‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Finally Introduces Spock’s Brother Sybok — With a Twist

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In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, fans got a glimpse (of the back) of Spock’s (Ethan Peck) half-brother Sybok. Now, in Season 4, he’s finally been brought onscreen in a major way … but with a twist that means an important difference, should he appear again. Warning: Spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 7!

Rhys Darby returns as a young Q, Trelane, this time trapping everyone on board in a Trek version of Days of our Lives — it’s therefore fitting that Deidre Hall guest stars — Days of the Enterprise. That’s how Sybok comes into play, because, of course, there has to be an evil twin storyline. Per the story that Trelane has concocted, Pike (Anson Mount) and Spock were on a shuttle when there was an incident, resulting in amnesia for the captain and blunt force trauma to the half-Vulcan’s torso where his heart is located, requiring a transplant … from none other than Sybok! La’an (Christina Chong) is the one tasked with breaking him out of prison to do so.

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Peck plays Sybok as well (and seems to be having fun doing so), albeit with long hair, a flowing shirt, leather pants, and daytime drama levels of evil. Of course, La’an falls for him after the usual threats and banter … and a game of kal-toh, a Vulcan game of logic and patience. He then tries to commandeer the shuttle to plot his own course, but asks her to go with him, so he can help her burn the fire within her. Cue dramatic moment to end on to “cut to commercial,” only to pick right up where it left off immediately. La’an refuses to abandon Spock or leave without Spock’s heart. “You mean my heart,” Sybok says. As he sees it, his brother doesn’t deserve the love he gets from so many, including her.

Sybok agrees to do the transplant, even with the risks (death), which La’an now starts to worry about, because his brother’s not the only son of Sarek who can be … good. He does die during the transplant, and Chapel (Jess Bush) has to drag La’an out as she tries to stay by his side.

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Once everyone’s back to normal, Spock joins La’an in sickbay. He was never in any danger, just asleep, and no, Sybok was never there, either. He’s still incarcerated, and La’an never left the shuttle bay. Sybok’s not even his twin, meaning, should he ever appear again, he wouldn’t be played by Peck. The science officer thinks he was just created from his memory, and La’an says that means that he was him, in a sense. She did recognize parts of Spock in him, though the half-Vulcan thinks that’s unlikely since they’re quite opposite, and she just saw what she wanted to. She tells him she doesn’t regret their breakup, though she didn’t realize how much she was going to miss him. He thought the intention was to stay friends.

Bush raved about filming the soap opera scenes.

“Watching that back, it was hilarious. It’s a brilliant episode in my opinion. I know leading up to shooting it, I was nervous just because we hadn’t shot in a multi-cam format before, and it just moved so quickly. And so leading up to it, that felt nerve-wracking because we’re used to a certain amount of space and time on set,” she told TV Insider. “But when we got into it, it actually was so freeing and super, super fun. And it was wild to see how quickly we could shoot the day. Also, our director was brilliant and is such a perfect captain for that episode. And I think she’s made a very special episode of Star Trek that, in my opinion, is probably one of the funniest ones we’ve had in all five seasons.”

What did you think of how Strange New Worlds brought Sybok on? Let us know in the comments section below.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Thursdays, Paramount+

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