 |
| "Look at the size of that thing!" "Yes, Jamie; it is a big one." |
In the Mirror Universe, Burnham is summoned
to bring Lorca to the Imperial Palace, a colossal starship called ISS Charon which is apparently powered
by some sort of artificial sun (because apparently, despite having a fleet largely consisting of precise duplicates, decor notwithstanding, of the Federation Starfleet, the Terran Empire has made mad gains in the field of really fucking huge starships.) While the summons is their excuse, Burnham also needs to go on another data search to
look for the original Defiant files,
since the ones on the Shenzhou are
heavily redacted(1). She gives Lorca a custom analgesic, designed to insulate
against the effects of an agoniser, which is just as well. The Emperor welcomes her foster daughter, invites
her to 'choose a Kelpian,' and sends Lorca to Cell Block C; the worst of all the
cell blocks.
 |
| Sooo awkward. |
Over a meal of tasty, tasty Kelpian(2), the
Emperor tells Burnham that she knows she was Lorca's accomplice, forcing
Burnham to come clean about the whole 'parallel universe' thing. This triggers
the Emperor, who knows what the Federation is, to murder basically her entire
ruling council. She reveals that the Defiant
files wouldn't be any use to Discovery's
crew on account of interphasic space throwing them through time and driving
them all completely insane(3), but offers to trade the spore drive specs for
the files and the freedom of the entire crew. Nevertheless, the Emperor keeps Lorca stuck in
an agoniser booth.
Back on the Discovery, Tyler/Voq is literally tearing himself apart. Saru puts
him in the cell with L'Rell to break through her warrior stoicism about
sacrifice and prompt her to don a pair of laser mind-fuck gauntlets(4) to fix
his persona, although as his last words before lapsing into unconsciousness are
a Klingon prayer in English, I guess
the jury is out on which way he's fixed; perhaps a blending of the two?
Also in brain-fix city, the two Stamets
compare notes. Mirror Stamets was trapped in the mycelial network while working
on a project aboard the Charon, but
obviously not a spore drive. When Stamets accessed the network, Mirror Stamets
was able to contact him, giving him flashes of the Mirror Universe, and now
wants his help to get out of the network, before he is consumed by a toxic
element sweeping through it. Culber appears, sadly not trapped in the network,
but somehow preserved there, past death, to warn Stamets that his Mirror double
is responsible for the damage and the toxic element. With Culber's support, Stamets
wakes up, causing his double to wake on the Charon,
and discovers that the fungus forest is dying.
 |
| He is evil, after all. That's... slightly disappointing. |
Lorca is double-tortured by a Terran officer
who is pissed that he seduced and abandoned his sister. He's demanding that
Lorca say his sister's name, but of course he doesn't know it, except OH FUCKING
SNAP! Emperor Giorgiou reveals that lighting is all muted and sinister in the Mirror
Universe because Terrans are more
sensitive to light(5), just like
Lorca, who busts out and kills his torturer even as Burnham realises that
he has been the Mirror version all along, and that his whole deal has been
aimed at getting her to the Mirror Universe, in order to use her to get into
the Imperial Palace.
Now, I admit, I didn't see that one coming,
but it does make perfect sense, so props for that. Presumably, he must have
been working with Mirror Stamets to have escaped through the mycelial network
to the aftermath of the Battle of the Binary Stars, although I wonder if Mirror
Stamets wasn't working on either the Tantalus field from Mirror, Mirror, or an attempt to duplicate it, which would explain
his introduction of a destructive element into the mycelial network.
 |
| "And then I will kill all of you with a fidget spinner." |
On the question of Culber, I'm still mad,
and saddened that it looks like he won't be returning, save perhaps in the
network. I'm on the fence whether this is a case of burying the gays, since Discovery's push for diversity makes it
pretty much a given that significant deaths will be of minorities (especially
now that the sole cishet male of note turns out to be an evil Mirror Universe
wannabe despot whose reasons for choosing Saru as his first officer are now
highly suspect(6),) but I am pretty pissed off that Culber has been shoved in
the fridge; killed off not as part of his story, but of Stamets', and his ghost
moved into the magical negro mould. On the other hand, I'm a cishet white guy,
so I'm not going to be laying down the law about what's wrong with this death
of gay African American Hugh Culber.
To finish on a more positive note, as I
appreciated that Captain Killy did not owe her position in any way to sex or
wiles, based on past use of the Mirror Universe, it was pleasing to see the
relationship between Burnham and Giorgiou very definitely one of mother and
daughter. Yes, Mirror Burnham was both Lorca's protégé and lover, but the
sleaze factor is way down from DS9's cavalcade of glamorous lesbians(7), and
the focus very much on the ruthless political machinations.
(1) So glad we had a week and a half looking
for those.
(2) This is going to make for some awkward
conversations.
(3) Time well spent.
(4) LMFGs for short.
(5) Which is some snarky metahumour right
there.
(6) Although this ought not to be seen as a
reflection on Saru, who is being pretty awesome as acting captain.
(7) This was literally the cleverest
phrasing I could come up with. It's been a long week.
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