"The Escape Artist"
Switching to Short Treks before I go back to Discovery, just to keep the Harry Mudd episodes together. When Harry Mudd is trying to negotiate with the Tellarite who wants to kill him, he reminds me of Quark. They'd get a long great. One of the things Mudd is wanted for is "penetrating a space whale?" To which Harry says, "You had to be there." I'm guessing this is the Gormagander. So I guess he went hopping off again after Stella and her father came to the rescue last time.
Harry Mudd really needs to learn how to fight, given the types of people he more-than-sometimes deals with. And I love how he's committed so many crimes that he can't remember them all. He really has to think back to figure out what he did to the Tellarite. And he just says whatever he can to anyone who's captured him or he's in trouble with, saying the same exact things to all of them. Everything he says is cookie-cutter and he hopes it'll fit whatever situation he's in and they'll see something in what he says. Kind of reminds me of some other people who'll say the same thing no matter where they are. And if what they say is cookie-cutter, then they put no thought into it and they can be disregarded. That's why Harry Mudd really isn't trust-worthy. They don't just say he's a con-man, this short shows exactly how it is a con-man. His word means jack shit.
We get a feel for how some of the economics of the Quadrant work. Including that there are taxes in the Federation (I guess they tax "credits") and that Latinum was the main form of currency in general even in the 23rd Century. Not to get political, but I get a kick out of Harry Mudd saying "Rich people get to do whatever they want." That has to be a play on Donald Trump saying, "When they're rich, they let you do it."
When they show the flashback of Harry Mudd being held captive by the Orions, I like how it isn't played straight. "Hey imbecile, you know they have a camera, right?"
When they cut back to Harry Mudd being captive with the Tellarite, and a Starfleet ship demands Harry Mudd be turned over to them, there's his line to the Talerite, "Take me home with you. I'll polish your tusks." I don't know why I like that line, but I do. It sounds more like he'd be willing to polish something else too... And then he gets beamed over to the Starfleet ship anyway. Good move, Tellarite Captain. Don't listen to him, no matter what he says...
... because he's a robot anyway! It's not the real Harry Mudd. The real Harry Mudd's off somewhere else, back to his old tricks yet again. I liked this one better watching it the second than the first.
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum"
One thing that's different about the beginning of this episode is that when Discovery comes to the rescue, it isn't able to save the ship that's under attack from the Klingons and they have to get the Hell out of there. It works on two fronts. First, to show that Discovery isn't going win every battle it gets into, Spore Drive or no Spore Drive. Second, it builds the Klingon cloaking device up as a major and growing threat. If Starfleet can't detect cloaks, Klingons can show up anywhere any time.
Wanting a cloaking device is the real reason that L'Rell starts trying to get into Kol's good graces once it becomes clear more and more Klingons have aligned with him. Like in TNG and DS9, we see here that not all Klingons are on the same page. L'Rell doesn't want to serve under Kol, but sees it as a means to an end. Not only does he have cloaking technology he can give her, but he also has Cornwell captive. She's hoping to use Cornwell to get to Discovery and Tyler/Voq but, if not, at least she's in Kol's good graces. Either way, she benefits.
Someone like L'Rell is someone who should be leading the Klingon Empire, as we later see, but it takes more than just brute strength and dedication to inflexible "honor". You have to be able to think ahead, anticipate difference scenarios that could happen, and take advantage of opportunities ahead of you.
When L'Rell "interrogates" Cornwell, they each find out the other is not what they expected. L'Rell didn't expect Cornwell to be so strong-willed and Cornwell didn't expect L'Rell to be open to alternatives. Of course, Cornwell doesn't specifically know that L'Rell is trying to get to Voq, but she probably thinks there's something more going on. At the very least, at least Cornwell sees cracks in the Klingon Alliance that she thinks she can tell Starfleet Command about if she's ever rescued.
So I like all the moving of chess pieces between L'Rell and Cornwell. But the Pahvans don't believe in playing chess. They want to bring the Federation and Klingons together to resolve their differences right then and there. And that's how I abruptly switch one half of the episode's story to the other.
I love the planet surface of Pavho. It looks like what something out of TOS or the first season of TNG would've looked like either of them had current day production values. The large, gigantic true and all the blue foliage across the entire landscape really sell it. Great cinematography.
