I'm not sure about this episode. Even though I want them to do more character focused episodes, more that are or feel episodic in nature, I feel this return to the Mirror Universe (which I generally enjoy whenever Trek does it) feels weirdly placed to me, and cuts into the momentum that should be building about The Burn and the Emerald Chain. I was more interested in seeing Saru still acclimating to the captaincy, the doomed Kelpien who made that distress call, and what role Book will play on Discovery more than I was in a Georgiou redemption story with where we are in the season.
I think Kovich is an intriguing character and liked the little tidbits of info he provided, which is some nice worldbuilding and tying together of the franchise. Also really liked the return of a TNG-style uniform. Tilly is still impressing me as first officer, her demeanor has changed and she is far less grating now.
I was confused while looking at this episode. I didn't get who "Carl" was (expecting the Guardian of Forever to be tied into this) and thought it would've been great if John DeLancie had also done a cameo on DISCO like he did for Lower Decks. Hopefully Carl is a Q.
Also I wasn't sure if this episode was retconning the first season's Mirror arc. Is, or can, Georgiou now change the past? By murdering Mirror Stamets what will the effect of that be in the 'future' (of the first season Mirror arc)? Also, this thing about Emperor Georgiou being 'weak'. From that first season, Emperor Georgiou was far from that, so it feels like the writers are also retconning in her compassion. As an aside, I thought Mirror Burnham's look was working for me, and I liked the looks for the other Mirror DISCO ladies. I liked the fight between Owosekun and Rhys, which reminded me of Uhura and Sulu's test of wills. Owosekun even got a Mirror Sulu like scar by the end of the episode so that was nice. Also liked that Rekha Sharma returned, which was a nice callback. I wish they had done more with her character, in both the Prime and Mirror universes, a waste of a good actress.
I did like how the episode felt full circle in the Burnham-Georgiou relationship and how they beamed to an ice planet, whereas Prime Georgiou and Burnham were first introduced to us walking on a desert planet. And I liked a lot of the interchange between Georgiou and both Burnhams. I like how the Emperor explained how Prime Burnham is trying to save Mirror Georgiou because she didn't save Prime Georgiou and now it appears that Mirror Georgiou is trying to save Mirror Burnham, and I gather has transposed some of her feelings for her daughter onto Prime Burnham. It's a nice, knotty, complicated dynamic between the two of them.
In a way I wish that they had taken Georgiou's redemption even slower. It felt weird to me when they jumpstarted down that path in Season 2, but it's been speeded up this season. The fun of the TOS and ENT Mirror episodes, and to some extent the DS9 ones was that many of the characters were their mirror opposites. DS9 and now DISCO have put more thought into the idea of what that might mean and how to write those characters and to explain the Mirror Universe, which I get, though some of the fun is taken away.
I do think that TOS, DS9, and ENT also had better established their characters before going to the Mirror Universe so we could appreciate how different the characters were than they did in DISCO, which also took away the fun of seeing the characters we know act out of character. While looking at this episode I wished that we had gotten more Prime Georgiou and Prime Burnham together to really appreciate the changed dynamic here. I also didn't buy the line that Saru gave that Mirror Georgiou had taught him as much as Prime Georgiou. That felt like a cheapening of his relationship with Prime Georgiou, who if perhaps not a mother to him was a great mentor, and his literal savior. I could've better accepted that line if it had not just come after Saru declared that he and Mirror Georgiou don't parse words.
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