Spoilers What do you think of Lorca's Arc?

[eschaton]

Either way -- yours or mine -- he demonstrates his real identity.

Yeah, I'm not saying there would have been anything noble about the decision. I'm just saying that if the backstory was well plotted, there would be no way MU Lorca was going to know he'd get a shot at another ship, so he'd do everything he could initially to hold onto the one he had.

 

[eschaton]

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of over-apply the Prime Directive, especially to peer societies that should be able to handle contact with the Federation, but a civil war between two bloodthirsty despots who are likely to have equally murderous reigns seems like exactly the kind of situation the "no interfering in internal disputes of other nations" clause was invented for.

I'm pretty sure whether the Prime DIrective applied in the case of the MU would come down to whether Terrans are considered human or not. The Federation has a long-standing rule that they do not see splinter colonies of humans (or, presumably other federation races) as subject to the Prime Directive after all.

 

[Gilora]

f Burnham thinks assuming your counterpart's identity in an alternate universe is a good reason to think someone must be a complete scoundrel who can't possibly be on the side of the angels, she should probably look down and check out whose armored chest-plate she's wearing.

I just re-watched and she pretended to go in with Lorca in an attempt to save Discovery after her explicit summation that Lorca would let D's crew die and/or use the ship to invade the Prime Universe. She threw in with Georgiou to get to the throne room so that she could drop the containment field around the Charon's spore engine thing.

All the information is there.

 

[lawman]

[Lorca]had no way of knowing Starfleet would give him another ship after his last one was destroyed. Better to try and fool everyone into thinking he's Prime Lorca - at least initially.

Maybe his cover was blown, and he was forced to destroy the ship. But I think he'd only do that as a last resort. Honestly, the timing would be difficult, because he'd have to do it without letting the crew know and send out a broadcast to Starfleet. It's much easier to just assume the Klingons destroyed it.

I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation. But we really shouldn't have to be speculating about this... for a storyline as major as this was, the necessary backstory should have been provided in full, rather than just shoehorned in via a ten-second flashback with an ambiguous voiceover and bad SFX.

(Hell, we got Burnham's mutiny backstory at painful length, spread across two (boring, murky) "prologue" episodes, when it could and should have been parceled out via flashbacks over the course of the season. I'm coming to the conclusion that these writers really have no sense of pacing.)

Burnham worked out the whole thing speaking out loud right in front of the Emperor. She announced the conclusion of her thought process regarding Lorca's true identity to the Emperor when she stated, "he's not from my (our) world, he's from yours". The Emperor's ensuing silence was confirmation that Burnham had reached the correct conclusion. Had Phillipa not agreed and thought Lorca was actually not from her world she would have said so.

And, so what? The Emperor had no way at all of knowing if it was true either. She hadn't exchanged so much as two sentences with Lorca before having him thrown in an agonizer booth.

By continously lying to Burnham, Lorca had destroyed any credibility, so why would Burnham trust him to tel the truth? Phillipa had shown herself to be brutal, dictatorial, etc, but she had not yet lied to Burnham yet, so... Burnham throws in with Phillipa.

Lorca hadn't "continuously" lied to Burnham, he'd just told her one Big Lie, in order to protect his universe of origin. (Just as she herself was doing on he MU Shenzou, as others have pointed out.) Beyond that, she knew nothing of his motivations.

As for Georgiou, how on earth could we or Burnham or anyone say "she had not yet lied"? What basis did Burnham have to test the truth of anything about her situation? Certainly there was nothing about the Emperor to suggest she'd have any scruples about lying, and plenty of what she said to Burnham in ep 12 seemed pretty suspiciously like manipulative gaslighting to turn her against Lorca.

Honestly, what I was hoping and expecting to see as of the end of ep 12 was a follow-up in which the Emperor would betray Burnham's (provisional) trust, as she had ample means, motive, and opportunity to do... whilst Lorca turned out to have credible motivations for wanting to overthrow the Emperor (not necessarily noble ones, but at least more complex than self-aggrandizement and xenophobia), thereby explaining his devotion to the long con and the loyalty of his band of followers... and Burnham was torn between the two of them, tempted to judge a book by its cover (Georgiou) and give in to feelings of personal betrayal (from Lorca), but in the end realizing that the man she's served under was at least a better bet than a mass-murdering cannibalistic psychopath.

Instead, what we got was a story where she not only gave in to that temptation, but it turned out (fortuitously and implausibly) to be the right thing to do(!). I was more than a little disappointed. Frankly, I can't help but wonder if Ted Sullivan (who wrote ep 13) even read ep 12, because thematically speaking the two seemed to clash pretty glaringly.

