Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"
Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody"
Logline
An accident with an experimental quantum probability field causes everyone on the USS Enterprise to break uncontrollably into song, but the real danger is that the field is expanding and beginning to impact other ships—allies and enemies alike.
Written by Dana Horgan & Bill Wolkoff
Directed by Dermott Downs
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Fantastic episode! Loved it from cover to cover. I like how we have Spock reverting back to being classic Spock in a musical episode. Arguably it makes this episode one of the most important episodes to canon. Also did Kirk know about Marcus beforehand? I swear he learned about him in Wrath of Kahn but I haven't seen that film in forever.
Yes.
Kirk was aware of David’s existence prior, but David wasn’t aware that Kirk was his father. He is surprised when David identifies himself as Dr Marcus in ST II but asks Carol when she appears, “Is that David?”
Later, he says:
KIRK: I did what you wanted. I stayed away. Why didn't you tell him?
CAROL: How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world, and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father.
Sweet thanks for clearing that up. I really need to rewatch all of the movies again. I really appreciate that the writers of SNW seem to be trekkie enough to catch these things.
David wasn’t aware that Kirk was his father
Technically, David did know that his father was an "overgrown boy scout" named Jim Kirk, but they had never met before and evidently knew little about one another aside from their mutual existence.
From the dialogue, David, at the point Kirk has the altercation with hin just outside the Genesis Cave, was unaware that Kirk was his father although he knew that his mother knew him. As he said on Regula I:
DAVID: Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of man...
CAROL: Listen, kiddo: Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout.
Carol also doesn’t deny Kirk’s assumption when Kirk asks why she didn’t tell David about him. So it seems clear that David doesn’t know at that moment.
That being said, David may have met Kirk as a child. In the beta canon Kirk does spend time with David as a “friend” of his mother’s, but Carol insists that Kirk not tell David the truth, for the reasons she mentions in ST II about their different worlds.
It’s only after Spock’s funeral that David reveals he knows and is proud to be Kirk’s son. But the way this all makes sense is to assume that David was just told off-screen by Carol about his parentage.