L'ak's Species Revealed In This Week's Star Trek: Discovery Episode 'Mirrors'
A huge addition to Star Trek lore.
Speculation has been boiling like a cake ever since L'ak (Elias Toufexis) and partner in crime and life, Moll (Eve Harlow), made their debut escaping Burnham and then killing Fred — a dodgy-dealing Soong type android — in Star Trek: Discovery's fifth (and sadly final) season opener Red Directive. Just who or what was L'ak? Moll was human, we knew that, but L'ak's origins remained a mystery until now. In this week's episode Mirrors, Book and Burnham pay a visit to the ISS Enterprise, only to bump back into our duo of 'baddies' with an ever-expanding backstory. In a series of flashbacks, the mystery of L'ak's lineage comes to a rather exciting end! He has two faces, and he's a Breen! A Breen!!
Back to the beginning for a bit, it was L'ak's mutating facial features that piqued our curiosity in the first place. The wondrously omniscient Jörg Hillebrand tweeted it best on 4th April:
I'm intrigued by how L'ak's face changes into a solid state when he first takes of [sic] his helmet in #StarTrekDiscovery's "Red Directive".
To which Toufexis replied:
I did that on set. I can morph my own face. I'm very talented.
That last bit we don't doubt. People had been speculating, and speculating Breen, from the moment of L'ak's transformation from CGI to prosthetic face at about ten minutes into Red Directive. That episode had already provided a tantalising hint at a larger role for the Breen this season when Ni'Var President T'Rina pointed out "the [potential] influence […] of the Breen Imperium" to Saru at the Federation's millennium (ish) celebration.
In the following episode, Under the Twin Moons, (still) Captain Rayner noted that, "The Breen are in-fighting over a new leader," and in Jinaal, Saru had to mediate between member worlds concerned about the increasing danger posed by the Breen as their "warring factions vie for control." Finally, in a possible alternate future in Face the Strange, the Breen had destroyed Federation HQ! Of course, none of that detracted from the thrill of the legacy revelation — that L'ak himself was Breen. After all these years, we finally got to see what was beneath those 'refrigeration suits,' and we made it out alive to tell the tale!
By now, the Breen do indeed have a long history in the franchise. First mentioned by Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Loss, and then name-dropped again a few more times throughout the rest of TNG, it wasn't until Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's fourth season episode Indiscretion that we actually got to see the Breen. 'See' is an overstatement here, however, as they never did take those suits off, except to 'lend' them to Kira and Dukat. The Breen appeared in several more episodes of DS9, notably as allies of the Dominion in the war that bears that evil conglomerate's name.
Mirrors gave us plenty more in flashbacks, and there's a list on its way for that! It also left us with a few mysteries of its own about the Breen, not least about the form and function of their now 'two faces'. It seems like Breen society is highly hierarchical, and to defy it gets you an (the?) 'Erigah'. But what exactly does an Erigah entail? The Breen have gone from 'Confederacy' in the 24th to 'Imperium' in the 32nd century, so from league to absolute leader? At least, with all that in-fighting, they might be trying to appoint one. We still don't really know anything about the Breen homeworld, nor do we know the exact purpose of those suits, 24th century versions and 32nd century upgrades included.
L'ak and Moll aren't going anywhere as they continue to go everywhere in search of the clues that lead to the Progenitor technology, so there is likely more Breen backstory to come. Episode seven is called Erigah after all! Fastly and firmly fan favourites, with Toufexis' enthusiasm for his character as infectious as ever, we'd certainly like to see more of L'ak and Moll after Star Trek: Discovery has come to an end (let's hope they both make it!). We doubt L'ak will be taking up a teaching post at Starfleet Academy any time soon — perhaps a visiting professor, nonetheless (?) — but his inclusion in that series would allow us to learn yet more about one of Trek's long looked at, but most decidedly overlooked species — the Breen!