‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Showrunners Promise “Bananas” 2-Part Season Finale That Answers Canon Questions

| April 11, 2019 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 69 comments so far

The second season finale of Star Trek: Discovery kicks off tonight with the first of two parts – “Such Sweet Sorrow.” We have curated all the pre-episode talk about that as well as some more discussion about last week, all to get you ready for the final stretch.

Finale promises to close the circle with canon

The AV Club just posted a video with members of the cast and crew recorded at PaleyFest two weeks ago, talking about how the show will answer lingering questions about how Discovery fits into Star Trek canon. Co-creator/showrunner (and co-writer of both parts of the finale) Alex Kurtzman assured that the season will end with answers to important questions:

We are totally aware of that and you will see us sync back around to where you expect to be, but not neccessarily in the way you expect it. And for me that is one of things that has been the defining trait of Star Trek. How do you deliver the thing that you expect, that fans love, but how do you keep it fresh by always reinventing it just enough without breaking it. You have to keep making those bold choices to keep it relevent.

Show star Sonequa Martin-Green acknowledged how important canon is to the show and also talked about how things will be resolved:

We will make everything make sense. We are coming from the canon. It is our central nervous system. It is our spine. It is where everything comes from. And we will answer all of those questions…We are tying all of those knots and crossing all of those tees and we will do that.

And Stamets actor – and Trek fan – Anthony Rapp said that the patience of waiting for the season finale will be paid off:

I appreciate that the long-time fans are passionate. What I keep asking from people is patience and trust. And one of the different things about our show is we are telling these long arcs of story. We are not wrapping things up in one episode. So things like the way Spock and Michael’s relationship is part of the fabric and continues to be unfolded in this season and I feel very confident that by the end of this season all of these dangling threads, if we have done our jobs, all the people that still have been a little worried about how it all fits together, I feel like we really close that circle.

You can watch the red carpet clips from AV Club below:

UPDATE: Only one option?

As the finale gets closer, CBS has put up a GIF from the first part which shows Burnham saying “That leaves us only one option.”

Getting ready for the two-part “bananas” finale

Some of the cast and crew have also taken to social media to set the stage for the finale, starting with the official writers’ room Twitter account quoting new showrunner (and also co-writer of both parts of the finale) Michelle Paradise, calling it “bananas.”

Young Michael Burnham actress Arita Arhin posted a fun “family” photo to hype tonight’s episode.

Actor Doug Jones notes how the finale is a “thrill ride” for Saru:

Bryce actor Ronnie Rowe gave a shoutout for the bridge crew saying they are ready for the finale:

Designer Timothy Peel showed his enthusiasm for the bridge of the USS Enterprise, which has its Discovery debut tonight.

Pike actor Anson Mount also showed when he first got to see the bridge thanks to a VR walkthrough of early 3D renderings.

Cast say finale is epic gamechanger

And if you check out today’s @startrekcbs Instagram story you can see clips of the cast at Paleyfest describing the finale in one word.  Doug Jones called it “OMG.” Sonequa Martin-Green called it “explosive.” Anthony Rapp called it “epic.” Shazad Latif said “tissues.” Chieffo used “heart-warming.” Wilson Cruz called it a “gamechanger.” And finally Tig Notaro closed out the story with “hot dog.”

Who is the cast cut up?

CBS has released some more video of the cast answering fan questions, starting with Anson Mount revealing how Sonequa Martin-Green is the biggest cut up on set, thanks to her tackle hugs.

Mount, Martin-Green and Ethan Peck also talk about being impressed with all the fan art for the show.

Chieffo reveals cut dialog from last week’s episode

Speaking to SyFy, Mary Chieffo revealed that a line of dialog from “Through the Valley of Shadows” may not have made the final episode, but helped inform her performance and understanding of L’Rell’s journey in season two:

According to Chieffo, L’Rell has embodied the archetype of “mother,” and “she realizes there’s this image that the Klingons need, but she still is trying to create a better empire than what she’s seen before.” She referenced a particular line that was cut from the most recent episode, which used to occur during a moment with she and Captain Pike (Anson Mount) discussing the Klingon War.

