LizstarTrek - Discovery Season 2 episodes 11 - 15

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!!

The Red Angel - DIS 2/10

We start with a eulogy for Airiam. They keep talking about how important she was to them. I wish they had… shown that throughout the show. Most of us in chat couldn’t even remember her name today. It ALSO doesn’t help that I know the reason they killed Airiam off is cause her prosthetics were too much to put on every day.

This scene goes on forever. We knew literally nothing about her until she episode she died in.

Also, think about when Dr. Culber died. We didn’t even see anyone’s reaction. No one gave a shit except his boyfriend, who found out way later. No one gave a shit at all, they didn’t even look at the recording to see who killed him.

HOW COULD THE TORMENT NEXUS BEGIN CREATING TORMENT?

How does this woman still have a job? How did she get it to begin with? She’s awful. Spock blames time travel btw. Sure. Anyways Tilly comes in and goes “I found data of the biometrics of the Red Angel. It’s you, Michael”. Hey, I called it! Also this twist is very half-assed.

The only survivors of Section 31, Georgiou’s group, shows up. Why the fuck are they still allowed to exist? Shut them down, their AI they built is evil and trying to kill everyone. Also they talk about what Project Daedalus is, it’s a time travel thing. They even reference the Temporal Cold War. God, no. Why the fuck would you bring that back up???

Georgiou makes the moves on Stamets, who is extremely and obviously uncomfortable. “You do know he’s gay, right?” CAN WE SHOVE THIS WOMAN OUT AN AIRLOCK. Also I guess it’s referencing the rampant pansexuality of the mirror universe, cause apparently Mirror Stamets was pan? They even name pansexuality directly, which is wild to me, most people pretend that it doesn’t even exist.

The section 31 guy tells Michael that he got her parents killed, by assigning them to a job to make the time travel suit. He and his team fucked up and they got killed. She beats the shit out of him.

Okay I just realized something about Culber’s perdicament. People are like “You’re a new person, brand new”. So basically, he was torn apart then rebuilt from new molecules beamed in from somewhere else.

That’s called transporting. He got transported.

“Captain, we need to possibly sacrifice my life to capture the Red Angel, it’s that or all sentient life dies”. WHY DO WE NEED TO CAPTURE HER THOUGH? She’s been helping out everywhere. Honestly, I think we should leave her to fix the god damn timeline. Start by killing Georgiou. Then we won’t have any stupid future Section 31 movie.

Michael and Ash start making out again. Why are we here? Just to suffer?

They make a huge deal about some random new character coming onto the bridge. She’s Airam’s replacement. Played by the same actress, actually.

Here’s a fun scene of Michael screaming and gasping as she dies. Just play the Star Trek theme over this for maximum incongruence.

Eventually, we succeed, the Red Angel shows up, we capture her. And they unmask her to reveal it’s… NOT Michael! IT’S HER MOM! With her… biopattern and brain pattern? I dunno, whatever.

Perpetual Infinity - DIS 2/10

We get a flashback showing Michael’s childhood, and the death of her parents. But obviously not. She wakes up, having been fully resucitated. She’s told her mother is unconscious on the planet, but alive.

The section 31 guy I could never remember the name of is captured by the evil AI and injected with some kind of things, with a very graphic and violent scream. It’s gross. RIP that guy I guess. His corpse is taken over and controlled by the AI. Why does Section 31 have borg-esque nanotech??? It’s actually BETTER, cause no one realizes it, it’s subterfuge.

Michael watches the mission logs from her mother’s suit. She sees that she tries to get back over and over but fails. And also she’s in a post apocalypse. Eventually she switches to trying to fix this problem instead. Michael is kinda pissy she’s focusing on trying to fix this issue and not see her. Come on, Michael. Dr. Burnham is like “Just delete the sphere archive, that’ll solve ALL of this” “No, we’re protecting it!” “Then we’re done here.” She’s become a distant Time Protector type character.

They actually DO try to delete it, but the data itself refuses to be deleted.

The section 31 guy’s corpse is a lot more malevolent than usual. But everyone’s just ignoring it. If anything I’d say this is extremely accurate to how people in power misuse that power and everyone who has the ability to stop them just doesn’t. He teams up with Georgiou and asks her to help kill Dr. Burnham AND steal the sphere data. Please don’t fall for this shit, Georgiou.

They come up with a plan, though. They’re gonna upload the sphere data into the suit, and send it into the future so it survives, AND is away from the evil AI. They’ll also use some dark matter shit to keep her here.

Georgiou goes up to Dr. Burnham and all the guards just let her, and as she’s clearly menacing, they just stand there and watch. Why are they even here? After realizing that hey, maybe what she’s doing is OBVIOUSLY dumb, she stops the transfer and sends Ash over to stop Leland. Ash is stabbed. Whoops. Maybe you should have DESTROYED the thing downloading the data???

