As the race between Discovery and the bounty hunters L’ak and Moll intensifies, an unexpected weapon forces Burnham and Rayner to work past their differences to save the rest of the crew.
As the race between Discovery and the bounty hunters L’ak and Moll intensifies, an unexpected weapon forces Burnham and Rayner to work past their differences to save the rest of the crew.
My theory is that they saw their episode list for the final season, and decided to add this one in after-the-fact. They end up exactly where they started, they do the flashback thing to visit all the great parts of the entire show, which highlights the arcs that some characters have gone through, and it’s kinda “bottle episode” levels.
I am not complaining about it, but it reminds me of a D&D session where half the players can’t make it, so you do a quick side-quest with the two or three that can show up.
I could almost go with that theory, but I think they announced that five was the final season while in production (they went back and reshot episode 10 to be a true “finale”). Maybe the writers had a suspicion this was the final season and shoehorned this one in.
Seeing a certain old face again was cool, but when they mentioned a certain old captain (and we didn’t get to see them) was actually disappointing. The scene in the far-future with Zora was nice. I think the writers forget the Discovery’s computer is a sentient being and character in her own right.
I would like to add, “Are you stuck in a time loop, Stamets?” is now my go-to phrase for when people ask me weird, non-sequitur questions.
My wife and I are convinced that later on Reno’s going to say something indicating she was aware of what was happening. Like calling Rayner “Lock” or something.