LizstarTrek - Discovery Season 2 episodes 5 -
Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!
I know literally nothing about Discovery, except for The Burn, and that it leads into Strange New Worlds. So uh… I’ve been dreading this one. But hey, who knows! Maybe it’ll surprise me!! Last week was good, ha ha ha…
Saints of Imperfection - ENT 3/10
We start the episode with Michael learning that Tilly got blorted. She then does this thing Discovery does a lot? Which is like, weird existential depression poetry. While it flashes to Michael’s emotionless face over and over. I don’t like it.
They find Spock’s shuttle, who tries to give them the runaround and ignores their hails. They manage to capture it anyway, cause its a fucking shuttle, instead of Spock, we get this.
“I’m here to help you find Spock” Hey yeah, Georgiou, why did you dodge our hails and try to give us the runaround? “No answer.” Okay. Anyways they recognize her as Section 31 cause of her badge. What. Hey, remember in DS9 where Section 31 wasn’t even known to Sisko? They were like, a team of crackpots that barely anyone knew about? Here they’re just normalized, and FOR SOME REASON HAVE A BADGE? They even have a “liason”??? They’re just the CIA now. They were trying so hard to make Georgiou cool and intimidating but she’s SO fucking dumb, she’s so so SO fucking dumb. What a waste of your Michelle Yeow. At least Pike is still here and realizes something fucky is going on with this.
They find out Tilly is still alive cause the mushroom thing left behind is a Fungus version of a Teleporter. It brings people into the Mycelial plane, so hey, we get back to this fucking Disney-ass Pandora-ass world, where May is begging Tilly to help her kill something that’s killing them all. They all decide to enter the Mycelial network to try and find her. If they last there an hour, they will all die. If they do one wrong move they will “twist on both axes”, whatever that means, but it sounds unpleasant, and they will die. Look, I like Tilly, but she’s one ensign.
Burnham and Stamets meet up with Tilly, and agree to help her hunt this monster thats killing May’s people. They find it… guess who.
Y’ALL READY TO UNBURY YOUR GAYS?
Man, a lot of season 2 is just fixing the stupid mistakes of season 1. Doctor Culber has been wandering around, hunted by the Jahsepp who are trying to break him down into his constituent parts. So he’s protecting himself with a poison that hurts them. Eventually Tilly manages to talk May down. Now they gotta get Culber out, too. Stamets and Culber’s thing here is kinda cute but I cannot help but realize how fucking stupid a lot of this is.
Shit looks bad but Section 31 comes to save the day. Oh… oh boy. Wow ha ha they are so cool. Dang.
“Even Section 31 has court martials” They do??? They’re off the grid. I’d assume they’d just shoot you.
They manage to get everyone out, and leave the Mycelial network. GAYS UNBURIED, OH BOY.
That one warcrime admiral shows up to explain they learned the seven signals involve Tachyons. They say that means time travel. Uh, that’s Chronitons, you dumbies. Get your treknobabble correct. She also is like “get your stick out of your ass, captain. You know Section 31 is important, without it society cannot function”. I think we should shove both her and this Section 31 captain out an airlock. Doing anything less would be betraying your uniform.
Georgiou: “You’re gonna have to start trusting me eventually”
No, I don’t think I will.
The episode ends with more of Michael’s slam poetry. They seem to love ending every episode like it’s the end of the series. This one was mostly pretty bad, but there was a sprinkling of good star trekky stuff, its just stuck in Discovery bullshit.
The Sound of Thunder - ENT 4/10
We start with more slam poetry. Has this happened the entire series and now I’m finally noticing it? It’s out of place. This time it’s Saru’s slam poetry.
We get another scene where they’re talking about the Red Angel, still unsure what it is. This is a 3 minute scene and the camera is constantly spinning around them. It’s sickness inducing.
A new signal appears over the Kelpian homeworld. Saru immediately takes serious notice. He’s like “WE ARE AN OPPRESSED PEOPLE, WE NEED TO IGNORE WHAT OUR OPPRESSORS SAY AND GO TO THINGS”. Saru is being weirdly aggressive and almost insubordinate.
We of course send Saru down with Michael to figure out whats going on. Yeah let’s send the openly insubordinate guy yelling about oppression down to his oppressed people. “Okay Saru, now don’t go starting an insurrection!” “I pwomise~” Yeah I bet.
They immediately find Saru’s sister, of course, and though she’s kind of outraged that Saru is alive, cause he basically faked his death and she thought he was dead, and she’s not really willing to help them, especially as the Ba’ul show up angry about all of this.
The Ba’ul now know they took a Kelpien and demand him back, FINALLY answering hails. Saru can’t help but outburst about how he’s EVOLVED, and they cannot have him back. This basically starts a war with the Ba’ul. Pike is going to defend Saru and won’t give him up, but DOES ask Saru to leave the bridge. They’re also going to nuke his village off the face of the planet, so he just goes to teleport instead. Michael tries to stop him, but it’s too late, Saru’s surrendered himself to protect his village, and the Federation. But mostly his village, prolly. Saru’s being kinda weird.
