2x06 The Sound of Thunder

[9.5/10] This is what I have been asking for, not just from Discovery, not just from Star Trek, but from science fiction writ large. Here is an episode of television that is thought-provoking, epic, action-packed, personal, character-driven, tension-filled, socially relevant, imaginative, connected to continuity, and filled with craft and creativity. It’s not that “The Sound of Thunder” doesn't have flaws, but they pale in comparison to the ambition and scope of what the episode manages to achieve in a little over fifty minutes.

The episode features the Discovery driven to Saru’s home planet by the red flashes that have been drawing the ship across the galaxy. Having recently been disabused of the notion that his next people’s next evolutionary phase results in death for members of his species, Saru is pulled between his responsibilities as a Starfleet officer, his righteous anger on behalf of his countrymen at the hands of their oppressors, and his complicated relationship with the family he abandoned in search of a different life.

I frankly don’t know where to begin to sing this one’s praises, but I’ll start with Saru himself. Doug Jones delivers his best performance of the series, and maybe the best performance in anyone. While draped in prosthetics, Jones manages to convey Saru’s sense of having started a new, freer life, his utter indignation and revulsion at what his people have and are put through, his devotion and guilt to his sister, and his determination and courage to stand up to his captain, his enemy, and his old way of life. Jones is the feature point of this episode, and he earns every second of it.

But I also just love the confluence of themes and ideas and tension points in the episode. “Should we interfere in this society that seems organized around something we find repugnant, but which is not our right to disrupt?” is a well-worn Star Trek premise, but it’s well done here. You understand the push and pull between Pike and Saru, the former clearly not enamored with Ba’ul but also understanding that there is a diplomatic process and greater needs at play, and the latter appalled (and emboldened by his transformation) that his captain would negotiate with these monsters.

At the same time, this is a family story. Some of the material is a little rushed, or depends on you having seen the Short Trek episode featuring Saru’s past, but there’s the root of something strong in the bittersweetness of Siranna’s reunion. The joy of seeing one another is tempered by the angst that Saru’s absence caused his family, and the frustration Saru had with his old life and the lie it was founded upon. The relationship with Siranna is sketched quickly, but also has an impact from how the characters react and respond to one another.

And of course, this being Star Trek, there is a twist that complicates the situation. The deus ex machina space anomaly from a few episodes ago reveals that the Kelpians were once the predators, and the Ba’ul once the prey, until technology allowed the almost extinct Ba’ul to turn the tide and prevent their counter-species from reaching their predatory phase. The “great balance” is not just oppressor propaganda to them; it’s a method of self-preservation from there perspective, which gives the baddies in this one some depth beyond their snarling, hostile ways.

The episode also gives them some fantastic design work. Much of the episode, like much of the show, takes place in gunmetal hallways with various flashing lights and the occasional lens flair. But much of “The Sound of Thunder” can wow you from both a cinematography and production design standpoint. As in Saru’s episode of the Short Treks, the scenes on Kaminar are sumptuous and full of bucolic, alien beauty in the landscape and setting.

But the real fireworks come from the Ba’ul. For one thing, their ships are striking (mostly figuratively but occasionally literally). The geometric column design is unusual for Star Trek, and helps give them an other-y quality in outer space that makes them seem like more of a threat based on design and spacing alone. Still, the real coup de grace is the Ba’ul themselves, a set of inky black, oozing and disturbing creatures who seem of a piece with both Armus from The Next Generation and characters played by Doug Jones himself in Pan’s Labyrinth. The episode makes you wait for their appearance, but pays it off with one hell of a creepy introduction.

Of course, beyond the visual design, the episode steps up the evil by having them try to eliminate the Kelpians rather than deal with them in their evolved fearless form. But even that ties in to the red angel, and notions the episode toys with of whether this mystical-seeming figure is saving people from crisis or is actually the cause of the crisis, with hints that advanced technology and time travel are involved. That mix between mystery box storytelling, heady sci-fi mysticism, and politically-relevant subtext makes this development strong.

The episode does leave me with one and a half complaints. The one complete fly in the ointment is the underfed parallel between Saru and Dr. Culber in their “I don’t feel like myself/I feel like who I was meant to be” thematic mirroring. There’s a stage-y quality to the performances in the Culber/Stamets portion of the show that make it hard for me to connect with the emotions of the scene, and the subplot is a bit too brief to be meaningful anyway.

The half complaint is that Pike, Burnham, and the rest of the crew to inflict an evolutionary change on a whole planet of people with barely 30 seconds thought. It feels like the kind of thing that Picard and company would debate for a whole episode -- the upturning of an entire society, without warning or consent, with predictably dangerous results from a hostile species in charge -- but the Discovery’s crew has an attitude of “sure, why not?” It initially made me bristle a bit (and, if nothing else, feels a little convenient).

But then I realized that this move was basically Captain Kirk’s calling card. Every third episode of The Original Series, Kirk would encounter some society ordered in a way he didn’t particularly like, and so he would call upon the Enterprise to basically blow up whatever machine or god or robot-machine-god was keeping the old structures in place. There’s a certain trademark Starfleet hubris in that, upending a whole society on moral principle without necessarily thinking about what happens next, and it feels true to form even if it’s an action I might disagree with (or at least disagree with it being taken in this way). As long as the show addresses it, and the consequences of that choice, in the future, then I’m on board.

Beyond the heady science fiction and social commentary subtext, it’s just a well-structured episode. While things move a little quickly here and there, Saru’s actions are well-motivated, and there’s tension in the standoffs between the Discovery and the Ba’ul, in Saru’s rescue mission, and in the planet-threatening attack with a crewman captured that makes all of these situation that much more delicate. All the while, there is the mirroring of Saru’s new life and his old one: his surrogate sister meeting his real sister, the values of Starfleet conflicting with the values of his home planet, his loyalty to his crewmen being tested against his loyalty to the people. It’s the kind of thematic tug-of-war, rife with exciting incident, that makes for good and satisfying television.

That’s frankly what Discovery has been missing for me along the way. It’s had high points and low points, bits that feel like classic Trek and something different and new from classic Trek. But I’m not sure any episode of the show thus far has felt both so true to the spirit of the franchise while also feeling like such a modern and riveting interpretation of it. This is Discovery’s finest hour, and let’s hope it’s a sign of more to come, for Saru and for us.