Pike originally referenced the brutality of Klingons, and L’Rell responded with, “That was before me, Captain, when honor was confused with brutality… and pride with savagery.” For Chieffo, it was great for her “to read that line and think about so much imaginary work between the ‘you may call me mother’ moment to this moment.”

Mary Chieffo, Anson Mount and Shazad Latif in “Through the Valley of Shadows”

More behind the scenes on “Through the Valley of Shadows”

In the last couple of days, the cast and crew have shared more from the making of last week’s episode, including a full unedited video showing Anson Mount shooting the scene where Pike gets his fateful dose of radiation.

Mount also shared a slideshow on Instagram showing how the makeup for his disfigured future self was made.

He also shared a fun moment with scarred Pike and his faithful (sadly now departed) dog Mac.

Prop master Mario Moreira revealed a closer look at Pike’s life support chair.

The writers for last week’s episode continued to share more about it, including praise for actor Ken Mitchell.

And makeup designer James MacKinnon also showed off how he has transformed Mitchell into three different Klingons.

How to watch “Such Sweet Sorrow”

Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.

“Such Sweet Sorrow” will be released on All Access on Thursday, April 11th at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT. It will air on Space at 8:00 pm ET/5:00 pm PT on the same night. It will be available on Netflix the next morning, Friday, April 12th, 2019.

Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.

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So the season 2 finale is a two part ending, well that makes for an exciting adventure. It wasn’t like that in season one. I will watch The Orville and Discovery tonight. On Sunday night, I will watch Game of Thrones. I got something good to watch this week.

Yeah, for genre fans, this week is nuts. (Also have the Deadwood TV movie to look forward to later this month. Yowza!)

When they mean “two part ending”, they mean it’s a 90 minute episode that they split in two. That’s why part 2 is usually only 35 minutes.

Where are your sources that it’s going to be 35 min long?

sounds like they have a ball on set…good for the chemistry

I want to see how it ends.

i have to think of enterprise’s “these are the voyages”…

I kind of like that episode. I kind of dislike it, too; but I don’t think it’s as bad as people make it out to be.

I feel the same way, actually. It wasn’t stellar, God knows, but to hear the online freakout at the time you’d think it was worse than “And the Children Shall Lead” and “Threshold” combined. I could understand why the ENT cast resented guest-starring in a TNG episode for their own series finale, and that fans didn’t care for Tucker’s death, but conceptually I didn’t think it was that bad. Sometimes these things can just be a real pile-on, without a lot to actually justify all the angst.

I would say that it is the worst episode in the franchise. It completely undid the Trip/T’Pol relationship they had been building up for two years, they kill Trip off for no reason, the villains are completely useless, the crew are all idiots, it doesn’t even fit into Pegasus, and we never get to hear Archer’s speech. I get the appeal of ending with a time skip to the founding of the Federation, but they did it completely wrong.

None of that tells me why you think it’s worse than “And the Children Shall Lead,” or TNG’s “Shades of Grey,” which is technically just a collection of clips and not even really an episode.

When I first saw ‘Shades of Grey’, I thought TNG had been cancelled and that the producers had made it just to fill a quota.

It was that bad.

Those two you can just ignore and it doesn’t matter. These Are The Voyages has permanent consequences. Trip and T’Pol broke up, avoided eachother for 10 years, and then Trip died. Terra Prime was the perfect ending for the whole series, and then These Are The Voyages just went and undid it.

“Trip and T’Pol broke up, avoided each other for 10 years, and then Trip died.”

Again, we don’t know that’s what happened in real life, any more than, say, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA was 100% historically accurate.

The episode was basically a holo-biopic. Authors have been known to shoehorn tragic romances into biopics (cf. BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY). Remember that they subtly changed the uniforms and bridge layout, too.

The only thing I think we can trust as being absolutely accurate was that Captain Archer was “present at the creation” of the Federation, where he gave a Gettysburg Address-worthy speech for the history books. Just like Lawrence really did ride into Damascus.

Well, unless you go with the novels approach of having section 31 faking everything, we can at least assume that they got Trip’s death date right. It is true that the ins and outs of Trip and T’Pol’s relationship probably wouldn’t be public record, so it is possible that some of that was made up.

After watching Discovery’s version of Section 31, I can almost see Control basically just bringing Trip back to life.

