Finally: a horror-themed episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. As a horror-loving girl, I was way excited for this episode. It was predictable, but I didn’t care. Horror!
But first, we start with the set up. Kirk, La’An, and Spock are on their way back from a Future Federation Leaders retreat—which was a success. They detect a mysterious signal from an unknown region of space, so they go investigate. They come across the Griffin, a Starfleet ship that went missing without a trace nine years ago. The main theory is that the ship was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Klingons got to it, destroyed it, and covered it up. Spock has his own theory, that a stellar flare hit it during warp, scattering it across many light years. Either way, that doesn’t explain what they are seeing here.
They go check out the Griffin. The first thing they notice is that they aren’t floating. There is no scientific reason the ship has gravity. “It’s like everyone took a coffee break and never returned.” Kirk thinks he hears a baby cry; no one else hears anything. Spock is getting no signs of anything worrying. Suddenly, the computers all flash on, and most importantly, life support is on. They have 60 minutes to figure out what happened before life support shuts off. Sounds like they are setting up a real-time adventure: the 60 minutes is exactly how long the episode is. Unfortunately, they don’t. They just take off their masks and start exploring.
There are no escape pods or shuttles—maybe that’s how they left? But no, there is no record of the pods leaving. As the three of them walk, they see a ghostly pale woman who whispers, “I’ve been waiting for you…” They give chase, and she disappears within seconds. There is not enough power to transport out of the ship, according to Kirk. Spock does, however, find there are faint traces of “negatively charged ions,” which makes Kirk jump to conclusions: “You mean a ghost?” Of course he doesn’t, Kirk!
They find phaser marks on the wall, surrounding a boarded-up door. Starfleet, Klingon, and Vulcan phaser scars are all identified. It looks like someone was locked into the room, and someone else tried to break them out. La’An and Spock begin working to get into the door, while Kirk is distracted by the sound of a baby crying. He begins to wander off, but La’An shakes him from his reverie.
They make it inside the room, which turns out to be the med bay… where they find a stack of empty, folded body bags. For some reason, this is where they decide to split up, which is always a bad idea in horror movies. La’An and Spock do kiss before she goes with Kirk to the bridge, so that’s something. Spock stays behind in the med bay to try to look up records… when one of the body bags falls. He picks it up and sees it says “Vulcan” on it.
Kirk shares some details about his wife and son, Carol and David. Carol had never been a fan of Starfleet, afraid he would die alone somewhere in space. As if summoned, a creepy body slinks behind them, moving like a disconnected marionette. When they turn to look, it is gone, and La’An does not get a reading for negatively charged ions.
Meanwhile, Spock has been getting details about the crew. They were not boarded, and not hit with a disease or any cosmic anomaly. The bodies were removed by Chief Security Officer Rose Harper (Sokira Wolf), who had filed a number of security reports of erratic behavior, but everyone was fully checked out and medically cleared to return to work. In the end, there were thirteen strangled crew members, eight who had been stabbed, and 287 were transported to open space while still alive. Suddenly, the door slams closed, locking Spock into the med bay. And even more suddenly, there are corpses on the tables, zipped into the body bags.
La’An is watching a video of Harper. It is glitchy, but she believes something is taking over the ship. She tells Kirk they have to get off the ship. But out the window, he sees their shuttle, in pieces. They only have twenty minutes of life support (but over thirty minutes of episode left). Kirk thinks he can get an SOS out if he can get more power to the comms.
Behind Spock, one of the bodies sits up and unzips the bag. Inside is T’Pring (Gia Sandhu), Spock’s former fiancée. She insists that she is not an illusion. She explained how, when she was hiking, she was injured, and animals started circling. She had a panic attack (or what humans call a panic attack), and began repeating a Vulcan poem to center herself. It brought her back, and she survived.
La’An has moved to engineering in the hope of redirecting power. She watches another video of Harper, who insists she can’t let whatever is happening there spread among Starfleet. Someone—or something—sneaks up behind La’An and puts a hand on her shoulder. It’s Harper.
Kirk is on the bridge when he notices a little wind-up toy marching across the floor. He had bought it for David because he was supposed to spend the weekend with him, but then he got a call about the retreat, and bought the toy for his son to make up for his absence. Yeah, that’s a crappy gift for blowing off your son. But then he hears the baby crying again, and he moves forward, looking for the sound. He sees a hand come up through the computer cables.
T’Pring takes the blame for ruining her relationship with Spock. She does not know what happened between her and Spock, but she thinks she can get them back together. She shoots him. Yep, that’s exactly how I want to be won back.
La’An is still with Harper, who is speaking to her softly. Suddenly, she is surrounded by ghostly people like Harper. “You are not a monster,” Harper says, then the lights go up and reveal their spooky guests. “You are one of us.” They don’t appear to be trying to attack La’An, or moving at all, but their existence is still unsettling.
Spock wakes (stun FTW!) and finds he is tied up on a bed. T’Pring realized what is holding Spock back is his Vulcan side. So she takes a pair of scissors and cuts off his pointy ear tip.
Kirk’s SOS seemed to work, because soon, Sam, Ortegas, Pike, Uhura, and Number One transport in. Kirk warns them that there appears to be a survivor on board, and that he heard David in the comm board. Sam tells him that David and Carol are on their way to Epsilon 5. They try to figure out a way out of the Griffin when Kirk hears the baby again. “Sam, I don’t know what is wrong with me,” he bemoans. Meanwhile, Uhura thinks she can transport them out if they go one at a time.
