The Big Picture

Star Trek: Discovery
Season 5, Episode 5, “Mirrors,” delves into Moll and L’ak’s backstory, revealing their love and the price on their heads.
Stars Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis discuss fleshing out their romance, joining the sci-fi series for its final season, and L’ak’s connection to the Breen.
The duo also praises the
Star Trek: Discovery
cast and crew for the warm and welcoming atmosphere, with Sonequa Martin-Green leading the way as a fantastic number one.

A few weeks ago, Star Trek: Discovery kicked off the series’ final season with a dazzling new mystery and a pair of wildly compelling antagonists. Seemingly out to cash in on the greatest treasure the galaxy has to offer, lovers Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) have been neck-and-neck with Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and her crew as they hunt for clues. This week’s episode “Mirrors,” sees Burnham catch up with the two as she and Book (David Ajala) corner them on an abandoned ISS Enterprise from the Mirror universe.

As the two couples are made to face each other, we also get a glimpse into Moll and L’ak’s backstory. Not only do we learn how they fell in love, but we also come to understand why they’re on the run — L’ak is a Breen and in their attempt to run away together the duo killed a pair of guards. Now the warlike race has a price on their heads.

Ahead of the episode, I sat down with Harlow and Toufexis to talk about the big reveals in “Mirrors,” the complex relationship between their characters, and what they’re taking away from their time on Discovery. During our conversation, we also spoke about their personal experiences with Star Trek, when Toufexis learned he would be playing a Breen, and which episodes of Season 5 are their favorites.

Star Trek: Discovery
Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk’s Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.Release Date September 24, 2017 Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 5

Both Harlow and Toufexis have a fair share of sci-fi credits to their names with Harlow having made waves on shows like The 100 and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. while Toufexis appeared in the smash hit series The Expanse as well as having voiced characters in a truly impressive number of video games. When asked what it was like to go from their sci-fi roots to arguably the biggest sci-fi series of all time, Harlow admitted that she’d actually “never seen Star Trek before.” She went on to explain, “to me, I was like, ‘Oh, cool, another job. Oh, cool, I get to be in space!'”

Meanwhile, Toufexis was a huge Star Trek fan. “And Elias was like, ‘No, you don’t understand. This is Star Trek.’ Even in the sides for the audition, I remember the word “Klingon” being in there, and I’m like, “Wait, how do I pronounce this? What is this?” And on set it was like, “What’s a Tribbler?” Harlow joked. “Then Elias was like, ‘Okay, let me send you a YouTube video.’ So I think for me it was just like, ‘Oh, cool. This is fun. This is nice,’ and then being told the importance of it by my co-star,” she laughed.

For Toufexis, the role was a dream come true. He explained:

“It was great for me. I love sci-fi, and I was happy to do a lot of sci-fi before Star Trek, but yeah, I’m a giant Star Trek fan. Accepting the role was a no-brainer, and I was very, very happy and geeked out every day on set. I would get mad at people who worked on the show who didn’t know the stuff that I knew. Not Eve. I would never get mad at Eve.”

As actors, both Harlow and Toufexis know the struggle of auditioning over and over for until something sticks. He said, “as an actor, you audition for everything, and you take what sticks, right? That’s the nature of the beast.” He went on, calling Discovery a career highlight. “So it just happened to be that I have done a lot of sci-fi stuff in my career, so Star Trek is kind of the peak sci-fi. So, it’s all downhill from here,” he laughed. However, as any good Star Trek fan knows, playing one character is not always the end of the line for an actor in the series. I joked that Toufexis could return on another series in the future, following in the footsteps of actors like Jeffrey Combs and Suzie Plakson, to which he heartily agreed, “I’ll play, like, 10 characters.”

‘Star Trek: Discovery’s Moll and L’ak Are Hopelessly Devoted to Each Other
Image via Paramount+

Shortly after we meet these two in the first episode of Season 5, it becomes very clear that L’ak would do anything to protect Moll, to the point of taking out excessive violence on anyone who threatens her. When asked if that defensive nature was a result of their nature or inherent in them as individuals Toufexis explained, “I think it’s inherent in them, but they bring it out of each other. It’s a part of their character.”

He went on to explain that L’ak was already looking for a way out of his life as a high-ranking Breen when he fell in love with Moll. He said, “I don’t know if he was looking for love, but he found it, and then that brought out the guardian in him.” He went on to say that one thing he loved about the fifth episode is that, in learning their history, we see that Moll and L’ak are more equals than it seemed in the first four episodes.