Leland goes down guns blazing to get the data, deactivating the suit. They release the containment field keeping Dr. Burnham there, and she returns to the future, without the suit this time, stuck in the future. But hey, the AI doesn’t have all the data I guess.

Things are distraught, but for some reason this clears the air between Michael and Spock so they’re on speaking terms again?? Also Ash escaped in an escape pod.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death - DIS 4/10

I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothing left.

They’re heading to a place called Boreth, some Klingon monastary. They have some time crystals, and Pike is going to try and negotiate with them for one. L’Rell helps him get an audience. Meanwhile, Michael follows a lead for a possibly rogue Section 31 ship to try and get back at them.

This Klingon planet is fucking Moria. Pike meets the guardians of time, or whatever. They’re ominous and mysterious, but then he ends his whole thing, about how maybe Pike can prove himself worthy before the time crystals, but “only time will tell”. I wish it then ended with him laughing and going “I always wanted to say that”. Also apparently this guy is the son of Voq? “Time flows differently here”. HOW DOES THIS KEEP ITSELF STABLE

Michael and Spock go and find that the Section 31 ship spaced everyone. They have someone in it called Gant, who was on the Shenzhou, so Michael knows him. He’s pretty clearly controlled by Control, I dunno why they even bother rescuing him, they KNOW Control can do this.

Oh no, PIKE IS GOING TO BECOME DAVROS

Yeah I already knew about this cause it’s important in Strange New Worlds. But this is a pretty good moment. Pike is shown he will, in the future, suffer a VERY bad fate where he’ll become crippled and barely alive. The Klingon there is like “you can still walk away, and stop that future from occuring”, but that’d involve risking hte lives of everyone else. So Pike sacrifices himself to save others, you know, a common theme of Starfleet. Cause Pike is good.

Holy SHIT, Jett Reno is back. God thank you. Discovery’s quality is directly proportional to its amount of Jett Reno. There’s actually a lot of good character moments in this? Not with Michael’s portion of the plot, but with Jett, the B characters on the bridge, and of course Pike. Also Jett Reno is gay! I mean yeah, look at her.

Wow Gant was roboticized what a surprise. Eggman’s plan is coming to fruition. Whatever.

They shoot a hole in gant and nanogoo floods out of him and tries to move into Michael. What the fuck is this shit? This is dumber than whatever they did with the Borg in First Contact.

Everyone gets back to Discovery, to find that Control is sending all 30-ish Section 31 ships to it. They get 30 ships? You remember Wolf 359? That was all the ships that they could get to fight the Borg. That was 40 ships. And that’s like 150 years from now.

WHY IS THE ENTIRE FLEET SECTION 31

Anyways they announce abandon ship and prepare to blow up Discovery. This episode was better than the other recent ones, cause the stuff that’s NOT the main plot is pretty good, and it’s MOSTLY been main plot recently.

*Such Sweet Sorrow Part 1 - DIS 3.5/10

Discovery is preparing to abandon ship and self destuct. Enterprise comes to help. They make some weird bridges go between the two ships. Those things look DESIGNED to be ripped apart dramatically in a battle, some people are TOTALLY gonna die on those bridges.

They give some reasons why they’re getting rid of hologram communications. I feel like they keep reinventing hologram communication every 50 years going “why don’t we do this?!” then rediscover it’s a bad idea, cause they’ll do this again in DS9.

They try to blow it up, but the sphere data has combined with Discovery now and refuses to be blown up. Also, Michael touched the time crystal and is now getting visions. She sees all of Enterprise being boarded and blown up by Section 31, and everyone being killed.

Things are bad, but how can they fix this? Michael has a plan. Send Discovery into the future, so that the data isn’t destroyed, but so Control can’t find it. I dunno why we don’t just stop Control but whatever. They decide to send Michael. She IS the special boy. But also they determine that her doing this will result in her setting hte signals. Uh, okay, sure, whatever. I guess I still called it.

Stamets and Culber fix things up and part on better terms after Culber got a talking to from Jett. He was fixed by the gentle touch of a lesbian.

Remember Po? She was in one of the Short Treks. Tilly calls her in to ask for her help creating enough power to power their makeshift red-angel suit. Kinda wild that that short trek is so important.

What the fuck, Sarek and his wife show up? Sarek is like “Our katras are connected so I knew you’d be here”. YEAH, BUT HOW DID THEY GET HERE SO FAST? ENTERPRISE IS 50 MINUTES BEHIND THEM, CONTROL 10 MINUTES BEHIND THAT.

