With “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry,” Discovery officially wins the prize of most flamboyant Star Trek episode title, unseating previous contenders “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,” “Looking for Par’mach in All the Wrong Places,” and “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.” Otherwise, though, “Butcher’s Knife” is an average episode, which sees the series settling into a rhythm for the first time. Now that we’re finally through with the introductions, we can watch the characters bounce off each other and solve problems. Decent, if not exactly gripping.
Tardigrade, O Tardigrade
The episode’s nuts-and-bolts plot revolves around the creature discovered last week menacing the Glenn, which Lorca had beamed over to his private lab. Lorca’s lab had the feel of a sinister continuing mystery, but “Butcher’s Knife” dispels that mystery almost immediately when Lorca recruits Burnham to study the creature, explaining that the lab is for advanced weapons development. Burnham discovers that the creature is not naturally hostile, and that it resembles a tardigrade, a (real-life) organism known for its ability to survive in almost any environment. The investigation process is depicted with the geeky, dense technical dialogue that Star Trek is famous for. If nothing else, it demonstrates this series’ commitment to grounding its world in science, more so than the reboot movies. Eventually, Burnham and Stamets discover that the tardigrade interacts with Stamets’ spores in a way that helps the ship navigate, thus unlocking the secrets of spore travel.
The “hostile beast that turns out to be lonely and misunderstood” is an old Star Trek trope, harkening back all the way to the Original Series’ “Devil in the Dark.” While it’s well-depicted, I wasn’t all that surprised or engaged by this storyline. And despite the reams of technical dialogue, it leaves basic questions unanswered, which is a problem I’m having more and more with this series. So the tardigrade was just hanging around on the Glenn? Where did it come from? We know that Stamets’ spores are genetically engineered, so how is the tardigrade able to communicate with them? Is it engineered too, or just a random creature that conveniently appears? The way the plot keeps moving forward, I’m pretty sure we’ll never get answers to these questions, which is frustrating. It’s sloppy writing. It’s also pretty clear where this is going; ethical doubts will emerge about essentially enslaving this creature to power the Discovery.
Character Roundup
On a character level, though, the episode works. The first three episodes were tightly focused on Burnham’s journey, and now, “Butcher’s Knife” spreads focus throughout the ensemble, which is really starting to click. We see new facets of the characters introduced last week:
- Tilly is much, MUCH better. The episode pulls back on her social awkwardness, as Tilly acknowledges she’s trying to work through it: “I know. Fewer extraneous words.” Her inexperience comes off as endearing, and we see her admiration for Burnham is growing: “You’re not afraid of anything.” Sometimes, it takes an episode or two to calibrate a character, and “Butcher’s Knife” finds the perfect balance with Tilly.
- Stamets has the same caustic attitude from before, but we also see his softer side. He expresses genuine wonder at the tardigrade and the way it interacts with the spores: “I wish I could converse with my mushrooms.” It’s a glimpse of how Stamets used to be before he was pressed into war.
- Landry is still overplayed. I’m not sure whether her hardass attitude is meant to be funny, but when she names the creature Ripper, I actually chuckled. It was so over-the-top. As was the moment when she accuses Burnham of being too touchy-feely with the creature, recklessly opens the containment field, and gets a death that’s even more abrupt and pointless than Tasha Yar’s! (At least Yar got a funeral.) The series demonstrates it’s willing to set up a character as a lead, then kill them. But the game was already given away since Rekha Sharma was only credited as Guest Star. And personally, I don’t need Star Trek to be as cold-blooded and shocking as Game of Thrones.
- Lorca gets a great line that pokes fun at his mysterious persona: “[The creature] has a natural aversion to light. Like me.”
- The Burnham / Saru relationship reveals more tension than mutual respect. Burnham asks Saru to visit her in the lab so she can trick him into using his “threat ganglia” (the fins we saw popping out of his head last week) to sense whether the creature is dangerous. But why did she need to trick him? Couldn’t she have just asked him? Saru gets offended and leaves, but it makes for an odd scene since the tension isn’t earned.
Klingon Cosmetics
Meanwhile, the Klingon stuff continues churning in the background. Hints of more developed characters begin to emerge; Kol, the albino Klingon who held T’Kuvma as he died, feels the weight of living up to his idol’s legacy, and his advisor L’Rell is skilled at manipulating situations to her advantage. But again, the episode leaves us with basic questions. T’Kuvma’s ship has been floating in the wreckage of the battlefield for six months while its crew slowly starves. Why the hell did no other Klingons come by to rescue them? You’re telling me it took six months for Kol and L’Rell to think of salvaging the Shenzhou’s power supply? The relationship between the two is decently established, but it’s still difficult to connect with this subplot.
I was initially a fan of the redesigned Klingon makeup, but while it still looks great, it has the effect of burying the actors and muting their performances. Think of the memorable, distinct Klingon characters from Trek history: Worf, Martok, Gowron, K’Ehyler, B’Elanna Torres. The old Klingon makeup was light enough to let the performances shine through, giving the actors freedom of movement and voice. Discovery’s Klingons are like actors trying to emote through a suit of armor. The heavy makeup and costumes severely restrict the characters’ range. A stylized look may be what Discovery is going for, but for now, it’s hampering my ability to connect with the Klingon storyline.
As a viewing experience, “Butcher’s Knife” is fine, but has the feel of ticking items off a checklist to advance the season arc. Figuring out the tardigrade? Check. Testing the propulsion system? Check. Doing stuff with the Klingons? Check. I found myself wishing I could feel more engaged. The only moment I really connected to was Georgieu’s warm, admiring message to Burnham in her will: full of irony, of course, since Burnham has since been disgraced. There are pros and cons to doing a fully serialized season arc. When done well, it can feel like a well-oiled machine, but in its weaker moments, you sense the internal workings of that machine tick-ticking away.
Miscellaneous Notes
- I couldn’t help wondering whether killing off the security chief this early in the season was meant as an inside joke. It’s almost self-parody, like that line from Galaxy Quest: “I’m the one who dies to prove the situation is serious!”
- The episode gives us the jarring detail that the Klingon crew ate Georgieu’s body. Which again begs the question: why let your crew starve when you can just sneak over to the Shenzhou and grab the dilithium frame or whatever?
- The episode climaxes with a decent battle sequence where the Discovery uses spore propulsion to zap in and save a mining colony from Klingon attack. Though it does end with an extremely cloying moment where a wide-eyed little girl looks up at the sky and breathes, “Who saved us?”
- “The Wright Brothers. Elon Musk. Zefram Cochrane.” On the other hand, this was perfectly geeky.
Previous episode: “Context is for Kings”
Next episode: “Choose Your Pain”