'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 3 Episode 11 Spoilers: Is Saru losing his sense of right and wrong as captain?

Saru's moral compass might be the first thing to break under the pressures of being captain
'Star Trek: Discovery' (CBS)
'Star Trek: Discovery' (CBS)

It's lonely at the top, especially when you're thrust into a position you never asked for, nor sought out. When everything around you is unfamiliar and it's up to you to make the hard decisions, the line between right and wrong starts to get a little blurry. Saru (Doug Jones) is slowly finding out that being captain of the Discovery is even harder than it looks and his normally unshakeable moral compass might be cracking under the pressure.

The latest episode of 'Star Trek: Discovery' saw Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) say farewell to the Discovery after leaving the 32nd Century as part of a complex plan to save her life, a plan that almost failed before it began, thanks to Saru. When it was discovered that the only way to save Georgiou was to take a risk on a 5% chance she'd find salvation on some unknown planet, Saru was willing to let Georgiou fall, calling on that old Vulcan quote that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. It took the normally hard-edged Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) to convince Saru that if he let a crewmate fall, then his own crew would never look at Saru the same way again.

It was a sobering moment for the Kelpian captain, to realize that his need to do right by Discovery may have done irreparable damage between him and his crew. Though he's been trying his best to balance the many worries he faces as captain, the slip-up he almost made was a massive one. As the crew goes into the Verubin Nebula to investigate the Burn, the promo for the next episode reveals that Saru is going to have to make another difficult choice - one that, once again, will pit the lives of the many against the few as we see a rescue mission quickly go awry.

The official synopsis for the episode reads, entitled 'Su'kal', reads, "Discovery ventures to the Verubin Nebula, where Burnham, Saru, and Culber make a shocking realization about the origin of the Burn as the rest of the crew faces an unexpected threat." You can watch a promo for the episode below:



 

This episode of 'Star Trek: Discovery' airs on December 24, on CBS All Access.

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