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“Mirrors,” the fifth episode of Star Trek: Discovery’s fifth season, answers two questions that have been driving the story: L’ak is a Breen fugitive with a royal-family bounty on his head, and the derelict Mirror Universe I.S.S. Enterprise holds the history behind a Progenitor clue. Those revelations deepen the season’s lore, but they are not equal payoffs: L’ak and Moll’s backstory gives their partnership new context, while the Enterprise’s refugee history feels like the beginning of a larger story rather than a fully explored one.
What does “Mirrors” reveal about L’ak?
L’ak is Breen, and the bounty pursuing him is an Erigah: a blood bounty tied to Breen society. He is also an exiled royal relative. He and Moll hope the Progenitor discovery will give them a way out of the danger surrounding him.
Flashbacks fill in how the pair became allies. Moll, then working as a courier, meets the demoted royal L’ak. When his uncle demands proof of loyalty, L’ak chooses to wound him rather than kill Moll. That decision makes their bond more legible: L’ak’s defiance is not just a romantic gesture, but a break with the family power that has put them both at risk.
In the present, Moll rejects Book’s account of her father, Cleveland Booker IV, and insists that L’ak is the only family she has. The flashbacks help explain that conviction, though they arrive after the series has given the pair relatively little time to establish their relationship. Den of Geek found the late backstory difficult to invest in; Trek Central, by contrast, found the villain history compelling. The episode gives viewers a clearer reason for Moll and L’ak’s choices, but whether their romance lands depends on how much weight the newly supplied history can carry.
#1 Best Overall
What happened to the Mirror Universe I.S.S. Enterprise?
Discovery tracks Moll and L’ak into a fluctuating, wormhole-like aperture that opens onto interdimensional space. Because the opening is too small and unstable for Discovery to enter, Burnham and Book take a shuttle through it while Rayner assumes command aboard the ship.
They find a damaged Terran vessel: the Mirror Universe counterpart of the Enterprise associated with “Mirror, Mirror.” The ship has lost its intermix chamber, its escape craft are gone, and its log has been erased. The evidence that remains points to a mutiny against a High Chancellor who had reversed reforms. The crew tried to bring Mirror Universe refugees into the Prime Universe, aided by a Kelpien rebel leader whom Burnham suspects was Mirror Saru.
Rank #2
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The refugees made it across and settled in the Prime Universe. Dr. Cho, then the Enterprise’s junior science officer and later a Starfleet branch admiral, returned to the ship to hide a Progenitor clue. That history turns the wreck into more than a familiar ship cameo: it connects the clue hunt to an earlier act of defection and refuge. But the episode offers only fragments of the Enterprise crew’s fate and the suspected Mirror Saru connection. Space.com argues that the refugee premise had more potential than the installment uses, and Trek Central likewise sees the ship’s history as underexplored. The iconic vessel raises expectations that the episode only partly meets.
Does the episode solve the Progenitor mystery?
No. Burnham recovers a vial that can be analyzed as the third clue in the season’s search. She explains that Cho hid it aboard the Enterprise. The decoy locket she used is separated from the real clue during the escape.
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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →The discovery advances the hunt, but it does not reveal what the clues mean together. Burnham acknowledges that the crew still does not know what will happen when they combine them. The episode resolves the origin of this particular clue, not the season-long Progenitor mystery.
How do the shipboard stories fit the main action?
Rayner takes command
With Burnham away, Rayner has to lead Discovery through the aperture crisis from the bridge. Trek Central praises this material, which gives the episode a useful parallel to Burnham’s shuttle mission: Rayner must make decisions under pressure without simply imitating her style.
Rank #4
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Culber and Tilly discuss the unknown
Culber tells Tilly that dying, being resurrected, and experiencing the zhian’tara have left him exhilarated by questions about life and what lies beyond it. Tilly suggests that intellectual inquiry and spiritual inquiry can both offer ways to understand those questions. The exchange suits the episode’s concern with crossing boundaries, but Trek Central argues that it revisits ground the series has already covered. Against the urgency of the Enterprise mission, it can feel more like a pause than a thread woven into the action.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does “Mirrors” work as an episode?
Its strongest character choice is giving Moll and L’ak a history that explains their loyalty and desperation. The flashbacks turn the Erigah from a plot label into a personal threat, and L’ak’s refusal to kill Moll gives his rebellion a clear emotional hinge. The limitation is timing: the history arrives late, asking a short run of flashbacks to deepen a relationship that has not previously had much room to develop.
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- Science Fiction, Action, Adventure, Drama
The Enterprise material has the opposite problem. It arrives with an enormous legacy and a promising refugee story, but the episode concentrates on recovering the clue rather than following the consequences of the mutiny. Space.com is more critical of the nostalgia-heavy choice to revisit the ship; Den of Geek also notes unanswered questions about the crew and Mirror Saru. For a story about a lost ship, refugees, and an erased log, those omissions are noticeable.
“Mirrors” is therefore a meaningful lore installment, not a complete two-mystery resolution. It explains who L’ak is and why he is running, and it reveals why Cho placed the clue aboard the Enterprise. It leaves the Enterprise’s wider story unfinished and the Progenitor hunt very much in progress.
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