Discovery 1x09: Into the Forest I Go

[rivendellrose]

Sorry for the delay! Here is your episode discussion post for Discovery 1x09: "Into the Forest I Go."

Please be aware that there will be spoilery comments on this entry. As before, I'll be back later this evening to join in the party once I've had a chance to watch the episode, and if the conversation hasn't gotten too far without me I will add some discussion starters or other remarks behind a cut.

Comments

[nonelvis]

I want to just insert about a hundred "screaming" GIFs, which might adequately cover my reaction.

Instead, I'll settle for just one comment: they're in the mirror universe now, Y/Y? And Lorca's "Let's go home" reference, despite his subsequent (apparent) confusion about where they ended up, is his subtle way of saying "Let's go home ... to the land where everyone wears a goatee and eyepatch"?

Okay, one more comment: if this show kills off Stamets or otherwise ruins his relationship with Hugh, I am going to be so pissed.

[rivendellrose]

I am right there with you in the "100 screaming gifs!!!" reaction! Honestly, after the previous episode, I expected this to be a slow-motion mess where we dealt with nothing but the Klingons, and was pleasantly surprised when the Ship of the Dead thing took up only about half the episode. And actually got solved! No more Kol! Woohoo!

I'm not sure that I see significant evidence that Lorca is actually from the mirror universe, but I do think it's possible he futzed with the coordinates to ensure Stamets' last jump didn't land them at Starbase 46. It was pretty clear he didn't really want to go back there, for many reasons, not least of which is that he was gonna be relieved of command as soon as he got there and got his award, so that he could get treatment, and that is not what Lorca wants. Lorca wants to keep right on captaining whether or not he's in condition to keep his command.

Ohmygod yes, if they kill off Stamets or Culber or break them up in any way, I will be right there with you. That's been one of my greatest fears for this show since the beginning, and I really hope they have the sense not to go there.

[monanotlisa]

they're in the mirror universe now, Y/Y? And Lorca's "Let's go home" reference, despite his subsequent (apparent) confusion about where they ended up, is his subtle way of saying "Let's go home ... to the land where everyone wears a goatee and eyepatch"?

I think so, yes -- though HOW he would manipulate Stamets, I'm not sure about. THAT he would manipulate Stamets...haha, it's Gabriel Lorca; he would manipulate a wall (and probably get that wall to do his bidding, too).

if this show kills off Stamets or otherwise ruins his relationship with Hugh, I am going to be so pissed.

YES, THANK YOU, I WAS ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT WHIMPERING...and I am still not relaxed. Will not be until January. Can we not have another queer death on television, please?

[conuly]

They could be in the mirror universe, but I hope not. I hope they started in (a) mirror universe, or just an alternate continuity.

[ironed_orchid]

Mirror Universe is most likely, but I also considered they might be in the future.

Help! I have so many feelings!

Mostly about Stamets. I was repeating "Don't die. Don't die" as he approached the jump chamber. He'd better not fucking die.

[kore]

I read his confusion as real, but LOL he's Lorca and was in front of other people, so it could have been his facade again. I do think either he was trying to get away from Starfleet or return to Mirrorwhatever, and fucked it up. It was amazing hubris on his part either way because we saw what happened to that other crew with the spore drive when their drop back into normal space went even a little wrong.

[aryas_zehral]

I will also be very unhappy if they mess up or kill Stamets/Hugh. I feel fixits would be required. :)

Lorca wouldn't take much to fit into the Mirror universe I feel. I can't decide if his mirror self would be peaceloving or even more dark. :)

[kore]

- ADMIRAL KAAAAAAAAAAAAT

- PTSD doesn't put you in shock, whut

- Michael and her "leave no crewmate behind," LOVE

- Stamets's "I love you" caused UGLY sobbing on the sofa, Rapp is so good

- "They didn't break you then, so they are not gonna break you now" -- ADMIRAL KAT <333

- "I love you too," more ugly sobbing. Also the music was really good

- Michael facing down Kol, OMG, "I'm the one who killed T'kuvma" -- MICHAEL!! "T'Kuvma defeated the woman who that belonged to." omg omg omg, MICHAEL She's totally the Kirk, reckless and physical but a great strategic thinker and able to plan in the moment.

