Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Has Some Fun With The Best Captain Pike Meme

This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3, episode 2 — "Wedding Bell Blues"

After the hectic and suprisingly bloody nature of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3 premiere, "Hegemony, Part II," the Enterprise crew can at least temporarily catch their collective breath. "Wedding Bell Blues" offers a small time skip and a welcome respite from brutality, opting to focus on character relationships — specifically, the love triangle between Christine Chapel (Jess Bush), her new boyfriend Dr. Corby (Cillian O'Sullivan), and the lovelorn Spock (Ethan Peck). Unfortunately, the god-like alien Trelane (Rhys Darby of "Our Flag Means Death" fame) soon starts muddying the waters with his mischievous, reality-altering ways. Suddenly, Spock and Chapel are getting married, and only Corby seems to realize that something is wrong...

Yes, it's one of those "Star Trek" episodes, and it's refreshing to have a truly weird one — especially since "Wedding Bell Blues" throws in a little extra something for the fandom. Captain Christopher Pike's (Anson Mount) hair has been the subject of memes and good-natured jokes for some time now, and the episode cheekily addresses this via Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano). Early in the episode, Pike and Batel ponder their feelings toward each other and how their occupations as starship captains means pose severe challenges for a more serious relationship. At the end of the conversation, Batel jokingly ponders what would happen if they both tried to live in her captain's quarters — and where all Pike's hair products would fit. This is such an obvious wink and nod to the hair memes that it's easy to imagine quite a few fans punching the air when they see the scene.

"Wedding Bell Blues" is an episode that's steeped in the "Star Trek" mythos. Dr. Corby is familiar from the "Star Trek: The Original Series" episode "What Are Little Girls Made of?" (where he was played by Michael Strong). Likewise, Trelane was last seen in "The Original Series" episode "The Squire of Gothos" (with William Campbell in the role), and Trelane's father entity turns out to be none other than Q, John de Lancie's iconic extradimensional trickster entity.

Even amid this barrage of references and returns, the joke about Pike's hair is a noteworthy moment. From numerous individual memes on the subject to an entire account dedicated to Captain Pike's hair on X (previously known as Twitter), the gravity-defying hairstyle has built a fairly dedicated following. We can also be pretty sure that the hair product joke is no accident, as the people behind the show are extremely aware of the reputation Pike's hair enjoys. In fact, Anson Mount was fielding hair questions in interviews all the way back in 2022. In an interview with Esquire, he gave credit where credit's due, while acknowledging awareness that the Pike hairdo has been making waves: 

"That's all our resident hair guru, Daniel Losco. His work seems to have been noticed."

The appropriately hairstylist-adjacent hair product joke can actually be seen as a subtle nod to Losco, as it confirms that Pike doesn't just roll out of the bed looking like that. "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is ending after season 5 and fans know all too well that Captain Pike's complicated future will involve a severe downgrade in appearance (among other things), so here's hoping that his hair will get plenty of time in the spotlight before fate catches up with him.