I just re-watched and she pretended to go in with Lorca in an attempt to save Discovery after her explicit summation that Lorca would let D's crew die and/or use the ship to invade the Prime Universe. She threw in with Georgiou to get to the throne room so that she could drop the containment field around the Charon's spore engine thing. All the information is there.

Burnham's summation didn't qualify as "information"; it was sheer speculation on her part. As for her "plan," such as it was, it was a hail-mary pass of the most extreme kind, and her decision to trust Georgiou, even a little bit, to help with it, was inexplicably foolhardy (as was Georgiou's decision to cooperate and provide that help).

Bottom line, episode 13 has really, really soured me on this show. After the kind of buildup and anticipation we've had, you've got to nail the landing, and the writers completely failed to do that. Okay, it wasn't as big a disaster as (say) the wrap-ups of NuBSG or Lost, but then it wasn't a series finale, either. Still, it pretty much exhausted my patience and goodwill where the show's writing is concerned.

 

[Jayson1]

When Burnham choose to trust Mirror Georgiou I also felt it was really stupid but I also was thinking in the back of her mind that she had a backup plan in her mind if her attempt to reach her failed. It seems like her entire plan was to trust someone you shouldn't trust. I think this wouldn't be much of a issue though if the show acknowledged it was a risky and dumb thing to do. Nothing wrong with characters letting emotions get in the way but it seems like bad drama if you don't even see it as a dumb thing to do. Of course the story isn't fully over so maybe they will do more with this in the next couple of episodes.

I think also one issue in why it feels weird she would trust Georgiou over Lorca is we didn't get enough screentime between Burnham and Georgiou. We should have had flashbacks between the two peppered throughout the seaon so we could see glimpses of why Burnham cares so much for her. Instead it's all one sided development between Burnham and Lorca. The opening two episodes simply wasn't enough. In fact you could basically remove Sarek from the entire show because that realtionship also feels like a waste of time, now and use some of that time with Burnham and Georgiou stuff. I think the show kind of suffered from the Fuller stuff that was being planned being replaced by new stuff yet you still see fragments of what Fuller wanted to do still in the show. Reminds me of how you can see both Whedon and Zach Snyder stuff in the "Justice League" mixed together and you can tell that both people were going for something different from each other.

Jason

 

[lawman]

Now that I think about it, I think it would have served the show better if between ep 12's cliffhanger and whatever kind of follow-up came after, it had taken time out for a entire flashback episode filling in events from a different point of view.

Agents of SHIELD (among other shows) has used this kind of storytelling device more than once, to good effect. You simultaneously get character development, provide helpful exposition, and draw out the pacing to build suspense... it's a win-win-win. We could've seen the full story of how Lorca turned on the Emperor, arrived in the prime universe, took over his counterpart's life, and developed his plan, from his own perspective... fleshing things out considerably before the big showdown. It's exactly the sort of thing that ought to be easier in an arc-based streaming-only show, in fact, versus a regular broadcast show.

But no... instead, we went straight into the showdown against the big Monologuing Villain, asking the audience to switch their loyalties on a dime, without sufficient context for any of it to carry emotional weight... and things only wrapped up as they did because all of Burnham's illogical hunches, poorly motivated judgment calls, and half-assed plans managed to be right on the money. Both Lorca and the viewers deserved better.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I did not even know there was a Lorca arc, until I read about and heard it in reviews and commentaries.

Episode 13 was not believable. Many of the issues I had with its depiction of warfare were addressed far better than in Trekyards commentary and review of the episode. They were one of several who raised issues about the combat.

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For myself, when I saw the corridor battle, I was thinking, is this the 18th century, when armies line in rows and fired muskets at each other. It was ridiculous. And, the fighting in the throne room, was overly choreographed. When it was not choreographed well, like one instance, where it was clear they were stunt fighting - it came off as embarrassing. (Michael and a female Lorca supporter are fighting in the background. There was an instance where the supporter, meaning to hit Michael, actually came off as if she was fighting air. I was alerted to it by the above video.) Sex and fighting are highly choreographed in Hollywood, and both are getting stale imho.

Then, Lorca not disarming his foe, leaving her a chance to grab his weapon, so that she can impale him with it. He was a warrior in a warrior culture, who rose to a high position, the right hand of the Emperor. He would be not acting as a FNG. He would have learned how to survive, how to be smart, in a society where one of the ways people gained rank was through assassination. The writers had him park his brain, his survival skills, his wits, on the side of the road so they could finish the character. Ugh.

