‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Episode 9 Recap and Ending Explained: A Familiar Fairy Tale, But Does the Ending Actually Fix La’an?

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ just sent its crew back into a storybook, and this time nobody’s playing pretend. Season 4, episode 9, titled ‘Once La’an a Time,’ returned the USS Enterprise to the Elysian Kingdom, the fantasy realm first glimpsed back in season one, only now the whole world turns out to be genuinely real rather than an illusion conjured for a dying child.

The penultimate episode of the season puts Lieutenant La’an Noonien Singh, played by Christina Chong, at the center of a story that has been building all year. La’an gets her happily ever after, of sorts, in this installment, but whether that resolution actually lands is where critics and fans start to disagree.

What Happens in the Elysian Kingdom This Time?

When the Enterprise stumbles across a fully realized version of the Elysian Kingdom sitting on an improbably flat planet drifting through space, Dr. M’Benga has some explaining to do. The kingdom first appeared in the season one episode ‘The Elysian Kingdom,’ where an alien consciousness transformed the crew into characters from a storybook that M’Benga’s daughter Rukiya loved called The Kingdom of Elysian.

That same consciousness, whom Rukiya named Debra, had offered to sustain her daughter’s consciousness so she could live a painless and eternal life full of adventure. This time around, the crew arrives fresh off a rocky diplomatic event. La’an’s compulsive need for conflict caused an incident at a wedding, so M’Benga suggests the encounter might help her work through what has been eating at her all season.

Once inside the fantasy, La’an is mistaken for her Elysian counterpart, the loving and lovable Princess Thalia, by her romantic partner Prince Dashing, who happens to be a doppelganger for Jim Kirk. The crew ends up on a real fantasy planet where everyone is forced to play wildly out of character, and Nyota Uhura’s fantasy version, Queen Neve, gets turned into a fire breathing dragon that the Enterprise crew has to fight. Amazingly, Captain Pike’s storybook double manages to channel the real Pike well enough to defeat the dragon and save the day.

The episode also slips in a small but notable moment for representation. The storybook versions of Una and Ortegas are established as a couple, sharing an on screen kiss, which marks a rare acknowledgment of anything outside heteronormative relationships since the show’s first season.

La’an’s Augment Fears Finally Come to a Head

La’an’s arc this season has circled around fear of her own bloodline. Her tipping point traces back to season 4, episode 2, ‘The Griffin Incident,’ when a malevolent entity possessing the USS Griffin ghost ship took control of her body, and she stabbed and nearly killed Lieutenant Commander James T. Kirk. Her infection by that entity was left dangling once the ghost ship was towed off to Division 12 headquarters.

Fans might remember that La’an seemed to have made peace with her fear of becoming another Khan after meeting a young version of Khan Noonien Singh back in season two’s ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.’ Season four undoes that peace almost entirely, with ‘Once La’an a Time’ walking the character back into dread over the Khan lurking inside her once again.

That erosion has bled into her personal life too. La’an’s erratic behavior throughout season 4 has started to worry Captain Pike, and she has even ended her romance with Lieutenant Spock as a result. Her fear stems from believing that latent augment DNA inherited from her ancestor Khan Noonien Singh, which resurfaced after she was turned into a Vulcan in season 3’s ‘Four and a Half Vulcans,’ is bringing out darker impulses in her.

Critics Are Split on Whether the Ending Actually Works

Not everyone is buying the fairy tale wrap up. One review called the episode a big bowl of nothing, arguing it lacks ambition and questioning whether it deserves to be treated as the capstone to La’an’s internal conflict. That same review pointed out there are only seven episodes of ‘Strange New Worlds’ left, counting next week’s finale and a shortened six episode final season still to come.

Other outlets landed somewhere more forgiving, even while acknowledging the strangeness of the approach. One writer noted the slow motion hair reveal moment when La’an is mistaken for Princess Thalia was a nice touch, and observed that La’an’s acceptance of her softer, more emotional side has begun to shift how she handles her fears.

ScreenRant framed the episode as La’an centric television meant to resolve the turmoil that has followed her for the entire season, while also situating it as a sequel to a beloved earlier installment.

The episode arrives as the larger conversation around ‘Strange New Worlds’ has grown more complicated. Longtime franchise director Jonathan Frakes has noted that early praise for the show sometimes doubled as a dig at other modern ‘Star Trek’ series, calling the reaction both a compliment and a slap at the same time. That tension between adoration and scrutiny feels especially relevant now, as the show heads into its abbreviated final stretch.

Where La’an Goes From Here

With only the season finale and a shortened final season left, ‘Once La’an a Time’ may end up being remembered as the episode that either freed La’an from her fear of becoming a villain or merely papered over it with a storybook ending. The dragon gets defeated, Una and Ortegas get their storybook romance, and La’an gets some version of peace, but the show still has to prove that peace sticks once the crew steps back into the real Enterprise.

Given how many times this particular fear has been raised and seemingly resolved only to resurface again, it is fair to wonder whether ‘Strange New Worlds’ actually intends to let La’an rest. What did you make of sending La’an back into a fully real Elysian Kingdom to fight her fears, and do you buy that this fairy tale actually settles her Khan storyline for good?