Everything I said about last week remains true: the Discovery writers room is good at feelings and connection and trauma and not good at puzzles. If it was a problem last week that the B-plot required Stamets, Adira, and Tilly to be a little thick so as to stretch out the process of solving the next clue to fill the whole episode, it’s even worse when it’s the A-plot.
Because this week’s A-plot is that Michael gets zapped inside a “mindscape” (I think they reference the same kind of energy beam as in the TNG episode where Picard gets gaslit into learning to play the flute, an episode whose near-universal praise really overlooks the gaslighting and lack of consent) where she has to face her own personality flaws in order to find the last MacGuffin fragment. And it takes a whole damn hour. Not for her to face her personality flaws, but just for her to realize that facing her personality flaws is the point. She wastes the first half of her time in the mindscape convinced that she needs to study books on the Dominion War, because that was the historical context that prompted the scientists to hide the Progenitor technology. Then, she decides that the actual test is that the mindscape is the library, but presented as a labyrinth, and she’s supposed to solve it. And even when that doesn’t pan out, she’s still resistant to the idea that the puzzle she’s supposed to solve has anything to do with her own mind. Despite the fact that they was told up-front that the mindscape was generated from her own mind, that Book was drawn from her own mind to appear as the sage and unhelpful magical guide character, and she figured out quickly that the mindscape had recreated the library because in the real world, she was looking for something in the library, so her mind coughed up “The exact place I physically am right now” as the best metaphor for “The place where you go to search for something.”
(That, by the way, is both very wild and very silly. The mindscape could have taken her anywhere, but it took her to the exact place where she already was, and the reason is because “for her, the library represents the mission”. So, like, it took her to the most important place for her, which is where she already was, because she is very focused on her mission. It’s not illogical or anything, it’s just very funny. It also reminds me of how Harry Potter could retrieve the philosopher’s stone because he just wanted to get it, not do anything with it, so the mirror showed him getting it, rather than the things he wanted to accomplish with it.)
Do you know how far you have to go astray for the resolution to be “Michael has to face up to her core belief that she is only worthy and loveable when she is successful at her mission” and for me to not be fully on-board? Luisa admitted that in a jaunty musical number and I was bawling like a fucking baby.
It’s the right puzzle and the right solution, but the wrong “solving”. After five years, Michael should be better than this. Discovery has done a great job at handling people owning their own emotional baggage, but for the purpose of this episode, Michael has to take a whole fucking hour to even realize that’s what she’s supposed to do. (In fairness, once she does figure it out, she doesn’t fight it. Also, I like the bit where she has some other unrelated deep inner revelation, and Mind-Book is like “Yeah that’s a big important thing, good on you, but it’s not the solution to the puzzle.”)
The rest of the episode is fine, I guess. The main thing about it is the library itself, which is utterly fantastic, and fuck Starfleet Academy, I want a show about this place. The librarian is a wonderful character. I think she’s the same “70s Glam Rock Album Cover Interpretation of a Klingon” species as the Federation President from Star Trek VI, but she’s super chipper and upbeat, even when facing down the Breen.
The Breen. So the main other plot advancement in this episode is that Chiana takes over the Breen dreadnought because D’argo’s uncle went from zero to crazy real fucking fast. Like, he went from “I need the scion to secure my claim to the throne so I will make deals with the lesser races” last week to “I am going to gleefully brag to my own personal bodyguards how quickly and happily I would sacrifice them for my own personal glory which I absolutely do not intend to share with anyone.” He brute forces his way to the library, and attacks it even knowing this will bring even the other Breen factions down on him, he breaks sacred oaths, all the crazy stuff, because he reckons that the power of the Progenitors will make him a god.
This sort of thing would work better over a period of several episodes, instead of like three scenes. This is not a bad character arc per se, but it isn’t one well-suited for the kind of show this is or the pacing of its arcs. Compressed like this, it lays bare the utilitarian nature of the character: he’s just a means to the end of putting Chiana in a position of power so she can be a proper antagonist. She’ll stop at nothing to bring back D’argo. Believable character arc. But she needs “And as D’argo’s wife, she has a Breen dreadnought at her command” to make it plausible that she can actually operate at the level necessary for her motivation to be effective on the story. The Primarch going crazy so extravagantly that his own men back Chiana’s coup is the means to the end.
So we close on Discovery giving up the MacGuffin to save the library – with the caveat that they hand it over after copying the map it reveals, and that Michael gained a secret extra clue. Discovery dumps its ballast and jumps, tricking the Breen into thinking it’s been destroyed, but the spore drive was damaged so they don’t end up where they meant to, giving Chiana time to catch up. The stage is set for a race to the final marker.
But there’s also one more side plot that is noteworthy. Turns out that the Library had a cutting from the Kweijan world root – last seen when Book’s adorable and doomed nephew did his manhood-root-cutting ceremony. There isn’t time for any reflection on it: Book goes to tell Michael and finds she’s in a mindscape, and then the Breen show up. But will this be left a dangling end?
I was thinking last week that I don’t know for sure if Chiana is going to resurrect D’argo. Her motive seems pure enough that the laws of storytelling might require it, here in the show that is about connection and healing. But at the same time, given that the Star Trek universe is going to continue from this point, it seems unlikely that they are going to outright cure death. So… I think it’s 50-50 right now whether D’argo gets brought back to life, or whether Chiana is forced to accept that it’s wrong to change the laws of nature to bring people back from the dead, and that true healing can only be achieved if she moves on and lets go.
(Uncomfortable shifting from Hugh and Grey. Heck, maybe Picard, Spock, and Data could stop by to uncomfortable shift too. Oh and I think Neelix got brought back from the dead once. Kinda Georgiou. Is Kai Opaca still alive on that forever-war-resurrection planet? I’m saying that Star Trek has always had a bit of a revolving door afterlife policy and it is both entirely likely and extraordinarily cheap if they try to sell that it would be immoral for Chiana to bring D’argo back)
But if they find the secret of life itself, could giving Book a piece of the World Root be a setup for him to be offered the power to bring back Kweijan? And if he is, does he get to take it, or will that be the temptation that must be overcome in the end to become truly morally worthy of the power of the gods?
I’m in that annoying place I was in last week – except instead of five minutes of “I know Chiana and D’argo are going to donk this up for everyone and now I have to sit here and wait for it,” it’s two weeks of, “I know that Discovery is not going to end with the Federation actually acquiring the power of creation, and now I have to sit here and wait for the painful cliche that leads them to turn it down/blow it up/lock it away.” It’s a shame they didn’t know this was to be their final season; if they’d gone into this with a real possibility of “Though the franchise will continue, we can actually have the 32nd century be the end of the Star Trek Timeline,” there’s a chance that they could have opted to end Discovery with “And then humanity became as gods and everything was entirely different forever and ever.” Which would have been one hell of a thing.
So let’s see how they don’t do that.
Which would have been one hell of a thing.
feels more heaven sent to me.