Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident” drops our crew squarely into a horror movie. It’s not the first time Star Trek has ever delved into the horror genre, and it certainly won’t be the last. This episode has a lot to say about our characters’ internal fears and more.
So come on. I’ve been waiting for you. Grab a flashlight and let’s get started with my review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 2 “The Griffin Incident.”
Star Trek: Event Horizon
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 2 “The Griffin Incident” is a full-on homage to Event Horizon, the 1997 horror film starring the late, great Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Isaacs, Kathleen Quinlan, and Joely Richardson. While underappreciated in its time and hampered under the weight of a shorter production schedule, the film has developed a cult following over the years and even a critical reappraisal.
The body horror, the psychological horror, and the desperate need to escape a ship that just won’t let them leave all mark it as a send-up of Event Horizon. That’s not a bad thing. What this does is allow the audience to explore our crew’s deepest fears about themselves. It just uses the set dressing of a haunted house in space for them to do it in.
MORE: Catch up with the Strange New Worlds news from SDCC!
The Fears Within Spock
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ “The Griffin Incident” offers an exploration of Spock’s deepest fears and insecurities. His half-Vulcan and half-human nature war within him, which he believes makes him not enough for his fellow Vulcans, particularly in his relationship with T’Pring. Because his fears are rooted in his biology, it’s fitting for his part of this story to play out in sickbay. There are few things creepier than a spooky hospital. Check out Halloween II, The Ward, and Unsane for reference.
However, it’s even creepier when said hospital is in a derelict haunted spaceship! There are loads of classic horror tropes in these scenes. Biobeds loaded with body bags that are suddenly full, bloody, and oh snap, they’re letting themselves out!
At War with One’s Self
In these scenes, we are treated to a close look at Spock’s psyche. I am an armchair psychologist, but Spock is in some way experiencing what I understand to be called a “healing fantasy.” This is a fantasy one imagines will help them “heal” or feel better, whether that thing actually will or not, or will ever become reality.
In this scenario, T’Pring tells Spock everything he wants to hear. It was her fault for not accepting his human side as much as she does his Vulcan side. Dream T’Pring tells him that his humanity isn’t his greatest weakness, but his greatest strength. Spock is relieved by this. That is until she tried to “get rid” of his Vulcan side by cutting the points off his ears! SHEW. Oh, and your heart’s not in the right place either? LITERALLY! Let’s move it to where it should be in a human! We’re going full body horror here! David Cronenberg would be so proud.
Additionally, the things Spock experiences when he thinks Pike and Una have come to his rescue are a bit of self-reflection too. Like Spock, Una’s Illyrian DNA is something she grapples with in her own body as well. Watching her try to literally cut it out is horrifying, but it’s not dissimilar to his own experience.
Identifying the Problem
Spock is grappling with his future and who he may become, feeling inadequate whether he pursues a more “human” career in Starfleet or leans more into his Vulcan heritage. Similarly, Captain Pike has wrestled with his own future even more than Spock, and even says out loud, “If I stay on the Griffin, I can escape my fate,” and then, of course, begins amputating his own fingers with a very fine knife on a very fine cutting board, which are somehow inexplicably in sick bay. Spock’s horror at his friends’ self-harm helps him to recognize the ways he is harming himself.
Further, Spock’s ultimate reliance on his Vulcan logic is what helps him break this cycle of horrific self-harm. He is reciting the same couplet T’Pring referenced earlier in the episode, which she said she used to bring herself back to logic. But what we ultimately learn is that this is Spock’s own mind, using T’Pring as an avatar for his own logic. In the words of Spock himself, “Fascinating.”
And apparently Spock really did cut his own ears off with some rusty scissors. EWWWW.
MORE: Watch our interview with Ethan Peck!
La’an’s Self-Reflection
Spock isn’t the only one grappling with his biology in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident.” La’an is as well, but for her, it’s more her fear of what her biology may force her to do–descend into distrust, madness, and destruction. Real or not, La’an’s dealings with Rose Harper, played to horrifying perfection by Sorika Wolf, are a manifestation of her own psyche.
Rose Harper is much like La’an herself. She’s the chief security officer, detail-oriented, driven, and ambitious. And what did she do on her journey into madness? She killed 300+ people, most of them by spacing them. An utterly horrific way to die, being crushed in the vacuum of space. But La’an fears that like her ancestor, she may kill many more than that.
I Have Met the Enemy…
La’an’s encounters with Rose Harper show her what she fears the most about herself. Becoming like Khan. In the season 2 episode, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” it seemed La’an had made peace with herself about her heritage, saying, “My real name is La’an Noonien-Singh. My ancestor is Khan Noonien-Singh. And his legacy is genocide…torture… and me.”
