Little longer version..
A great episode for Hue. Cruz is a top-notch actor in my book. They need to give him more. He said he was a "Medical Officer" in his monolog. I guess we still don't know who's in charge down there, him or Pollard. I still think it's Pollard in the back of my head but I can't place why I think that. Not sure I understood why he chose Michael to go to the surface with Adira. (other than it's Michael ... frakin ... Burnham!!)
We learn that Adira is the first human host of a Trill.
Saru orders Stamets and Tilly to figure out an interface that doesn't involve having to plug Stamets into the spore drive because they are screwed if he dies. Tilly has had some thoughts about a Dark Matter interface and Stamets slaps her down. You'd think someone might start sifting around in that sphere data in situations like this. I'm afraid we are going to say this a bunch this season.
Off to Trill to help Adira and hopefully gain info on the Federation's whereabouts.
I enjoy the budding relationship between Adira and Michael.
Why didn't they beam down to the planet?
The Trill homeworld was beautiful. I'm so glad someone didn't say "Trill Prime".
We learn that Trill was somehow decimated by "The Burn"... not quite sure how ... was half the planets population off-world in Star Ships with active warp cores? Didn't we learn that half of all Trill can be a host in DS9? (not 1 in 1000) So, they have too many symbionts now? I'm not sure they really thought this one through unless I missed something.
Burnham and Adira meet up with the Trill welcoming party. We learn that In 2000 years there hasn't been a single recorded instance of a successful joining of a Trill symbiont and a non-Trill species. One Trill guy wants to rip it from her gut and Queen Trill says Adira is an abomination and they must leave immediately. Welcome to Trill!! They proceed to escort Michael and Adira back to the shuttle and Mr "I'm going to cut it out" shows up with medieval intentions and Michael makes quick work of them... to the point of acting "un-federation like" by dropping the last one for not showing them where the caves are. Then Mr good trill guy takes them to the pools. I thought they did a great job with the pool stuff. I don't remember Jadzia's eyes going all white though. My biggest issue with this was Michael thinking she had to remind Adira they needed the federation knowledge... eeesh, she's there for moral and emotional support. The knowledge will come only if Adira and the symbiont will exchange memories.
We then learn how Adira became a host. A touching story of two young love birds that were thrust into a horrible situation by events out of their control. I like Blu el Barrio and am glad she's part of the show, but I thought Ian Alexander acted circles around her. Ian has quite the screen presence. Adira ends up, through a sort of link via the pool and the symbiont, being accepted by all the previous hosts. Another touching moment when she can name all her hosts outside the pool.
Back on Discovery Adira gives Michael some coordinates to "the federation". The scene ends with Grey helping Adira play the cello. I hope they don't overdo it with the "Baltar/Six" thing here.
The "B" story covers how Saru and the Discovery crew are dealing with their new place in time and the trauma they all have suffered. I thought Hue's conversations with Saru were fantastic, relaying that the crew is physically healthy but not mentally healthy. We see Saru (again) asking the computer for help as he tries to figure out how to help his stressed-out crew cope and adjust. We get our second computer glitch and another voice joins with Discovery's computer in conversation with Saru. I laughed out loud at "interstellar shopping" as an option given to help the crew. "They" suggest taking the night off for the crew, maybe take in a movie... and for Saru to host a meal for his bridge crew. It turned out to be quite the dinner... haha... I had visions of the EMH sitting down to dinner with his family after B'Elanna tinkered with the program. I thought it was well played by everyone except Georgiou... man, sometimes they just give her crap. Just drop the forced humor stuff. Pretty funny that Saru asked Georgiou to dinner. The last time we saw something like this Empress Georgiou was having Saru for dinner... lol. Stamets and Detmer get into it, Tilly swears, folks leave, and Saru is left sitting by himself. It's obvious that tensions are high and folks are snapping. I'm again impressed with Oyin Oladejo as Owosekun. Please give her more. Tilly returns with great intentions to thank Saru and then screws the pooch by telling her Captain "that's leadership" referring to inviting everyone to dinner. Yikes, not your place Tilly. Then Stamets returns and apologizes to Tilly for shutting her down earlier. Finally, Detmer approaches Culber and states she needs help. Then they ruin it with "macho" and "it wasn't easy" remarks from Detmer. Again Discovery, show me - don't tell me. It was more than enough for her to admit she needed help. We all know she's tough. We end the episode with "movie night" in the hanger bay harking back to 'Enterprise'. Lots of laughter, Detmer hugs Stamets and everyone is starting to heal I guess.
I don't know what the big rush is. Saru should give them a week off. Probably should have stayed on Earth for a spell.
Felt like trek to me. 8 of 10