Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 2x14 - "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"

[Locutus of Bored]

CBS needs to license someone to sell Dot-7 robot toys.

 

[Discofan]

That looks like Leland actually.

Or me, I kinda look like that from that angle.

 

[Alan Roi]

I did laugh at the repair bots on the Enterprise hull. @guyute03 My first thought was R2 as well!

.

I actually thought of B.O.B. and V.I.N.C.E.N.T myself. That there were "black holes" involved...

 

[Kore]

She died of stupidity. As I wrote earlier. Why didnt she tie a chord to the emergency bulkhead handle and stand on the safe side of the door and pull the handle down via the cord? Oh Discovery, the suit only had power for 1 jump into the future, but somehow it made 5 back to back jumps back in time, 1 forward jump with Discovery in tow, and then was able to do one more jump backwards in time to the present just as a signal to everyone we be ok now that were stuck in the future.

I didn't understand why the Admiral, Pike, or the writers didn't think of simply beaming the Admiral out of that room. They beamed Spock over fine enough, so their transporters were working. I guess they could claim interference, but then your cord/rope with the lever, that would've been another way out of it. It looked to me like they felt they needed a bold/brave creative decision. But the moment the admiral and number one enter the turbolift to begin with, you know she's dying. It's the cliche, easy decision for a prominent guest character when you don't want to kill off one of the mains but want that moment.

I was a little confused when the entire Discovery crew was still on the Discovery. They made it seem like Burnham and her ten friends were the only ones who were going to go through to the future with her. That alone was pretty unbelievable, but this episode it's the entire crew? I definitely missed something. Were all of their families and loved ones okay with this when there wasn't a real need for all of them to go?

All of that was fine enough, but the handwave that the reason none of this is ever brought up at any future point isn't because Burnham goes back and rewrites herself out of history, or changes events, or jumps into another universe, it's because... hundreds of people agree to never speak her name, even to their closest friends? What? Why can't you mention her again? You can't mention what she did, but why not ever mention HER again? You can say she died in a mission, enough said. Spock really never mentions her to anyone, ever, because of this? Wasn't that the same reason they gave for the mirror universe, it's classified, and I guess the Spore Drive that kills micelial life (that they kept using after the fact.) "Uh, this stuff shouldn't be known at this point in the timeline, but we did it anyway, how do we fix that? Make it classified!" Blown away by the creativity.

Was the decision to have Culber end up back on the Discovery a good one after everything they've been doing with the character? I loved the scenes with Stamets and Culber this season. It would've been so brave to have him actually stick to being on the Enterprise. That's what really felt was missing in this finale. Teeth. Brave creative choices. They showed Leeland massacring the bridge crew last episode. This episode, with us not seeing Michael attempt to really change anything (she is even surprised that events are happening as she saw them) the same scene happens and Leeland can't shoot for shit and no one goes down? Then he runs out of the information room, why? They couldn't move the data at any other point. Then they could? I still don't get why they didn't just take a phaser to where the information was stored instead of deciding the only decision is to go into the future and abandon their entire lives. If they were let back onto Discovery, setting off a bomb inside of it would've been easy enough, which was the solution they landed on last episode: to blow up the Discovery. Then this episode they don't even contemplate trying these things.

I guess the creative team came up with the idea of going to the future and then worked the plot toward getting them there without really going too far out of the way to make all other avenues/choices untenable. Instead of creating a problem and then looking into all the possible solutions and choosing the best one, it felt, often, that they'd have an end point in mind, speed toward it, and ignore one or two other really obvious, better choices that'd fix the problems that were put in front of them. The characters are so incredibly smart, but make the oddest decisions all season long. I just wish the writers took slightly better care to create believable reasons why such and such solution to problems wouldn't work instead of never tackling them to begin with.

It reminds me of when L'Rell inexplicably murders the Voc personality instead of the Tyler personality without too much background or explanation as to why it had to be done that way from her perspective.

That said, this was an infinitely better finale than season one's bomb-in-a-volcano-ends-the-war centerpiece that had no legs to stand on and made no sense going forward. They definitely had a plan in place and hit all the beats they wanted to with the story this season. Spock, Pike, and Number One were incredible additions to the show. I was someone who didn't want them at all. I wanted Discovery to stand on its own and be its own thing. But they didn't disappoint. I'd love for S3 to be more episodic in nature without having to save the multiverse, all life in existence, etc. each season. But next season it's probably Andromeda, as others have mentioned, putting the federation back together again.

