Full spoilers follow for the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Choose Your Pain.”
There was a lot going on in last night’s Star Trek episode, which saw Captain Lorca escaping Klingon captivity, the first appearance of the (new) Harry Mudd in Rainn Wilson, Michael Burnham’s salvation of the tardigrade Ripper, and a bunch of classic Trek captains getting namedropped. There was plenty more to ponder in the segment, “Choose Your Pain,” too, but perhaps most intriguing was the genuine twist that it ended on.
After subjecting himself to the spore navigation treatment that was messing with Ripper, Lt. Stamets emerged more or less unscathed. Or so it seemed, until the final moments of the episode when we saw a creepy reflection of the character staring back at us in the mirror, even after Stamets had left the room. That, combined with the recent reveal that Discovery will visit the classic Mirror Universe this season, certainly has fans speculating. I spoke to Stamets himself, actor Anthony Rapp, about “Choose Your Pain” (check out our review here) and what that final shot might mean. Read on for our full chat…
“I can say that the trip on the mycelial network has opened some doors… of perception,” Rapp says when asked about that strange mirror image of Stamets. “That’s a little hint of some of the interesting ways that things start to alter a little bit for our scientist friend.”
The Doors of Perception, of course, is the essay by Aldous Huxley about his experiences taking mescaline. (That essay is also where the band The Doors got their name, so between this and Stamets’ namedropping John Lennon and the Beatles, we’ve definitely got some ’60s rock going on.) Clearly, this mirror situation is the result of Stamets’ putting himself in harm’s way so that Ripper could be saved.
“I think that Stamets is a biologist at heart, and values life,” says Rapp. “And, certainly, I think that Stamets is so hunkered down in making the spore drive work, he wasn’t really aware of the cost to the tardigrade. Wasn’t made aware, and wasn’t aware. Wasn’t even perceiving it. Wasn’t really taking it in, or wasn’t letting himself take it in, until it’s brought to his attention. And then with the nature of the conversation and the research that happens from Dr. Culber, his partner, the conversation with Burnham and Tilly, he has to find a solution. And if the only solution is a human being, he would not ask any other person to do it. I mean, Stamets is a man of principle, 100 percent, and certainly would not willingly force a creature to sacrifice itself without consent. So I don’t think Stamets is trying to be a hero. Stamets is trying to do what’s right. Which I guess is what heroes do. But it’s not like, ‘Now I’m going to sacrifice myself!’ It’s like, ‘This is the only way this is going to happen.’”
Stamets has appeared in three episodes so far, and viewers will be forgiven for thinking of the character as a tad ornery, or perhaps even as a bit of a jerk in his first appearance, where he wasn’t terribly nice or welcoming to Sonequa Martin-Green’s Burnham. Of course, Burnham is a convicted mutineer and criminal, and Stamets has a lot on his plate at the moment. But over the course of these three episodes, we’ve already seen an arc for the character into someone much more likable and heroic. It’s interesting that the Discovery writers and actors are able to take their time with the characters in this way and not feel the need to slot them into a specific type from day one, as previous Treks might’ve done.
“I just think that it’s human,” says Rapp of this approach. “I think that in the moment when Burnham encounters Stamets for the first time and the audience encounters him, it’s like, things aren’t going very well. “There’s a lot of things that are unhappy-making. Most notably, Lorca breathing down his neck, trying to force an outcome that isn’t really happening. And that, in and of itself, is really frustrating. As a scientist, you have a theory and things look like they’re lining up and it’s just not working -- that’s frustrating. And then on top of that, continually my authority is challenged by having this mutineer thrust at me. You know, these are all things that are not necessarily very pleasant. And, yes, I think that Stamets is someone who doesn’t suffer fools, and is not trying to be -- is not a diplomat, so will just be like, ‘Well, prove yourself to me.’ And, ‘You’re being confusing, stop it, just go work.’”
The actors concurs that this side of Stamets is “not very nice,” but also that there are many facets to the guy.
