WHY WE LIKE IT: Tilly's back. The huge stakes and spectacle.
WHY WE DON'T: Too much epilogue. Tarka's fate. The stunt casting.
REVIEW: Skip the last 10 minutes (I'll get back to that) and Season 4 ends on a banger. Opening on the Alpha Quadrant with Tilly and her cadets helping Admiral Vance evacuate Earth is joysome. Starfleet HQ turning into a ship with decks that can fly independently is awesome, as are the vertical warp lines seen out the windows. Barely 450,000 people can be saved before it's too late, and to protect escaping ships, Vance stays behind to provide covering fire. So does Tilly, her hesitation to beam out well played. As the walls between ranks fall away, the Admiral and the Lieutenant get to hang out, and Tilly's reflections on the life she's led create the very strong possibility that the cast member who left the show some weeks ago will perish before Discovery can save the day. It's poignant stuff, and visually stunning.
Outside the galaxy, in the wake of the last episode's events, Burnham needs to escape the Ten-C orb and race after Tarka. It seems the spore drive can overload the thing, but it will burn itself out as well. There's no real doubt that the ship can use the DMA's wormhole (forcibly if not with the Ten-C's permission) by episode's end, but the thought of a Season 5 in Voyager's mold did cross my mind. Meanwhile, Book uses his cat's all-access collar to create a cat flap in the cell force field and overcomes his captor. Reno is beamed back to Disco, but though Book manages to convince Tarka to stop what he's doing, the damn fool has made it impossible to countermand (it's his M.O.) so it hardly matters. He somewhat redeems himself by admitting a true friendship with Book, knowing that Oros too would have tried to stop him, to beam Book back to Discovery. He still hopes drifting into the hyperfield will create enough energy to send him to another dimension, but - and this isn't all that clear - a few sparks don't amount to much and he's destroyed with the ship. This is my one real disappointment with the finale. I think it would have worked better if he'd managed the escape, but found his paradise actually a hell. So much for that.
The other character in need of redemption is Ndoye, and on that I can agree. She immediately confesses her part in Tarka's escape and stands ready to serve if need be. They give her that chance when stumped as to how to reach disable Booker's ship and its gravitic beam, and she eventually offers to pilot a shutting and ram it. When a pilot is called for this suicide mission, Detmer rises, providing the first of the episode's many fake-outs. Will she not make it out of the season alive? Ndoye takes her place, and while the guest character who dies for the regulars is not my favorite trope, Ndoye actually CAN be beamed back. So what was the big deal? You don't have much time to think about it though because Booker's own beam-in sputters out, right before Michael's eyes, and he is lost. Guys, I LOVE SONEQUA MARTIN-GREEN SO DAMN MUCH! Michael's layered reaction to this, a mix of trying to keep things in and just letting them go, is so powerful and affecting. She's great and it looks like the cast finally suffers a casualty. Except no, it's another fake-out.
Well, look. I don't want any of these guys to die (Tilly and Vance also make it), and while modern television has not only gotten used to dramatic cast changes, but gotten us to expect it, it's normal for regular cast members to survive and deaths to be undone or saved with little margin. I'm not complaining because the reactions are dramatic, whether the character is thought dead or their friends are relieved to find them alive after all. In Book's case, his beam was intercepted by the Ten-C who, in the climactic first contact talks, understand who we are, stop the DMA, and return Book to Michael. Turns out, they are extremely empathetic, essentially living as one networked individual, and can't bear her sadness. Nor the fact that they've done wrong in mistaken humanoids as non-sentient. The misunderstanding is dispelled, and the DMA will now trawl uninhabited regions, but no, that's not enough for the resurrected Booker. He asks that the program be discontinued entirely to avoid the subspace pollution it creates and potential harm to non-sentient life forms. It's of course the proper empath who has to relate this message, and he makes his point. The Ten-C will have to forego their hyperfield, but they shouldn't try to isolate themselves from possible connection to the outside. Anyway, their position in the galaxy makes their efforts rather moot. Too happy an ending? I think we've earned it after 13 episodes of hardship.
It was all over, but there was still 10-15 minutes left and I buckled in for much too long an epilogue. There's some celebrating between the bridge crew at a bar, etc. There's a scene to move forward the Saru-T'Rina romance, and it's slow. There's a scene between Rillak and Burnham to make sure we know the president's family are safe and loop us back to the (dreaded) Kobayashi Maru conversation, and it's slow. Booker gets community service for his part in these events, helping families displaced by the DMA, and it's the only scene I would have kept because it's lovely. We don't get a lot of true pairings in Star Trek (the shows' dramatic needs often call for multiple love interests), but Book and Burnham are a true pairing, still very much in love with each other. And THEN we jump into an overlong diary entry/montage where almost all those plot points could have been addressed without dialog scenes (many beats repeat, in fact). And THEN, AND THEN, a scene where Earth rejoins the Federation interrupts the voice-over before we zoom out, seeing that Federation HQ is now in Earth orbit. The scene is marred by stunt casting, having Georgia politician Stacey Abrams woodenly portray Earth's president. Now, I'm not an American so all I saw was a non-actress in this role and had to run to Google to verify her identity. If you do know who she is, it really calls attention to itself. It's too long, there are too many beats, and it feels extremely awkward (and makes a political statement that's going to see very dated before long). Star Trek's given a lot of cameos to "celebrity Trek fans" before, but compare this to astronaut Mae Jamison as a transporter chief or Mick Fleetwood as a fish alien. Non-actors shouldn't have this much to do. Overall, since the epilogue doesn't set us up for Season 5 or anything, it just feels like they didn't know what ending to go for and gave us all of them.
LESSON: If the climax makes you feel good, elated, emotional, relieved, whatever, then you don't want the feeling to evaporate by the time the credits roll.
REWATCHABILITY - High: Despite its missteps, Coming Home is a worthy finale, exciting and emotional.
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