But with the alterations she’s had in her DNA, something has unsettled that. Rose says to her, “You are not a Khan, a Romulan, or a monster. You’re one of us.” Does she mean the literal ghost or zombie-like manifestation that we see in Rose? Not necessarily, but a relentless killer, which we see her enact on James T. Kirk. La’an’s “real self” is something out of a horror movie. I definitely got Michael Myers vibes from her, someone who is unrepentantly evil.
The horror on her face when she’s beamed aboard the Enterprise and realizes what she’s done is a testament to Christina Chong’s acting ability. Every ounce of fear and sheer terror she’s experiencing is written there, forcing her to reckon with what she has done and what she fears she may become, intentionally or not.
MORE: Watch our interview with Christina Chong!
Kirk’s Fears of Fatherhood
We’re starting the Kirk appearances early this season in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident.” However, we’re getting a side of Kirk that is unlike his appearances thus far. This isn’t Kirk with his usual cool confidence and swagger, but one very aware of his failings as a parent.
Kirk’s journey seems to be mirroring that of his own father. He’s garnered many Starfleet accolades in his early career, as did his father, but at the cost of family time with his partner and son. His opening monologue even notes that for the first time in his career, he doesn’t feel like he is where he should be. That’s evident in his encounters on the Griffin, hearing his son David cry out, but no matter what he does, he can’t find or reach him. I am not a parent, but I certainly can empathize with that sort of fear.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident” demonstrates a few things about how Jim Kirk admires his brother, Sam. Even if he’s only a manifestation of Kirk’s mind, his conversation with Sam has a lasting impact on him. He asks him about being a good father to his boys, saying, “How do you do it?” Sam’s response is simple. “I don’t.” Sam acknowledges the difficulties of doing work he loves, but consequently takes him physically away from his family.
Fathers and Sons
I appreciate that Sam acknowledges that he is probably failing his family in some way. However, the effort he makes to stay in touch with them, to call every night while he’s away, matters. It demonstrates his care, even when his duties require him to be elsewhere. Dan Jeannotte gives a phenomenal and subtle dramatic performance in these tender scenes, which is then starkly contrasted by the horror Sam Kirk experiences moments later. Jeannotte’s fixed look at the camera as he’s being sucked out into the void of space is terrifying. Dan Jeannotte’s resume is full of Hallmark movies, but I hope he’ll consider the horror genre as well.
Even if he’s bleeding out on the transporter pad, the first thing Kirk asks about is his brother. When he’s recovered, Jim Kirk does what he knows he needs to do. Call home. Speak with his family. Tell his boy he loves him and that he’ll see him in his dreams. It’s in this scene that we get a nice callback to the season 2 episode, “Lost in Translation.”
Uhura quotes Kirk back to himself, reminding him that only someone who had truly lost their mind would refuse cookies and milk. It’s a kind gesture, and one that marks their friendship now, and points to what it will be in the future.
MORE: Read our review of Episode 1!
Final Thoughts
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident” is really a character-driven episode in the guise of a horror film. The character beats here are perfect, and emotionally satisfying to witness. And while their roles are smaller in this episode, Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn prove they can do horror just as well as any other genre.
There are loads of fun little character moments in addition to these more serious ones. Lines like, “No one likes a backseat sensor reader, Spock,” and then Kirk dumping out his bag with all manner of stereotypical Eagle Scout gear in it. I can confirm that the contents of Kirk’s bag are those of an Eagle Scout, as I am married to one. Books, flashlights, a little toy robot, all echo the Boy Scout motto of “Always be prepared.”
We also get a mention of Division 12, which at least at the time of publication, is not recorded anywhere on Memory Alpha. However, based on its description in this episode, it sounds an awful lot like Starfleet X-Files! I WANT THAT SPIN-OFF!
A Horror Movie Sign-Off
Finally, in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 2 “The Griffin Incident,” Dr. M’Benga gets to the heart of the situation as Spock, La’an, and Kirk are recovering. He says, “Physically, they’re all fine. Mentally…” The horror they experienced on the Griffin is not one they will forget anytime soon. I don’t know that Pike’s ghost story from his childhood that he shares with La’an helps matters. “I know your true name,” says the ghost woman with the scythe in his uncle’s barn.
If anything, that sears La’an’s fears to her heart, fearing that her ancestor’s name will be her own true name. Pike finishes his story with, “Space is limitless in its beauty and its terror. The only thing that matters is that you survived. And that is all Starfleet needs to know.”
With that, we are giving one last look at the Griffin. And there we see her, Harper, looking creepy as can be out the port window and putting a finger to her lips. This gives Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident” a true horror movie finale, and I’m here for every bit of it.
For more insight on this episode, check out the roundtable interview we did with Ethan Peck, Christina Chong, and Paul Wesley HERE.
What do you think of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 2 “The Griffin Incident”? Leave me a comment and let’s talk Trek.
The next episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will air on August 6, 2026, on Paramount+.
