could easily be written off as a buddy-romcom time travel side adventure, there is a plethora of character development for La’an and multiple on-ramps for future plotlines, including the intriguing potential of a La’an-Kirk romance.
Bringing the Temporal Wars into the mix is a ballsy move; as we all know, messing with the space-time continuum always leads to shenanigans.
The timing of La’an’s adventure is awfully on the nose, seeing as she’s still struggling with Una’s revealed identity as an Illyrian, a perceived betrayal in light of the name La’an carries.
Her sparring session with M’Benga underscores the emotional baggage she can’t unload, while her personal logs indicate her isolation in her role as Chief Security Officer.
Where Hemmer and Uhura had a lot of bonding time on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1, with Hemmer providing Cadet Uhura with guidance and the opportunity to find her direction, Pelia could be the catalyst for La’an’s emotional breakthrough this season.
With her extreme longevity and unique perspective on humanity’s development over the centuries, Pelia affords a particular wisdom unlike any La’an is ever likely to run across again.
Once you have lived through every natural disaster and economic calamity in human history without becoming a packrat, then you can judge me.
Pelia
Furthermore, she’s had to hide her identity for nearly all of her existence. With Una and La’an, she forms a type of triumvirate of identity and disclosure.
Una is Illyrian and hid it until she couldn’t. La’an has lived her entire life with the specter of her genocidal ancestor as public knowledge. Pelia has concealed her identity for much longer than either officer has been alive, but, in her case, disclosure carries no punitive consequence.
I love that Pelia is both a brilliant engineer and a pragmatic hoarder. I’d defend her liberation of Louvre artwork as an extreme devotion to souvenir collecting. Just my hot take, but don’t bother fighting me on it.
Needless to say, Carol Kane is a fantastic addition to the crew, interested in the work but, even more so, interested in the people.
Well, both having brain-melting secrets is I guess a good enough reason to help someone.
Pelia
Pelia’s natural curiosity and willingness to lean in when the call to adventure comes is probably why she seeks out the new and novel with such enthusiasm. It’s an elegant balance to La’an’s analytical and cautious approach.
Kirk: You’re … not an engineer.
Pelia: I work retail. Does this look like an engineer’s engineering place? I haven’t taken a Math class since Pythagoras made the crap up!
It’s amusing that La’an’s reluctance to trust Sera because of her conspiracy-theorist roots doesn’t extend to Pelia despite the Lanthanite’s even less reliable resources.
However, as with most organized packrats, Pelia has what they need when needed. And La’an is able to track her down because of a seemingly innocuous comment about Vermont when she’s searching Pelia’s belongings on the Enterprise. And DuckDuckGo.
Come to think of it, the shape of the narrative is a thing of beauty. Everything relevant to La’an’s mission is seeded into the opening scenes.
It is a well-known fact that people love it when you bring them bad news…. And quite frankly, who doesn’t find having their belongings searched endearing?
La’an
Mind you, I don’t think anyone expected Toronto, Canada, to play such a large part in Star Trek history.
And I’m skeptical that a bridge across Lake Ontario will ever be necessary. I’d really like to know where it goes to. Rochester? Oswego? Besides the symbolism, what would be the point?
A couple more semantical questions: How much money did Kirk win at chess that they could afford that hotel room, pay for the busses to get to Vermont, AND have enough to bribe a border guard? Also, they had to get back to Toronto using the same route, and Canadian Border Services are way bigger sticks in the mud, so how’d they manage that?
Kirk: Seems to be New York City. Mid 21st Century.
La’an: What? It’s Toronto. The biggest city in what used to be called Canada? Y’know, maple leaves, politeness, poutine… Take it you’ve never been.
Space-born Kirk is now the second alternate Kirk we’ve seen Paul Wesley portray, the first being on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 10.
His initial response to La’an’s explanation for her presence on his ship seems reasonable.
Kirk: So you’re telling me that there’s an alternate timeline where I’m not the captain of this ship.
La’an: All I know is that ten minutes ago, I was on my ship with my captain and now I’m here.
Kirk: And everything’s changed.
La’an: Yes.
Kirk: Our scientists have theorized that such a thing could be possible. A far simpler explanation is you’ve lost your mind.
Time travel shenanigans abound. They not only shoplift their clothes and steal a car, they leave their clothes from the future (but presumably not their com badges?) in a trash bin. They illegally cross an international border TWICE and shark many chess players. And then, there’s Kirk’s dead body left lying in the lobby of the Noonien Singh Institute for Cultural Advancement.
All this happens before the fork in the timeline, so it’s now history. Unless, of course, Temporal agents go around collecting the clothes and retconning everyone La’an and Kirk interact with. And maybe dematerializing Kirk’s corpse.
La’an: In my timeline, humanity has spread across dozens of worlds. We’re a part of a federation of species.
Kirk: You don’t need anyone else’s help to survive.
La’an: And just surviving is good enough for you?
Kirk: Oh, and I suppose you come from some sort of a utopia?
La’an: My Earth still has sunsets.
It’s curious that Agent Ymalay remembers to take back the Temporal Agency equipment but doesn’t feel the need to take La’an’s watch or shoplifted clothes.
That final focus on the watch solidly foreshadows that the timey-wimey stuff isn’t gone for good.
La’an: Never seen a revolving door before?
Kirk: I’m from space.
The title, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” refers to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and a soliloquy that Q infamously appropriates on Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 Episode 9, when he and Picard debate the futility of the human existence.
In La’an’s case, it seems more fitting to recall that “all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death” as it accurately describes Sera’s demise. Also, would space-born Kirk then be the poor player with his hour upon the stage, to be heard no more?
La’an’s time with space-born Kirk reminds me of Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Episode 2 when Seven wakes up and discovers she is Annika, having never been assimilated.
Spending time with someone who has no idea who Khan Noonien Singh is lifts the weight off La’an, just as Seven finds freedom in life without the stigma of being an X-B.
People are usually… difficult for me. There’s always been a barrier and it can get lonely.
La’an
Perhaps, now that La’an’s experienced that spiritual liberty, she’ll remember how it felt and look for a way to free herself again back in her own timeline.
My real name is La’an Noonien Singh. My ancestor is Khan Noonien Singh and his legacy is genocide, torture, and ME.
La’an
Or maybe, having met Khan as a young child and choosing to let him live, she is more accepting of the idea that his choices do not mean that she’ll make the same ones or that she must continue to pay penance for his sins.
Sera: Time is like a black box. It’s too complicated to leave to intuition, so we built computers that will tell us the results of certain changes.
La’an: And this was your answer?
Sera: Khan becomes a brutal tyrant. Maybe humanity needs the dark age that he brings in to usher in their Age of Enlightenment. Or maybe it’s just random. Doesn’t really matter though. See, if I kill him, the Federation never forms and the Romulans lose their greatest adversary.
La’an is confident in her skills, ability, and knowledge as a Starfleet officer, but under that veneer of polish and protocol, her insecurities as a person are immense.
Will the bud of romance that sprouted between space-born Kirk and her affect how she and the Earth-born Kirk get to know each other? And, really, do we want it to?
Now that she’s in the know about Temporal agents, will she be tapped again when needs must? How will that watch play into the next mission?
La’an: I’ve been carrying something around for a long time, something in my heritage.
Kirk: You come from a long line of ax murderers?
La’an: Oh, no. We never use axes.
The possibilities are vast, and because our tomorrows are not written yet, La’an could use her new experiences to take any number of paths.
Will it make her wiser? Softer? More understanding? Or will she seal herself off even more than before?
Hit our comments with your best guesses and biggest takeaways!
Diana Keng is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond ’til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on Twitter.
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