1x10 Despite Yourself

[8.5/10] In some ways, this entire season has been about how we define ourselves in relation to our surroundings. Discovery takes the approach of plenty of good sci-fi and good Star Trek before it, and uses the intergalactic setting to comment on real issues like racism and xenophobia and identity. But “Despite Yourself” takes that idea a step further, by taking us into the Mirror Universe.
It’s a brilliant choice, one that reopens new possibilities for the show in a wild new setting, works as a sop to continuity-lovers like yours truly, and allows the show to double down on that thematic element of your sense of self in fantastic fashion.

For starters, it’s a jolting left turn for the series that hinted at big transitions to come. The Mirror Universe is both familiar and foreign, having been featured as early as The Original Series and as late as Enterprise. Getting to see it reimagined in Discovery’s splendor is a treat, and gives the show a new premise and a new problem to tackle while retaining a semi-familiar setting.

It’s also a nice sop to continuity. The suggestion that the U.S.S. Defiant being the key to getting back to their normal universe is a nice nod to “The Tholian Web” and its surprise Enterprise follow-up. And with Stamets in no condition to make the jump, it provides an intriguing story engine to power the show through the back half of the season.

But it also completely recontextualizes the broader commentary and subtext of the show thus far. In the first half of the season, the Federation represents the march of multiculturalism, contrasted with the Klingons who are resistant to the idea of intermixing their perceived purity with the taint of Starfleet. In the mirror universe, it’s the Terrans who have a xenophobic empire, a militaristic and bloodthirsty reflection of the prime universe Klingons, driving out the last of the non-human rebels, Klingons included, from their space.

Most of all, however, “Despite Yourself” is centered on the notion of identity, on how we project ourselves and through that, come to define ourselves.

The easiest place to see that is in how hard everyone on the Discovery works to pass as locals in the Mirror Universe. The whole notion of “passing” is laden with all sorts of racial and other baggage, and “Despite Yourself” smartly gestures to these ideas, and how uncomfortable and difficult it is for the main members of the Discovery crew to act like Terrans, without laying them on too thick.

And they work just as well at a story level. It’s striking to see Burnham and Lorca try to pigmalion Tilly into being her militant and iron-fisted Mirror Universe counterpart. There’s a certain “fake it ‘til you make it” vibe to her anxiety about being believable and her slightly awkward but no less effective efforts to come off as “Captain Killy.” It’s fun to see Tilly hotshotted into the captain’s chair she so coveted, and yet there’s depth to the approach given the circumstances and implications of how she ends up there.

(It also gives us a wonderful in-joke when Lorca reverts to a Scottish accent to mask his voice after Tilly defers to him as her “Chief Engineer.”)

Tilly’s not the only character in the episode getting what she wants but getting it in a much different way than she bargained for. In this universe, Burnham is the captain of the Shenzhou, where she returns with Lorca as her captive and as a conquering hero. She’s able to beam aboard her ship without the use of lateral transporters (a nice nod) but only as an imposter. She’s able to see one of the crewman from the Shenzhou who died at the Battle of Binary Star again, but then is forced to kill him with her own bare hands (in a well-choreographed fight) when he tries to take her out to maintain his place in the hierarchy. And she too gets to sit in the place of command that she always wanted, but does so as legendary slaughterer, not the decorated officer she hoped to be.

While Taylor lacks a known Mirror Universe counterpart (which should be a sign), he too is having an identity crisis. The heavy implication here is that Taylor was once a Klingon, most likely Voq, who has been surgically altered and mentally changed to become Tayor, so that he could slip in under The Federation’s nose. The Klingon captive’s attempt to trigger him, and his struggles and murder streak thereafter (poor Dr. Culber), suggest there is more to the Discovery’s unlikely chief of security than meets the eye.

But rather than lingering on the twist for twist’s sake (at least so far), the episode focuses on the effect this is having on Taylor. Another strain of thematic resonance in the show so far has been how we deal with trauma, whether it’s your life imploding like Burnham, or losing your crew like Lorca, or facing torture, like Taylor did. “Despite Yourself” takes that idea a step further, with Taylor facing the trauma of the idea that he might not be the person he believed himself to be, that he may have been complicit in his own torture, that he may be a real, separate person layered over a distinct enemy and alien, forced to reconcile with who or what “he” truly is.

In the end of the episode, Burnham and Taylor are both pierced by what they’ve had to do, what they feel this change that they didn’t ask for has brought out in them, forced them to do in order to survive. And they seek comfort in one another. Their romance is something that connected them in the prior universe, something that made things easier for both of them after something difficult. Now, in a new place where everything has changed, everything is different, they cling to that, hoping that this one bit of stability will sustain them when everything else about them and around them is shifting.

As Star Trek Discovery embarks into a brave new world, its main characters have to reform and remake themselves, and in that process, worry about how much of who they really are will remain when all is said and done.