Now, that I know there was an arc, what do I think? It's rubbish.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The easiest idea is that both Prime Lorca and Mirror Lorca were getting beamed off their respective Burans when under attack (why they would choose to do this, I don't know). They both then saw the mirror versions of the other ship destroyed, and were stranded without a ship.

IIRC, MU Lorca was beaming up to the ISS Buran when the ion storm deposited him in the prime universe.

 

[Gilora]

Burnham's summation didn't qualify as "information"; it was sheer speculation on her part. As for her "plan," such as it was, it was a hail-mary pass of the most extreme kind, and her decision to trust Georgiou, even a little bit, to help with it, was inexplicably foolhardy (as was Georgiou's decision to cooperate and provide that help).

Burnham's primary goal was to get to the throne room to drop that containment field so that Discovery could do its thing. She had two bad options toward that goal: trusting one untrustworthy person or the other. She picked one.

 

[lawman]

Burnham's primary goal was to get to the throne room to drop that containment field so that Discovery could do its thing. She had two bad options toward that goal: trusting one untrustworthy person or the other. She picked one.

And why would either one cooperate with a plan that amounted to suicide for everyone on the Charon? Unless of course Burnham was wise enough not to mention the bit about dropping the containment field and destroying the mini-star, and merely framed things as helping her ally win and the Discovery get home... in which case, it would've still made more sense to pick Lorca, who at least had some known attachment to the Discovery crew and hadn't actually tried to kill her.

For that matter, on a ship as massively huge as the Charon, why the heck would the containment field controls be located in the throne room of all places, which (as we'd seen, and the name suggests) is otherwise used for ceremonial purposes? I know IRL it's because writing it that way let them re-use the same standing set, but in story terms it would've made a lot more sense to have a separate control room of some kind.

The whole thing was cheap-and-easy writing from beginning to end... just move events from Point A to Point B and hope the viewers will find it exciting enough not to ask questions about the details.

 

[Lord Garth]

Lorca trolled everyone in the Prime Universe. That's all I have to say about Lorca's arc.

 

[eschaton]

I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation. But we really shouldn't have to be speculating about this... for a storyline as major as this was, the necessary backstory should have been provided in full, rather than just shoehorned in via a ten-second flashback with an ambiguous voiceover and bad SFX.

Given we now know that MU Lorca was hatched as an idea after Fuller left, my guess is that the backstory of the Buran being destroyed was already part of his character (it might have even been mentioned in the pulped third episode script). They never bothered to square the two elements until the last minute. If they started with Lorca being from the MU from day one, they might have had a more plausible backstory.

 

[XCV330]

Every time I see this thread I keep having images of Lorca loading animals by pairs into Discovery's hold. Save the gormaganders.

 

[Gilora]

And why would either one cooperate with a plan that amounted to suicide for everyone on the Charon? Unless of course Burnham was wise enough not to mention the bit about dropping the containment field and destroying the mini-star, and merely framed things as helping her ally win and the Discovery get home... in which case, it would've still made more sense to pick Lorca, who at least had some known attachment to the Discovery crew and hadn't actually tried to kill her.

For that matter, on a ship as massively huge as the Charon, why the heck would the containment field controls be located in the throne room of all places, which (as we'd seen, and the name suggests) is otherwise used for ceremonial purposes? I know IRL it's because writing it that way let them re-use the same standing set, but in story terms it would've made a lot more sense to have a separate control room of some kind.

The whole thing was cheap-and-easy writing from beginning to end... just move events from Point A to Point B and hope the viewers will find it exciting enough not to ask questions about the details.

I'm not commenting on the writing quality; just saying that the reasons for Burnham's actions made sense from what was written. As I said before, Burnham explicitly said that she thought that Lorca would leave Discovery's ass in the wind now that her usefulness to him was done.

 

[gblews]

I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation. But we really shouldn't have to be speculating about this... for a storyline as major as this was, the necessary backstory should have been provided in full, rather than just shoehorned in via a ten-second flashback with an ambiguous voiceover and bad SFX.

Doesn't appear that too many fans felt compelled to question if the Prime Directive (or whatever they called it during DSC's era), applied in the situation at hand. Perhaps writers thought that if fans are savvy enough about Trek lore to ask this question then that fan should also be savvy enough to know that the PD didn't apply here. So, no need for any backstory. Not trying to be snarky, just what I think.

And, so what? The Emperor had no way at all of knowing if it was true either. She hadn't exchanged so much as two sentences with Lorca before having him thrown in an agonizer booth.

