We're back! After a long wait, Star Trek: Prodigy has returned with the second half of its first season. (If you need a refresher on what happened in the first 10 episodes of the season, we have that for you.)
Episode 11, "Asylum," picks a few weeks after the previous episode. Gwyn still has no memories of the weapon her father planted aboard the Protostar, one that will make Federation ships turn against one another. Dal and the crew are on their way to make contact with the Federation. But first, they're doing a few good deeds.
The episode opens with a stunning underwater scene as Gwyn, Dal, and Jankom Pog try to save one of the last members of an endangered species from poachers. Dal reasons that when they present themselves to Starfleet, they can be more than just kids who stole a starship. They'll have their deeds to commend them.
Gwyn, though, is still having flashbacks to that last conversation with her father, and becomes distracted. They end up inside the creature they're trying to save. Luckily, Zero beams them up to the Protostar, and they’re able to find a new home for the aquatic animal. Gwyn and Zero discuss her strange flashback — her father telling Gwyn that the Protostar is a weapon — but they still can't make sense of it because Gwyn’s memories are in shambles.
As the Protostar approaches a Federation communications relay outpost, the crew is nervous about whether Starfleet will accept them. "Either they like us, or this will get real awkward," says Rok-Tahk. It turns out, it’s going to be a little of both.
Hologram Janeway fixes up Dal's Starfleet uniform and delivers words of encouragement before he leads the crew to the comm station. They meet Lieutenant (junior grade) Frex, who seems a bit frazzled, but welcomes them aboard. The crew explains that they aren't actually Starfleet, but that they want to request asylum. Lt. Frex does a biometric scan on each of them as a matter of standard procedure.
As expected, Frex can't find Gwyn's species. Jankom is delighted to discover Tellarites were a founding member of the Federation. Frex also tells them that Murf is a Melanoid Slime Worm. The real trick is Dal, though. The computer does recognize him, much to everyone's surprise; however, it doesn't reveal what he is. Instead, it states, "Report to Starfleet Command." Convenient, as everyone wants to do just that.
In a flashback, we then see Captain Chakotay as the U.S.S. Protostar is about to head out on its maiden voyage. Admiral Janeway expresses disbelief that he wants to go back out to the Delta Quadrant; he points out his trip will be much faster thanks to this new ship. It turns out, this isn’t a flashback — instead, Admiral Janeway is running a Holodeck program, desperately trying to figure out what happened to Chakotay. As luck would have it, she gets some good news; Ensign Ascensia has tracked down the Protostar.
As the Protostar crew members explore the CR-721 outpost, Zero leads Gwyn to Sickbay to try and help her with her memory. It's just then that Lt. Frex decides it's time to uplink the station with the Protostar — and everything goes wrong. The Red Alert klaxon sounds.
All of a sudden, thanks to The Diviner’s weapon, everything aboard the station starts malfunctioning and systems aren't responding. The computer pins Gwyn to the biobed and starts filling the vessel with water. The station's weapons turn against itself. Everything is chaos. Thankfully, after some glimpses of her memory, Gwyn is able to cut herself loose with her heirloom.
Frex stops the crew as they're trying to get off the station and accuses them of being saboteurs. The Protostar detaches from the station, and Holo-Janeway can't beam them back. They go for the escape pod, but Frex gets there first — and launches it without any of them.
The crew dons spacesuits as Dal tells them his daring idea — they're going to jump to the ship from the station. It's up to Rok-Tahk, their science officer, to tell them when to jump; however, she keeps doubting herself. The crew trusts her, and Rok doesn't let them down. They get close to the ship (the vector was a little off), and Janeway manages to grab them in a tractor beam.
As they muse about what happened, Gwyn realizes her time spent under the water in the biobed brought her memories rushing back. She now knows that the Protostar itself is the weapon. Meanwhile, Admiral Janeway's ship, the Dauntless, arrives at Tars Lamora and finds The Diviner — and he's still alive. They take him back to the ship, and that’s where the episode ends!
Swapna Krishna (she/her) writes about space, technology, and pop culture at outlets such as Wired, NPR, Engadget, and more. You can find her on Twitter @skrishna.
Star Trek: Prodigy currently streams exclusively on Paramount+ in U.S., Latin America, Australia, South Korea, Italy and the U.K. and is coming soon to Paramount+ in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France as well as to Nickelodeon international channels, which are available in 180 countries globally. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave. Star Trek: Prodigy is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.
Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
