There’s been an increase in stories about the generational trauma passed down in families and cultures as the current crop of film and TV storytellers emerge determined to break those cycles. In the recent episode “Charades,” Paramount+’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds not only delves into that territory, but it provides a nuanced view of a Star Trek character from the original series.
“Charades” begins with awkward tension between Spock (Ethan Peck) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), who haven’t spoken properly since they “pretended to kiss.” They’re forced to deal with each other briefly when Chapel ends up with Spock on a shuttle fly-by of the moon of Kerkhov in preparation for her interview with the Vulcan Science Academy. As they start to talk about what’s going on between them, the shuttle crashes into a Kerkhovian transport tunnel.
Both survive, but later, a Kerkhovian named Yellow explains that Kerkhovian law dictates “remediation” be made, so they healed Spock and Christine. However, Spock confused the Kerkhovians since he and Christine were not alike, and Spock’s physiology provided “mixed instructions.” So, they used Christine’s “blueprint” to fix Spock, which turned him entirely human. Yellow says remediation was made, no thanks are required, and that no further contact is necessary, before ending communication with them.
The Kerkhovians have a terrible customer service department.
Needless to say, Spock and everyone else are freaked out. As Christine spends a majority of the episode trying to help Spock, blaming herself for tagging along on the shuttle ride in the first place, Spock is dealing with an influx of unfamiliar emotions and sensations while being pressured, by his fiancée T’Pring’s (Gia Sandhu) family, into having a V’Shal dinner, a ceremonial engagement meal.
That pressure comes from T’Pring’s mother T’Pril (Ellora Patnaik) already looking down on Spock as a potential son-in-law since he’s part human. His devotion to Starfleet doesn’t help, so it’s important that he make a good impression. Eventually, Spock’s mother Amanda (Mia Kirshner, reprising her role from Discovery) comes to visit her son on the Enterprise to help him prepare and, once she learns what’s happened to him, to help him navigate being Vulcan as a human.
This gives him a greater respect for his mother, as he is able to fully appreciate what it actually takes to try to “be Vulcan” for a human.
In a heartwarming speech at the dinner, after T’Pril is being particularly difficult and relishing the part of the dinner when parents point out the flaws in their child and future in-law, Spock speaks up on behalf of his mother, for whom he now understands it took a great deal of “true strength” to navigate Vulcan culture for the person she loved, and that strength came from a human deserving of respect.
For Spock, as a mixed-species person, he is that much closer to finding balance in his identity as he reclaims his humanity and sees his mother in a new light. Hooray. How nice for him. But what about T’Pring?
Bridging the gap between past and future T’Pring
It sucks that while Spock is gifted with a deeper understanding of his heritage and a greater acceptance of himself, T’Pring is rewarded for being the most understanding fiancée of all time with Spock keeping things from her and hurting her feelings, which prompts her to ask for “time apart” from their relationship. T’Pring still seems trapped by and in Vulcan culture—a culture that absolutely matters to her, but isn’t all-important the way it is for her mother—and her one respite from it has proven unreliable.
It’s clear how much SNW T’Pring loves Spock, which is interesting in light of what we know happens between them by the original Star Trek episode “Amok Time.” In that episode, T’Pring (played by Arlene Martel) chooses a full Vulcan named Stonn (whom we saw briefly on SNW as her colleague last season) over Spock and calls for a ritualistic fight to the death between Spock and Kirk as Stonn’s champion.
The episode paints T’Pring as coldly logical. If Spock is a “good Vulcan” who’s relatable because of his humanity, T’Pring is a “bad Vulcan,” embodying everything “wrong” with Vulcan culture. Despite both Spock and T’Pring wanting to get out of their arranged marriage deep down, only T’Pring comes off looking like a one-dimensional cheating villain who dared to hurt a fan-favorite character, while Spock is allowed a snarky remark at Stonn’s expense. (“Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting.”)
I’d been having trouble reconciling that T’Pring with the T’Pring of SNW until “Charades” provided nuance, making it easier to bridge the gap between the two.
