WHY WE LIKE IT: A redemption arc. Final reveal is a whopper.
WHY WE DON'T: Okay, can we get back to telling Discovery's story again?
REVIEW: I will fully admit backdoor pilots are fairly annoying, so while I will give Terra Firma a good report, it still bugs me that we take a break from Discovery proper to cater to what will be one day be a Philippa Georgiou show, and what happens is really in service of that. If we didn't know, it wouldn't be as big a problem, but it would still stand as a storytelling oddity. A way out for Georgiou that makes it clear she's not the evil character she was when we met her. So it's all quite artificial. She's not meant to be in the 32nd Century (it's killing her), but there are places where she can be of use, and she proves her belief in the values of our Federation rather than those of Terra so we can accept her as a heroic lead (albeit a ruthless one). And at the end, everyone makes their speeches, most thinking her dead, and you wonder just when they all grew so close. She was a villain in Season 1, mostly hung out with Section 31 in Season 2... Maybe they confuse their feelings for those they have for the Prime Georgiou (though I love that Burnham gives her her due, as a separate person)... It's not very organic is what I'm trying to say (and I had similar qualms about the latest season of The Mandalorian).
BUT I'm quite willing to accept how it ties into the theme of this season of Discovery. Georgiou has been infected, or it might be better to say convinced and inspired by the power of Roddenberry's ethos, and it's changed her. Sent back through time, she desperately tries to refashion her Empire INTO that Federation, but everyone around her is SO evil, it's really impossible. In the episode, the attempt starts at home. If she can convert her treacherous daughter, then there's hope. It won't work. Metaphorically, there's certainly a relationship to our own highly polarized politics and how people really don't listen to one another across the divide. There is no convincing the "other side" of anything. If Trek is about our best selves, the Mirror Universe is what we fear we may be becoming. There are Georgious out there who have seen the light, but their conversions haven't made a dent. I see that in Philippa's sadly singular redemption. She dares hope, but her world is so cynical, her Michael will act like she comes on side, kill all her co-conspirators, and still betray her. And Georgiou knows it.
She fails, but it's not true to say to she doesn't make a positive difference. She tells her slave, Saru, that the Vahar'ai is survivable, and prevents his culling. Kelpiens are her allies at the moment of betrayal, so perhaps they can forge ahead with some agency from this point on. Then again, with Georgiou's "death" in that new timeline, the power vacuum will be filled by whoever Kirk calls Caesar in "Mirror, Mirror" (presumably) and the independent Kelpiens will likely be slaughtered (though the Guardian hints at something better). Another change is that Georgiou nips the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in the bud, preventing the events we see in Deep Space Nine. I like to imagine the new timeline is the one we see in books and comics that use a Mirror TNG crew (Diane Duane's Dark Mirror and some recent IDW comics). And I further like to imagine the Kelpiens being the engineers of this particular Empire's destruction.
Regardless of the artificiality of the storyline, Michelle Yoeh is awesome in her scenes, and I flipped when Paul Guilfoyle's voice changed to that of the Guardian of Forever and revealed an untold page of the Time Wars. Fan service? I think it's rather clever, showing how the entity evolved, reacted to temporal warfare, and now needs to make sure anyone sent back in time won't be a problem. One question that isn't answered is WHEN Georgiou was sent, and thus when her Section 31 show will take place. Any preferences out there?
Wrapping up with some quick Discovery scenes... Jett Reno's absence in the last few episodes is actually addressed, with jokes about how she's been integrating systems all this time, thanks for the help. Booker makes himself useful getting to the next step in the quest for the Burn. Annnnd another scene with Admiral Vance means another scene I couldn't care less about - no, really, can't Saru just mention these talks in his dialog and leave it at that?
LESSON: If you give MIchelle Yeoh a sword, people are gonna die.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: I'll admit I wasn't too sure about keeping Georgiou in the cast, but the season really gave the character a chance to prove herself as someone I want to see more of as a PROTAGONIST, this episode being the peak.
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