- MICHAEL AND SARU LOOK AT EACH OTHER AS THE SHIP OF THE DEAD BLOWS UP, MY HEART and she holds Philippa's insignia //cries

- Tilly's not the only Cadet, "Cadet Decker" was told to report to the ready room via the PA

- L'Rell escaped....and this probably does mean Ash is Voq, argh. Or at least a sleeper agent. Poor Ash, his monologue was heartbreaking. The embrace was nicely done too. If he IS a spy, it's going to totally suck.

- ONE MORE JUMP NOOOOOOOOOOOO (it's the "the people in Dracula don't know they're in Dracula" thing)

- a kiss, AND the opera, AND -- Husband was like "They're telegraphing this like Western Union." Cute canon gay couple of course gets the worst of the damage. SIGH.


I'm not quite sure how I felt about it....this episode seemed very predictable? Not bad, I could just see nearly every beat coming and it never felt like anyone was at risk. (Except half the canon gay couple.) It did feel satisfying to see that ship blow up, but then it was so downplayed and we had the Voyager, Take 2 setup. I'll be really interested to see where that goes.

[rivendellrose]

- ADMIRAL KAT!!! ♥ I was so happy for her! ♥

- Thank you, I thought so, but I wasn't confident enough to say for sure, it was just kind of like "whuuuuuuuut?" for me. I really am glad, apart from that and a few other details that I could have done without that we dealt with Tyler's trauma finally. I'd been really worried they were going to just continue being like "Nah, he's fine!" when... nope, this guy has been through some serious shit, we need to deal with that.

- Michael is so fabulous. Such a hero. ♥ And Kat getting to use her psychologist background to talk Tyler through his breakdown, that was fantastic.

- STAMETS AND CULBER. ♥♥♥

- ALL THE GEORGIOU CALLBACKS. And Michael and Saru, ohmygod, yay, they're finally totally okay again.

- Oh yeah, he's Voq. He doesn't know it, either. He has no fucking clue, the poor bastard. I just want to wrap him up in bubble wrap so he never figures it out. And so Burnham doesn't have to find out, either.

- It totally is the "the people in Dracula don't know they're in Dracula" thing. Also, just, come on, people, you just beat SO MANY ODDS, don't push your luck!!!

- "They're telegraphing this like Western Union." Cute canon gay couple of course gets the worst of the damage. SIGH.

Yeah, I was saying "this is it, we're gonna lose Rapp" over and over while my husband said "no we're not." So the end result was at least better than I'd feared, particularly since we saw Stamets in the preview for next season. I have faith in Culber fixing him and bringing him back to himself, but... er... yeah. A bit awkward and very heavily telegraphed. That said, it's not like the straight couple is gonna escape without harm, so... there's that, I guess.

I dunno, I felt like as predictable as some of it was it was still satisfying, for me. A hell of a lot more satisfying than I thought it was going to be, for sure. Whether or not this is a Voyager, Take 2 setup... eeeehhhh, I think (I hope) it's going to be more nuanced than that, and that probably it will be a lot less "well we're stuck here." Although I suspect Lorca will try to play it that way, because he has every reason not to really try to go home at this point. Burnham and Saru and the rest are gonna have to force him, I suspect.

[monanotlisa]

- Michael and her "leave no crewmate behind," LOVE

Oh, Michael. I love her so, Kore! ♥

Husband was like "They're telegraphing this like Western Union.

*ugly cry*

[ironed_orchid]

- a kiss, AND the opera, AND -- Husband was like "They're telegraphing this like Western Union."

So much telegraphing. It was like watching a horror film "Don't go in there!"

[lizbee]

- PTSD doesn't put you in shock, whut

RIGHT? Like, he's having flashbacks, disassociating, maybe having a panic attack, but none of that is shock.

And PTSD is a real thing which real people have, including audience members! I feel like they're quite good in its portrayal, but that was ... weird.

In Kat's defence, she suffered a pretty bad head injury a few hours earlier. SHE'S DOING HER BEST.

[aryas_zehral]

Cadet Decker: Could this be Will Decker? Does the timeline fit? IDEK.

