‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Bosses Explain Pike & Batel’s Heartbreaking Finale

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 finale “New Life and New Civilizations.”]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds explains what exactly has been going on with Batel (Melanie Scrofano) ever since she was turned into a hybrid to combat the Gorn infection, showed the life she and Pike (Anson Mount), who has his own future still to come, could have had, had Spock (Ethan Peck) and Kirk (Paul Wesley) do a mind meld, and set the Enterprisecrew on their next mission in the Season 3 finale.

The Vezda, the evil, resurfaces in “New Life and New Civilizations,” in Gamble’s (Chris Myers) body, and it turns out that Batel is the warden, the sentry of the prison in which it had been kept. She returns to just that, meaning she and Pike have a heartbreaking goodbye — with a glimpse at what their life together could have been (à la “The Inner Light”).