I had real mixed feelings about this week. The episode started off strongly I think, but it ultimately devolved into a set of clichés by the end.
I'll start out with what I liked first. Narratively speaking, I thought this was a tight episode. Tilly, Gray and (apparently temporarily) Adira being gone really helped to cut out the extraneous B/C plots which could have weighed the episode down and caused it to lose focus. There was one narratively unnecessary scene with Stamets and Culber, but I did enjoy it, since we got to see the shoe on the other foot with Culber being the anxious one. It's always good when character dynamics are mixed up. I also liked that after many previous weeks of overwrought emotionality, this episode was much more straightforward and dry.
I was in for the ride during the setup for this episode, but once it became clear that we were dealing with a "mob planet" I lost interest. I will say I was pleasantly surprised that Haz Mazaro wasn't really that much of a bastard, and played fair with both Michael and Book, but in the end he came across as a more boring Quark expy. Obviously water under the bridge, but he really felt like a character we should have met last season - obviously Michael and Book had a complicated relationship with him, and not being privy to this kind of makes the scenes not work well.
Then there's the fight scene. Look, I'm willing to look past a woman beating a man who is close to twice her body mass in a fight, since just about everyone does it now. I had no issue with Geogiou kicking dudes in the face until they were on the floor. But the fight choreography and the direction was awful. It reminded me of fights I saw in high school more than anything I've seen in an action movie. And I had no suspension of disbelief, because the plot pretty much required Owo to eventually win. I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish here.
The poker game was another misstep. Playing cards is one of those things which just looks boring, unless you're really into it. They really tried to liven it up with the interactions between the characters. But the fundamental reason card games work in fiction is the tension of not knowing who would win. As with the fight with Owo, it was always clear Book was going to win, because their plan relied upon getting the needed material, but there's still another five episodes to go.
I also don't know what they were thinking thrusting Michael and Book back together again right after pulling them apart. They needed at least an episode or two to be off doing their own things before meeting up again, to raise the stakes of the breakdown of their relationship. The episode seemed to imply that maybe this is splitsville for them, but it would have been so much better if they strung us along here at least.
On to arc work. I continue to note that it seems like the VFX team doesn't seem to understand what the Great Barrier being at the edge of the galaxy means. Maybe they don't understand what a galaxy is? None of the graphics really show a location outside after all. That last scene, while it does provide needed exposition about the creators of the DMA, really didn't fit tonally with the episode at all, which was about the breakdown in Michael and Book's relationship. It ruined the ending on a "sour note" that the episode should have had. The infodump should have been held over till next week.
So on the whole, meh? Star Trek has done crime stories way, way better than this, and it brought absolutely nothing to the table which made this side quest narratively worthwhile. It was just a mundane casino heist story with a tiny SF veneer on top.
