How Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams made a cameo appearance in Star Trek: Discovery's season 4 finale

Sonequa Martin-Green and Stacey Abrams in the Star Trek: Discovery season 4 finale, “Coming Home”

MARCH 17, 2022 - By now, the likelihood is that you have already heard at least one spoiler for Star Trek: Discovery’s season 4 finale. One of the series’ best-kept secrets took mere hours before it was revealed all across the internet, and not just on fan sites. Mega-Trekkie and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams made a surprise cameo appearance in “Coming Home”; her appearance hit headlines from Hollywood rag Variety to political magazine The Hill. The story below contains minor spoilers.

Abrams appears in “Coming Home” as the unnamed President of United Earth. Her cameo, in the final moments of the episode, serves as a fitting ending to the season-long story arc in which the DMA (or dark matter anomaly) threatened the planet. A piece in Variety published early this morning detailed how the producers of Star Trek: Discovery made the momentous cameo happen.

Executive Producer Michelle Paradise said of the episode, “As we started to look ahead to the finale, we realized we are going to need a face for this moment, someone to represent Earth.” Paradise and the writers recalled Abrams’ previous outspoken love of Star Trek, particularly in interviews leading up to her 2018 gubernatorial race, and thought she would be perfect for the role. When Paradise put the idea to boss Alex Kurtzman via text, “The number of exclamation marks that came back was just phenomenal.”

Abrams’ only condition for taking the role? She didn’t want to know any spoilers beyond what was required for her role. According to Paradise, “She was very specific about that [...] She wanted to be able to just watch it and enjoy when the show finally came out. So, yeah, we avoided all the spoilers.”

For more (including spoilers!) on Stacey Abrams’ appearance in the latest Star Trek: Discovery, read the whole story on Variety, or watch it for yourself on Paramount+.