Of course, the reason why some viewers have been ahead of the plot twists is that the series has been playing fair with them -- laying track that sets things up, taking their time in places, and generally abiding to a logic that earns the new developments. And just because you know the destination hasn't made the journey less fun. Gruesome and morbid fun, sometimes, but fun nonetheless -- such as the unknowing selection by Burnham of her Kelpian dinner, or Emperor Georgiou's violent mass execution by killer frisbee.
It wasn't all surface thrills, though. The revelation that the Mirror Universe Burnham was also adopted, but by the Emperor, set up for great interplay between the two women. Michelle Yeoh perfectly walked the line between hamming it up in a Mirror persona while expressing more real anger over her betrayal by her adopted daughter. Yeoh also played her scenes in a marvelously ambiguous way -- with some wishful thinking, you could imagine the Emperor might honor her agreement with Burnham; you can just as easily anticipate a double-cross in a coming episode.
The Voq/Tyler plot thread continued this week, with Saru prevailing on L'Rell to help resolve his situation. Her idea of "help" could mean a very different thing than what Saru is hoping for, though I'll say that the final moments of this story line in this episode sure felt to me like a good old-fashioned Klingon death yell. L'Rell seemed to be grieving the death of Voq... though even if that's true, it doesn't necessarily mean the death of who we've known as Ash Tyler. If they plan to keep him on the show next season, that certainly feels like the direction they'd take.
It's less clear how long Jason Isaacs' future on the show might be, though. The revelation that Lorca is from the Mirror Universe dredges up a long list of questions. Is Lorca (and Isaacs) meant to be one season and out? Is there any way the Prime Lorca is still alive somewhere? (Or did he die on the Buran? Or by Mirror Lorca's hand?) How did Mirror Lorca cross into the Prime Universe in the first place? Was his original security officer, Landry (who was mauled by tardigrade) from the Mirror Universe too? (She certainly seemed to fit the profile.) I'm looking forward to answers, and hope the writers cook up a way of delivering them that's worthy of the fun they've had with Lorca all season.
I wasn't quite as taken with the Stamets subplot this week. Mirror Stamets didn't seem nearly as manipulative or dishonest as he should have been -- I was expecting most of what he told Prime Stamets to be a lie, but by the end of the episode it seemed like just the opposite was the case. The plot also ended on a bit of a confusing note. Were we meant to assume by the editing that the two Stametses switched bodies when they awoke from their comas? Or was that just an unfortunately misleading ordering of scenes when they were just trying to say that "Mirror Stamets is awake now too, and he's going to be trouble?'" I guess we'll find out soon enough.
More than this, though, I wasn't nearly as moved by the reunion of Stamets and Culber as I'd have hoped. The scene tried to serve the masters of both plot and character, and didn't really excel at either. The weight of Culber's death felt brushed aside as they tried to make us care more about the mycelial network's sudden crisis, and bringing on Culber to dump that exposition rushed information the writers seemingly didn't have time (or a means) to convey in a more natural manner. The meeting ended on a note suggesting that this wasn't goodbye, I guess as a way of excusing how it didn't feel like a worthy goodbye. But I'm beginning to feel a bit strung along by how the writers have been treating this pair. I wish they'd never gone the route of killing Culber, but now that we're on it, I wish they'd just let us grieve the loss and move on.
Separating out that one element, though, I found it a pretty fun episode overall. I'd mark it a B+.
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