Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: Babs Olusanmokun, Jeff Byrd, Jess Bush, star trek, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Strange New Worlds S02E08 Director on M'Benga, Controversial Ending

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds director Jeff Byrd discusses the controversial ending to "Under the Cloak of War" with M'Benga, Chapel & Rah.

There's no shortage of controversial moments in Star Trek franchise history. A couple that comes to mind: The Original Series season one episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," when Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) have to stop Bones (DeForest Kelley) from saving humanitarian Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) who they discover is a catalyst in preventing US intervention to World War II. Despite Kirk also falling in love with Edith, he reluctantly holds Bones back as she dies in a car accident. The other is the Voyager season two episode "Tuvix," where Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) weighs the decision between getting her crew members Neelix (Ethan Phillips) and Tuvok (Tim Russ) back versus retaining the lifeform created fused from their combined DNA into a single being called Tuvix (Tom Wright, sharing the characteristics of both. The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode "Under the Cloak of War" also threads the thin veil of morality as Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) encounter a Klingon defector Dak'Rah (Robert Wisdom), a controversial figure when the Federation and Klingons were at war, and became familiar with him during the Battle of J'Gal. The following contains major spoilers.

Star Trek: Behind the Controversial Ending of "Under the Cloak of War"

Director Jeff Byrd, with a script written by Davy Perez, provided some perspective on what went into the episode behind Rah's story as the infamous "Butcher of J'Gar," how the truth unraveled throughout the episode as M'Benga and Chapel have to deal with their comrades being slaughtered throughout the battle as they hear stories from the frontlines of how Rah ordered the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians and even killing his people. While Rah was trying to make amends trying to convince the naysayers that he's changed and is now a reformed man thanks to the Federation, it becomes an exercise in futility by those most affected, which also includes Ortegas (Melissa Navia).

The climactic scene revealed that it was M'Benga who reluctantly came to the Klingon camp operating on a serum that surges his adrenaline, slaughtering many Klingons in search of Rah on the battlefield. The doctor was once a former operative who swore to save lives rather than take them but, unfortunately, was too overtaken by remorse and bloodlust to keep his oath that day. After M'Benga revealed the knife to Rah, the two got into a scuffle, with the doctor killing the ambassador – with the scene hidden behind frosted glass as Chapel discovered the aftermath (having overheard the conversation). When it came to obscuring both characters behind the glass, the decision was intentional.

"That is true. We're not supposed to know, but we're supposed to put ourselves into that moment of what we would have done behind that frosted glass," Byrd told Cinemablend. "I will tell you this. We did shoot different versions of that ending. There was a version that I did where we saw the fight and the killer. We did it on purpose. We wanted to make sure we had different versions just to see how it would feel for us emotionally. To see the fight, to see the killing. Have Chapel witness the killing and on purpose lie about it, as we've seen it."

The ending of the fight was left up to interpretation if M'Benga killed Rah in cold blood, in self-defense, or if it was an accident despite the doctor telling the ambassador several times to leave him alone. "I love that version the best, the version that's out. I love the version where we don't really know, and we have to insert ourselves in there emotionally," Byrd said. "What would you have done? You know, because we, you know, a lifetime will say, oh, you know, I would have done this, or I would have done that. And this episode allows us to really go, 'Oh, what were we doing back there,' or, 'I would've killed him if he attacked me.' So that was on purpose." The episode ends with M'Benga telling his version of what happened and Chapel corroborating to Pike despite the captain trying one last time in confidence to get the truth out of his chief medical officer. During the SNW timeline, things continue to be on shaky ground with the Klingons with the wounds from the war still fresh, and given what happens in TOS, it doesn't get any easier. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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