It did fit into “Pegasus,” although I also thought placing it during the time when Jellico relieved Riker of duty in “Chain of Command” might also have worked. The other flaws you point out are valid, although I agree with Michael Hall that if you’re calling it the worst episode of the franchise, you have to explain why it underpeformed “Threshold” and its ilk.

It is supposed to be set during Pegasus, but it doesn’t fit. Riker was busy doing stuff throughout the original episode. He didn’t actually tell Picard about the phased cloak until he basically had no choice. He didn’t have time to play a holo-novel of Enterprise.

Count me as another person who doesn’t quite get the extreme hatred for “These Are the Voyages.”

The real finale for ENTERPRISE was the “Terra Prime” two-parter, and “These Are the Voyages” was a finale for all Star Trek (or so it seemed possible at the time). So I thought a throwback to TNG was appropriate. Bakula hardly was in a position to complain, since his character was near-singlehandedly responsible for forming the entire Federation!

To be sure, the episode was flawed, and it’s probably not in the top half of all Trek episodes. They crammed too much material into a single episode — the TNG scenes, Archer’s speech, Shran and his daughter, Trip’s death — and consequently none of these plots got enough time. But this was a problem of execution more than concept.

I also liked the way that we weren’t sure how much of the episode really took place, and how much was creative license taken by the holodeck program author. (We don’t know that Trip really died, for that matter.) And I liked the way the speech was cut short as an allegory for ENTERPRISE’s untimely cancellation.

Agreed with all of this. I do think TATV is REALLY bad, but mostly for a series finale. I always thought if it was just a fun crossover episode like Trials and Tribbluations was, people wouldn’t be so down on it. Oh and NOT killing off Trip.

If it were just another episode it would have been more run of the mill. But as a finale… It didn’t work. Bringing in Riker and Troi to make it more of a TNG episode was a tremendous disservice to all who worked on Enterprise.

There was a part of me that felt this episode disrespected the cast of Enterprise. But TNG kicked off an amazing era of Star Trek and “These are the Voyages” does an amazing job of bookending an era.

Sorry but I HATED that episode. It was easily the worst finale of all the Treks. It did have one bright spot… I did like the final shots of Enterprise and combining Archer, Picard and Kirk reading the Space, the final frontier thing.

With all due respect, this show could use a little LESS bananas and a little more grounding. Have a sinking feeling about where this is all headed. Hoping to be proven wrong…

I had the sinking feeling in season 1. Season 2 I moved to agitation. As the season progressed, I found the comedy in it before cancelling. There is plenty of Trek to watch. 1000s of episodes in varying flavors based on the specific versions, all of which I enjoyed. I did not enjoy discovery though. Perhaps I expected too much. I stay up on the news though because I plan to return for the Picard show but after watching Discovery and knowing similar powers are running both, I have the sinking feeling again.

I’m still rooting for Discovery. I’ve always felt the raw materials are there, I like the cast and actors, I’m even one of those perverts who loves the Discovery’s design, and I came into the show with the right attitude, that is hoping to see an updated and retooled version of the show for the 21st century. It’s the writing that’s left me pretty disappointed. Hoping they calm down and get season 3 right, but if it’s time jumps into the future or resetting timelines or other lazyass bullsh*t like that, I’m not going to be thrilled.

I think its time not to be thrilled then.

Yup. That was awful.

Ok, here’s a guess…

Section 31 scavenged parts from the Borg ship that crashed in First Contact. That tech has become Control, which is now re-evolving along Borg lines.

In a previous episode of DISCO, there was a thow-away line about advancements in technology being the result of time travel. This is when they were referring to.

Discovery, like Enterprise before it, are set in the Prime universe, so to speak, just one with different technology stemming from the Borg incursion.

No Borg = no Control = 1960s tech and no need for MB to become Spock’s sister.

Everything explained and we can all carry on happily in our modernised prime universe.

Tada!!!

I had a similar theory way back during Season 1 when the head make-up guy was talking about how badly he wanted to do the Borg. You’re absolutely right. Enterprise made that possible.

