Exclusive: The cause of Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s animosity between Rayner, Moll, and L’ak will be revealed says actor Callum Keith Rennie.
Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5
Summary
- Captain Rayner’s history with new villains Moll and L’ak is central to Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s plot.
- Rayner’s obsession with capturing Moll and L’ak causes tension with Captain Burnham and leads to a demotion.
- Callum Keith Rennie hints at a backstory for Rayner that explains his motivations and connection to the new villains.
Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s new series regular, Callum Keith Rennie, hints at the backstory between his character, Captain Rayner, and season 5’s new villains Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis). All three debuted in Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s premiere, “Red Directive,” and the animosity between the surly Starfleet Captain of the USS Antares and the rogue, Bonnie and Clyde-like lovers, was immediately clear. Rayner’s obsession with capturing L’ak and Moll puts him at odds with Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), who nonetheless offers Rayner the First Officer role on the USS Discovery after he’s demoted.
In an upcoming exclusive interview with Screen Rant about Star Trek: Discovery season 5 and Captain Rayner, Callum Keith Rennie was asked if Rayner has a backstory that will be revealed. Rennie hinted at how Rayner’s history is tied to his past encounters with Moll and L’ak. Read his quote below:
There’s a backstory that kind of lets you know why he’s wired the way he’s wired, and why the Moll and L’ak thing is getting him in a way that’s wound him up, maybe.
Rayner’s Star Trek: Discovery Career Change Is Partly Due To Moll & L’ak
Captain Rayner nearly ruined his Starfleet career until Burnham made him her Number One
Captain Rayner nearly got himself drummed out of Starfleet for insubordination in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 2, “Under the Twin Moons,” and part of it was because of his obsession with Moll and L’ak. Rayner was more concerned with capturing the couriers than saving the people of Q’Mau from an avalanche in Star Trek: Discovery season 5’s premiere. Whatever happened between L’ak, Moll, and Rayner self-destructively drives the Kellerun Starfleet Officer to subsume his better judgment in his desire to catch the thieving lovers.
Rayner is obviously having trouble adjusting to the peace forged by the USS Discovery.
What little Star Trek: Discovery season 5 has revealed about Rayner so far shows him to be an intense, humorless man who puts his mission – in Discovery‘s case, a Red Directive – above all else. Yet his old friend, Admiral Charles Vance (Oded Fehr), speaks highly of Rayner, who comes from The Burn era of the United Federation of Planets. Rayner is obviously having trouble adjusting to the peace forged by the USS Discovery. Rayner’s tumultuous backstory with Moll and L’ak will be a fascinating piece of information to learn in Star Trek: Discovery season 5.