This is also the first time we get to see Burnham thinking about how when this war is over, she'll have to go back to prison. There were times in earlier episodes where you'd almost forget it sometimes, but here she brings it up as a stark reminder.
It was nice to see Saru in a state of bliss. But also interesting that said state of bliss corrupted Saru. I wonder if the Pavhans were planning to put Federation and Klingon members into a similar corrupted state of bliss? Since there would've been zero chance the Klingons and Federation would've resolved the war on their own without killing each other. Otherwise, Phavho could've been wiped off the galactic map if Discovery didn't stop Kol in the next episode. Which brings us to...
"Into the Forest I Go"
This is the Big One. The mid-season finale. Where to begin? From the top.
Lorca stalling for time by going to warp back to Federation Space instead of using the Spore Drive is a master stroke. It gives him time to get the drive and Stamets ready before going back to fend off the Klingons and save Pavho. And in one fell swoop, it complicates things between Stamets and Culber because now Stamets has to receive a check up that will reveal everything that's been going on with him. Tilly's big mouth makes it even worse.
But they suck it up, get Stamets and the Spore Drive ready enough that he can do 133 jumps to fight the Klingons and they're ready to go. Lorca tries to sell Stamets just like he tried to sell Burnham in "Context Is for Kings" in order to get what he wants out of him. Stamets thinks Lorca actually is someone interested in exploration and (yes, I'm going to say it) discovery, since he's been mapping all the jumps Stamets has made. Really, Lorca just wants to figure out how to get back to the Mirror Universe and more jumps allows him to get to know more about the Spore Drive and use the data to figure out how to travel between realities.
I'd forgotten here that it's explained why Stamets was going through such drastic changes in personality. The connection to the Spore Drive and the Mycellial Network was affecting his brain. Works for me. He was an asshole in "Context Is for Kings" and now he's not.
Then Discovery goes back to Pavho and fights Kol's ship, the Ship of the Dead. This is one of Star Trek's best space battles, at least on TV, and it carries an emotional punch as Stamets makes jump after jump and is pushed to the absolute limit.
On the Ship of the Dead, the battle between Kol and Burnham was exciting to watch. Right before it, when Kol was picking his teeth with Georgiou's insignia, just to rub it in Burnham's face. You can really feel him doing it just to rub salt into the wound. He even says to "Lock her up." He had a very punchable face. I wanted to start kicking the shit out of him too. But Burnham did it for me. The fight is inconclusive but still satisfying enough to watch, then she's beamed out of there and the ship is destroyed. Bye Kol. You won't be missed.
Backtracking a little bit, we get to see Tyler come face-to-face with L'Rell. Cornwell has a chance to her previous experience as a counselor to use, to help guide Tyler through his PTSD to make him useful in the moment again. What Tyler went through looks really painful and traumatic. L'Rell was determined to get off the Ship of the Dead no matter what, so she could get back to Tyler and whatever her original plan was back in "The Butcher's Knife". So she makes sure to get back to within the transporter field when Tyler and Cornwell are beamed back to Discovery.
So the Ship of the Dead is destroyed, they've done the 133 jumps, everyone went to the Ship of the Dead came back alive, Burnham rescued Georgiou's insignia from Kol, and Lorca was awarded a medal that he insisted on giving to Stamets. Everything looks good, until Stamets says he only wants to do one more jump. All those jumps took a lot out of him.
Before Stamets does the last jump, we get to see just how deeply in love Stamets and Culber are. When they finally have Stamets and Culber kiss on-screen, that's when I knew that Discovery having a gay relationship wasn't just lip service (no pun intended). They really meant it. But then, of course, that's when you just know something's going to happen...
... then Lorca, being the secretly evil bastard he is, knows it's now or never. So he uses all the data he collected on the Spore Drive to make sure they ended up in the Mirror Universe with the next Spore Jump. My favorite part about the end of the episode is they really use the exterior camera work to show Discovery as if it had just jumped into a place they'd never been before. Some place strange. Some place for them to discover. To be continued.
That's how you leave an audience on a mid-season break. And, as much as I like the Klingons, I was glad to know it wasn't just going to be the Klingon War. Discovery was going to do other things too.
