Only on page 7 so far, but I had to comment! What Michael did to Spock was along the lines of what I was expecting; a heartbreaking lie, but goddamn, that was HEARTBREAKING. Michael was super shitty, but did something that I would have done and been equally as shitty in that same situation. There's no denying that it was wrong, but she did what she thought was right and then had to suffer the consequences of it compounded over time. From what I thought was just a random connection for the sake of connecting the shows, DSC has made Michael's relationship with Spock (and Sarek and Amanda) the most "realistic" portrayal of what blended future family might have to go through with scifi circumstances making things extra difficult. We saw the framework of this family dynamic, I feel, with Torres in VOY, but the time and care of short season trying to hit the notes of 'prestige' tv-drama in it's writing and character development has given me my new favorite set of relationships in Star Trek, honestly, ever. Huge shoutout to the kid playing young Spock, he's simply wonderful. The cutting between big/little Spock/Michael in the flashback scene, with Peck's gravely voice, was a beautiful piece of television.
And while I think it sucks that Stamets and Culber can't seem to cut a break as a pair, the individual arc for Culber is very interesting. I kept feeling so smothered by Stamets in their scenes together and I kept thinking, 'omg dude just back off!' but at the same time, would I have been that different than Stamets in his position? Absolutely not, and I think that's what made these scenes so successful. The torment that both these men are experiencing boils over in each scene they share and it's fantastically executed. When Stamets doesn't know what else to do but ask why Culber is so angry with him, that was a total gut-punch of simple, concise, heartfelt writing perfectly acted. I'm tearing up just thinking back on it, to be honest. And then having Ash, at the end of the fight, pretty much spell out in writing the parallel between him and Culber was an excellent touch.
Also, it looks pretty clear that the Braniac probe is from the future version of Control, right? And that Control really is an AI that runs or at least, plans missions, for Section 31? Wouldn't it be amazing if we got a TV-movie version of Control and Alexander Siddig comes back to play Bashir, to finish the story of Section 31 after DSC is done with it? If I were to wager a guess of how the dots connect to Calypso, it looks like Control takes over the Federation eventually becomes an AI race called the V'draysh, that is trying to kill all humans by the 33rd century? So their probe arrives in the 28th, where Control is already in...control, repurposes the probe and sends it back to the 23rd to take over earlier in the timeline, but then a human from (some century) comes back to stop it? I'm super curious how they piece it all together, and what active timelines these incursions are coming from. Hell, what if Future Guy is actually Control...!
So if DSC has a recap from The Cage...does that make it prime timeline yet?