Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has jumped on the Shakespeare train in their third episode of season two by pulling this episode’s title from Macbeth, and even though Macbeth’s soliloquy from Act V, scene v is one of the darkest in an already dark play, Strange New Worlds, as all Star Trek should, twists the words around to celebrate second chances while acknowledging their cost. Christina Chong shines as La’an here, and Paul Wesley offers a fantastic counterpoint to her stoicism with his more upbeat and energetic Kirk. Some backstory from the mysterious Pelia serves as the icing on a cake that would have been stunning had we not been treated to a tiered masterpiece last week. Still, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is a fun episode that gives us valuable insight into La’an’s healing process.

Plot Ahoy!

After a long day of Security drudgery, La’an walks down a corridor on the Enterprise where she encounters a man who has appeared out of nowhere and has been shot. He forces a device into her hands and tells her to get to the bridge. He dies, and she experiences a flash of light, so she runs to the bridge, only to discover that this is definitely not her Enterprise because she’s greeted by a young Captain Kirk who is telling Vulcan Captain Spock of the Sh’Rel that Earth cannot help them in their war with the Romulans. La’an asks Kirk to speak with her in his ready room, and during their discussion, he triggers the device. The two of them reappear in 21st century Toronto, where they must survive by their wits and Kirk’s skills at chess.

While they chat in a hotel room, an enormous explosion rocks Toronto, interrupting their argument about which timeline is superior. A significant bridge has collapsed, sending La’an and Kirk running toward the danger. There, they find wreckage that has clearly been destroyed by a photonic bomb, and they encounter a conspiracy-theorist journalist. She saves them from the Toronto police and feeds them information that leads Kirk to conclude that the time-traveling assassin they’re meant to find is Romulan. However, they need an engineer to discover where said time-traveling assassin has stowed the cold-fusion reactor Kirk believes will be used to destroy the entire city of Toronto. La’an has the brainstorm to visit Pelia in Vermont, hoping to find her in her “Archaeology Department” bunker full of stolen art and artifacts.

They find Pelia and although she isn’t an engineer, they do cobble together a solution using a slightly defunct diving watch. Using said watch, La’an and Kirk find the cold fusion reactor but are ambushed by their friendly photojournalist, who happens to be the time-traveling Romulan assassin. She kills Kirk and forces La’an into the Noonien-Singh research center. La’an’s familial genetics allow her to bypass the center’s security. Sera, the aforementioned time-traveling Romulan Assassin, drags her into the depths of the facility in order to find and kill Khan Noonien-Singh.

Despite her own misgivings, La’an saves Khan and safely returns to the Enterprise. She returns her device to the Temporal Directorate, and the episode ends with her sobbing alone on her bed.

Analysis

“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” takes its title from the soliloquy Macbeth gives upon hearing his wife has died. In essence, he says that life is meaningless as we all progress inevitably to death. However, even though Macbeth concludes that our individual lives signify nothing, this episode directly contradicts that assertion. First, we learn that Khan and the destruction he wreaks on Earth is vital to the formation of the Federation as we know it. His life therefore signifies something. However, so does La’an’s. Because of her unique position as Khan’s direct descendant, she possesses genetic markers that the building’s security system recognizes as “friendly,” enabling her to access the building, which makes her valuable enough for Sera to reveal herself as the architect of the bridge bombing in order to coerce La’an into granting Sera access to Khan. That’s not the really big point the episode wants to make here. Rather, we’re reminded that La’an has suffered prejudice from bearing the name Noonien-Singh. She calls it a scarlet letter, and frankly, that’s not a bad metaphor, even if it is a slightly inaccurate one. La’an has the most reason to wish Khan dead as her own life would have been rendered, assuming the device would prevent her from disappearing as a result of the change, much easier without the link to Federation history’s most notorious mass murderer. In choosing to protect the boy version of that mass murderer, La’an chooses to prioritize the beautiful future of her Federation over her personal convenience.

This is a huge moment for her and one which I wish we’d had some real time to appreciate just how significant that choice is for La’an personally. Yes, it’s the right answer given everything we and La’an know, but what’s most important is La’an’s agency in making that choice. She becomes inadvertently responsible for the establishment of the Federation but also the devastation of the Eugenics Wars, and that’s an impossibly heavy burden to bear. I have faith that La’an will be able to manage it, but it’s going to be a long and bumpy road. My confidence in La’an stems from another, smaller exercise of her agency. She comments to Kirk that she’s finally ready to stop living beneath the weight of what society tells her is wrong about her very existence. After her encounter with Neera Ketoul, La’an is ready to start making her peace with her heritage, and meeting Kirk, someone completely unaware of the dark history haunting the Noonien-Singh name, allowed La’an to just be La’an. She now has a real baseline for what it would be like to just be La’an, and the episode demands that she choose to give that up in the name of the greater good. That’s a huge sacrifice, and it demonstrates the depth of La’an’s grit.

The only problem with this episode is that it follows so soon on the heels of the episode “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” which steals its thunder. In a sense, there’s no real drama in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” because we know what La’an is going to do. We watched Neera Ketoul give her permission to let go of the stigma because she exists as an entity with the capacity to make choices for good or for ill. The choices themselves determine her aggregate “goodness,” not her genetics. In that context, La’an has an even greater duty then to choose correctly. While it makes sense that this episode would follow “Ad Astra Per Aspera” in terms of La’an’s character development, we already know what La’an will choose, and it is not shooting a kid. I’m glad that we get to see La’an make this choice, but I really wish we’d had more time to sit with it. After Kirk’s death, it felt a bit like an afterthought rather than the emotional climax of the episode.

Speaking of Kirk, Paul Wesley is definitely settling into the persona of the Strange New Worlds Kirk. He’s giving his Kirk an honest and effortless charm that suits a younger version of the character without sacrificing any of Kirk’s intelligence. Despite its brevity, the romance with La’an doesn’t feel forced or unnatural, but rather, it seems to develop out of mutual respect, which is nice.

Lastly, as always, Pelia is a gift, and I will die on this hill.

Rating:

Three and a half time crystals

Stray Thoughts From the Couch:

1. I mentioned that La’an’s use of the scarlet letter wasn’t a wholly accurate metaphor, and while the common use of the term may or may not imply a level of fault, the book does. Hester Prynne did engage in an affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. La’an is entirely blameless in the matter of her parentage.
2. I kind of love that this episode pokes fun at how American-centric Trek has tended to be with Kirk confusing Toronto for New York.
3. I love that Kirk finds a chess betting ring in a park. That’s just…so him.
4. I’m not sure I love that all of their collective yesterdays lead Kirk the way to dusty death.
5. Baby Khan was proper adorable.
6. We’re going to see that watch from this episode again, y’all.