Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 10 Review: Hegemony
Diana Keng
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GORN. Totally called it.
I have mixed feelings about how Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 10 wraps up the sophomore season of Paramount+'s newest Trek, mainly because the cliffhanger ending doesn't actually wrap anything up.
However, a lot can be forgiven in light of the introduction of young Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Montgomery Scott. It's a brilliant follow-through to the Scottish-accented voice heard in Engineering on last season's finale when Pike is transported onto a future Enterprise.
Firstly, I acknowledge that the "TO BE CONTINUED..." season finale is a Trek tradition. But, to be fair, it's one that hasn't been revisited properly since the days of twenty-plus episode seasons.
And that's probably my primary gripe. Even without the writers' and actors' strikes, there would have been nearly a year between the Season 2 finale and the Season 3 premiere. Unacceptable to leave us hanging for that long.
The most significant Trek cliffhanger is Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Episode 26, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I," when the Borg assimilates Jean-Luc Picard.
In that instance, viewers had to wait an interminable three months for the adventure's conclusion. (Yes, I understand that JL's Borg encounter never really ended, as evidenced on the three seasons of Star Trek: Picard, but that's not the point here, folks.)
Season finales are always held to a higher standard. They should bring going-concern plotlines to satisfying conclusions while seeding new developments for future adventures. There are no conclusions here, satisfying or otherwise.
All things seem trivial in the face of death.
Spock
I'll admit there are some excellent bookend elements here.
For instance, Spock has a very visceral and human response to Chapel's near-death moment on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 1.
Here, after riding the relationship rollercoaster of hook-up and break-up, Spock is faced again with the possibility of Chapel being dead.
Having decided to assert more of his Vulcan-ness, Spock views the destruction of the Cayuga with a far more clinically logical approach. Still, it is a poor mask for his illogical hope that Chapel somehow survived.
I would never tell you not to hope.
Una
As his commanding officer and colleague, Una's sympathetic support marks her growth as an officer and a person since her trial.
As she sang to Kirk on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 9, she now looks to connect with her crew. Even more so, she demonstrates the active unlearning of her personal defenses she sings about to La'an.
Another bookend is Pike's relationship with Captain Batel.
While he's been critiqued multiple times and by multiple crew members regarding his innate fear of intimacy, he also seems willing to change his historical style of relationship shenanigans.
Batel: How you holding up?
Pike: I mean, I’m not bursting into song every ten minutes, so that’s a minor victory.
Batel: Very minor.
Batel has been an agent manipulated by other forces until now.
On Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 2, she must prosecute Una on orders from Vice Admiral Pasalk. Later, she is passed over for promotion because Una ends up being acquitted, exonerated, and somewhat exalted in that trial.
She and Pike air their relationship laundry when the improbability field has them spewing their feelings in song.
On Parnassus Beta, we finally see her doing what made her a captain with higher security clearance than Pike.
Not to mention channeling her inner Ellen Ripley, facing down a Gorn youngling with nothing except her knowledge she is incubating Gorn eggs.
Admiral April: I think it’s safe to say that we don’t understand the Gorn.
Pike: Well, I’ve seen them up close and personal, and they’re not hard to understand, Bob. They’re monsters.
Admiral April: ‘Monster’ is a word to describe those who don’t understand us.
Pike: And sometimes a monster’s just a monster.
That reality tests Pike's belief that the Gorn are monsters deserving only to be destroyed.
His recent commitment to truth in their relationship means forcing Batel to confess her infection.
Pike: Sometimes, hope is a choice.
La’an: Yeah, you’ve told me that one before.
Pike: Maybe I’m just saying it cause I need to hear it. It’s why we’re here, on this planet.
Hope over despair. Love over death. Truth over "safe" platitudes. Everything comes down to what they choose to prioritize.
Finally, the most obvious bookend is the Gorn themselves. After the Enterprise crew foils the false flag operation on Cajitar-4 on the premiere, we see that Starfleet Command is preoccupied with Gorn forces and relieved that a Klingon conflict has been averted.
The Gorn have been a catalyst for multiple characters' evolutions.
They are a key part of La'an's life trauma, setting in place intense distrust and aggressive defenses she is only now starting to dismantle.
In order to battle the Gorn on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1 Episode 9, Spock unblocks his Vulcan emotions, a precursor to the psychological conflicts he contends with now.
Now, they are not only the cause of Batel's imminent demise, they have abducted La'an, Ortegas (NOOOOOO!), and M'Benga, along with hundreds of colonists.
(But seriously, who didn't see the mission going sideways the minute Ortegas had her wish granted to be part of the away team?)
So, yeah, I'm grumpy that we're left wondering about Spock and Chapel (who will still be joining Korby's fellowship), Pike and Batel, and the kidnapped crew and colonists.
Just because it's canonical tradition doesn't make it a good narrative choice.
Ortegas: You ran from the Gorn in a shuttle? How are you not dead?
Scotty: Firstly, I jury-rigged the engines to increase their capacity, and secondly, I figured out how to hide in plain sight.
M’Benga: Sounds resourceful.
Ortegas: And mysterious.
Scotty: When an armada of human-eating lizards comes my way, I can get quite… creative.
But bringing Scotty in makes up for some of that grump.
Damn, it's fun to have a genuinely awkward tech geek back on screen again.
Pelia and Hemmer (may he rest in Klingon K-pop glory) have been brilliant Chief Engineers, but I miss the Geordis and Barclays of old.
Proto-Montgomery Scott promises to be just that level of wizarding wacko, and I am here for it.
Pelia: Hello, Scotty.
Scotty: Professor.
Pike: You two know each other?
Pelia: One of my best students. Who sadly received some of my worst grades.
Carol Kane as Pelia has been an elegant bridge between Hemmer and Scotty.
Having taught both, she is knowledgeable in how they work, learn, and connect concepts and people.
Uhura: Hemmer was our Chief Engineer before you.
Pelia: I know. He was one of my best students. I’m sorry, I just said that because he’s dead. Actually, he was just okay.
(Of course, considering everyone we've met has limped through her classes, one has to wonder if anyone ever met her standards as a professor.)
By any reasonable measure, it has been a triumph of a season. Their big swings have connected. Their risks have paid off.
The only thing that could have improved it is if it had literally gone to eleven and provided the closure a finale ought to give.
All the trauma and anxiety of my formative years come flooding back as I consider the months and months -- potentially more than a year -- that stretch out from here to the Season 3 premiere.
Real-life wars could rage, social media networks collapse, and civilian space travel be actualized before we find out if Pike goes rogue or not.
Where's your money at, Fanatics? Will he or won't he? How Kirk is Pike, deep down?
Is anyone else concerned that it's the primarily non-canonical characters who were abducted? M'Benga appears in TOS twice but never as Chief Medical Officer. What does this mean for Ortegas and La'an?
Thanks a lot, Strange New Worlds, like I didn't have enough to worry about.
Hit our comments with your biggest takeaways and hottest takes of the finale and season!
Diana Keng was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X.