“It looks like he’s almost her bodyguard, but when they’re alone, you see it’s not really the case. They’re on absolutely equal footing, and he defers to her a lot. He’s just protective of her, but she is of him, and that’s their love.” He went on to explain, “My favorite thing about these characters is their love for each other. It’s rare in sci-fi that you have antagonists that have a genuinely good reason to do what they’re doing, that I think people would relate to their love and passion for each other and freedom. That’s it. We’re not bad guys. We just want you to leave us the hell alone.” He points out that in this episode, Moll admits they never would have made an enemy out of the Discovery crew if they’d just been left alone, “But you keep on us, and we’re gonna defend ourselves.”

Meanwhile, Harlow explained that the complete devotion Moll and L’ak have for each other is what makes them relatable. She said:

“I do think it’s inherent to their nature, and
I think that that’s what makes them likable, is that there’s the love and loyalty there,
and they’re the first beings in each other’s lives that have been, like, he’s proven to me that he’s worth the love, he’s worth the loyalty. Literally, everybody else has either died or betrayed, left. All that stuff. This one being has shown me that it’s like,
‘No, this is actually where I can store my loyalty, love in this being, and I’m gonna hold on to this being no matter what.’
”

With this episode being called “Mirrors,” not only for the time spent on a Mirror Universe ship, but for the relationships within, as Moll and L’ak serve as a foil to Book and Burnham. I asked the pair if they felt like their characters recognized themselves in their counterparts. For Toufexis, Book and Burnham are barely even on his radar. He said, “At least as an actor, I never even considered that. I was just like, ‘Nah, I don’t care about them.’ He’s very one-track-minded.” He then laid out L’ak’s priorities, saying:

“At least for me, the way I played it was,
‘I just want Moll, and I want you to leave us alone.
And if this tech, whatever it is that we may not understand, or even if they understand its power, whatever this tech is, if it could grant us freedom and to be left alone and to just go live our lives in love together, that’s all that matters.’ So I don’t think they’re looking and going, ‘Oh, they’re a lot like us, those two.'”

Meanwhile, Harlow agreed, comparing their characters to “caged animals.” She said: “Everyone else are [our] oppressors, and so I don’t care what’s happening out there. I don’t care how similar it is, because ultimately they have the key to the door to freedom, and they’re holding here. It’s like, ‘Fuck yeah!'”

Elias Toufexis Learned He Was Playing a Breen While Getting His Prosthetics for ‘Star Trek: Discovery’
Image via Paramount+

While the Breen have existed since the 90s, having first appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, we know very little about their species. Most notably, we don’t know what they look like under their helmets — at least we didn’t until this episode. As a fan of the franchise, I had to ask Toufexis if he knew he would be playing a Breen when he first got the role or if he found out when he read the script. He revealed that he actually found out while getting his prosthetics made. But before telling the full story of how he found out L’ak was a Breen, Toufexis took a brief detour to joke about another vast disparity between his Star Trek experience and Harlow’s.

He said: “This is a funny story we haven’t told yet. When I auditioned, I knew I was gonna be in makeup because I had already been on the show in the third episode. I played one of the prisoners that’s on the show, on Discovery, so I knew I couldn’t play with my own face again. I knew I’d be in prosthetics. And I remember, this is like a side thing, but I remember calling Eve and talking about working together, and I said, ‘So what’s your makeup process?’ She’s like, ‘I don’t have any makeup. I don’t have any prosthetics.’ ‘What? You mean I have to go through five hours of hair and makeup…?'” Harlow chimed in confirming the call, “You were like, ‘No, no, no, like prosthetics.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, no. Nothing.’ And he’s like, ‘Wait, are you sure?’ [Laughs] I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to break it to you, but no.'”

He joked that he was “hoping we were both gonna have 2:30 a.m. calls and all that kind of stuff,” before diving into how he learned he’d be playing a Breen. He explained:

“But when I found out that he was a Breen was when I went to do the first step of the prosthetics. Being a giant Star Trek geek, I said, ‘Can you show me what I’m gonna look like?’
Because they’re doing that thing, the plaster mold, where you have to sit there in 20 minutes and try not to have a panic attack.
But at that session, I said, ‘Do you have any art of what he’s gonna look like?’ And they showed me, and I said, ‘Do you know what race he is?’ Because I think I had heard that he was a new race, or an unseen race, or something like that. And they said, ‘Yeah, he’s a Breen.’
I was like, ‘Wait, Breen? They don’t take off their helmets.’ My geek mind starts going. Then they’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna be the first time that this race is revealed in Star Trek,’
and that really got me going. I was like, ‘Oh, okay! Let’s plaster me up. Let’s do this.’ And somehow I got through it.
But yeah, I was really excited to find that out. Especially [because]
Deep Space Nine
to me is, like, I love
Deep Space Nine
. I know the Breen they talk about in TNG a little bit, but

Deep Space Nine
to me is, like, one of my favorite shows ever, not just Star Treks shows.

