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Star Trek: Discovery: after THAT twist, what now?

Photo credit: Netflix / CBS
Photo credit: Netflix / CBS

From Digital Spy

Warning: Contains spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery season 1, episode 11 'The Wolf Inside'.

Well, you've got to hand it to 'em: Trekkies really are great detectives. Not only did the 'Tyler is a Klingon' fan theory pick up speed early on, but the fans were even able to pinpoint the episode we'd get the big reveal in by title alone – this one, episode 11, 'The Wolf Inside'.

After last week's midseason premiere, there really was no turning back from this theory and, if nothing else, then Michael Burnham's opening monologue would have tipped off viewers that something big was about to go down, speaking as she does about the darkness inside and how you can't continue to pretend to be someone you're not.

For the audience, it's less a shocking reveal and more a relief that the piecing together of clues can stop now that Tyler remembers that he's been Voq all along and the series can move onto the next stage of the plot – hopefully without fans being able to guess what's next this time.

But, for Burnham, it's a huge blow and, given she's currently posing as a ruthless, compassion-free version of herself in the mirror universe, one that she's unlikely to be able to process any time soon.

Photo credit: Netflix / CBS
Photo credit: Netflix / CBS

It's a consequence of Burnham's quest for peace in their own universe that prompts Tyler's awareness, as she decides to turn a mission from the Terran Emperor into an opportunity to learn how things could be done differently back home. Tasked with killing the Fire Wolf – the Klingon leader of the anti-Terran resistance – and his rebel forces, Burnham instead wants to learn how a Klingon is able to unite and lead a group of different alien races with different ideologies.

Only, when Burnham and Tyler are taken to the rebel headquarters, Fire Wolf turns out to be the mirror universe's version of Voq the Torchbearer, son of none and the Klingon-largely-believed-to-be-Tyler who we haven't seen since episode four, and it's from hereon out that the human Starfleet officer we thought we knew is gone for good.

His reaction is to fight himself, lashing out at Voq in a warped defence of the Klingon race ("Remain Klingon or die!") and being saved from death only by the mirror universe Sarek's insistence once again that Burnham's motives are pure.

Photo credit: Netflix / CBS
Photo credit: Netflix / CBS

Still, the damage is done, but it's only back on the ISS Shenzhou, when Burnham confronts Tyler on his increasingly erratic behaviour, that Tyler's Klingon self is out in full force and completely unrepentant too, paving the way for more chilling memories of his transformation and the final, complete disclosure of who he is.

"I don't think I'm Ash Tyler, Starfleet lieutenant," he tells Burnham, explaining that he feels an affection for L'Rell and that he remembers the surgery he underwent that reduced his Klingon body into a human one.

"I tried, Michael," he adds. "But then I saw him, face to face, down on that planet and I couldn't fight it anymore. I remember now. I remember it all."

It's a heartbreaking moment for Burnham, and brilliantly played by both Shazad Latif and Sonequa Martin-Green, with Latif pinpointing the moment Voq shuts out the human Ash Tyler and embraces his Klingon self with just one twist of his facial expression, while Martin-Green handles switching from Burnham's shock and horror into steely determination and, later, betrayal with ease.

Photo credit: Netflix / CBS
Photo credit: Netflix / CBS

It's also a moment that still leaves us with plenty of questions too. If 'Tyler' hasn't been brainwashed, and was created by the Klingons to infiltrate the Discovery and learn its secrets, does this mean that Lt Ash Tyler doesn't exist at all ? Or was there once a human version of Tyler after all, which means there's a version of him in the mirror universe too?

And then there's Tyler's revelation that he tried to resist the call to his Klingon self so he could be human for Burnham, hinting that the human and Klingon parts of him are in conflict.

Granted, Tyler seems pretty definitively Klingon right now, having tried to kill Michael for killing T'Kuvma back in the premiere, but after so many episodes of knowing more or less where Tyler's story was going, it's gratifying to realise that there are still so many places Discovery can take his character.

By the end of the episode, Burnham has succeeded in sending the Discovery critical information that could help the crew get home again – but, thanks to the Tyler reveal and the fact that she's had to kill and deceive to achieve her mission, she is also left feeling betrayed, lost and alone.

Photo credit: Netflix / CBS
Photo credit: Netflix / CBS

That the Terran Emperor is revealed to be Burnham's former captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) is yet another blow dealt to Burnham, but it's an exciting twist that holds a lot of possibilities as Burnham comes face-to-face with a version of the women whose death has haunted her all series long – especially after Captain Lorca's little smirk after Emperor Georgiou's reveal at the end there.

And, really, that's the best thing to come out of 'The Wolf Inside' by far – now that there is official, canonical confirmation that the fan theory that's dominated so much coverage of Star Trek: Discovery to date is true, the series is once again open to exploring more stories, and more fan theories.

'Captain Lorca is from the mirror universe', anyone?

Star Trek: Discovery airs on CBS All Access in the US and Netflix in the UK.


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