‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Says Goodbye to an Original Cast Member

Spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Episode 10, “Terra Firma, Part 2” past this point.

Star Trek: Discovery hasn’t been a show big on goodbyes. We’ve seen villains like Lorca (Jason Isaacs) kick the bucket, and guest stars like Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock (Ethan Peck) pop in for their one-season long arcs. Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), a cast-member since Season 1, just sort of disappeared at the end of Season 2, after deciding not to accompany the crew of Discovery on their trip 930 years into the future. And Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) “died,” only to come back the next season.

So yeah, relatively perfunctory by modern dramatic TV standards. That is, until this week’s Discovery, which saw a big, blown-out, two-episode long goodbye tour for Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Philippa Georgiou.

Georgiou has been important to the series since the first episode, the mentor to Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham, and de facto mother figure. But as part of one of the many huge twists and swerves Discovery dropped during Season 1, the captain of the USS Shenzhou died at the end of the series’ second episode, “The Battle of the Binary Stars.” It was shocking not just because of the whiplash from establishing the Shenzhou for two episodes, only to essentially repilot the series with the Discovery in Episode 3. It was also the absolute gall to kill off a living legend like Yeoh.

But that was all a set up to another twist. Just as Burnham was starting to feel at home on the Discovery, the crew was thrust into the evil Mirror Universe (later revealed to be the machinations of Lorca); a dimension whose Terran Empire was ruled mercilessly over by none other than… Philippa Georgiou. Naturally this led to a lot of soul searching from Burnham, and the ultimate decision to pull the Emperor out of the Mirror Universe, and into the regular Star Trek universe.

This version of Georgiou is admittedly evil and vicious, but she also has a severe soft spot for Burnham. It’s something that’s been teased and discussed since Philippa 2.0 was introduced, but thanks to Mirror Burnham dying before Season 1, we never got to see what made that relationship tick. Enter the two-part “Terra Firma,” which thanks to a Guardian of Forever named Carl (Paul Guilfoyle) allowed Georgiou to reverse-It’s A Wonderful Life her time in the Mirror Universe in order to see what would have happened if she hadn’t executed her own Burnham.

Long story short, it doesn’t go very well. But in the process, this version of Georgiou learns that unlike her fellow Mirror Universe brethren, she has the ability to change. She isn’t good, necessarily, but as Carl explains: she’s trying to do better, and that’s important, too.

That doesn’t address the initial problem that drew Georgiou to Carl the Giant Rock Ring, though: due to the Mirror Universe and the regular universe drifting apart, she is being ripped into pieces at a molecular level. In order to save her, and because she has shown a willingness to change, Carl allows her to step through the rock ring and head to an unspecified time in the past when the two universes were closer together.

…And that’s a series wrap on Michelle Yeoh, but it definitely doesn’t mean she’s done with Star Trek. After a lengthy goodbye from the crew, we don’t find out any further information on where Georgiou ended up (and a press rep for CBS All Access confirmed to Decider that this is, in fact, Michelle Yeoh’s final episode of Discovery). It’s fair to speculate, though, that she’s heading directly into the long in development Section 31 series. First announced back in 2019, the Star Trek franchise’s black ops unit played a big role in Discovery Season 2, and Georgiou was a large part of that.

The question, then, is whether she’s headed back to Discovery‘s old timeline, to go and pick up Ash Tyler (who was also part of Section 31)? Or could she potentially make her way over to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is reportedly filming starting in February, before going over to the as-yet unnamed Section 31 show.

Or: given the time period wasn’t specified by Carl, she could being going somewhere else entirely. We’ve certainly seen enough of the pre-The Original Series timeline where Discovery (and Strange New Worlds) is set, and the Next Generation time period, thanks to Voyager, Deep Space Nine and more. What if instead, Georgiou is plopped somewhere between the two? Or hey, maybe she could head to a third Star Trek universe (though that might defeat the point of making sure her molecules hold together by sending her somewhere safe).

Whatever is next for Georgiou, it won’t be on Star Trek: Discovery. Terra firma!

Star Trek: Discovery streams Thursdays on CBS All Access.

Where to watch Star Trek: Discovery