It isn’t often you get the treat of a bonus episode in a week, but since they dropped the crossover over the weekend for San Diego Comic-Con, we get another one. I know I’m excited.
This is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 2, episode 8, “Under the Cloak of War,” and it’s a different episode. It comes hot on the heels of the crossover, which was much more lighthearted and, frankly, a comedy. This one is a much darker look at Star Trek. It’s about PTSD and the aftermath of war.
In a world where we’re always talking about canon and what that means, I love when we explore the corners of the Federation and Starfleet and Star Trek’s universe. By the corners I mean places we don’t normally go, though we’ve heard about them. We’ve heard about the Klingon war in the abstract. We’ve heard about it through different people talking about what happened to them, or just as a historical event. It’s like someone talking about World War II. It’s a thing that happened, and that’s it. So seeing it firsthand is a very interesting place to go, storytelling-wise.
The Ambassador Comes Aboard
The episode starts with Pike bringing on Ambassador Dak’Rah. He was a Klingon general during the war, and they call him the Butcher of J’Gal.
A few episodes back, I think it was actually the first episode of the season, we saw M’Benga and Chapel using what they called Protocol 12. It gave you enhanced adrenaline plus pain inhibitors, which let them fight Klingons. You look at that and you go, what in the world would precipitate the invention of such a thing? They told you a little bit about it. This season we’ve gotten whole new layers to Chapel and M’Benga, and this is one of those times where you go, okay, let’s see what the story is they’re going to tell us.
The presence of the ambassador starts getting people upset. Ortegas has the conn, and she’s talking with Uhura, who’s basically telling her, hey, shouldn’t we give peace a chance? Remember, most of Pike’s crew were on their five-year mission. They didn’t come back for the war, so they missed it. Some of the people who rotated through didn’t miss it: M’Benga, Chapel, Ortegas, and I’m sure several others throughout the crew, but those are the big three we deal with in this episode.
Dak’Rah transports over and wants a tour of the ship, and he’s got this very give-peace-a-chance attitude. Ortegas makes a comparison to the Dalai Lama.
J’Gal Was a Meat Grinder
Then they do an interesting thing. After that first encounter you get a flashback, and they intersperse these flashbacks throughout the episode. It takes you to J’Gal itself, which by every account was a meat grinder. It was, and you see that firsthand.
You see Chapel being assigned there for the first time, and she’s been made the head nurse. You also see a familiar face. The chief of medical for the base is Clint Howard, a Star Trek alum who’s been in several different things, both as a child actor and later on in life as an adult. It’s pretty cool to see familiar faces again, always paying that homage forward to classic Star Trek.
When you go into this world of the Klingon war, it’s rough. It’s Saving Private Ryan meets Starship Troopers, meaning it’s brutal. It’s a side of the Federation you don’t see often.
There’s a scene later where M’Benga is talking to this one young officer, this one kid they help, and the kid literally says to him, I didn’t sign up for this, I signed up to be an explorer. And M’Benga tells him, yeah, but you have to understand, if we don’t hold the line here and stop them from taking this place, it’ll continue, and things are going to get even worse.
That’s the through line of the whole episode. It’s dealing with PTSD. It’s dealing with the war.
The Ghost
We cut to the present, and they bring Dak’Rah through medical, and immediately M’Benga starts having an anxiety attack. I mean a bad one. It could be an adverse effect of using Protocol 12 over prolonged periods of time as well.
In the past, there’s this Andorian who shows up. He’s been assigned by Starfleet with a special unit to go in and take out the leadership of the Klingons on J’Gal. He approaches M’Benga and says, yeah, they told me you would say no. He’s looking for Protocol 12, and for the Ghost, which is apparently what they called M’Benga.
So there’s this dark side to M’Benga, where he used to be a hitman, or not just a hitman but special forces type stuff, and eventually he turned. He says flat out that he found it better to save lives than to take them. I get it.
Dinner With the Butcher
Back in the present, Pike comes in and says, hey, we’re going to be hosting this dinner. Are you going to be okay? You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. Chapel and M’Benga both say no, we’ll be all right.
As M’Benga is approaching the dinner, Ortegas is outside the door, and she’s like, I don’t know what to do. I love Ortegas. The actress is just chef’s kiss, because she’s so nuanced, and I really do love that. M’Benga tells her she could have said no. She tells him he could have said no. And he’s like, yeah, but I can’t. The whole time, M’Benga is trying to put on the brave face and conquer this.
The story on Dak’Rah is that he killed his own officers to cover his escape. That’s the mantra he’s been going through. He’s got this whole thing about how the war changed him, he learned, he got better, and it’s all these big highfalutin things about how traumatizing it was. M’Benga doesn’t buy it. Correction: nobody buys it.
At the same time, Pike has some really good and very interesting philosophical questions. Who has the right to offer forgiveness? The Federation is built on second chances and people being better. So what do you do when that’s not easy, and when it’s an enemy? Who sets those standards?
Incoming Transport
Then we go to the past and you start to see the things they had to do. Chapel and M’Benga are trying to save this kid, and at one point Chapel literally has to put her hands in his chest and massage his heart to get it going again. And then they throw the kid right back into a war scenario. Starfleet says we have to push now, it’s now or never.
Apparently General Dak’Rah then gave the order that anyone who’s not Klingon must die. They start killing women and children. They’re killing civilians. They’re pushing back that hard.
