Could Captain Lorca return in Star Trek: Discovery season two?
The fate of Jason Isaacs' captain is well known to viewers who watched season one, but is that really the end of the story? (Contains season one spoilers)
As deaths go, getting stabbed through the chest before getting thrown into a reactor core might sound pretty irreversible.
But was being seared into a million pieces enough to stop Star Trek: Discovery’s Captain Lorca from returning to Starfleet? Could Jason Isaacs’ character actually make an appearance in season two?
Maybe. Just maybe.
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Although the mirror universe version of Lorca was killed following his fight with Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Emperor Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) in season one, the Lorca in the main Star Trek universe – the captain the evil Lorca swapped himself with – could still be alive.
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After all, we don’t know for sure that Prime Captain Lorca was killed by his Mirror Universe counterpart, with the show not offering much detail about how the two characters were swapped. It's possible Prime Lorca is being kept captive somewhere, waiting to be rescued by Starfleet.
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Isaacs himself doesn’t sound too certain about the switch either.
“There was a Prime Lorca, he was captain of the [USS] Buran in the Prime world. He swapped with him and found himself captain of the Buran,” he told EW after his character’s death last year.
“This never came out; this backstory detail we never put in the dialogue. Although Lorca spins this story having had to sacrifice the men on Buran and had to blow them up to save them from Klingon torture.
"If I did [know what happened to Prime Lorca], you'd have to stand behind my wife, friends, and professional collaborators to find out the answer. I've kept this one big secret for six months – I am certainly going to keep any others."
Just to make things even more unclear, he also added: “I’ve lied to all of the press constantly since the very first day I got this job. So why would you believe anything I say now?”
And Isaacs gave us more cause to mistrust anything he says about Lorca after sending this tweet last year…
In other words, whatever Isaacs says about the fate of Prime Lorca, he's not to be trusted; the option of him appearing in future episodes is very much open.
However, offer the question to Discovery showrunner Alex Kurtzman, and Lorca's imminent return becomes far more doubtful.
"I will tell you that you should not expect to see him this season, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be back,” he told EW.
In other words, Lorca could still beam aboard in future seasons, but – unless Kurtzman is a much a liar as Isaacs – it’s likely we won’t see him soon.
Whatever the future holds, it would be highly illogical to bemoan Lorca's loss when so many characters from the show’s original series are returning to the franchise: Pre-Kirk Enterprise captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) is set to take command of Discovery, while a young (and beautifully-bearded) Spock played by Ethan Peck is set to feature in upcoming episodes.
Prime Lorca or not, the new season is set to boldly go with plenty of characters you’ve seen before.
Star Trek: Discovery season 2 is released on Netflix in the UK on 18th January 2019