Fair enough, but when the Emperor told Burnham that the only biological difference between MU inhabitants and PU inhabitants was sensitivity to light, this, in conjunction with the other things, was all Burnham needed to confirm that Lorca was not who he said he was. The Emperor had already confirmed that she knew quite a bit more about the PU and MU than Burnham, Georgiou had studied the Difiant's computer data. So Burnham had sufficient reason to trust that Georgiou was telling the truth about the light sensitivity.

After concluding that Lorca was an imposter and a liar, why would she feel that simply asking him would elicit a anything but further lies? But at this point, if she'd asked him he would likely have just told her the truth, ironically, and confirmed that her suspicions were correct.

Lorca hadn't "continuously" lied to Burnham, he'd just told her one Big Lie, in order to protect his universe of origin. (Just as she herself was doing on he MU Shenzou, as others have pointed out.) Beyond that, she knew nothing of his motivations.

We disagree on the number of lies, however, what difference would the number of lies make? Whether it's several lies (and there were several) or just "one big lie", it's still a lie and lies destroy credibility.

As for Georgiou, how on earth could we or Burnham or anyone say "she had not yet lied"? What basis did Burnham have to test the truth of anything about her situation? Certainly there was nothing about the Emperor to suggest she'd have any scruples about lying, and plenty of what she said to Burnham in ep 12 seemed pretty suspiciously like manipulative gaslighting to turn her against Lorca.

The question for Burnham was, who to trust between the Emperor and Lorca. The only thing Burnham knew for sure was that Lorca had lied to her. Neither she, nor we as the audience, had found Georgiou to he lying about anything up to that point. Now if you think Georgiou had lied about something up to that point, please point it out.

Burnham didn't have the luxury of time. She had to decide quickly and as I posted, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. She made her choice.

Honestly, what I was hoping and expecting to see as of the end of ep 12 was a follow-up in which the Emperor would betray Burnham's (provisional) trust, as she had ample means, motive, and opportunity to do... whilst Lorca turned out to have credible motivations for wanting to overthrow the Emperor (not necessarily noble ones, but at least more complex than self-aggrandizement and xenophobia), thereby explaining his devotion to the long con and the loyalty of his band of followers... and Burnham was torn between the two of them, tempted to judge a book by its cover (Georgiou) and give in to feelings of personal betrayal (from Lorca), but in the end realizing that the man she's served under was at least a better bet than a mass-murdering cannibalistic psychopath.

Interesting (except for the stuff about Lorca which I think is totally wrong) but might have required additional episodes to flesh out.

Frankly, I can't help but wonder if Ted Sullivan (who wrote ep 13) even read ep 12, because thematically speaking the two seemed to clash pretty glaringly.

Really? How so?

 

[lawman]

How so? Are you serious?

Episode 12 (along with the concluding moments of the previous one) established the Emperor as a completely irredeemably evil, despicable person. She was someone who would glass the surface of an inhabited planet, who would casually throw strangers into torture booths, who would personally kill a roomful of loyal aides without a second's hesitation just to keep a secret, who would literally eat a sapient slave, who plainly felt that any deviation from absolute loyalty to her was a capital offense. She made King Joffrey Baratheon look like a model of responsible leadership, for heaven's sake. There was nothing whatsoever about her to inspire a single iota of trust or sympathy.

Then suddenly, in the next episode, we find our supposed viewpoint character treating her with, well, trust and sympathy(!)... whilst completely and unhesitatingly betraying the captain she came there with, who from all available evidence wasn't half as evil as the Emperor. Indeed, she had nothing except personal testimony from the Emperor on which to base her assessment of him. Yes, he apparently had (as we'd all discussed and speculated about for weeks) complex and conflicted motivations, but Burnham didn't even try to give him the benefit of the doubt to discover what those were. As a viewer, it gave me a feeling of narrative whiplash.

(That he actually did turn out to be a power-hungry asshat, making her assessment of him fortuitously correct, did not come across as a credible development. Even taking his "true colors" at face value, though, frankly he still didn't seem as bad as the Emperor.)

 

[EmoBorg]

I think Lorca during his tenure as Discovery Captain should have said to Saru" You look Delicious", as a compliment at least once.

 

[Terok Nor]

Lorca was my favourite character. Right up until his last episode. In that one he became a dumb pantomime villain. I wasn't against him being from the MU but the way his storyline ended was rushed and underwhelming. Basically he's evil and dead. The end.

 

[gblews]

How so? Are you serious?

Why the frack would I have asked you the question if I wasn't serious?

