[Yamer]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

My thoughts

Spoiler!

A lot did happen in this episode as it focused around Michael's encounter with th Emperor and Stamets through the looking glass being in the spore network with his mirror universe counterpart.

I'm not sure if I was super happy with this episode, I think the problem for me is that they're trying to force to much into each episode and because of that there's no organic ability to take a breath and absorb what's happening.

To me its like a demolition derby of writing. So I'll break it down into the multiple story lines

first Ash/Vok - Well it turns out that they basically overlaid Tyler and Voq together, and its gone into overload, and both are fighting for dominance and its killing them both. So Saru basically asks L'Rell to save him, and at first she refuses until Saru beams crazed dying Tyler into her cell and she agree's to fix things.

So she puts on the glow fingers of destiny and gives Voq a warrior's death and leaves Tyler's psyche alive.

So to me, Voq is dead in both universes, and thank god, the writing for the whole Klingon story line and Voq has been a drag on the show.

Second Storyline was the Stamets line where he's caught in the network with evil Stamets, and we find out that the network is corrupted, and good universe Stamets hangs out with his dead boyfriend who warns him that Mirror Stamets has made the network sick, and its probably needed for the trip home.

There is a logic to me as we see in future Trek's there is no spore jump drive, so either its too fragile and dangerous to use, or the spores that connect to the network die off and the network is no longer accessible.

At the end of the episode we see a Stamets waking up in the med lab on the Imperial Flag ship and a Stamets waking up on the Discovery, but which one wakes up where.

To me, this is part of the problem of jamming storylines on top of each other. I get that there has to be questions about how to get home, but it just seems like they killed off Voq and then they had to bounce into something else. There was just too much tonight.

So the last and most important storyline.

We finally have the face to face between Michael and Georgiou as she delivers Lorca to her after a nice moment on the shuttle. Lorca of course is banished to an agonizer booth and Michael is asked to select a member of the Kelpien. Of course the message is that there's always a cost to every decision when your visiting someone else's universe, as later her and the Emperor broke bread over a nice piping hot fear Ganglia. Yes the Empire is not only racist and evil, but they're also extreme carnivores.

Of course we find out that things are different in the Mirror Universe, it turns out that Georgiou was Michael's adoptive mother and Lorca was the Emperor's right hand man. But Lorca groomed Michael like a normal universe Woody Allen and turned her against her mother.

Now I want to add on that I still hate Michelle Yeoh in this show. But somehow today it kind of worked as her wooden acting actually added to this psycho killer brutal Emperor with no mercy or empathy for anyone.

So she decides to execute her daughter publicly, but just before she does Michael comes clean about where she's from and she just wants to go home.

Now, I will state that I really loved the discussion from the viewpoint of the Empire the concept of the United Federation of Planets is evil and a democracy only invites discord and rebellion. It was a neat justification.

Anyways Michael leverages George's (I'm calling her George because its easier). love for her real daughter and decides to negotiate for their freedom in exchange for the schematics for the Spore Drive (Which is about the dumbest idea ever). They start talking about Lorca and Michael accidentally drops a coffee cup that has "Lorca from the Mirror Universe brand coffee cup" while looking at a picture on the wall of a mirror. That's when she realizes that Lorca is evil and mirror and he used her to get onto the flagship presumably to murder the Emperor.

The last scene show Lorca limping down a hallway but his limp slowly disappears, no actually we see Lorca killing his torturer and then he speaks with a British accent which makes him totally evil.

This storyline was pretty good, we see that the figit spinner is a deadly evil weapon in the mirror universe as the Emperor kills her staff with one. We also learn alot about the Emperor, that Lorca is evil and used Michael to get at the Emperor and that Michael is willing to give the Empire a means to cross over to other universes.

Overall it was a decent episode that had some pacing errors.

We finally saw the thank god end of Voq, and probably the Klingon storyline for a while until L'rell joins the crew as the plucky new security officer with a heart of gold.

We had the other big reveal that Lorca is mirror Lorca, which I predicted during the last episode when they jumped across universes.

We saw that the Spore Network is sick and possibly dying.

Lots of reveals, this show is far better then it was at the start, but there are still grindy moments, that tend to drive me a little nuts.

Also we learned that Saru probably would go well with White Wine some broth and some nice fava beans.

Great recap and analysis.

It should be said that you're the greatest resource of Trek mythology and knowledge on this site. I know I always appreciate reading your in depth reviews as they connect a lot of dots and help establish a firm grasp of what is always going on from scene to scene.

Thank you, Cap'.