Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 4x13 - "Coming Home"

[The Scottish Nightmare]

After all that they didn’t give 10C a name.
Im going to call them Leviathan as they reminded me of the chaps with the same name from Mass Effect.

 

[mswood]

I liked this episode, and it did have far better pacing than the ends of season 1,2 and 3. But it was so easy. I would have really liked to have another episode of time to show the two sides expanded their ability to communicate to cover far broader subjects and concepts, then a signal that came from the 10-C (Which I assume is what made it vastly easier to communicate and over a far larger array of concepts and ideas). But so many parts especially in the first half just didn't feel earned (pretty much every thing that happens on Book's ships was an utter failure to me). That's costing a full point. This is probably an 8.

 

[Visitor1982]

This was a big let down for me.

Book should have stayed dead. What he did was unforgivable. It's ludicrous the 'punishment' he got. Nothing of real consequence happened during this episode. Everything is explained away by 'feelings'. Laughable, if it wasn't so bad.

This season was one big yawnfest. A big disappointment. Hopefully they'll will return with some new excitement, without some big galaxy destroying threat. We'll see, for me Discovery didn't deliver.

 

[GothicPudding]

What was up with Tig Notaro? Was she basically green-screened in like in that zombie movie Zack Snyder directed? It was almost like she wasn't in the same place as any of the other characters.

I found an article that suggested that she was filming over a two week period in May last year for her scenes for the whole season.

I think all her appearances this season were on the bridge (“Coming Home”), engineering/spore drive lab (“The Examples”, “Rosetta”), or Book’s ship (“Rosetta”, “Species Ten-C”, “Coming Home”).

Many of her season 3 scenes also seemed like they could have been filmed separately from the rest of their episodes.

 

[Campe]

So, I haven’t been commenting much since Disco came back from break because it had just been so slow. I don’t like to be too negative but I was bored the past few episodes. And then honestly distracted by the amaze balls first two episodes of Picard. This made up for it. Yeah, the Stacey Abrams cameo was cheesy. Yeah, I think Tarka’s end was a little too easy and I was sure Book would be fine. But it does what Disco has done so well — the feeling of family, togetherness, of the many being one. And trying to communicate. Real, true aliens, not just humans with prosthetics. Sadly, no Gary Mitchell-ed characters at all this season but I’ll get over that.

9/10.

 

[gweeps]

Yeah, it was a cop out for Book to be saved from death.

Interesting how the Ten-C aliens are kinda like the Prophets, having to be educated on what it is to be an individual creature.

I've finally come to terms with the way Discovery uses emotion to tell their stories. I still don't like the show as much as previous Treks, but the creators et al at least aren't repeating history.

I hope next season we see less of a serialized format. That balance worked well in Season 1.

 

[gweeps]

Sadly, no Gary Mitchell-ed characters at all this season but I’ll get over that.

Shoulda happened to Hugh.

Wanna talk about boring? Gray is one of the most useless characters in all of Trek. They could've had Adira teach Zora the Trill game, especially considering they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

On a lighter note, we got to see the Federation fleet in action. One of the best shots for me is seeing the USS Mitchell taking out an asteroid.

 

[NCC-73515]

Seeing HQ itself fly was also pretty cool

 

[StarMan]

Didn't recognise them as higher lifeforms, they say? What did they make of all those warp signatures and other technobabble readings, I wonder? Very clever non-sentients. I knew the cop out would be underwhelming, but there it is.

Speaking of copouts, looks like everyone got thru in one piece. Hopefully Tarka made it to ... wherever.

Now that we're in a position to judge the season as a whole, the question can be asked: was the journey worth it? Speaking for myself, the answer is an emphatic no. There was not 13 episodes worth of story here; this season has been inexcusably boring.

I enjoy prodding the show, but I have my limits. If next season is the end, I'll have a look.

 

[Severed Heads]

I watched DIS first this week after enjoying last week's episode. This was a really good conclusion to the season, although it was a shame they didn't actually follow through with the Kobayashi Maru discussion back in episode one with Book's death.

That aside, I really enjoyed the pace. and tension at times throughout. I thought Earth would rejoin the Federation after this ongoing threat, so I was happy to see that happen. Burnham's narration at the end was a little on the nose, though. Did she do a similar one at the end of season three as well?
Tilly made an appearance to help as well. That really made my day.

And I'm glad Saru/T'Rina is a thing now too.

Now Picard!

 

[KennyB]

Discovery ended much better than the season as a whole. It would have been a great 10 episode season with good editing.

 

[ExtremeSail]

That was a great episode! Loved the cold open, connections and communication coming through, story wrapped up nicely and good setup for a more... relaxing season 5 lol, great character moments for everyone, USS Yelchin, 10C look truly alien, fantastic visuals as always man that final shot of Starfleet assembled at Earth and then pulling away...

