Another episode of Star
Trek: I Am Not Fucking Impressed, also known as STD which amuses me
because I Am Five.
And still pissed
So Culber is still
dead and Stamets is still near comatose. At least this can’t get any worse…. Oh
yes, Culber is found in babbling Stamets’s arms so everyone assumes Stamets
killed his partner
Let’s cover this now so I can stop thinking about it. So Tilley steps up in eight kinds of awesome to try and help Stamets because they think that’s better than any medical intervention. She has some great ideas assuming Stamets is confused, based on his brain scan, that his brain is all connected to a thousand worlds and places so needs magic mushrooms to be healed.
She also says how special
mushrooms are because they’re they only thing that connects life and death…
because… rot? I mean… consuming the dead isn’t a mushroom thing?
 |
| Not a Mushroom |
Anyway she thinks she can add spores and fix him. And does such a good a job that Saru is full of praise and they’re planning commander training for her and it seems to work… and then Stamets apparently dies
Pfft, no way. You. Wouldn’t. Dare.
No, really, I think
even the writers for Da Vincis Demons, The 100 and Constantine
(my current lines for writers whose homophobic fuckwittery requires them to be
stoned with Angry Armadillos) would draw the line at going through the media
saying “our Kill the Gays trope is special honest!” and then kill your other gay character
in the next episode. But, hey, fuck you for suggesting even for a moment that
we had yet another gay death on this show. How about no more killing or
labotomising your gay characters, pls thnx, ‘kay?
He does, eventually,
come back to life but his mind is now wandering around the pretty blue mushroom
forest of nifty fibre-optic effects. There he meets… himself! Who was waiting
for him to arrive to get on with special mushroom work.
Hey, Star Trek
Discovery, if your “epic romance” ends up with Stamets and Culber in the
magical mushroom forest we will not forgive you.
Right, that’s behind
us - now let’s join the more epic and less awful but oddly predictable
storyline.
Michael does some
excellent voice overs about how utterly traumatic and horrifying the
Mirrorverse is, how everyone lives in constant fear and it’s full of all the
awfulness ever and how she desperately relies on Tyler to be her rudder while
facing the terribleness of this world, trying to fit into it and not be
corrupted by it
Which is obviously a
major parallel to Tyler who is, pretty much confirmed, to be doing exactly the
same thing albeit as a klingon. But he calls Michael his “tether” - basically
the subtext is that he is stopped from being all Klingon because of the power
of love
Michael also meets
Mirror-world Saru. He has no name, he’s a slave who exists to attend her
grooming; which Michael tolerates while clearly deeply torn and tormented by
having to tolerate such an impossible offront to everything she holds dear.
When she contacts the
Discovery and Saru (with some lovely words of confidence from Tilly) she can’t
bring herself to tell Saru she’s seen his mirror-version - and he can’t tell
her that Culber has been murdered.. She also can’t just send the data they need
to the Discovery because it’s huge and well encrypted
We see more of the
Terran’s awfulness with crew being sentenced to death by being Transported into
space for the crime of “Malicious thoughts against the Emperor”.
Michael continues to
be concerned by how it is getting easier to play this role and she worries
about how all these people ARE human - this darkness does exist in all of them.
This potential for evil is in all of them. Tyler is definitely someone she’s
clinging to
As part of holding on
to her morals, she names Mirror-verse Saru.
While working on a
way to send the data to the Discovery they get a message from on high - from
the Emperor. The Terran empire has found the location of Fireworld - the
Klingon leader of the insurgence. An alliance of Klingons, vulcans, Andorans
and more all resisting the Terran empire. The orders are to bomb them from
space.
Michael checks with
Lorca who insists she follow the orders so she can protect the crew and stay on
mission: Michael thinks Lorca may be just confused after suffering so much
torture. I think Lorca is pretty much showing his true colours here. Michael
responds with an epic speech about how she is still a member of the Federation
and the idea of committing genocide against a multi-alien alliance fighting
genocidal fascism is truly appalling to her and everything she stands for. More
this alliance represents the closest thing to Federation that exists in the
Mirrorverse. She’s also extremely impressed that this organisation, led by a
klingon, has managed to bring so many aliens together. This could actually be
the key to making peace with the Klingons by seeing HOW these Klingons
co-operate with others, and how these others can actually reach out to the
Klingons
So Michael’s plan is
not to bomb the planet from the sky but to infiltrate, ostensibly, gather
information to destroy the rebellion, while actually making contact. She does a
nice evil snap at her first officer for daring to prepare the bombs and follow
orders and showing us, yet again, how the Terran Empire simply could not
actually function.