Doesn’t make sense Dirty Harry, if you introduce radically new tech into the universe that wasn’t there in TOS then they’ve created an alternate universe and it’s no longer the prime timeline. You might have a point about the Borg technology but in this scenario the idea would be that it was always supposed to be have happened that way ie a time loop. The only reason we should need that Discovery looks more advanced is that TOS was filmed in the 60’s.

Please somebody give us a Pike Enterprise show. We have 10 years till he has the accident. Plenty of time for a few seasons.

Make it so!!!

Anson is the best part of this show right now.

I hope he guest stars in episodes in later seasons of the show, but I don’t really want a Pike spinoff. We’ve already seen a show about him commanding a ship (season 2 of Discovery), and we already have 3 seasons (plus 2 animated seasons and 3 movies) about the original Enterprise. I just don’t think there’s any new ground to be covered in a Pike spinoff.

That being said, if they do give him a spinoff then I will definitely watch it, and I will probably love it.

I think if they do a Pike show, then we have one show in the 23rd Century, the Picard show in the 25th century and then wherever Discovery lands. And then all the shows can feel very feel independent of each other which would be great.

Learn the Musk lesson, Dsicovery producers: under-promise and over-deliver, which beats the alternative every time. Your customers will decide what’s “bananas,” thanks.

Picard is going to show up.

He won’t be born for another 50 years.

For the love of fans, please give Pike, NuSpock, Number 1, and the Enterprise their own series! We know Kirk’s five year mission, now show us Pike’s!! Fans would be all over it, Pike and Spock are incredible characters, don’t throw them away!!

What’s the point? The ship would never be in danger.

It never was before, either, truth be told.

Thats the same with all Star Trek series. Only Pike and Spike couldn’t be killed off, all other characters including ‘Number One’ are fair game.

Spike was killed off and replaced by Chachi.

The sentiment that a show shouldn’t be produced because its ship or main characters won’t be killed strikes me as a very contemporary criteria for what makes good Star Trek, and that’s kind of sad. Discovery gives you that though, I guess. Personally if there’s good character development, exploration of moral and philosophical quandaries, and some action thrown in, I’m all for it. I never expected Picard’s Enterprise to blow up, but I enjoyed it all the same.

They apparently went through the effort of building an Enterprise bridge set. They could probably have avoided that … unless of course, they were building it anyway for a spinoff series.

This prequel series may become a sequel series after all!

I have no questions. I don’t care about cannon.

Do you care about canon?

Here’s hoping that I’m proven wrong — really, really wrong — in my initial negative appraisal of the Enterprise bridge set.

Someone’s gonna die….

No, I do not need a Pike led series on Enterprise. There have been three other shows on ships named Enterprise, I’m guessing there are other ships in the fleet….

7,000 apparently. That’s a lot of ships

A LOT of freaking ships lol. It makes sense though but I never got the feeling Starfleet was THAT big during TOS. I imagined maybe a few hundred ships but thousands is pretty crazy.

Yet only 2 show up to face Section 31.

I smell an alternate reality reveal (and someone important dying). A timeline reset wouldn’t make sense and only cheat the fans.

probably Tyler gonna die next week

This show has gone completely off the rails. I am not feeling it. #NodiscoforthisTrekfan

Only if Patrick Duffy steps out of the shower at the end of the season. Otherwise, no.

CBS All Access becoming the Star Trek Network will ultimately hurt the franchise because Star Trek is the only reason to get the service. Fans will pony up in the near term but no potential new audience will even have the opportunity to see the shows. That’s not a recipe for long-term success, or even survival

Do you think it’s just possible that the MBAs who run CBS have considered all that?

Let us not give studio heads too much credit, MBAs or not.

Did you see what Disney revealed with Disney+ today? AA has a loooooong way to go if it wants to compete now. It’s going to take more than a few Star Trek shows and the Twilight Zone to keep people interested all year, especially if you just don’t care about these shows.

Bananas is a term I worry about, when it comes from the DSC writers, but not surprising.

If there are bananas, then there are going to be banana peels. Don’t slip up!

What are they going to f*** up next?

I’ve really enjoyed this season, but “bananas” makes me nervous.

I heard a rumour that Sybok is going to show up in the finale, in preparation of a future spin-off series, “The Sybok Chronicles”

We don’t fear bananas.