People decide to stay with Michael and go into the future with her. Possibly forever. Not everyone. Ash is staying behind, because “if there’s anyone who can stop something like Control from happening again, it’s someone in the gray areas”. DOG, THAT’S HOW THIS HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE. We then get a lot of scenes of characters making last logs to their friends and loved ones. And then we get one last monologue from Pike to everyone on the ship before he heads back to Enterprise. Everyone stands to honor him as he leaves the bridge for the last time. Thank you Pike, for making this season tolerable.

Why in the fuck does Control have so many ships. Is this Star Wars??? Anyways prepare for battle.

Such Sweet Sorrow Part 2 - DIS 2.5/10

We get a very uninteresting battle. I love how they shout “EVASIVE MANEUVERS” then the ships stay completely still. At least we get little scenes of the Engineering crew creating the suit.

I love when the shuttles fly past and it does the doppler effect. This is space y’all.

“RENO, GO DO THIS THING” “I’m going, I’m going, get off my ass! Uh, sir.” She says to the captain. I love Reno. This is apparently a moment that’s been claimed as a sign of Kurtzman’s bad writing. This scene is prolly improv, y’all. She’s a comic.

Stamets is gravely injured. Are we burying our gays again?

Also, Po comes back and gives them advice on how to blow up the drones. This is moving VERY fast and is hard to focus on.

Then suddenly we get a slow spin around with Spock and Michael looking at the suit. “It’s ready. It’s time.” and then they admire their work. Uh, not the fucking time toots, IT’S TIME TO QUANTUM LEAP.

THIS SCENE LASTS SO FUCKING LONG, Y’ALL REALLY GOTTA GET GOING.

The Section 31 guy, still a robot, beams over to Discovery, enters the bridge, shoots at them a bunch, then leaves. They’re like “HE’S GOING FOR THE SPHERE DATA!” Then why the fuck did he even bother entering the bridge?!

A torpedo lodges itself in the Enterprise… which Michael had seen in a vision. She didn’t tell anyone? Dude.

Things are looking bad, but then the Klingons show up to help, alongside some Kelpians with some Ba’ul ships. I guess they stole them and did a fucking Battlefield Earth by teaching themselves how to pilot them.

Awww, Culber shows up to say Stamets. He announces that he fucked up, and was being very stupid (he was, he just teleported, dude). First time I felt a pang of emotion in this episode, which is trying to be full of them. FTR, Stamets is THE takeaway from these seasons so far. He’s by far the best part. I apologize for saying I hated him in the first two episodes.

Michael goes through time.

My god, it’s full of stars.

Holy shit there’s some really bad flashing, jesus. Anyways she goes back in time to do all the stuff she already did. Saving herself, setting up the different signals. I like how it reshows scenes of the characters going “these signals are here for a reason!” but there… isn’t one. It’s a time paradox loop. She’s just doing these things because they’ve already been done. No one actually came up with the plan to do these things.

There’s a fight scene with Robo Leland and Georgiou and the chief of security I forget the name of. It’s the best fight scene, because they had to keep the camera still due to gravity effect shenanigans, and we could actually see the fight.

To get rid of the photon torpedo, the Admiral sacrifices herself by using a manual lever. Oh no, not… her, the worst admiral I can think of off the top of my head. Okay MAYBE she’s a little better than like, the TOS guy who hated the windsock, or the TNG land of confusion guy who did the iran contra affair.

Michael comes back, and has to say goodbye to Spock. He’s like “Michael, you are my balance, you made me who I am, I do not know how I will survive without you.” Yes. Michael, the OC, is the reason Spock is Spock. :) She’s the reason we like him.

Discovery blasts off, following Michael, into the future.

Wait, ALL of Control put itself into Leland? Georgiou kills Leland, and destroys Control completely. Then… why are we going into the future??? They were going there to escape Control, but Control was on the ship anyway, so that wouldn’t have worked. Also, why would they put all of the hivemind control into one singular being, one dude MADE OF MEAT??

This is the dumbest thing of all time.

Then we get a “where are they now” for everyone back in the past. They’re all being questioned by Starfleet suits who believe they’re lying about something.

THEY MADE ASH TYLER THE COMMANDER OF SECTION 31?! THE DUDE WORKED THERE FOR TWO WEEKS. I mean I guess he’s LITERALLY the only person in Section 31 left but DUDE.

Anyways they’re all sworn to secrecy. I guess thats a good way to make sure none of this nonsense corrupts the rest of the timeline.

Many months later, they find the seventh signal 51,000 light years away signalling they made it to the future safely. Spock also shaves his beard. They move on with Enterprise-y things. “Let us see what the future holds”.

This was… better than season 1, at least.