They use the sphere’s data to find out that years ago, Kelpiens had survived Vaharai very often, and the Ba’ul almost went extinct. So basically, Kelpiens used to evolve into a superior predator species, and the Ba’ul were the prey. We also see a Ba’ul, this weird goopy boy, and Saru immediately tries to kill it with Hydralisk spikes, which he apparently has. They’re like “welp that just goes to show, you still cannot be trusted to not just kill anything in your path. Time for you to die now.” But Saru bursts his way out anyway. He contacts Discovery and they decide a plan.
They’re going to use the thing the Sphere used, the frequency, to enforce Vaharai in EVERY KELPIEN, that way they all know the Great Balance is a lie. What the FUCK. That is…. massively a bad idea, and also massively immoral in every way. Everyone jumps on this plan REAL fast. “Ah, this is what the red angel sent us here to do”.
Hey remember when Saru underwent Vaharai and almost committed suicide? How many Kelpiens do you think are doing that right now?
They find where Saru is. “Target that structure.” Oh so we’re just at WAR with the Ba’ul now. Good thing those dozen defense ships aren’t here anymore. Anyways the Ba’ul decide to commit genocide on the Kelpiens, as they basically said they would. They decide to fire photon torpedos at the pylons, which are in every Kelpien village. Photon Torpedos are basically nuclear weapons, y’all know that reight?
Anyways the day is saved by the Red Angel who shows up and deus ex machinas it all. Yay. Time to form a NEW religion.
Saru also saw the Red Angel clearly. It’s a humanoid in a mechanized suit with super technology. Okay, that’s clearly someone important, right? Like, we’ve already implied it’s time travel, so it’s prolly a future version of a main character. My guess is Michael, but hey, here’s a joke guess:
It’s future Archer again!
Anyways all’s well that ends well, we don’t see the Ba’ul reaction, Saru’s sister is like “we’ll work hard to show we’re friendly :)” and then Michael uses this situation to have a new outlook on her life and her relationship with her brother, which is what happens in every episode of this.
The Sound of Thunder - ENT 3.5/10
Burnham goes on personal leave to find Spock while the Discovery tries to figure out more about the Red Angel, and they run into a weird time anomaly while researching it. Pike goes out to check it out, alongside Tyler. While going into the anomaly, Pike sees himself killing Tyler, and says nothing about it. Dog.
They finally find Spock, Amanda found him a while ago and is keeping him in a wet musty old temple. He’s clearly insane, muttering and writing scrawl around the temple. Michael wants to take him to a hospital, but Amanda refuses. Serak walks in though, now aware of what’s going on. We ALSO learn that Spock had a condition called “L’tak Terai”, a learning disability. Yes. He apparently has Vulcan Autism, though they directly compare it to dyslexia. She also calls out Serak for being a shitty husband. Serak is like “Whatever. Send him to Section 31, because he has the information in his head that they so desperately need.” Dog. He has info about the seven signals, which are a scientific curiosity at best. Why the FUCK are we treating it like a universe ending risk.
I hate all the Section 31 stuff in this series. A lot. They decide to use THE MIND RIPPER on him, but don’t worry, he’ll be okay :) Also he’s been doing this like, number thing, but turns out he’s doing it backwards, cause he has Vulcan Dyslexia, remember?
Stamets goes over to the shuttle to save the captain and Ash I guess, but for some reason their probe turned into a Space Robot Squid and is sucking out their data. They blow the shuttle up to kill it and beam them out. However, as they do this, something weird is happening to Commander Airam, who is the robot on the bridge. Uh oh, we got a Braniac now.
Meanwhile, Georgiou is like “psst, that Mind Ripper? That’s a bad thing. Go save your brother” and helps her break Spock out, pretending she tried to stop her. We also find out Leland, the Section 31 leader guy, is the reason Michael’s parents are dead. Wow, you telling me this guy is bad??? Anyways, Michael goes to Talos IV. That MIGHT sound familiar to you.
If Memory Serves - ENT 4.5/10
We start with the WEIRDEST scene I’ve EVER seen in a Trek show. It’s scenes from the unaired TOS pilot, with the WORST “I just discovered power point” editing ever made.
For some reason a council of admirals is commanding Section 31 to do things. Did…. did these writers just NOT KNOWS WHAT SECTION 31 IS? Anyways, Georgiou is kind of in charge now.
Michael and Spock head to Talos IV. As that weird-ass terrible intro implies, this is the planet from The Cage and Menagerie, the two Pike episodes in TOS. This is after The Cage, but before Menagerie. I dunno how to feel about touching TOS stuff like this, but we’ll see. They spend a LOT of time just… recounting and telling you the plot of The Cage. Which makes me wish I was just watching TOS. The Talosians use their super mind powers to read Spock’s mind and try to help him, and we get a flashback.
This flashback shows Spock as a kid when he’s saved by the Red Angel. It’s filled with a LOT of flashing. Anyways, with this flashback we learn that Spock learned that Earth is going to be exploded. Oh good, THERE’S the world ending threat. This is just Temporal Cold War part 2.
