“All I see is another attempt by humanity to rob us of our identity!”
Are we hip-deep into a Klingon War, or is it just that the Klingons are so unpleasant as a species, they’ll wage temporary wars on anybody they confront? Because of the recent skirmishes, Lorca is ordered to abandon his immediate mission to protect Pahvo and join the fight against the Klingons. He chooses to disregard those orders and face off with Kol’s “death ship” orbiting the planet. As the spore drive wreaks havoc on Stamets’ mind and body, he is apprehensive about continuing to use it. Lorca has no time for sympathy (when does he ever?) and he tells Stamets to go down to sickbay and get a work-up.
Even though Starfleet has this incredible spore drive (and the whiny engineer tethered to it), they’re no match for the Klingon cloaking technology. Saru surmises they could beam a party aboard a Klingon ship and install sensors then get back and track said ship. Lorca has a big assignment for Stamets. He wants him to make 133 warp jumps to distract (or confuse, take your pick) Kol’s ship while they plant the sensors. Stamets has doubts, but Lorca gives him a great pep talk about not only winning the war but exploring the farthest reaches of space. I know I’m not supposed to like Lorca but, kill me, I like him.
He puts together an away team but without Michael so she, at her most brazen and insufferable, sells herself as the most valuable crewmember of Discovery in front of the entire bridge crew! Oh … Michael, just … shut up. Besides, I thought you weren’t supposed to question the Captain’s orders in front of subordinates. Lorca relents. Wussy. Discovery and Kol’s “death ship” meet in space. Discovery starts evasive maneuvers as the landing party beams out. The sensor devices glow, beep, and are huge. I can’t believe a Klingon ship like this wouldn’t have guards everywhere, but I have to go with it.
On their rounds, Burnham and Tyler find the kidnapped Admiral Cornwell who, it turns out, wasn’t killed in the previous episode. Tyler starts having flashbacks of involuntary surgery, which Burnham wrongly deduces is a side effect of the torture he endured at the hands of the Klingons when he was imprisoned. It’s a little more complicated than that. With Stamets on the stick, Discovery makes warp jumps, disappearing and reappearing with alacrity, while taking pot-shots at the Klingon ship. To keep Kol from going into warp, Michael confronts him. She tells Kol she was the one who killed T’Kuvma. Cornwell, even in her depleted condition, engages in a phaser fire-fight with Klingons. Tyler is useless, still wallowing in acid flashbacks of torture.
Kol and Burnham engage in a Klingon knife-fight; the logistics of which are improbable given the obviously superior strength and stamina of Kol. Still, Michael holds her own until Saru can get the lock on them to beam the landing party back to the ship. Tyler, Cornwell, Burnham, and L’Rel (I keep wanting to call her “L’Oreal” – because she’s worth it!), the Klingon torchbearer (who piggy-backed on Cornwell) beam aboard. Lorca locks torpedoes and the “death ship” is destroyed. Not a terrible sequence for this show, even if it was unbelievable, but we still have 14 minutes to go in the show. So what happens next? Lorca is told to report to Starbase 46 (to collect a “Legion of Honor” medal). Burnham senses a connection between Tyler and L’Rel. Tyler claims it’s a psycho-sexual thing, but I don’t know. They hug and lock lips.
Meanwhile, Stamets is going slightly mad. It’s finally happened. Stamets volunteers to do one more jump to get them back to Starbase 46. Only one more jump. Tyler has sex dreams about L’Rel, and we get our first glimpse of bare Klingon booby. He visits her in the brig and she tells him she will “never let them hurt you,” whatever that means. I know what it means, but I’m not tellin’! Stamets logs on and hooks up with the spore drive information super-highway. The jump takes them to another place … far off the beaten path. Stamets’ eyes go all milky and he gets weird in a hurry. Saru has no idea where they are, but I do, and I’m not tellin’!
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