[CaptainCrunch]

Strange episode, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Was it bad? No, Was it great? No, I think it was just there, with some nice elements, however the biggest problem that plagues this series continued as they just continually cram stuff into an episode until it becomes a maze that easily loses you.

Like I said there were some nice elements.

The Greying of the Federation that made DS9 so good, is being attempted in this episode, in that the Federation was more concerned with its survival then living up to its ideals. That they tried to make Osyraa more understandable and sympathetic in a way. I mean she's a pure capitalist with a ruthless gangster slant. But its understand when you think about the fact that she was raised in a post burn galaxy. I think if they would have spent some time before this developing her character, instead of positioning her as just another bully baddy, this could have worked better and they could have made her into a legit anti-hero, instead of a just another villain.

Once again Burnham shows that when she has a chance to redeem herself over her actions in the Battle of the Binary Star, she absolutely refuses to as her actions with Stamets show. nerve pinching him and sending him into space might make complete sense but she was willing to destroy the man and sacrifice all that matters to him showed that she hasn't changed all that much. Her decision is correct, but once again her judgement is absolute, and that's where the problem with the character is, in that the Burnham method is always right.

Of course they made Tilly the key kog in the breakout, but what's interesting . . . err is they didn't do anything interesting with her or make her brilliant. What they did was take her main nemesis in the pirate Zereh who was cagy and smart the first time around, and made him dumber and more incompetent the second time around, like playing a video game in easy mode.

There was a nice moment as they bought back Kenneth Mitchell to play the Chain Scientist Aurellio. Mitchell had played Klingons in the first two seasons, but last year he was diagnosed with ALS and is now confined to a wheel chair, so I give the casting and producers all kinds of props. But then again Discovery never throws anyone out. However I will be honest, his line delivery and the flashing sign that he's going to be a character going through a change of heart, kind of almost put me to sleep.

Of course in the ultimate cheat the Spore Data know has become rhomba vacuum cleaners and nobody is going to outsmart them. However his just feels like a Mandalorian rip off by making the Sphere adorable huge eyed robots.

Again, it wasn't a bad episode with lots of decent moments in it, but a bumpy ride at times. I will say that this didn't feel like an episode before a season finale episode as the odds are really heavily stacked against the bad guys now and the question isn't whether they take back the discovery, but how bad of a beating the enemy is going to take. The other problem here is that this episode took a major turn and asked some thorny moral questions, however at this point I don't think the show or the writers or the concept are capable of answering those questions in a satisfying way.