Meanwhile, Culber is numb and suffering from PTSD from being in a mushroom hellscape for months. Stamets is trying to force him to be normal. Dude, you’re a LITTLE smarter than that. Come on.
You know who we haven’t seen all night. Jett Reno. That should be a sign on why this isn’t as good.
The Talosians fix Spock, who is IMMEDIATELY a dick to Michael. They then show her what happened at the asylum where those doctors died. This doctor is like “section 31 is here to take you to another station.” WHY DOES THIS RANDOM FUCKING DOCTOR KNOW WHAT SECTION 31 IS? Does NO ONE know what section 31 is supposed to be? He then knocks them out and leaves. So yeah, Section 31 totally killed those people.
Culber has a mental breakdown and attacks Tyler. People try to break it up, but Suru goes “Wait! We must let this play out.” WHAT? WHY?? Pike IMMEDIATELY is like “what the fuck is your problem” about that btw. Pike’s gotta be thinking “WOW, their previous captain REALLY fucked them up didn’t he”. This all ends with Culber breaking up with Stamets btw. Does this count as burying your gays? Or is this just an extremely fair thing for Culber to do?
They learn from the Talosians whats going on and try to go over, but someone sabatoged the spore drive. They study it and find it was Tyler, who denies anything but is thrown in the brig. The whole “who’s fuckign with the ship” would be a mystery if they didn’t keep showing the cyborg being all ominious about it.
We get a scene from Spock’s past about Michael being racist at him and trying to leave the house. She’s doing it because of the Logic Extremists targetting their house. HOLY SHIT, THE FUCKING LOGIC EXTREMISTS AGAIN.
Leland: “PIKE, DROP OUT OF WARP. THAT’S AN ORDER.”
YOU ARE UNSANCTIONED BLACK OPS. I DO NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM YOU.
The Talosians send over a fake Michael and Spock to distract Leland while the real ones escape.
Georgiou: “Those stupid Talosians tried this with me in my universe and I blew them off the face of their planet.” Yeah, I bet they let you think you did.
Anyways they blast off, now a super wanted ship.
Project Daedalus - ENT 7/10
Admiral Cornwell is here. Apparently they got through to her through secure channels, being like “Admiral, Section 31 is rogue and doing illegal acts help us D:” Hey, do you remember last time we saw her, she went “Section 31 is a neccesary evil, and I will hear nothing else to the contrary.”
Holy shit they got scans of Spock’s Brain! Hell yea! Anyways, the lie detector shows Spock is innocent, but she’s like “I have PROOF. Here, this security footage.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Anyways she decides to believe them. She says there’s a Logic Extremist admiral who’s been trying to push Starfleet to rely on Control more. What the fuck is Control? I don’t THINK they’ve mentioned it before, but it might have been in one of those boring Section 31 scenes. It’s an AI. Their plan is to go and arrest her.
We get a scene of Airam, the cyborg, choosing what memories to save and which to delete. It’s cute. I wish we got more scenes with the bridge crew like this. This girl is TOTALLY dead.
Apparently mines are illegal. Then what the fuck is the shit they put in front of the wormhole? I guess they weren’t illegal by that point.
We’re getting more scenes of Airam being a little weird but also being friends with all the lesser seen bridge crew. No one has EVER been more dead.
Spock says this line immediately before breaking a chair. He and Michael get in an argument. They’re both acting like children.
The admiral’s plan to get past the minefield fails, and the ship is now dead in the water. They’re all apparently gonna be arrested.
Stamets has a scene with Spock helping him out. Stamets REALLY steps up and is a great character in this show. Shout outs, cause I did NOT like him at first, at all.
They beam over to the Section 31 base. Airam goes with them cause of course she does. They find that the entire station is quiet, and everyone in it is dead. There’s not even any oxygen.
The Vulcan admiral who was talking to them earlier is dead. And has been for weeks. They’re fighting a rogue AI who’s using AI to frame people and do war crimes :D They also find out that Airam is compromised, all of her memories deleted except for very specific ones. They tell Burnham and the security officer with her they named once, and then Airam beats the SHIT out of them. They also find out that the AI is doing this because it wants the data from the Sphere, which will make it invincible or something.
Airam gains slight control. She can talk, but can’t stop her other actions. She BEGS Michael to kill her so she doesn’t kill anyone else. She says “EVERYTHING IS BECAUSE OF YOU, MICHAEL.” Oh yes, we know, she is The Special Boy. And then “YOU MUST FIND PROJECT DAEDALUS.” and then is shoved out the airlock.
So, this IS effective, and done and executed well. Considering what they showed about her this episode, yes, it is very good and hits hard to watch her die. Especially all the memories of the stuff about her dead husband. It would be an amazingly executed moment.
If she had had even five lines before this episode.
If this was a NORMAL Trek show, where she was developed, if we saw her interract with her friends and be a weird but normal girl through the whole series, instead of her going “yes captain” and being on the bridge not being a character, it’d hit like a fucking TRUCK. But we are not in that world.