 

[Romulan_spy]

The finale was par for the course for Discovery. It had fast action, high stakes, emotion and speeches about family. Overall, it was a really good Discovery season finale. I agree with the sentiment that this could have been a series finale. This finale felt like it was wrapping up the entire 31st century Federation arc, especially with the speech at the end about the Federation coming together after the Burn and the DMA. It feels like we got a 2 season arc of the Federation rebuilding after the Burn and the DMA. This finale brought that arc to a very nice ending.

It was great to see Tilly and the Admiral and the Starfleet HQ at warp. That was great.

I agree that it was a bit silly for 10-C to not know that we are sentient, developed species. 10-C might be more advanced than us but clearly they should have detected our technology to see that we are intelligent and developed species. Frankly, the 10-C come across as not that smart if they did not even bother to do any proper scans for lifeforms before sending the DMA and could not detect our technology. They mention they will broaden their scans in the future. But why didn't they do that to begin with?

I think the show did a lot of hand waiving with the translation issues. Last episode, they could barely translate simple mathematic concepts. In this episode, Michael and Book are sharing complex thoughts that get translated instantly. Oh well. It was needed for the plot.

I kind of wished we had gotten a better resolution with Tarka. This episode basically leaves his arc unresolved. We don't know if he managed to get to that other place and find his friend. After everything Tarka did, it would have been nice to get some closure there. Also, for a moment, I thought that Book was going to leave with Tarka and be reunited with Qwazon in the alternate universe.

 

[StarMan]

I agree that it was a bit silly for 10-C to not know that we are sentient, developed species. 10-C might be more advanced than us but clearly they should have detected our technology to see that we are intelligent and developed species. Frankly, the 10-C come across as not that smart if they did not even bother to do any proper scans for lifeforms before sending the DMA and could not detect our technology. They mention they will broaden their scans in the future. But why didn't they do that to begin with?

Is it something to do with them having a shared consciousness? They are clearly a technological species. Shared consciousness or not, they would understand that technology on the order of The Federation and other spacefaring civilisations would require self-aware entities to build.

What are the options here?

- They did not scan for evidence of sentient life. Okay then, they're arseholes.

- They did, but only sought lifeforms similar to themselves. Well first off, have they had a nosey at lifeforms in the Milky Way recently? It's bumpy forehead aliens in every direction. While such life may seem peculiar to them, I'm hard pressed to believe the technological markers teeming across the galaxy wouldn't suggest sentience, even if of an alien variety (from their perspective).

The latter option suggests they might have only sought biologically similar life, rather than specifically scan for signs of technology. Okay then, still arseholes; they're deploying a device with a circumference larger than the distance between Sol and it's neighbouring star. As you say, would you not already conduct a fairly broad and incredibly thorough set of scans before bulldozing solar systems?

 

[Deks]

The finale was par for the course for Discovery. It had fast action, high stakes, emotion and speeches about family. Overall, it was a really good Discovery season finale. I agree with the sentiment that this could have been a series finale. This finale felt like it was wrapping up the entire 31st century Federation arc, especially with the speech at the end about the Federation coming together after the Burn and the DMA. It feels like we got a 2 season arc of the Federation rebuilding after the Burn and the DMA. This finale brought that arc to a very nice ending.

I think rebuilding the UFP could have been done better compared to what we got, but I have to say this episode was one of the better ones this season.

It was great to see Tilly and the Admiral and the Starfleet HQ at warp. That was great.

It was unexpected to see the SF HQ at warp... but welcome sight... still too 'insignificant' progression if you ask me, but better than nothing.
The line about every section of the HQ acting as its own lifeboat reminded me of the aliens VOY encountered in the DQ (the one when Kim and Tal fell in love and Tal was using microscopic parasites to separate the linkages between ships that formed the generational ship).

I agree that it was a bit silly for 10-C to not know that we are sentient, developed species. 10-C might be more advanced than us but clearly they should have detected our technology to see that we are intelligent and developed species. Frankly, the 10-C come across as not that smart if they did not even bother to do any proper scans for lifeforms before sending the DMA and could not detect our technology. They mention they will broaden their scans in the future. But why didn't they do that to begin with?

Yeah... that bit didn't make too much sense. However, 10-C was described as a collective mind of sort... ergo, no real recognition for individual lifeforms it seems (wonder what they'd make of the Borg in that case or the Cooperative).
That STILL doesn't explain away how they managed to ignore advanced technology like starships flying around at superluminal speeds, and various energy signatures.
A Type II civilization should be able to at least recognize technology of less advanced species - or at least, one as 'in your face' as the UFP uses it.