So, the fact that I was gonna be involved in that. We kind of delve into
Deep Space Nine
, so I was super happy.”

Moll and L’ak Aren’t Villains — They’re Just Antagonists
Image via Paramount+

In “Mirrors,” Moll and L’ak become much more fleshed-out characters as we get a glimpse into their history with each other. Much like the revelation with the Breen, I had to ask Harlow and Toufexis if they had made up any backstory for their characters prior to learning the roots of their love story when they got the script for this episode. Harlow explained that they really only fleshed out the basics like how long they’d been together. She pointed out that sometimes if you make up a backstory for your character it can get entirely undone by the narrative. She said: “The thing is, you could create a backstory, and then you get the next episode and it’s like, ‘Ha, joke’s on you. Totally wrong. Everything that we thought…’ So, at least this is the way that I work, it’s like, ‘Okay, what are the stakes? This person is my everything.’ That’s just how I’m gonna play it.”

“In terms of the flashback, I mean, it was fun,” she grinned. “This might sound really vain, but looks-wise, what did she look like back then? I’ve just got to shout out to the hair and makeup and costume team. Freaking amazing. Such talented people, and also so collaborative, and talking about all this, and being excited about it as well. I think this is what was really cool about the show. Literally every single person is so excited about what they do. Like the props people, they’re like, ‘This is so awesome,’ and then you’re like, ‘Yes! This is so awesome.'”

Despite not being a Star Trek fan before joining the franchise, Harlow explained that she couldn’t help but fall in love with the whole team. “So even though, again, I did not know Star Trek, you can’t help it. It’s infectious when you’re surrounded by that energy, and so it’s like, ‘Oh, cool. We get to explore our characters’ backgrounds and be in this Breen world.'” She went on to say, “seeing the sets is insane. That screen, the wall, is incredible. You step into the space and you’re like, ‘Whoa, people created all of this and I get to be a part of it? Incredible.'”

Toufexis was thrilled to get an episode so heavily dedicated to Moll and L’ak’s motivations. Having played his fair share of TV baddies, he noted that this is the first time he’s gotten to play out the why of what his character is doing himself. He told me:

“The backstory was the best part for me because, I’ve said this before, but I play a lot of bad guys on TV, and very often it’s other characters that are just explaining why my character is doing what he’s doing, or make a line thrown here or there, like this is what happened to me, so this is why I’m doing this. Whereas
with L’ak, I got to play it. I got to go back and play how he got to where he is, and the great thing is it’s justified.
What I hope is that the people who watch Episode 5, when they rewatch, they go, ‘Oh, yeah, everything they’re doing they have a right to do.
They’re not bad. They’re just the antagonists.’
I don’t mind if they call us villains for promotional purposes, but I’m kind of like, ‘They’re not villains.'”

Harlow chimed in saying, “They have hearts of gold, okay?” To which Toufexis doubled down on Moll and L’ak’s desire to just be left alone.

Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis Reveal Their Favorite Episodes of ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 5
Image via Paramount+

Again, as a pair of Trekkies, I had to ask Toufexis about the incredible experience of getting to actually spend time on the bridge of the Enterprise in this episode. Naturally, he was delighted. He told Collider:

“Well, you can imagine. I’ve already said I’m a super nerd. And also,

The Original Series
, that’s what I watched growing up
. I’m not that old, my dad had them all on tape — so I’m old, but I’m not that old.
My dad had them all on tape in the ‘90s, so I watched them over and over and over again, and the movies, especially.
So, for me, that was my introduction to Star Trek was the Kirk Enterprise, right? Even though I know this is not the Kirk Enterprise, but Kirk’s on it.
So being on that ship,
I know story-wise it was the ISS Enterprise, but I’m still like, ‘This is the Enterprise. I don’t care what decals they put over this. I’m sitting on the Enterprise.’
I went and took secret pictures of me on the bridge and stuff like that. I was just freaking out, man. I was like, ‘This is like the coolest thing.’ How can you not freak out being a fan of something and then suddenly getting paid to be there? It’s pretty cool.”