And that’s when you get the transporters, and I love what they did here. If you’ve ever seen those Vietnam-style war movies, you see the people working the camps where the evacs are coming through, and sometimes it’s just the droning of the helicopters. Their version of that is the transporter voice, constantly droning on. Incoming transport. Incoming transport. Incoming transport. It’s almost a dizzying thing.
They overlay that with the dinner. Ortegas finally has to walk out. She can’t do this anymore. Chapel takes the opportunity to go check on her, and Pike says, why don’t you go check on them both, make sure everything’s okay.
As M’Benga is about to leave, Dak’Rah stops him and says, I hear you partake in full-body contact. Klingon jiu-jitsu, essentially, that’s what it boils down to. He’d love an opportunity to practice, because he doesn’t get much. And M’Benga says okay, sure, I’d love to. He keeps it together very well, and he leaves.
Meanwhile, Spock tries to console Chapel and is constantly being rebuffed. His burgeoning relationship with her, on top of his exploration of his human side, on top of, on top of, on top of. I think I’m seeing the strain. If they don’t eventually address it, I do see that breaking apart. I think I said that after the last episode.
Is It True?
Then we cut to M’Benga and Dak’Rah practicing, having their jiu-jitsu thing, and it’s very interesting. They each talk about where they’ve come from, and eventually M’Benga asks: so, is it true?
Dak’Rah tries to say yes. The story he tells is that his three officers, and he names them, wanted to kill indiscriminately. He was done with it. It had changed him, he couldn’t allow it anymore, and they had to be stopped. M’Benga asks him who fought the hardest, and he’s like, oh, uh, Commander Kiff, or Captain Kiff, or something. And M’Benga’s like, oh. Okay.
Then Dak’Rah makes his pitch. He didn’t say these words, but basically: we’re old war dogs, and I’d like your help so that we can do better, so that we can be better. If people see us getting along, that means something. And M’Benga’s like, you want to be friends with me?
M’Benga leaves and goes to a sonic shower, and that’s when you get the whole incoming transport thing again. That’s when the kid they saved, the one whose heart she massaged, gets sent back into the meat grinder.
Eventually the entire mission is falling apart. M’Benga still has the Protocol 12. He takes the Klingon knife from the fallen Andorian, puts on armor, and decides he’s going to go fight. He’s going to do what he can to end this and finish the mission. Chapel sees him and says, listen, we’ve got to go, they’re coming in with a convoy. And he tells her, you can track me with this, don’t transport me out until you absolutely have to. Then we get this vision of him fighting Klingons.
What a First Officer Does
Una comes to Pike, and by the way, this is what a first officer does. As a former first officer myself, in Starfleet, the international fan club, on the USS Star Quest, I remember my job was often to give advice based on things I saw, morale and whatnot. So that’s what Una does.
She says, listen, we need to cut our trip short. We need to cut through the nebula. This is not good. For us to put our people through this kind of mental torture and anguish is not appropriate, and I don’t like it.
And Pike concedes. He’s not inhuman. Pike understands what these people are going through. So he decides, okay, we’ll cut it short.
The Butcher of J’Gal
That’s when Dak’Rah goes to see M’Benga and says, listen, my trip’s getting cut short, and I really wanted this opportunity. And M’Benga tells him no. I will never be friends with you. This will never happen. You don’t understand what that did to everybody.
He walks away, and Dak’Rah follows him, and M’Benga opens up a case where he’s got the knife. The Klingon knife.
You then get to see the fullness of the moment we’d only seen in flashes. M’Benga’s the one who killed Dak’Rah’s people. M’Benga was going after him, and Dak’Rah lived, and he covered his escape, his cowardice, come to find out, by claiming he’s the one who did it.
M’Benga is the Butcher of J’Gal.
That revelation was unbelievable.
Then they cut away, and I like that they did it this way, because it allows for interpretation. Chapel comes into medical and sees their silhouettes through that foggy glass around M’Benga’s office. She hears what sounds like an argument. Then she sees Dak’Rah fall over, and she walks in, and there he is on the floor.
Next thing, she’s giving her side of the story to Pike and Una. Essentially: he wanted some sort of acceptance, forgiveness, whatever, and when Joseph wouldn’t give it to him, he attacked him, and it was self-defense. She stands by that story.
It’s a very confusing scenario, and Pike goes to visit M’Benga. He says, I would hope that after all these years we know each other, and you’d tell me the truth if there’s anything to tell. And eventually M’Benga says, you have to understand, we do know each other, but until you’ve walked in my shoes, or know what I know, or seen what I’ve seen, you’ll never understand.
Pike asks him, what are you trying to say?
“I did not start the fight. But I’m happy he’s dead.”
No High Road
It’s an ambiguous lesson, and that’s what I get out of it. A lot of Next Generation was very much about always taking the high road. The high road, the high road, the high road. I kind of like and appreciate this story, where there is no high road. It feels more genuine. Not that I ever thought Next Generation was disingenuous. But yeah.
The Verdict
Strange New Worlds “Under the Cloak of War” lands at an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
This was a good one. I liked this episode a lot. I’m going to rein it back, and we’re going in at eight. It’s a nice, solid hard eight for me. I enjoyed the episode, I thought there were things to glean, and you got to peel away more layers of these characters. I’d love to see more Pike stories of late, but at the same time, I’m really enjoying the stories they’re telling.
Drop a comment on the video above and let me know what you thought of the episode.