A little too heavy on the action for me, and that four second zoom in on a suicide lever... who decided to keep that in?, but when I don't think or look too heavily at certain areas, it definitely has its moments and wasn't bad by any stretch. If they were going for action packed, it certainly was that with nice moments here and there.

I'd give this finale a 7/10.

If S3 opened on Pike, Spock, and Number One doing episodic missions on the Enterprise and never mentioned the Discovery, for fear of w/e, that'd be perfectly fine with me. But that'd be the radical, brave choice. I mean, they didn't actually show the Discovery again at the end, which was odd, but they didn't set that up at all and this is a show that would if that was the last of them. Maybe they don't actually have a plan beyond "Discovery jumps into the future." In which case maybe they'll avoid the obvious "putting the federation back together again" storyline. It's hard to think of something else that would one-up the universe-ending problems they stopped in season's one and two. Still, it's nice that they'll be in the future and the choice is there to cover new ground.

 

[Gonzo]

I'm a little confused about this entire plotline. Why did she send the signals again? Was it to warn the crew of what was to come? Under scrutiny, this plot arc didn't make a lick of sense to me.

I'm giving this one a 7.

The action was great, the battle sequences were tremendous, but the more I think about this episode the more I feel like the writers undermined it's own show. For one, I'm confused by the entire red angel, signal plotline, which this season was based. Also, Instead of an ending shot of Discovery in the future, we get an ending shot of those remaining in the present to forget about discovery or it's death (So I guess they will kill you two different ways in Trek for violating the law). Is Discovery turning into the Pike show? They can't tell the entire cast of Discovery to move aside for Anson Mount and Rebecca Romaijn and Ethan Peck, can they? I wish the last shot of the season would have been of The Discovery in the future. It is Star Trek Discovery, after all.

Yes she had to set the signals, it would have been a paradox if she had not and that is way worse than a time loop, the Borg or anything else.

 

[Visitor1982]

Great episode, despite some plot holes.

Don't understand how Yeoh can lead a Section31 series in the 23rd century, when Discovery just went a 1000 years into the future permanently with her onboard though...

 

[Alan Roi]

If S3 opened on Pike, Spock, and Number One doing episodic missions on the Enterprise and never mentioned the Discovery, for fear of w/e, that'd be perfectly fine with me. But that'd be the radical, brave choice.

That would be neither radical or brave, IMO. It would be seen by everyone as caving in to the people who hate anything new Discovery has done and have demanded their cuddly Star Trek blankie they feel has been taken away from them by anything Disco.

 

[Alan Roi]

Great episode, despite some plot holes.

Don't understand how Yeoh can lead a Section31 series in the 23rd century, when Discovery just went a 1000 years into the future permanently with her onboard though...

Maybe they will come across the Guardian of Forever at some point?

 

[thribs]

Spock states during the interrogation that they should stop the time travel experiments but yet has no issue when Kirk starts doing them. I suppose deep down he could have.

 

[Gonzo]

That Enterprise-centric ending was like the writers lost interest in their own show.

That was always a danger when bringing in Pike and the Enterprise, they must have known it would probably overshadow Burnham and the Discovery but they couldnt ignore the opportunity it presented.

 

[KennyB]

Great episode, despite some plot holes.

Don't understand how Yeoh can lead a Section31 series in the 23rd century, when Discovery just went a 1000 years into the future permanently with her onboard though...

That show won't air till after season 3..........so I guess we find out next year.

 

[Alan Roi]

Spock states during the interrogation that they should stop the time travel experiments but yet has no issue when Kirk starts doing them. I suppose deep down he could have.

The first he does in Trek is out of desperation and under the influence. The second was an accident. The third was predestination. The fourth was to save the planet Earth. The fifth was again an accident.

 

[Oso Blanco]

Was there an episode this season where Burnham didn't cry? Doesn't seem like it.

One reason why I wished they had Burnham erase herself from history. I just can't stand her preaching and whining all the time, always on the verge of crying. SMGs complete overacting didn't help the character either.

 

[thribs]

They keep overly stating that the signal is in the Beta Quadrant but the majority of the Federation is in that Quadrant.
At that distance it would be close to the Delta Quadrant boundary. I would say that.

