Star Trek: Discovery’s reveal that Michael Burnham’s mother (Sonja Sohn) is the Red Angel was a delightfully unexpected twist, but ultimately a poorly executed one. While any good surprise should be just that, this one felt like a deus ex machina rather than a genuine turn rooted in its preceding story.

It’s worth noting that building up this mystery for all of Star Trek: Discovery season 2 put no small amount of pressure on its solution. The Red Angel’s identity was so hyped up, it was bound to disappoint some people, but the way the information was delivered in episode 10 seriously handicapped the wow factor of Burnham's mother turning out to be her phantom guardian. The idea that Michael Burnham’s own mother has been alive and just out of reach for Burnham’s entire life is hugely emotionally resonant, and of course it would be compelling to watch a woman whose life has been largely defined by her orphaned nature now explore her existence knowing that was never the case. But this big a paradigm shift needed to be handled with more delicacy as opposed to the info dump that was "The Red Angel".

Related: Star Trek: Discovery is Close to Repeating the Mistakes of Season 1

Star Trek: Discovery season 1’s twist that Ash Tyler was actually a mutated Voq was the opposite case – that was a revelation built into the framework of the season, but it was so obvious that it was hard to imagine anyone being shocked when Tyler’s duality came to light. It’s likely that Burnham’s mother was a planned element of Discovery from the beginning, but it was so utterly impossible to telegraph that the reveal doesn't feel that way. The Red Angel literally could’ve been anyone given the dearth of actionable information the season provided up until its reveal ten episodes in. That, plus a few more clumsily-handled elements turned what could’ve been an incredibly satisfying moment of Star Trek: Discovery season 2 into a cheap trick.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 Was Full Of Unnecessary Misdirection

Culber and Stamets on Star Trek Discovery

Two weeks in a row, Star Trek: Discovery relied on characters’ misplaced conviction to delay the reveal of information. The audience knows for a fact that the video showing Spock murdering his doctor and medics is false when Cornwell shares it on the viewscreen, so when she insists with 100% certainty that the video could’ve in no way been faked, we already know she’s wrong. And frankly, the idea that a Starfleet admiral couldn’t possibly conceive of anyone in the known galaxy manipulating video is difficult to swallow. The character's competence is undermined when, not 30 minutes later, she discovers it was forged, all so the episode could stretch out her suspicion of Spock a bit longer.

But the misdirection became so strong it ended up spoiling the surprise. in “The Red Angel,” Dr. Culber emphatically insists that the bio-signature they discover absolutely could not be anyone but Michael Burnham. Not only is this yet another case of someone being certain beyond a shadow of a doubt of a truth only to be proven wrong almost immediately, this choice had the added effect of foreshadowing the Red Angel being at the very least one of Michael Burnham’s relatives. Insisting that Burnham was the Red Angel in the first act of the episode was a clear signal there would be more to the story. Once it was revealed that her bio-signature was the key piece of evidence in use, it wasn’t a huge leap to guess that Burnham probably wouldn’t be the Red Angel, but one of her relatives would, thus explaining their biological similarities. Here, using misdirection to throw people off the scent of a reveal literally no one could’ve guessed had the opposite effect and spoiled the surprise.

Burhnam's Parents Working for Section 31 is a Clear Retcon

Young Michael Burnham in Star Trek Discovery

It’s possible when conceiving Burnham’s past that original Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Bryan Fuller intended to revisit her parents’ deaths at some point, but the idea that they were secret Section 31 operatives from the very beginning doesn’t jive with the narrative. Burham’s parents’ death at the hands of invading Klingons is a key trauma that informs her journey throughout the first season, with their scientist past motivating her eventual choice to follow in their footsteps and become a xenoanthropologist herself. The idea that her mother was also a secret engineer/spy/time traveler felt like a backstory that was glued onto the original to service a narrative added later.

Related: Star Trek: Discovery's Homage To Wrath of Khan (& What It Reveals About Spock)

And the fact that Discovery delivered all of this information in the space of two scenes on during the same episode that Burnham’s mother showed up made her new identity feel like an afterthought. If the show had dropped some clues to her secret backstory sprinkled throughout the season beyond Leland’s guilt at over his part in her death, her nature as a Section 31 agent would’ve been far more compelling. It may have made the twist more obvious, but as Ash/Voq shows, that needn't be a bad thing.

Page 2 of 2: What The Red Angel Twist Means For Discovery Season 2

Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 Doesn't Have Time To Deal With The Red Angel Twist

Looking back on Star Trek: Discovery season 2, there’s a case to be made for dumping the mystery surrounding the Red Angel almost entirely. This season was jam-packed with dense stories like Culber’s return, Spock’s reconciliation with Burnham, Saru’s evolution and a brand new captain on top of the central driving mission. Drawing out the mystery of the Red Angel for this long means Discovery's introduced yet another storyline that can't help but steal focus the rest of the show desperately needs.

A much more elegant story would be to have Burnham searching for her mother explicitly, adding to the tension with Spock and streamlining a narrative that currently feels like it’s made up of a handful of disparate threads. Or conversely, we could’ve abandoned the idea that the Red Angel had to be someone we knew in the first place.

The Red Angel Twist Had Too Much Build Up

The Red Angel suit

As already mentioned at the top, the idea that the Red Angel is Michael Burnham’s mother isn’t lackluster in and of itself, but rather its execution robbed it of having maximum impact. Star Trek: Discovery is operating in a tiny universe right now, and Burnham’s mother appearing all of a sudden made it even smaller. Making the Red Angel an alien or some kind of totally foreign lifeform would’ve opened up more opportunities for Discovery to actually discover something. As it stands, so much of this season has been devoted to playing around in the Original Series sandbox and/or Burnham’s family matters (which happen to be located in the Original Series sandbox). The only time the ship’s gotten to do any real exploring was when they were hurled into the Gamma Quadrant where they met… humans.

Star Trek: Discovery’s serialized nature obviously lends itself more to season-long missions rather than episode exploration like previous iterations of Star Trek, but surely there’s a middle ground that leaves room for these Starfleet officers to actually seek out new life and new civilizations, rather than focusing itself so inward. The fact that humans have the ability and desire to explore the universe is a foundational element of Star Trek. It imagines the strides humanity could make as a reward for evolving into a peaceful, post-scarcity society. By comparison, Discovery’s world is much smaller and because of that, a key element of what makes Star Trek "Star Trek" has been relegated too far into the background. That’s probably not going to get any better as the season wears on.

Related: Star Trek: Discovery Reveals Early Version of Geordi's VISOR

Presumably, with only four episodes left, much of the remainder of Star Trek: Discovery season 2 will be spent dealing with the resolution of what’s become a behemoth of a story. That’s not a bad thing, and this season has been wonderfully executed more often than not, so it’s not like there isn't some good stuff to look forward to sorting everything out with the A.I., Section 31 and Burnham’s family. But perhaps next year, we can hope for an arc that doesn’t necessitate quite this much-localized attention.

More: Explaining Star Trek: Discovery's Biggest Canon Inconsistencies & Plot Holes

Star Trek: Discovery streams Thursdays @ 8:30pm on CBS All-Access and internationally the next day on Netflix.