Tyler and Michael
head down alone - and personally I think that this just sets them up to be
bombed by their own ship and any random Terran officer who wants to murder them
as this seems to be the done thing. There they’re attacked by the Rebel
Alliance but quickly surrender so they can speak to Voq - yes, Voq if the Fireworld
and Tyler/Voq (let’s not pretend any viewer hasn’t guessed this by now) has
ISSUES with seeing himself like this, all Klingon like.
Michael proposes a
plan, they evacuate before she bombs the planet and she takes back some data
they can easily render pointless before she gets to use it and lo the rebellion
is saved. Voq concedes that’s a decent plan but he doesn’t really trust her -
he needs to have her checked out by Sarek, the Prophet. Yes, Mirror World
Sarek, who is Michael’s father figure and allows for Michael to have more angst
and conflict. He does the Vulcan mind reading thing and confirms she means them
no harm - oh and humans are kind of full of compassion which is all “WHO
KNEW?!” for everyone (and me). How he even deals with all of Michael’s memories
of him as her dad I don’t even know.
Before putting their
plan in action, Michael asks Voq how he managed this - how did he manage to
ally with so many other species when the very religion and culture of Klingons
should oppose it (to say nothing of Vulcans not having any time for Klingon
emotional illogical nonsense); yet here he is speaking a non-klingon language
and leading a team
Voq explains....
Well, heresy. At least in T’kuvma’s vision which Voq/Tyler was a devout fanatic
of. As Voq talks about co-operation, getting your house together and accepting
others and, basically, how they entered an alliance because they had to to
fight a greater foe, Voq/Tyler has a breakdown. Sure L’Rell’s prayer didn’t
break through Michael’s love, but hearing his mirror self spout heresy after
heresy, going against everything he believes and all in Kahless’s name is too
much. Tyler attacks Voq, screaming in Klingon and is quickly defeated. Only
Sarek speaking for them saves them from murder and they get to return to the
ship to implement the plan
On the ship, after
handing over the soon-to-be-useless rebellion data, Michael speaks to Tyler
privately to basically ask “what the hell?!”. And he tells her the truth.
Because he’s a terribad awful spy. She goes into full denial at her lifeline
being a klingon and desperately clings to the idea he’s just brainwashed -
until even she can’t deny it and Tyler tries to kill her for the terrible crime
of killing T’kuvma.
He’s stopped by
Mirror Saru arriving and saving her - and can we say again, why does no-one
mention that the Kelpians are super-super-super strong? Seriously, he threw
Tyler across the room with one hand?! Is no-one commenting on this?
Per Imperial law,
Tyler faces death by transportation because this is a Naughty Murder not a Good
Murder. Michael insists on doing it and transports Tyler into space…
Where he is
transported onto the Discovery. Alive, to be arrested. As Saru loftily
explains: they are the Federation, they have rules and he will stand trial. Oh
and he has the data they need in his pocket, so bonus.
Michael also wants to
leave but Lorca reminds her the mission isn’t done. They don’t know if the data
is complete or enough to get them home - they need to know they won’t need her
cover story before they drop it.
Of course this is a
big ask when she’s lost her anchor is now pretty much alone (Lorca so doesn’t
count) and desperately trying to play Terran without being destroyed by it’s
awfulness… when a ship arrives and makes it all worse. First it bombs the rebel
camp - before the evacuation - almost guarantee a slaughter of the rebellion (and
also meaning the data that Michael got won’t be changed so the Terran Empire
can probably use that to do even more damage to the rebellion). She learns it’s
the Emperor’s ship and we meet the Emperor herself
Who is not shocked by
it being Georgiou? Michael needs maximum angst here.
I’m also beginning to
think the writers are just looking for leading fan theories and saying “oooh
that’s a good one!”
This episode contains
a lot of beautiful, vaunted rhetoric about the values of the Federation.
Michael’s excellent speeches, her horror over the Terran Empire, the hope she has and sees in the rebellion...
The problem is that
this is a whoooole lot of tell and not a lot of show. It’s something that has
been missed in the first half of the season: showing us THIS Federation, their
values they supposedly hold, the actual reality to match the vaunted rhetoric
Michael so brilliantly talks about. Even showing the Federation as an actual
alien alliance rather than, y’know, a largely human organisation with the odd
alien here and there.
In some ways this
rhetoric is doing more for a utopian, less-gritty Star Trek than the previous
season and even fits better: the gritty setting the writers love so much is
provided by the Terran Empire and not Lorca and the Federation at its Worst.
Though, honestly, this has never been my main problem with the show - Utopias
take time to build and have… moments… especially in times of conflict and
threat. And Michael's conflict and pain is being so extremely well shown with some excellent acting - her story is definitely the more powerful even if we are starting to get a little... excessive with the angst buttons