They mention Edren II at the end. Edren IV is the planet Kirk has that historic rock throwing contest with the Gorn.

 

[Alan Roi]

That was always a danger when bringing in Pike and the Enterprise, they must have known it would probably overshadow Burnham and the Discovery but they couldnt ignore the opportunity it presented.

I think part of it was an attempt to win over the detractors, but i think they've learned by now that only the obliteration of Discovery will please these people, and won't be going that route again. See Oso Blanco above for reference.

 

[thribs]

The first he does in Trek is out of desperation and under the influence. The second was an accident. The third was predestination. The fourth was to save the planet Earth. The fifth was again an accident.

I’m talking about that episode with the cat. They deliberately go back to that time to story Earth in the mid 1960’s.

 

[Alan Roi]

I’m talking about that episode with the cat. They deliberately go back to that time to story Earth in the mid 1960’s.

Which they had to according to Federation historical records. I think Spock could see the logic in that mission.

 

[Gonzo]

That was a fairly satisfying - though not perfect, finale to the season.

What I Liked:

• Spock's final monologue was on point. Peck is so damn much better at delivering these monologues without making them seem overwrought than SMG is.
• I was expecting the Klingon cavalry to come in, but I enjoyed L'Rell's crowning moment of awesome, particularly the "Today is a good day to die"
• Siranna showing up, on the other hand, was totally unexpected. A bit forced honestly (how did they learn to fly Ba'ul ships so fast?) but it was still a nice touch which helped to tie Saru's arc this season in with the season arc as a whole.
• In general, I feel like the the arc tied together much more neatly than last season. The way out of the "seven signals" issue was not totally unexpected, but it was a nice answer for why we had yet to see two of them. And yeah, in retrospect - since they wrote everything towards this conclusion - I can see how each of the earlier five signals was building towards this point in the finale. They found a way to work faith back into the arc as well. So even if they made hash of the planned arc midway through the season, they managed to salvage it by the end.

What I Disliked:

• The action and VFX were overstuffed. The space battle was much more beautifully rendered than in the first season, but it was so busy that it was hard to keep track of action. And while I appreciated seeing Burnham relive the five earlier signals from her POV, it really was just episode padding.
• You mean to tell me that all you need to do in order to stop a photon torpedo from blowing up a ship is to close emergency bulkhead doors? The scene made some emotional sense (someone had to make a heroic sacrifice) but it didn't make a lick of logical sense.
• I don't understand how destroying Leland was enough to kill Control - at least locally. One would imagine AI is a distributed intelligence, and just like how he was simultaneously able to possess Leland and that mook the other week he would be able to run on the ships and within Leland at once. Not that it mattered much, since by the time Control "died" Discovery was already on its way out, but still.
• Spock telling Michael how damn special he was to him during the scene where he was stranded in the shuttlecraft was laying it on a bit thick. Not that I think it's out-of-character in any way for Spock to feel deeply for someone underneath the surface, but being that explicit and overwrought about it was just eye-rolling.

Also, I find it curious they decided to end the episode from the POV of the Enterprise crew rather than the Discovery crew. While as I said Spock's closing monologue was good, it sure gave the impression that we were going to pick up next with the Pike series rather than with Michael & company.

Not seen the episode yet but I think staying witht he Enterprise gives them some wriggle room as to when and where Discovery will end up next season.

It should be 950 years into the future and stay there but it may not.

As another earlier poster pointed out Georgiou doesnt have to end up as the head of S31, although it would cause issues with the upcoming S31 show which Georgiou is supposed to be a part of.

 

[Kore]

I’m talking about that episode with the cat. They deliberately go back to that time to story Earth in the mid 1960’s.

Assignment Earth <3

 

[Alan Roi]

Not seen the episode yet but I think staying witht he Enterprise gives them some wriggle room as to when and where Discovery will end up next season.

It should be 950 years into the future and stay there but it may not.

As another earlier poster pointed out Georgiou doesnt have to end up as the head of S31, although it would cause issues with the upcoming S31 show which Georgiou is supposed to be a part of.

Or it could be Georgiou vs. S31. Or the Georgiou who showed up on the Discovery could be an android (explaining why she was able to stand toe to toe with Leland and tie in The Escape Artist.)