(Warning: mild spoilers about the season finale of “Star Trek: Discovery.”)
The “Star Trek” franchise has spent a lot of time developing concepts about alien physiology across its many shows and movies, but one longtime fan theory about Klingon sexual anatomy has never been confirmed. That is, until Sunday night’s “Star Trek: Discovery” season finale.
“Star Trek” shows like “The Next Generation” and “Voyager” have established that Klingons evolved numerous anatomical redundancies, including two livers, an eight-chambered heart, and two stomachs. Unsurprisingly, science fiction fans being what they are, Trekkers have long speculated that this means Klingons have two of everything. Yes, we mean speculated that they have two penises.
Well, the final episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 1 went ahead and definitively answered the question, while making a couple of jokes along the way. In the episode, the crew of the Discovery heads to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos with a plan to map the planet and attack Klingon military targets. That means a small team, including protagonist Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), has to infiltrate a Klingon city by posing as a crew of non-Federation human gangsters.
The away team finds themselves at what is essentially a Klingon bar-slash-casino-slash-brothel, where everybody is drunk, losing money, and yelling at each other. As the group walks down a dark street they pass a drunk Klingon urinating on a building. The shot pans down to show two distinct streams hitting the wall — essentially confirming that Klingons are, ah, doubly endowed.
Yes, we mean they apparently have two penises.
This isn’t the first time “Discovery” hinted at just what Klingon males are packing. Earlier in the season, Klingon L’Rell (Mary Chieffo) suggested that humans weren’t equipped to keep up with Klingons in the bedroom because of a deficiency of quantity.
But don’t feel too bad, humans hoping for a Klingon valentine: that’s not entirely true. “Star Trek” has depicted more than one human-Klingon romantic pairing over the years, and since there’s apparently some genetic compatibility between the two species, there are at least three major Trek characters with both human and Klingon parents or ancestry.
As for the actual procreative act itself, “Star Trek” over the years has given fans plenty of interesting tidbits about just how Klingons get it on. Their warrior culture means their mating rituals are pretty rough, to say the least — often seemingly involving a number of injuries to both parties, including broken bones. Apparently, Klingon sex is as much beat down as get down.
“Discovery” has added another piece to the Klingon intimacy puzzle, whether anyone really needed it or not. (We did.)