6 Ups & 5 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.6 — Whistlespeak
5. LATINUM UP — Tilly-isms
Tilly, Tilly, glorious Tilly — a buoy and a beacon of light for all those, including this writer, who are neurodivergent, and for anyone who feels just a little different. Seán has already quite rightly praised the lieutenant for her epic one-liners in his previous Ups & Downs this Discovery season, most notably for her delightfully literal (and distinctly relatable) interpretation of Captain Burnham's metaphorical "Tilly, we're losing out foot". Her reply: "What… Oh, my God, who lost a foot?"
In Whistlespeak, we are treated to a plethora of the sayings of Tilly, and it is magnificent. This might be finer detail rather than whole picture stuff (also relatable, if you know what I mean), but Tilly and her -isms are my LATINUM UP. Here is a mere sample from the smorgasbord:
To Burnham before beaming down:
Wow, you can take the 'xeno-' out of the anthropologist, but you can't take the anthropologist out of the… Huh. No, I lost it.
To Burnham again as she (Tilly) runs on in the race:
Go chase your moss. I'm the queen of endurance.
Very dehydrated, to Ravah:
You're a little shit, you know that?
From the corner of her mouth upon learning about the sacrifice in the tower:
Sacrifice?
Noting that the walls of the tower's vacuum chamber are solid tritanium:
If it's not one thing, it's another with this place.
Sarcastically, to Commander Rayner and Ensign Adira, who thought they were being helpful:
Oh, good. At least we won't get smushed!
One final, distinctive Tilly-ism is her caring nature, which in Whistlespeak translates through her concern for her student who is thinking of leaving Starfleet Academy. This is then calqued on to her concern for the young Halem'nite Ravah. Nearing the end of the run, Tilly returns to refill Ravah's bowl with water and then helps her up so that they can cross the finish line together. That does mean, however, that Tilly has unwittingly doomed her running partner to death. Later, Tilly cradles the young Halem'nite in her arms, comforting her as the oxygen drains out of the tower chamber.