Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 4 Ending Explained: Nothing Is Black & White

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 4 - "A Case of Chiaroscuro"Commander Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) learns that nothing is black and white during a Klingon occupation in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Directed by Meera Menon and written by Skylar Ojeda and Dana Horgan, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 4, "A Case of Chiaroscuro" is a bold, entirely black-and-white ode to Casablanca.

Number One's moral compass and adherence to the rulebook are tested on the planet Mat'aar XII, where she, Dr. Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), and Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) are stranded. Mat'aar's sun emits radiation that renders everything in black and white, while the twelfth planet is under the control of the Klingon Empire.

In a bizarre coincidence, Una had an exact double on Ma'taar named Nevette, who was collaborating with Commander Kor (Demore Barnes), the governor of the Klingon occupation. Una and M'Benga discovered N'Vette was secretly working for the Mat'aar resistance, and that she was murdered.

Number One found herself in an impossible and perilous scenario. Una had to find a way to help the resistance before escaping Mat'aar without the Starfleet Officers' true identities being discovered by the Klingons.

Number One Helps Mat'aar's Resistance Against The Klingons

Una, M'Benga, and Uhura learned that the Klingons planned to solidify their control of Mat'aar XII by making their defense grid more destructive, to ensure no one can enter or leave the planet. In retaliation, Nevette and the resistance planned to detonate an EMP to wipe out the Klingons' technology.

Una planted the EMP's detonator on Roman (Andy McQueen), who was planning to betray the resistance to the Klingons. Roman murdered Nevette and knew all along that Number One was an impersonator. Instead of killing Roman after their confrontation, she tricked Roman so that the Klingons identified him as the saboteur who detonated the EMP.

When the EMP brought down the Klingon defense grid, it also disabled the D7 battle cruiser orbiting Mat'aar XII. This allowed Una, M'Benga, and Uhura to make their escape and return to the Starship Enterprise undetected. What happens to Mat'aar, and whether they can drive the Klingons off their planet, were questions left unanswered.

Una forced to "pretend she's someone she isn't" nods to how she kept the secret that she is a genetically engineered Illyrian for most of her Starfleet career, until she chose to come clean and won her inalienable rights in a court-martial. Yet Una impersonating Nevette, who was posing as a Klingon collaborator while secretly leading the resistance, tested her moral resolve as a Starfleet Officer.

Roman was a murderer, and so framing him to go down for detonating the EMP means certain death at the hands of the Klingons. Yet Una still condemned a man to die in a situation where she, as a Starfleet Officer, had no legal cause to interfere. The events transpiring on Mat'aar are in Klingon space and out of the bounds of the United Federation of Planets. Una acted and broke Starfleet protocol to help the innocent people on Mat'aar, citing that "Starfleet isn't always right."

Meanwhile, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 4 hinges on the contrivance that Una has an exact doppelgänger who isn't a clone or from Star Trek's multiverse, and that no one, not even Kor, could tell she wasn't the real Nevette, except for Roman because he killed the real deal. Somehow, everyone on Mat'aar speaks English, and Una even sounds exactly like Nevette. It is a lot to accept up front to enjoy the episode.

La'an's Investigation Leads To Nurse Chapel

On the USS Enterprise, Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) discovers missing data on the Angelo-1 probe, which Una's away team was sent to retrieve undetected before they were forced to hide on Mat'aar XII. Discovering the cause of the probe's missing data led to an investigation that fed into La'an's growing paranoia and fears that she is succumbing to her augment DNA.

After following clues to dead ends, La'an sought counseling from Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) about her psychological issues, which unexpectedly revealed the answer: It was Chapel who somehow deleted the data from the Angelo-1 probe while it was being transported onto the Enterprise.

Chapel confessed that she was contacted by the captain of a medical starship she previously served on, the USS Yang, which illegally entered Mat'aar space without Starfleet approval to answer a distress call. Christine did what her former captain asked and deleted the proof of their incursion to protect everyone aboard their starship.

Nurse Chapel asked La'an to be "a friend" and keep her secret, which she did when reporting back to Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount). Like Una, La'an broke Starfleet protocol to protect Christine and the starship crew whom Chapel is protecting. Meanwhile, Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) feels growing distance from La'an, and their romance seems to be on the rocks.

Uhura Survives The Klingons' Mind Scanner

The Klingon occupation of Mat'aar was a baptism of fire for Ensign Nyota Uhura, who had never been behind enemy lines and had no experience "pretending to be someone else." However, Uhura had the perfect mentor in Dr. M'Benga, who drew on his history of black ops against the Klingons. The most crucial advice Joseph gave Nyota was to come up with a false identity that was truth-based, to make it easier for her to believe.

Uhura taking M'Benga's advice to heart saved her when she was apprehended by the Klingons and personally interrogated by Commander Kor. In what is the first time the Klingon mind scanner referenced in Star Trek: The Original Series' "Errand of Mercy" has been canonically seen, Uhura withstood it by telling the truth that she isn't part of the resistance and focusing on the true aspects of her cover story.

In "Errand of Mercy," Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) withstood the mind scanner (also known as a "mind sifter" and "mind ripper") thanks to his Vulcan logic and mental discipline. Either Kor used a low setting on Uhura, or Nyota unwittingly exposed the flaws of the Klingons' fearsome weapon of torture. Either way, it's now canon that Uhura beat the Klingon mind scanner years before Spock.

Scotty & Ortegas Are Friends Now

"A Case of Chiaroscuro" deals with murky moral themes, but there was lightheartedness as well, thanks to the Enterprise's new (human) best friends: Lieutenants Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) and Scotty (Martin Quinn). La'an suspected Scotty of wiping the Angelo data, only to discover that the engineer ingeniously manipulated the probe signal to allow them to track the Klingons' D7 battle cruiser.

Ortegas and Scotty became true friends at the end of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, episode 3, "Human Best Friend." The helmsman and engineer now being buddies, after loathing each other so publicly, was surprising and noteworthy enough for La'an to report it to Captain Pike. Scotty and Ortegas bantering over their chicken sandwich lunches was genuinely funny.

Meanwhile, not making any (human best) friends on the Enterprise is the new Vulcan Ensign, A'Sha (Bianca Nugara), who was as unfriendly to La'an as she was to Uhura in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's premiere. A'Sha seems to see everyone else on the Enterprise in black-and-white terms and treats her crewmates with equal disdain.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4's new episodes premiere Thursdays on Paramount+