La’An gets on the elevator and directs it to take her to the bridge. Instead, it takes her to Deck 17. Three times. On the third time, she gives up and gets out on Deck 17. (Maybe it’s because the elevator says her name that time.) The tarps on the wall suggest construction is being done there. A door opens and closes on its own. Inside that room, she finds smears of blood on the wall, and a big knife. Another Harper video plays, with her lamenting that she failed to keep her crew safe, “but it’s not too late for you!” La’An backs away and Uhura and Ortegas show up. La’An is so relieved she gives Uhura a hug, which concerns Ortegas: “Whatever happened here must be really bad if you’re hugging!”
Uhura is ready to start transporting people. Ortegas is first. La’An takes over the controls and starts the transport. But it fails. Something is messed up, with Ortegas flashing in and out of the transporting static they use, and she screams in pain. Uhura stops La’An from doing whatever she is doing. She is furious: La’An set Ortegas to transport into herself. She takes over and fixes it, then Uhura runs out, mad.
Kirk asks his brother how he balances Starfleet and family. “I don’t but I do the best I can,” Sam says. He sees the toy and says he has more memories of little toys from their dad than actual memories of their dad. (It seems like Kirk is following in his father’s footsteps.) The ghost baby starts crying; this time Sam hears it and thinks it is his own kid. Kirk insists it isn’t real, they have to get out of there. But all the doors close instantly as they try to leave.
Sam believes they are never getting off this ship. “We’re gonna die out here, alone, like Kirks were born to do.” Rocks are flying at the window, cracking it. Kirk tries to get him away from it, but he doesn’t listen. The window cracks open and sucks Sam into it. “Tell my kids I love them…” At first, he is enough to block the wind, but he quickly gets pulled out—intestines first. (Every horror movie needs some gore!) Kirk finally opens the door as his brother is sucked out to space.
Spock, now missing part of his ear, is told by T’Pring that his heart wasn’t in the right place. “Let’s change that.” She comes at him with a medical device, when Pike and Number One come in and rescue him, unstrapping him from the bed and helping him up and out. T’Pring has disappeared. Pike promises Spock he is safe now, “just listen to the ship. It wants to set you free.”
Pike and Number One take Spock back into the med bay. While Pike straps Spock down again, Number One cuts her torso open and collapses, while Pike has a terrifying, manic smile on his face. “This ship is amazing!” he enthuses. “I don’t have to be captain anymore, I can be the head chef!” He is chopping, but instead of chopping carrots, he is chopping his fingers into tiny, bite-sized pieces. Then he collapses.
Uhura runs through the door and finds Harper, who slashes her with the knife La’An found earlier. Suddenly, Uhura is begging La’An not to kill her, and La’An realizes she is standing where Harper was, holding the same knife. Uhura runs away, and Harper says to La’An, “Welcome home.”
Kirk finds La’An, but he hears his kid crying again. “Tell me you don’t hear that,” he begs. La’An stabs him and whispers, “I hear everything now.”
T’Pring is back now, and Spock begs her to take him, and not Pike and Number One. Spock starts speaking Vulcan, reciting the same poem she used for her panic attack. T’Pring grabs a big knife and approaches, but the poem works. Spock sits up suddenly, no longer strapped down. He is holding the scissors in his hand, covered in his green blood, and his ear is still clipped off, but he is alone—except for several corpses scattered around the med bay. All is quiet.
Kirk is sliding away from La’An, bleeding profusely, while La’An follows, menacingly. “This ship chose Harper. Now it’s choosing us. It needs a captain,” she says. He begs for David, and she chuckles. “Your little boy is going to die, just like you, bleeding out in a dark corner of space.”
Suddenly Kirk is transported out. So is La’An. They are back on the Enterprise. Kirk has been stabbed, La’An holds a bloody knife. Both are in shock, as are the crew that were in the transport room. Pike goes to check on Kirk, and Kirk can only ask about Sam. Pike promises that Sam is on leave, and perfectly fine.
Dr. M’Benga and Pike are walking together to the medical bay. M’Benga promises that Kirk is doing okay. Spock and La’An are physically fine, but mentally…? He shrugs.
Nurse Chapel sews Spock’s ear back on in a house call to his room. He seems embarrassed to call her there, but he couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the med bay just yet. She finally asked him why T’Pring showed up. He insists it was to bring out the most emotion in him.
La’An is with Pike, worried that he left out data in his report—like that she tried to kill Kirk. He makes her sit and have a drink. She admits she knows why she saw Harper, and the others saw family members. Starfleet is her family. She just wants to know what happened to the crew. He offers her a story about a haunted family farm. “Space is limitless in its beauty, and its terror. Whatever you encountered, the only thing that matters is you survived. And that is all Starfleet needs to know.”
Uhura gives Kirk the information about how to get in touch with his wife and kid. He calls… but never gets through to them.
La’An sees a ship through a window. The Griffin. And Harper is there, staring at La’An from her own window, and makes a motion to her: “Ssh!”
Every good horror movie needs to leave room for a sequel!
New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds arrive on Thursdays on Paramount+.
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