A newly released deleted scene from the season 1 finale of Star Trek: Discovery confirms the return of one of the franchise's darkest and most controversial organizations - Section 31.

Introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Section 31 is essentially the black ops division of Starfleet, undertaking the sorts of missions that fly in the face of the Federation's benevolent ideals. Section 31 has apparently always been a shadow organization within Starfleet, playing a minor role in the prequel series Enterprise, and serving as the primary antagonists of the J.J. Abrams reboot sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.

Related: Is Star Trek: Discovery Setting Up Section 31?

There were many hints throughout Star Trek: Discovery's first season that Section 31 was lurking in the shadows, and a newly released scene confirms the connection. Check it out below.

Section 31 recruiting Mirror Georgiou makes sense, given the cutthroat, morally ambiguous tendencies of the former ruler of the Terran Empire. It also confirms that Michelle Yeoh's treacherous multiversal refugee will continue to play an important role in the show's second season. That second season has already promised plenty of other Star Trek throwbacks, as Captain Christopher Pike and the USS Enterprise made a surprise appearance in the season's final moments. The implication is that Michael Burnham will finally meet face to face with her famous adoptive sibling, Spock, though the show's producers have played coy about how they're going to handle that relationship.

Discovery ran into some controversy by embracing a much darker, much less optimistic worldview than is usually portrayed in Star Trek. The desperation of the Klingon war put deeply duplicitous characters like Captain Gabriel Lorca into positions of power, and Burnham was pretty comfortably the most flawed lead character in the franchise's history. And while the end of the Klingon seemed to signal a shift toward a more traditional Star Trek tone and mission going forward, Section 31 is a pretty strong indicator Discovery isn't done dabbling in the darker corners of Gene Roddenberry's ostensible utopia.

There's surprisingly little concrete information on Discovery's second season at this point. The sophomore batch of episodes isn't expected to hit CBS All Access until sometime in 2019. The Star Trek film franchise currently faces an even more uncertain future, as information on Quentin Tarantino's proposed movie is essentially non-existent at this point. Star Trek is at a fairly low cultural ebb at the moment, but confirmation of Section 31 at least suggests the creators of Discovery are gearing up for another breathless, polarizing season.

More: Star Trek: Discovery Should Introduce Spock In Season 2

Source: Star Trek CBS