“It’s still, to me, the same person who can then also do the things he did in this episode,” he says. “It’s just in different circumstances. And through scientific collaboration, which is his biggest passion, he is able to find solutions to these things. So … new life is breathed into Stamets by virtue of this mini crisis, which is, ‘I get to do science again, I get to do something which is what I really wanted to do.’ And yet it creates this moral dilemma, but actually now he can find a solution to it. And I am willing to put myself in harm’s way for the greater good. It’s the same person that you met, but just in very different circumstance [and a] very different dynamic.”
Rapp, who is a Star Trek fan himself and has been known to document his dive into the show on Twitter, acknowledges that “it’s a little bit, you could say, unusual in the Star Trek universe to have characters who do have these different colors.” He says that in some ways the series has typically focused on more archetypal characters. But for Discovery as a series, the premise is that “things are always more than what they seem.” That goes for the plot, and for the characters too.
“And that includes what we know about ourselves, as well as what we know about one another,” he says. “And continually we’re going to be coming up against our own limits and reaching beyond them. And that’s really great, and a new thing. And in a way, though, I think it’s asking some of the more traditional Trek audience to kind of retrain their brain a little bit when they’re watching our show, and remember, ‘Oh yeah, these aren’t fixed people. They will grow and change.’ And yes, this story won’t get resolved in one episode. And the seed that’s planted now will bear fruit, you know, two, three, four episodes down the road.”
The dynamic between Stamets and Jason Isaacs’ Captain Lorca on the show is great because it represents a philosophical conflict that is universal. Stamets is a scientist pursuing his research for the pure sake of the science, and Lorca is a military man who needs that research to fight his war.
“It’s a real tough dynamic,” says Rapp. “The real Paul Stamets [the mycologist who Rapp’s character is based on] -- he’s an amazing person. He e-mailed me, just grateful as a scientist, that this was something that was being explored in our show -- the struggle that scientists have, that their work will be used for, you know, nefarious or destructive purposes. And [the character] Stamets for sure would not pursue this avenue of exploration of this work, to think that it could make a stealth weapon. He pursued it to be able to uncover the mysteries of the universe. And so it is inherently really problematic that this is what’s happened.”
Rapp points out that Lorca doesn’t seem particularly interested in the scientific aspect of the research or “the sort of more noble aspects of his work” either.
“So it’s a combination of all these things, and he’s a really stubborn, manipulative person in Stamets’s eyes, Lorca is, so it just makes things really difficult,” he says. “And in the past couple episodes, the pressures are part of what led [Stamets’ research partner on the USS Glenn] Straal to take this risk that he took that led to the destruction of his entire crew. … And then when you combine that with Lorca’s total disregard for the creature as anything but a weapon -- there’s a lot of things in the air that are, yes, problematic to Stamets about Lorca.”
I asked Rapp about the cast’s approach to the dialogue in the show, which is much more modern sounding and vernacular-heavy then previous Star Trek shows (and I’m not referring to the swear words per se). He sees it as part of how the show is depicting the evolution of Starfleet towards the Trek that we know and love.
“It’s as much as anything about Starfleet itself. It’s going through these growing pains, it’s being tested before it really earns its sort of maturity. And yeah, I guess that filters down into every aspect of it -- that it’s not so unified a way of being,” he says. As for the specific manner of speaking, it’s not something that was specifically mandated by the writers and producers. “It seems like we approach the scenes, when we rehearse them, to make sure that we’re making the best sense of them emotionally from a story perspective. That the information that is being relayed is relayed in sort of the most economical but human way. But I think there is a concern on everybody’s part [of] making sure it always feels grounded.”
At this point, the actor is wrapped on Season 1. And while there’s been no official word on a Season 2 from CBS yet, he says that “if it’s happening, I’ve been told that I would continue to be a member of the crew -- if it’s happening. … I’m crossing my fingers with everybody else!”
Stay tuned to IGN for much more on Star Trek: Discovery in the weeks ahead.
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura.
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