Yahoo News The latest Star Trek: Discovery changes show forever
Warning: Contains spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery season 1, episode 12 'Vaulting Ambition'.
Star Trek: Discovery's latest episode was a slow-burner – a lot of talk, a lot of jumping between characters, and a lot of focus on the shifted dynamics of Michael Burnham and Philippa Georgiou's relationship, both in the Prime and Mirror Universes – but it turns out there was a reason for that.
Because while we were all looking for the aftermath of the 'Tyler is a Klingon' reveal or focusing on Michael dealing with the ghosts of her past, Discovery had an ace up its sleeve that calls the entire series so far into question: the Captain Gabriel Lorca we know is from the Mirror Universe – and it looks like he has been playing one heck of a long game in order to get to Emperor Georgiou again.
Related: Star Trek: Discovery – a beginner's guide to the Mirror Universe
There were hints about who Lorca was, of course, and Star Trek fans have been collecting evidence in support of the theory that Lorca was from the Mirror Universe for months now, but the beauty of this revelation didn't come from the satisfaction of being proved right after months of intense speculation.
Instead, this is one theory that was confirmed quietly as Michael began to piece together the clues that had been there all along, based on Emperor Georgiou's slightly disturbing descriptions about the relationship between Michael and Lorca in the Mirror Universe. And, rather than being a twist for shock's sake, this revelation reframes Discovery's entire narrative.
"He said he'd cross time and space itself to take what was rightfully his," Emperor Georgiou tells Michael as the penny starts to drop and her interactions with Lorca since the moment they met start to take on new meaning.
He chose her in the Mirror Universe, we're told, just like Lorca chose her to serve on the Discovery way back in episode three – and, stepping up this series' darkness, Georgiou reveals Lorca "groomed" Michael too, paving the way for her to become Lorca's collaborator and attempt to kill Georgiou and take her throne.
And through all of this, we have seen Lorca acting as the very picture of tortured Starfleet captain. Most of his time in the Mirror Universe has been spent being chained up, tortured in agonizer booths and, this week, forced to witness the death of an old loyalist when he apparently couldn't tell Captain Maddox the name of his sister.
It was a smart move for the series to play – why would a Lorca from the Prime Universe know the name of someone he's never met, let alone slept with? – and one that earned a brutal pay off in the closing moments as Lorca revealed he did know it after all: "Her name was Ava. And I liked her."
The reveal means that everything Lorca has done so far this series has been in pursuit of his own goal to get back to the Mirror Universe, overthrow Georgiou and seize her power for himself. Mirror-verse Lorca has already proven himself a dark, warmongering, morally ambiguous player and, now that he no longer needs the Discovery's help to get back home, it'll be interesting to see that ruthless, deadly behaviour turned onto his former crew.
So much for just being a captain with a few "rough edges" then, eh?
Lorca is a Terran usurper, one with a connection to Michael that's suggested to have gone from fatherly to something altogether less paternal and someone who's been operating with a hidden agenda since we first met him.
And, unlike poor Tyler – whose storyline seems to have come to a crashing halt now it's played out exactly the way people expected, spending most of the episode thrashing around in a hospital bed with his human and Klingon selves at war – Lorca's story is only just beginning.
His motives are still unclear – power? Revenge? Homesickness? – and there are still huge gaps in Lorca's history left to explore, like explaining how he travelled into the Prime Universe to begin with (put money on Mirror Stamets probably having something to do with that one), as well as the question of Lorca's relationship with Michael too.
All of which means that there's still a lot of interesting material in store in the final three episodes of Discovery's first season.
While we've been told that by the end of season one the Klingon war storyline will be over (which means we'll have some jam-packed episodes ahead – we still have to get back to the war itself first), it's at least nice to know that this series' trip to the Mirror Universe has a purpose, and wasn't just an excuse to flip the script for a few episodes with no consequences.
Between the truth about Lorca being revealed, the death of Dr Culber and the internal battle raging in Tyler's body between human and Klingon, the Discovery crew is bringing a lot of baggage back to the Prime universe with them when they inevitably return home.
And, however it plays out, it's safe to say that after 'Vaulting Ambition', the whole series has irreversibly been turned on its head.
Star Trek: Discovery airs on CBS All Access in the US and Netflix in the UK.
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