I think the show did a lot of hand waiving with the translation issues. Last episode, they could barely translate simple mathematic concepts. In this episode, Michael and Book are sharing complex thoughts that get translated instantly. Oh well. It was needed for the plot.

Indeed. That was extremely odd and rushed to go from barely able to translate simple mathematical concepts to suddenly being able to share complex thoughts (even though a bit earlier in the episode it was said conveying a nuance such as 'Tarka did it, not us' was not possible yet.
But I guess the updated language matrix was what they needed. 10-C effectively did most of the heavy lifting for them on that front it seems.

I kind of wished we had gotten a better resolution with Tarka. This episode basically leaves his arc unresolved. We don't know if he managed to get to that other place and find his friend. After everything Tarka did, it would have been nice to get some closure there. Also, for a moment, I thought that Book was going to leave with Tarka and be reunited with Qwazon in the alternate universe.

One thing that didn't make sense was how 'inactive' 10-C was while Booker's ship was doing what it did and letting Disco go after them.
They were too paralyzed with fear?
One would think they'd use their advanced technology to at least transport Booker's ship outside the Hyperfield and at least ask Disco for explanation (because the larger ship wasn't the aggressor... the smaller ship was). And how could altering their vectors keep evading 10-C spheres at sublight in their own starsystem that has Dyson Rings and a hyperfield which can capture ships? They also have their own transporter capabilities... so, that didn't make much sense.
I mean, the species was portrayed as vastly more advanced... something like that wouldn't really happen if you ask me, but allright.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Seeing HQ itself fly was also pretty cool

It was. I'm not sure, but did they ever indicate the HQ could do that?

This episode was a 10 (C?) for me. I like that they resolved the situation kinda early so we could have the long outro scenes.

The Tilly - Admiral Vance scenes were pure gold. "It's the end of the world as we know it".

A bit of a shame they didn't invite the 10C inside the galaxy so they might feel safer.

 

[eschaton]

Well, Discovery finally did it...they stuck the landing. Not to say there aren't issues with how they decided to end it, but there are no nonsensical plot holes (unlike Seasons 1 and 2) and there was no wild veering away from the tones/themes in the final episode for schlocky action (unlike Season 3). They told a cohesive story from start to finish successfully. Though it needs to be asked if the story was worth telling at all, or at least over the course of so many episodes.

First, I'll talk about what I liked here. It's nice that Tilly returned in more than just a cameo, having extended scenes with Admiral Vance. Sean Doyle's final scenes as Tarka were incredible (it's so much more weighty to see a character who seldom breaks down come to this point). I also really liked that ultimately the season had a cohesive character arc for Michael having to learn to put her own feelings secondary to the greater good. Michael actually was fairly passive in this episode overall come to think of it - everything was shown as being a collective/collaborative effort. She didn't go mono-a-mono with a bad guy, didn't face down peril alone - she was just the captain of the ship. Everybody who actively fucked things up this season - from Book to Ndoye to even Tarka - gets a chance to reconsider and help make things right, which is a very Trekkian message. I even liked the perhaps controversial choice to have all of the high tension of the episode (stopping Tarka from destroying the DMA controller) finish up with half the runtime left to go, allowing for the final half hour to be a denouement for the season. This episode would even work as a series finale quite well.

That said, my god, can't we actually have some fucking consequences here??? Everyone pretty much gets off the hook for everything. The episode teases on multiple occasions Book's death, but ultimately he survives. Then it drops that he's arrested, and he's left off with "community service." Reno gets off (which I expected). They say someone needs to be sacrificed to stop Tarka, and for 10 seconds it seems like Detmer is going to do it, then Ndoye volunteers to rectify her mistakes - and survives anyway. Stamets says they have to destroy the Spore Drive and it will take decades to get home, and then 10-C decides to send them to Earth anyway. Ultimately the only losses were Tarka and...Book's ship?!? I don't need to have a body count for season finales, but decisions should have consequences, and this is a consequence free finale, where everyone is happy at the end and goes off on vacation, as if the writers were concerned we would be traumatized if there was the slightest bit of bittersweet here.

One little niggle for me - Michael mentions to Species 10-C how Tarka was driven by grief regarding his lost "friend" - before Book is shown to have survived. I might be missing something, but when did Book tell her this?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

One little niggle for me - Michael mentions to Species 10-C how Tarka was driven by grief regarding his lost "friend" - before Book is shown to have survived. I might be missing something, but when did Book tell her this?

Reno could have related the Oros story to Michael offscreen.

 

[TheMadCloner]

I didn’t like it that much, and I usually like Discovery. Just felt very uneven and not interesting tbh, and Tarka’s fate is a huge copout.