While she didn’t have any personal connection to the sets herself, Harlow understood the importance through Toufexis’ experience. “I had him explain all this to me,” she laughed. “It’s like this is my very own Star Trek Wikipedia sitting next to me. I’m like, ‘Okay, cool, noted. Thank you.'”

When asked what their favorite episodes of Discovery Season 5 were, Toufexis decidedly chose the one we all just watched. “Five for me, for sure,” he said, though he was sure to give some praise to the rest of the season as well. “There’s a couple of episodes coming up that are really good, too, but for me, it’s five because of that, the background and getting to play the background. It’s kind of their big episode that reveals everything about her. So for me, it’s five.” Meanwhile, Harlow set her sights on the series finale, saying, “I forget which episode it is, but it’s later, it’s either Episode 9 or 10, and I don’t think I can say anything. I’m not gonna say anything, but yes, there is one I like.”

The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Set Is Unlike Any Other Thanks to Sonequa Martin-Green
​​​​​

Image via Paramount+

While this is Harlow and Toufexis’ first season of Discovery, it’s also the show’s last. As I noted in my review, despite the writers not knowing Season 5 was the end, they somehow managed to bring the story to a full circle moment. And Toufexis felt the exact same way, he said, “You know what, I was just thinking about this morning. I was thinking about how it’s somehow in this weird… The TV gods… Because the episodes that were already written before they knew it was gonna be the last season have this feeling of closure in this weird way, right?” He went on to explain, “Like Episode 4, where they go back and see themselves in the past. That is something that you would do when you would be ending a show, or Doug [Jones], Saru, going off and having these new chapters. That’s something you would do when you would end the show. So, it’s this weird kind of thing that happened where it almost was fate that it was going to be the last season. I don’t know if that is a sad note or something, but it just worked so well.”

“So what
I hope people take out of it is just this great feeling of closure of this amazing five years that these people have done.
I mean, I’m a fan of the show and I’ve watched every episode.
You’re sad that it’s ending but at the same time it’s ending so well that you just kind of hope everybody just really enjoys the ride of this last season
and then looks at everything as five years of what this show actually accomplished, which if you step back and look at it is a lot.”

While Harlow admitted that she hadn’t “thought about it that deeply, but ultimately I just want people to like it.” She had nothing but high praise for series star Sonequa Martin-Green, saying: “The first thing, I stepped on set and everyone, Sonequa was so kind and so welcoming. Every single person on that set was wonderful, and one of the first things that I was told was, ‘Welcome to the family.’ I just want people to like it, to deserve that title of being in the family, if that makes sense.”

For these two, working on Discovery was unlike any other set they’d ever worked on. “I would like to piggyback off of that,” said Toufexis. “Eve has worked a lot, I’ve worked a lot, and this is one of the best sets you could work on. From Sonequa and down to the crew, to Michelle [Paradise] and Tunde [Osunsanmi], and all those guys, Alex Kurtzman. You just end up going like, ‘All these people are nice.'”

The vibes on set were amazing from the start, to the point that Harlow could hardly believe it to be true, certain that at some point the magic would wear off. However, the warm, familiar atmosphere never faded. She explained:

“When I started, I was like, ‘There is no way that this lasts for six months. There’s no way.’ Because people get stressed. It’s just like being on sets — it’s chaotic, there’s so many people.
And, oh my god, until the very end people were so kind.
I feel like a fangirl when I talk about it, and I feel like I’ve talked about it so much, but it’s just because it’s lasted, and it just shows what a set can be like.
We had this thing, crew appreciation, which is like every single day, a different crew member would be clapped for,
and throughout the day, if you saw this crewmember, you could just start clapping for them. So that means that by the time we finished filming, everybody knows everybody’s names and what they do and has an appreciation for everybody’s job. I’ve never seen that on any set.
And it didn’t get in the way of us finishing days. I know that some people are like, ‘Oh, it takes time to do this care and appreciation.’ Yes, it takes time. It’s, like, 30 seconds, and it lifts everybody’s spirits.
Anyway, yeah, it’s great.”

Toufexis confirmed that the source of those good vibes without a doubt comes back to their fearless leader. “It’s Sonequa’s set,” he said. “Sonequa was the number one, and she’s the best number one I’ve ever worked with. Hands down. Just [the best] of the whole show. She’s amazing. I could never say enough good about Sonequa.” And Harlow couldn’t help but agree: “Every single time I see her, I’m like, ‘Sonequa, I love you so much!’ I know I’m gushing again for the 50th time, but yes.”

“Mirrors” is available to stream now on Paramount+. New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery hit the platform every Thursday. Stay tuned at Collider for more.