T’Pring’s issues with her mom are so real, and so unresolved
From the moment T’Pring sets foot on the Enterprise and cuts off Spock’s traditional greeting (“parted from me, but never parted …”) just to go to his quarters and relax, you can feel how exhausted she is by the weight of cultural expectation her mother’s already heaped onto her. Having not met T’Pril at this point, it’d be easy to wonder how much of this is true, and how much of it is T’Pring reading into her mother’s behavior.
Once we meet T’Pril, however, we see why her daughter is already so worn out. T’Pril expects everyone in her life, from her husband, to her child, to anyone who’d become her child through marriage, to be perfectly Vulcan. She sees her husband Sevet’s (Michael Benyaer) desire to give Spock a chance as a way to build a stronger relationship with Sarek as beneath them, especially since Sarek had the audacity to marry a human and produce a half-Vulcan. Despite everyone’s best efforts to make her feel at home and provide Vulcan creature comforts, she looks down her nose disdainfully at all attempts, no matter who they’re from.
I’ll say it: T’Pring’s mom is a speciesist.
The tension between mother and daughter as the V’Shal dinner goes on is so real. Anyone who’s ever had a complicated relationship with their mother, particularly if there’s a similar cultural element involved, might find their dynamic familiar, and it’s heartbreaking to watch T’Pring walk the tightrope between her responsibility toward her love, Spock, and her responsibility toward her family and culture.
To top it off, during the V’Shal dinner, Christine arrives with Spock’s “vitamins” (i.e. the treatment she was able to create with Yellow’s help to get him back to his old self), and Spock all-too-enthusiastically goes into the next room with her. We see this register with T’Pring, and she watches them leave, seemingly confused.
This is after she had already seen Spock “give in to [his] human side more than [he’d] like to admit” in the season one SNW episode “The Serene Squall.” After Spock and Christine “sold” their romance, T’Pring came to see Spock, and when he apologized for having kissed Nurse Chapel, they had this exchange:
T’PRING: “Why apologize? It was an impressive gambit. To protect both my reputation and my patient’s safety.”
SPOCK: “You knew?”
T’PRING: “Of course. I never actually believed you could have feelings for Nurse Chapel.”
SPOCK: “Of course not.”
T’PRING: “I assumed it was part of some greater plan. And I was right. I was also right about something else.”
SPOCK: “What?”
T’PRING: “Your human side can be a source of strength. There is no way you could have sold the passion of that kiss without it.”
SPOCK: “Thank you. You know me well.”
(SNW S1, Ep 7 – “The Serene Squall”)
And then, they had a “re-bonding ritual.”
As early as season one, SNW gave us a T’Pring who loved and respected Spock’s human side and already knew what it took Spock until “Charades” to learn: that having humanity is a strength. T’Pring has been his cheerleader on the mixed-species front from the jump, and yet, when Spock makes his impassioned speech about his mother, he does so as he tells his future in-laws, and T’Pring for the first time, that he’s been fully human for the whole dinner.
T’Pring’s understandably upset about this, not because he was fully human and lied about it, but because he didn’t trust her enough to share what he was experiencing with her. Spock’s excuse is that, since it’s difficult for Vulcans to lie, not telling her what was going on seemed like the better choice in order to pull off the dinner. She replies:
“While there is logic to what you say, I should also note that you seem to have involved nearly everyone else on this ship in your ruse. How am I meant to feel? I have told you before that I accept you, human side and all. But it would seem that despite this, and all that we have been through, you still do not trust me.”
(SNW S2, Ep 5 – “Charades”)
While it’s unclear if her response to seeing Christine pull him out of the room has to do with concern over their relationship or not, the fact is that she’s already seen that play out and been fine. But to have Spock, in spite of everything, think so little of her that he can’t trust her? That’s one thing too many, especially considering that she’s exhausted herself fighting her mother’s cultural expectations, in large part for Spock.
Add that to Spock’s near-constant absence and devotion to Starfleet (which she cites in “Amok Time”), and suddenly it doesn’t seem like a stretch that she’d turn to the company of another man on Vulcan. Even worse? It means that her mother was right about Spock, which is just putting salt in the damn wound!
Stonn might not be as hot, complicated, or exciting as Spock, but he’s probably a better boyfriend, and would make a better husband. Get it together, Spock.
I just hope we get a little more T’Pring before the season’s over!
(featured image: Paramount+)
