I actually really liked that General Ndoye didn't die and wasn't sent to a penal colony to suffer for the rest of her days. There's a line when they're back on Starfleet Headquarters about how intent is also an important element in passing judgements and achieving justice, which is like, pure, unadulterated optimistic/utopian ideals. It's Star Trek praxis, so good. The same is true for Book.
Side note: Her little hat was... I can't describe it. It was dumb, but I also totally bought it as a uniform. There's something so perfectly human about stupid little hats, and it's comforting to think that that'll never change.
Honestly, while
some of the dialogue didn't
quite work for me (oddly enough, it was mostly dialogue between Mr. Saru and President T'Rina
), the story concluded exactly how I wanted, though it would've been a bit more impactful if earth was more visible in the background of the Starfleet Headquarters scenes with city-sized craters, but that'd be a bit heavy.
I also totally bought Book's incomplete transporting signal. Mrs. Martin-Green really sold the moment; it's probably one of the first times a death fake-out has actually gotten me.
Oh, and the Headquarters at warp was just gorgeous. Apparently, some people aren't keen on the new warp effects, but I swear this episode hit literally everything I've wanted from Star Trek in its themes and its embrace of weird (and a little stupid) sci-fi concepts like a super-luminal space-stations and giant floating pheromone-hive-mind-jellyfish.
