DISCLAIMER: This recap of Star Trek: Discovery holds enough spoilers to keep Section 31 busy for a decade. Jump to black alert (or emerald alert) at your peril.
Welcome, Trekkies! In Episode 9, “Rubicon,” the final die is cast in the game of cat-and-mouse between Cleveland “Book” Booker (David Ajala) and Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), finally answering the question if Book will cross the Rubicon.
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Before we jump into this week’s recap: House of Martok, my home’s nickname, had its first snow, and the wall heater broke. If you guessed, that means Episode 9’s recap is coming straight from Rura Penthe, blood wine for the table!
Ready to dive into this week’s recap? Let’s fly! Vamos voar!
“Rubicon” begins with Book and Ruon Tarka (Shawn Doyle) finishing the isolytic weapon. However, the former courier is still concerned about how his lover will feel when he destroys the DMA, demonstrating that cracks are already forming in his new partnership with the Risian scientist. The episode mines all the tension of the most-intimate lover’s quarrel.
Indeed, back on Discovery, we learn Book sent an encrypted message to Burnham, saying although he still loves her, his mind isn’t changed because the DMA’s intended use is to mine boronite, not destroy worlds. He adds he’s saving lives no matter its intended use but wishes they could find a middle ground.
But Tarka isn’t interested in a middle ground and has worked his mental magic on convincing Book – a man dealing with an enormous loss and post-traumatic stress disorder, who isn’t thinking clearly – his plan is a good idea, and there is no going back now. By the end of the episode (*spoiler alert*), the events unfold to show Book is a mere pawn in Cesear’s (Tarka) march to Rome (across the Galactic Barrier or wherever “home” is).
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So the episode begins with each side prepping for Cesear’s civil war, as Tarka delicately moves each pawn into place. In the end, his hubris, believing he can control all odds, gets the best of him. But, more on that later, let’s get to the battle.
At Starfleet, Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) preps his side for war. He tells Burnham that President Rillak has agreed to the captain’s request to go after Book and Tarka, with one condition: a babysitter, who has Vance’s full authority to take over command if Discovery‘s closeness to the mission comprises either Burnham or Mr. Saru (Doug Jones).
However, Vance surprises Burnham by picking a familiar face to make the hard call should the Discovery crew not carry out the difficult task at hand. Her babysitter is an old friend; Enterprise security chief turned time-traveler, Commander Nhan (Rachael Ancheril), last seen in the episode “Die Trying,” when she returned to her homeworld, Barzan, to look for her family.
Vance says Nhan’s friendship with Burnham won’t get in the way of her duty to Starfleet; however, there is a reason for so many Barzan in security. “Duty above all,” winks Nhan.
But what’s cool is that we can see something different about Nhan from the moment she steps on screen; her breathing apparatus is upgraded! As the two women catch up, we learn Nhan’s reunion with her family didn’t work out, so instead, she led a covert ops clean-up task force against the Emerald Chain.
Meanwhile, Saru is tending to his garden in his quarters. But suddenly, lover-boy gets the idea to chime Ni’Var’s President T’Rina (Tara Rosling) for “meditation advice.” Yes, the Kelpian gardening to relaxing sounds of his homeworld is phoning for “meditation advice,” and lover-boy still needs Doctor Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) to tell him he’s being an idiot before he can recognize his feelings.
Luckily for Saru, who’s been playing his own game of cat-and-mouse, President T’Rina is more in tune with both their feelings. Asking him for a meal after meditation fails to calm his nerves. Uneasy with T’Rina’s overture, Saru heads to the bridge.
On the bridge, Lieutenant Gen Rhys (Patrick Kwok-Choon) argues with Lieutenant Commander Nilsson (Sara Mitich) about the morality of Book’s actions. It seems many of Discovery‘s crew agree with the captain’s rogue beau. Saru reminds everyone it doesn’t matter what they think. They have jobs to do.
And that’s when Burnham and Nhan walk onto the bridge. Just like Burnham, everyone is excited to see a friendly face. The captain informs her bridge crew that the security officer is tagging along because of how close she is to Book. She then gives her patented captain speech to pump everyone up to stop the former courier from crossing the Rubicon with Tarka.
Here, as she was last week, it’s clear Burnham is still emotionally invested in saving her relationship. But unlike in past seasons, her decision to be honest about Nhan shows she has grown in her leadership role and can commit to finding the solution she needs.
Reasonably quickly, Burnham and Discovery locate Book and Tarka in a hidey-hole on a rogue planet, locating them via the tracker the captain put on the isolynium before the card game on Haz’s Karma Barge.
While en route, Burnham devises a plan using her intimate knowledge of Book but sends Saru to lead the away team, so the couple’s history doesn’t compromise the mission. The captain explains that an away team, consisting of Saru, Rhys, Culber and Communications Officer Ronald Bryce (Ronnie Rowe Jr.), will take a cloaked shuttlecraft to evade Book’s defenses and then board the ship to stop them.
On the shuttlecraft, Rhys is back to arguing in favor of the morality of Book’s actions. Bryce, who disagrees, claims Book stole classified tech (eh, who cares) is about to use an isolytic weapon, which the Federation outlaws for good reasons (big deal, might ruin subspace or cause a star to go nova). To which, Rhys responds, “You don’t know what it’s like to lose everything.”
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Bryce gets annoyed by Rhys here and gives him an angry retort that intrigues me as someone currently in support groups for emotional and physical pain, “Stop comparing pain, man!”
