The occupiers are led by Kor (Demore Barnes), a younger version of the first Klingon ever introduced on Star Trek: The Original Series, and it seems as though he comes by his enthusiasm for war-mongering very honestly. A member of the Imperial family, with grand ambitions of shutting the planet’s airspace and subsequently stripping the native Mat’aarans of their ability to protest, hold positions of power, or even to live where they wish, he’s both smooth and brutal. Una’s scenes opposite him are some of the strongest of the episode, if only because it’s never quite clear what Kor knows and what he doesn’t when it comes to her true identity. Is he ever fooled by Una pretending to be a woman he clearly knew quite well? Does he catch on to her scheme after torturing Uhura when it becomes clear she’s been to a world where green trees exist? It’s hard to say, but Romijn and Barnes make for excellent scene partners.
It’s true, “A Case of Chiaroscuro’s” basic premise requires a fairly healthy suspension of disbelief. That Una somehow accidentally stumbles upon the one planet where her exact doppelganger happens to live is…almost laughably convenient. (Much like the fact that doppelgangers exist at all.) But it’s not any weirder than the idea that the Enterprise is technically responsible for creating the asteroid belt in our solar system, is it? Of course not.
That Una also happens to be extremely good at pretending to be someone she isn’t is the kind of thing that makes sense for her character, and even if much of her success here is due more to pure luck and bravado than skill, well. You have to admire her moxy, as well as her willingness to risk it all to protect her team and, later, to strike a blow for the resistance itself. It’s another stark reminder that she’s never truly gotten over her family’s decision to refuse to fight alongside their fellow Illyrians rather than to pass as human when the Federation came to her colony all those years ago. (And, given how little her perception of this issue seems to have changed since the last time her heritage was a plot point, it seems unlikely that she ever will.)
Unfortunately, the episode’s B-plot is hands down the season’s weakest, involving an increasingly paranoid La’an insisting that some sort of sabotage has been performed on the probe they’ve just retrieved. Her investigation to discover what, if anything, has been slipped into its code. After what feels like an interminable amount of red herrings, it turns out it was just Chapel trying to protect a Federation medical ship which crossed the line of demarcation in order to answer a distress call. It’s thematically similar, in that this story too is about breaking the rules to help those that need it, but it’s both dull and pointless. Despite the visuals of this episode, the choices we face in life are very rarely black and white. But that’s hardly a lesson that La’an, of all people, needs to learn.
