Star Trek Section 31 Ending Explained: The Final Scene Connects to TNG’s Darkest Story

This article contains spoilers for Star Trek: Section 31.

At the climax of Star Trek: Section 31, Philippa Georgiou has succeeded. She and her newfound teammates in the black ops division Section 31 have returned a massive bomb to the Mirror Universe where it originated, saving the Prime Universe.

Never the type to let anything keep them from cackling loudly at a bar, the team reconvenes in a bar in the movie’s final scene, where they get information about their next mission. What is that mission, you ask? Let’s take a look at all of the teases in the ending of Section 31.

Georgiou’s Redemption(?)

In the climactic battle, Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) faces off against Sen (James Hiroyuki Liao), her rival/best friend from the Mirror Universe. As seen in flashbacks throughout the movie, Georgiou betrayed Sen to gain her position as Empress, which left him badly burned and relegated to the position of slave. After Georgiou left the Mirror Universe, Sen followed her with super bomb in tow, seeking revenge.

The two fight a brutal battle at the end of Section 31, with Sen about to shove a sword through Georgiou’s face. In the last section, she kicks the blade back, sending it across his neck. As Sen bleeds out, Georgiou cradles her defeated foe.

“This is not what I wanted,” she says, and the two share words of affirmation before Sen dies. Honestly, it’s a bit hard to explain this scene. What exactly did Georgiou want when she kicked a blade into his neck? Seems like there’s only one kind of outcome for that sort of thing.

Of course, what’s really happening here is an unearned character moment, the type common to the worst scenes on Star Trek: Discovery, where Section 31 director Olatunde Osunsanmi and screenwriter Craig Sweeny previously worked. The characters fumble for some sort of emotional epiphany and forgiveness, as if they weren’t just stabbing one another two minutes ago.

Even if the redemptive moment doesn’t work for viewers, it’s clear that Section 31 considers Georgiou now forgiven for her sins and able to do more black ops with a clear conscience.

The Closing of the Mirror Passageway

The Mirror Universe first appeared in The Original Series season two episode “Mirror, Mirror,” where the ISS Enterprise served under the human-centric Terran Empire. Kirk, McCoy, and Uhura made it to the Mirror Universe entirely on accident, after an ion storm disrupted their beaming back to the ship.

Section 31 pays homage to this original set up with an ion storm in deep space, which offers a more or less predictable portal to the Mirror Universe. Georgiou and Alok hope to close off that portal in the climax of the movie, detonating the super bomb while right on the edge. The trick works, forcing the passageway to collapse, closing off access to the Mirror Universe and allowing Georgiou to put her checkered past behind her.

Honestly, it’s a bit underwhelming. We don’t get much treknobabble to explain the exact effects of the bomb on the ion storm passageway, but we expected much more destruction with the explosion, given that Georgiou previously said that the bomb could wipe out an entire quadrant.

This explosion might have something to do with the fall of the Terran Empire, which happens sometime between “Mirror, Mirror” on TOS and the Mirror Universe episodes of Deep Space Nine. By the time that Kira and Bashir visit the Mirror Universe in the season two episode “Crossover,” the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance has ascended and humanity has been enslaved. According to Intendant Kira, the Terran Empire fell because of Spock’s reforms, as suggested at the end of “Mirror, Mirror.”

But it wouldn’t be too much of a leap to think that Georgiou’s explosion further weakened the Empire, setting it on a path only accelerated by Spock’s reforms.

Rachel Garrett and the Final Lineup

The promotional cycle for Section 31 teased a team full of Star Trek deep pulls. We have Sam Richardson as the Chameloid Quasi, Humberly González as a Deltan called Melle, Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett from the Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” and Sven Ruygrok as Fuzz, a laughing Vulcan with bleached hair. That last part gets explained away pretty quickly in Section 31, as we learn that Fuzz is not Vulcan, but rather a microscopic Nanokin, who gets around in a robotic Vulcan suit.

Melle dies almost immediately and Fuzz reveals himself to be a traitor when he kills the mech-suit wearing Zeph (Robert Kazinsky). By the end of the movie, we’re left with a team that consists of Alok, Georgiou, Quasi, and Rachel Garrett. For those who (like this writer) would rather watch a movie about season one Neelix than spending one more second with the obnoxious Fuzz, things get bad when the flashy Vulcan suit returns. As he explains in an irritating Southern accent to replace his irritating Irish accent, the robot is now piloted by Fuzz’s mate, angry at being abandoned with a brood of children.

The most interesting of the remaining members is, of course, Garrett. The movie positioned Garrett as the team stick-in-the-mud, a Starfleet true believer who did not approve of Section 31’s ways. However, by the end, she’s on permanent assignment with the team, more comfortable with the chaos around her, but still holding out for a more prestigious gig.

Of course, we know that Garrett will eventually become captain of the Enterprise-C before meeting her end in “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Section 31 isn’t interested in any of that, though, and instead just ends with her smiling along with her rag-tag new pals.

Turkana IV and Section 31’s Next Mission

The team’s celebrations get interrupted by a holographic message from their handler, portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis. “Has anyone been to Turkana IV?” she asks, to which all of the characters respond with self-satisfied grins and all the the viewers roll their eyes and exhale in exasperation.

Turkana IV is the home world of Tasha Yar, the ill-fated Security Officer of The Next Generation. Yar famously died in the first season of TNG, which means that we only learned a few things about her planet, and didn’t get much more information from her sister Ishara Yar, who appeared in season four’s “Legacy.” However, there is one phrase that gets used often when describing the place: “Rape Gangs.”

Honestly, it’s a good thing that most of Star Trek forgot about the planet. As the above phrase suggests, Turkana IV was a tone-deaf attempt to build pathos for Tasha, explaining her toughness as an extension of her extremely dangerous upbringing on a world threatened by rape gangs. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry based Yar on Vasquez from Aliens and “Legacy” drew inspiration from the John Carpenter movie Escape from New York, which gives us an idea of the dystopias they had in mind when thinking about Turkana IV.

Given that Section 31’s producers have already excavated the titular black ops organization and the Mirror Universe, they needed a new source of ill-fitting edginess for their extreme approach to Star Trek. A planet full of people battling to survive rape gangs is exactly the sort of empty shock value that pervades Section 31, making it an ideal setting for a sequel, should a sequel ever happen.

Star Trek: Section 31 is streaming on Paramount+.

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