Pain is an individual experience. You cannot compare pain; however, that doesn’t mean you cannot use your pain as a source of empathy for others. None of that matters in the line of Starfleet duty, and Saru and Culber try to defuse the argument between the two men. They are on a mission to execute the captain’s orders and fix the situation at hand.
Unfortunately, once the shuttle arrives at Book’s ship, Tarka’s new automated defense system destroys the craft, nearly killing them all, of course. Luckily, Commander Joann Owosekun (Oyin Oladejo) can beam the crew out before anyone dies but only with the help of Book’s quick thinking.
Book apologizes but then uses the prototype to jump to the DMA before Burnham can say anything to convince him otherwise. Of course, Discovery quickly follows to an area of calm somewhere near the DMA Controller.
At this point, it becomes a game of finding the hidden gelt, prompting Nhan to ask to speak with Burnham and Saru in private. Now a member of Starfleet Security, Nhan informs them Vance told her if the tactical operation fails, she is to offer a final solution: destroy the prototype spore with a photon torpedo that will cause a chain reaction and destroy the whole ship to prevent Book and Tarka from firing the isolytic weapon.
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The plan concerns Burnham, who says they couldn’t beam the men out, and Saru, who says it could destroy Discovery in the process. Nhan mentions that’s why it’s a last resort, and Discovery can always try to jump away first. Not agreeing, the women go back and forth with many “ifs” and more “ifs,” never a good argument strategy.
Suddenly, Saru jumps in with a good suggestion: COMPROMISE! I know Bradward and Rutherford would be so proud, especially when inspiration strikes Burnham leading to a COMPROMISE!
Determining Species 10-C designed the mining device to completely mine an area of space until all the boronite is exhausted; the captain hails Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) to see if they can scan for remaining boronite in the subsector. By doing so, Stamets and Zora can develop a model for how long the DMA will stay in an area of space.
Burnham believes if they provide Book with a timetable until the DMA moves next, he will temporarily stand down. Having reached a compromise, Nhan and Burnham contact Vance to tell him the plan.
As Book’s ship and Discovery close in on the DMA Controller’s location, the two vessels play a game of cat-and-mouse. In doing so, Burnham and Book both use their shared knowledge of each other and use it to their advantage, using unconventional courier tricks to evade each other in the dark matter cloud to buy their crews time to work on their respective tasks (Tarka on fixing the scanners, Stamets on a boronite schedule).
The show-down is epic, with the final battle between the two ships leading to some of the best action the show has ever delivered, thanks to each ship having access to spore drive technology. The two starships jump back-and-forth as they exchange warning shot in a dazzling array, but neither seems willing to take the final shot even after Discovery locates the DMA Controller. It’s a brief conflict, but one that genuinely feels like Discovery is finally using the 31st-century to its advantage.
After locating the DMA Controller, Burnham puts Discovery between Book’s ship and the controller. Then, she allows Nhan to send Rhys the instructions for the final solution, just in case.
On the other side of the war, Tarka is worried about his plan to go home (wherever that might be, and I have some wild theories, just for fun, Progenitor anyone?) as Book refuses to commit to either side. So the former Emerald Chain scientist decides to take matters into his fist, smashing it into the controls of Book’s ship to unleash a full spread of quantum torpedoes that nearly forces Nhan to give the order that would eliminate Book’s vessel.
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Luckily, Stamets chimes in to report that he projects the DMA will remain in the region for another week, and no lives will be in danger during that time. However, Book refuses to answer Burnham’s hails, so she decides to pilot a shuttle to speak to her beau “face-to-face” about the new information.
Once in communication’s range, Burnham presents Book and Tarka with a COMPROMISE! If the two men agree to stay onboard Discovery for the week until the DMA moves, it will allow the Federation time to try and make first contact with Species 10-C. However, if the first contact fails, Rillak and Vance will back Book and Tarka’s plan to destroy the DMA.
Book turns the viewscreen on private to consult with his partner about Burnham’s compromise, saying he trusts her completely. Tarka disagrees, but Book says he lost voting rights when he fired the torpedos and decides they should stand down for a week. However, as we already know, Tarka has always been a wild card, and just as a resolution appears to have been reached, he deploys the weapon, and the DMA is annihilated.
It’s clear Tarka never had any interest in a compromise: ten years in the making, his goal was to break the law and get the power source so that he could cross the Rubicon. The question was if his one-man army would follow, and when Book decides to go rogue, the Risian Caesar cannot handle the betrayal.
Either way, in 49 BC, when Julius Caesar deliberately broke the law by leading a single legion across Rubicon, his decision to cross the river made armed conflict inevitable. It precipitated Caesar’s civil war, ultimately leading to Caesar’s becoming dictator for life. Will the same outcome happen in Discovery? Only time will tell.
As the two ships jump to safety, Tarka is taken aback when he realizes the DMA’s power source is on the other side of the wormhole connected with Species 10-C. Despite Book’s last-minute change of heart, it’s clear he feels he has crossed the Rubicon with Tarka, although the former courier had no say in the final decision to fire the weapon.
Back at Federation Headquarters, Burnham and the Discovery crew get disturbing news from the USS Mitchell. A new DMA has already appeared in the same place as Tarka just destroyed, meaning the Federation has unintentionally made first contact with the Species 10-C. If “Rubicon” is a metaphor for tense escalation on a global scale, the stage is set for an escalation of interstellar ramifications.
Star Trek: Discovery currently streams exclusively on Paramount Plus. Catch new episodes each Thursday.
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