Prodigy’ Puts All The Pieces Together In “Cracked Mirror” [Episode 214] – TrekMovie.com

 “Cracked Mirror”

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episode 14 – Debuted Monday, July 1, 2024
Written by Erin McNamara
Directed by Ruolin Li

A thrilling episode indulges in some Trek tropes to take the characters on an exploration of their choices.

WARNING: Spoilers below!

RECAP

“All our past mistakes are coming back to haunt us.”

All is well on the Protostar… too well. The kids are confident as they protowarp to Voyager, and Chakotay gets all cleaned up for his big reunion, with barely a notice of Gwyn’s twitch of pain and those flickering lights. Beaming over, the Doctor is pleased and surprised to greet Chakotay, as is Admiral Jellico? Janeway died in the Infinity trying to save Chakotay, wait what? If you haven’t already figured it out, Maj’el explains: they are on the wrong Voyager. Most head to sickbay to rendezvous with the EMH and sort out how to get them to the right reality, but Gwyn flickers again before they arrive at a sickbay in disarray with no Doctor, but an Okona. Rok and Zero took a different lift, arriving on a ship full of Enderprizians under the command of Captain Tuvix. Sure, why not? In Sickbay Okona remembers how the weapon on the Protostar wiped out the Federation and he’s just here scavenging. This all feels familiar to Chakotay, but this time the deck-by-deck realities play out as bad consequences of choices made by Dal and the gang, and it all started because the Protostar “punched a hole” through the weakened timeline. The plan is to get to the bridge, do some mumbo jumbo on the deflector dish, seal the rift, and Time’s your uncle. Taking Gwyn through eight decks (and realities) would probably kill her so they put their trust in “Captain Ponytail” to beam them to the bridge, who warns he sold off some transporter parts. They beam in (without Maj’el) still in the transporter room… but with some ominous red accents. Uh oh.

“You’ve slithered right into the viper’s nest.”

They are soon greeted by Janeway in a slinky suit and Chakotay, with a goatee. If you haven’t worked it out again, Chakotay explains: Mirror Universe. After some villain monologuing, Evil Janeway swaggers away to leave Evil Chakotay to fire up his agonizer. Picking “the cute one” as his first victim was a mistake as Murf springs into gooey action, easily knocking the would-be torturer out. Chakotay uses Pog mitt grease to Terran himself up and they Wookiee prisoner trick their way through the ISS Voyager, but Mirror J is not so easily fooled. They evade her phaser, but find no safety in Cetacean Ops because “even the whales are evil.” Finally, on the bridge, things escalate as The Loom are squeezing through the cracks of the reality they shattered. Mirror Janeway arrives as the time-eating squid monsters start breaking through the shields so Chakotay forms an uneasy détente. The rejiggered deflector dish is fired and voila, they are all back on the transporter pad, without the evil lighting scheme. There’s a bit of déjà vu as they are greeted by a surprised Doctor, but this time with a surprised (and reality-appropriate) Janeway. This is the moment we have been waiting for as the two embrace and she welcomes him “home.” Aww.

ANALYSIS

Reflecting on the choices

Everyone once in a while Star Trek gives you a gift, and “Cracked Mirror” is one of those times. It has action, heart, and humor, all steeped in franchise and series lore. The premise was a familiar Trek trope, and so particularly on the nose with Voyager’s “Shattered” that Chakotay had to hang a lantern on that. But this is less copying and more paying homage as the show used the reality hopping for characters (particularly Dal) to reflect on the choices they have made since the start of the series before they turn back to the main plot where more difficult choices surely await. Bringing back Billy Campbell’s Okona brought this all together as he already was a great foil and cautionary tale for Dal when they first ran into him in season 1. He also helped keep things light as this was one of the funniest episodes of the series, including having a go at the Mirror Universe itself, like Pog’s “Agonizer? Was mean machine taken?”

The show certainly had a lot of fun with its trip to Mirror Universe, doing a greatest hits rendition of the familiar tropes, right down to the evil goatees. Doing the canon math, the Terran Empire had supposedly already been wiped out decades before, but it’s not hard to imagine it returned after the revolution against the Alliance, as seen in DS9. Mirror Janeway refers to the “New Terran Armada” which supports this hypothesis, and Janeway wearing something very much like Seven’s eyepiece could indicate they had some Borg tech help to get back on top. However, the MU doesn’t fit with the bigger narrative of the ship split into realities based on the choices of these characters. This inconvenience was handwaved by Chakotay saying they will “figure that out” later, freeing up the writers to indulge in more MU fun. So, for all the delicious dialog, evil whales, and Murf with a goatee, I’m going to give them a pass. There also was an important character moment in the MU when Chakotay was able to reach Evil Janeway with, “No matter what reality we are in, I could never hurt you.”

All of this was a prelude to the big event, the long-awaited reunion of Chakotay and Janeway, and their touching moment didn’t disappoint. It was sweet, and a bit fun, but also deeply emotional for them both, and the audience, especially Voyager fans. J/C fans should also have plenty to work with here (and even more with the MU pair), and surely shippers got a kick out of Dal ribbing the cleaned-up Chakotay with: “Looks like someone is ready to be sent to the Admiral’s ready room.” That one probably went right over the heads of some of the younger viewers, but we see what you did there. And this reunion was also a frame for something bigger as we could see a clear parallel being made with the just-as-complicated relationship between Dal and Gwyn. Once again, all of this shows how much they jam-pack into each short episode of Prodigy and how it works on many levels.

Final thoughts

This was an amazing episode and yet it feels like we are ramping up for something even bigger as this sensational season heads into the final episodes with all our characters finally together. Before you jump into the next one (a two-parter), it’s worth it to rewatch “Cracked Mirror” again (and again) more time to find more of those layers. And all those views can’t hurt to get Netflix’s attention if we ever want more of this show.

BITS

• This is the episode chosen for next week’s Comic-Con screening and panel.
• When asked to petsit Bribble Holo-Janeway notes she is a dog person, as she is based on original Janeway who had a pet dog named Mollie before her first Voyager mission.
• Chakotay also used the deflector dish to reset things in “Shattered.”
• It’s still unclear what happened to Maj’el when the others beamed to the Mirror Universe, but when they were reunited she said: “That was highly outrageous,” indicating she remained with Okona, who was introduced in the TNG episode “The Outrageous Okona.”
• The reality with Captain Tuvix had an orchid under glass, presumably like the one involved in the transporter accident that fused Tukov and Neelix in “Tuvix.”
• As a nod to that episode, Zero mentioned they were enjoying Tuvix’s Vulcan/Talaxian fusion cuisine.

TrekMovie’s Prodigy July binge-watch

Since all 20 episodes were released on Netflix at once, we’re binging it in five-episode arcs; we can’t stick to watching just one a week! Each All Access Star Trek podcast (every Friday morning) will cover five episodes, while written reviews for all five will be published throughout the week, with two-parters paired up. This will all wrap up just as San Diego Comic-Con kicks off at the end of the month. We also hope to have more Prodigy interviews and analysis in July and beyond.

NEW: Full spoiler open thread!

We welcome fans joining us through our July coverage of 5 episodes each week, and we ask our readers to keep comments related to the season up to the episode being reviewed.

For those choosing to binge the show even faster, we have created an open thread where you can post all the spoiler comments you want for the entire season. 

Season 2 of Prodigy is available to stream on Netflix globally (excluding Canada, Nordics, CEE, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Mainland China) and season one is currently available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Central and Eastern Europe with season two coming soon. Season two has launched in France on France Televisions channels and Okoo.

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