Episode 12 (along with the concluding moments of the previous one) established the Emperor as a completely irredeemably evil, despicable person. She was someone who would glass the surface of an inhabited planet, who would casually throw strangers into torture booths, who would personally kill a roomful of loyal aides without a second's hesitation just to keep a secret, who would literally eat a sapient slave, who plainly felt that any deviation from absolute loyalty to her was a capital offense. She made King Joffrey Baratheon look like a model of responsible leadership, for heaven's sake. There was nothing whatsoever about her to inspire a single iota of trust or sympathy.

So, you assumed that because all you had seen of the Emperor up to that point was "evil", then that is all there was to the character AND that is all we should be shown of her going forward? Obviously, your assumption was incorrect. The Emperor is evil, but apparently that is not all there is to her personality. It's almost like she might be, oh I don't know...well rounded?

And yes, it was established that the Emperor was evil and she could likely be as deceptive as Lorca when she wants to. The question is however, was she being deceptive to Burnham on the Charon? I didn't see anything that made it appear that she was being deceptive. As I posted, if you saw where Georgiou wasbeing deceptive please point out that scene.

I've already discussed the reasons behind Burnhams decision to trust Georgiou on the Charon instead of Lorca.

Then suddenly, in the next episode, we find our supposed viewpoint character treating her with, well, trust and sympathy(!)... whilst completely and unhesitatingly betraying the captain she came there with, who from all available evidence wasn't half as evil as the Emperor. Indeed, she had nothing except personal testimony from the Emperor on which to base her assessment of him. Yes, he apparently had (as we'd all discussed and speculated about for weeks) complex and conflicted motivations, but Burnham didn't even try to give him the benefit of the doubt to discover what those were. As a viewer, it gave me a feeling of narrative whiplash.

This is more of the same. Obviously we disagree about Burnham's decision to trust Georgiou rather than Lorca. And rather than re-post my opinion, suffice it to say, I thought she had good enough reason which was credibly shown, and you don't think she had good enough reason and the reasons shown weren't credible.

That he actually did turn out to be a power-hungry asshat, making her assessment of him fortuitously correct, did not come across as a credible development. Even taking his "true colors" at face value, though, frankly he still didn't seem as bad as the Emperor.)

Being "fortuitously correct" is a Star Trek staple.

 

[lawman]

Why the frack would I have asked you the question if I wasn't serious?

Well, people have been known to be sarcastic on occasion. But I assumed that you meant the question sincerely; I merely meant it as an expression of incredulity that you didn't see the thematic clash that seemed so glaring to me. Accept it as a rhetorical flourish.

So, you assumed that because all you had seen of the Emperor up to that point was "evil", then that is all there was to the character AND that is all we should be shown of her going forward? Obviously, your assumption was incorrect. The Emperor is evil, but apparently that is not all there is to her personality. It's almost like she might be, oh I don't know...well rounded?

No, I assumed nothing; I merely drew conclusions from the information available so far... which is to say, the information the writers chose to present to us. That's why I said the thematic clash from one episode to the next came across as different writers failing to communicate. If the goal was to present Georgiou as someone who was (even potentially) "well rounded" rather than irredeemably evil, someone with whom the viewpoint character (and thus the viewer) might actually sympathize, it seems surpassingly odd to devote all of her screen time in her first episode to conveying the exact opposite impression, and then do an about-face in the next.

And yes, it was established that the Emperor was evil and she could likely be as deceptive as Lorca when she wants to. The question is however, was she being deceptive to Burnham on the Charon? I didn't see anything that made it appear that she was being deceptive. As I posted, if you saw where Georgiou wasbeing deceptive please point out that scene.

As has been discussed in other threads, her narrative to Burnham of the past relationship between MU Lorca and MU Burnham seemed like a fairly blatant attempt to poison Burnham's mind against him with unconfirmable information and innuendo casting him in the worst possible light. At the very least, it was all obviously filtered through the Emperor's own resentments against two people who had turned against her, given the obvious premium she placed on personal loyalty. That Burnham (or the viewers) should be expected to take her account at face value seems, shall we say, illogical.

Obviously we disagree about Burnham's decision to trust Georgiou rather than Lorca.

Clearly. Based on the information available from the depictions of the characters in previous episodes — which is to say, the information the writers chose to provide — in no way, shape, or form was the Emperor a less evil or more trustworthy character than Lorca. If the writers' goal was to present a character from the Mirror Universe as in any way "well rounded" and potentially redeemable, Lorca seemed to fit that bill far, far better.

Bottom line, Ted Sulliivan tossed consistent characterization and story logic out the window in order to tick off boxes on a list of plot developments, and wrote a really forehead-slappingly awful episode as a result. What he gave us was simply not a reasonable extension of what had gone before.