I'm guessing its not quite PTSD that Ash has. Mainly cos I like the Voq theory because of how very very messy it has the possibility of becoming. How very star crossed and "never been in love... in love.... whoops he's the enemy in disguise" it will be!! Might even slightly balance out being mean to Stamets and Hugh.

[tree_and_leaf]

"Cadet Decker"

Ooh, good catch! Matt Decker, do we think?

[madgastronomer]

"a kiss, AND the opera, AND -- Husband was like "They're telegraphing this like Western Union." Cute canon gay couple of course gets the worst of the damage. SIGH."

Did anybody else catch WHICH opera and WHY? La Boheme, the inspiration for RENT, which Rapp was IN.

[saturnofthemoon]

* Admiral Cornwell lived and everything is beautiful.
* That award was just a ruse to lure Lorca in so they can relieve him of his command and get him some much needed therapy. Lorca totally knew it, too.
* Those two gay guys actually got to kiss and it was adorable.
* I could have lived without the rape flashbacks. No really.
* How many pointy beards will there be in the mirror universe? What about bisexual dominatrices?
* Hey, is this the universe where Tilly's a captain?
* I'm betting good money Burnham and Saru will have to stage a mutiny against Lorca to get back home.
* I really just want Saru to do something other then rehash his issues with Micheal over and over again in chapter two.

[kore]

Admiral Cornwell lived and everything is beautiful.

I bet as they were wheeling her into surgery she was like "Take my notes on Lorca, he's batshit -- "

That award was just a ruse to lure Lorca in so they can relieve him of his command and get him some much needed therapy. Lorca totally knew it, too.

HA, I didn't get that, but it totally makes sense. Hence also his "oh no, we can just warp there, lalala" attitude.

I could have lived without the rape flashbacks. No really.

Those were pretty awful. Poor Ash. It does seem like if he's not Voq, he's a sleeper agent.

[rivendellrose]

* That award was just a ruse to lure Lorca in so they can relieve him of his command and get him some much needed therapy. Lorca totally knew it, too.

Oh, I hope Starfleet is that clever!

* Those two gay guys actually got to kiss and it was adorable.

YES!

* I could have lived without the rape flashbacks. No really.

Yeahhhhh, I was hoping we'd avoid that, too. Too much to hope, apparently. Yeck.

* I'm betting good money Burnham and Saru will have to stage a mutiny against Lorca to get back home.

Oh, hell yes. That's absolutely gonna happen.

* I really just want Saru to do something other then rehash his issues with Micheal over and over again in chapter two.

Yeah, me too. *crosses fingers*

[kore]

Tidbit: Lorca's "dock this weary vessel" may be a reference to the end of Book I of the Faerie Queene, after a dragon's been slain and the protagonist returns home:

Now strike your sailes ye jolly Mariners,
For we be come unto a quiet rode,
Where we must land some of our passengers,
And light this wearie vessell of her lode.
Here she a while may make her safe abode,
Till she repaired have her tackles spent,
And wants supplide. And then againe abroad
On the long voyage whereto she is bent:
Well may she speede and fairely finish her intent.

[rivendellrose]

Oh, cool! I really should read that at some point.

Link to review by Alethia

[monanotlisa]

Review by Alethia (plus comment from me) here: https://alethia.dreamwidth.org/966067.html#cutid1

[conuly]

Argh, my stupid laggy computer kicked me off for the last few minutes, and I don't want to patiently wait to stream the whole thing again. What happened?

[rivendellrose]

Oh no! Let's see, the last few minutes... I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but Lorca and Stamets have a heart-to-heart where Stamets says sure he can do one last jump back to Starbase 46 so they don't have to toodle there by warp, but after that he needs to be examined by medical professionals because he's totally messed up by the spore drive. Lorca agrees, cool, last jump. They get all set up, Stamets and Culber have a very "oh god something terrible is going to happen" interaction where Stamets tells Hugh that there's a moon by Starbase 46 where there's a Kesselian opera house that's performing La Boheme and they kiss, then Stamets gets into the drive and Everything Goes Horribly Wrong. They get shot out after an incomplete jump into a purplish field of nebula and debris, Saru can't pinpoint their location, the stars are all wrong and everything, Stamets is mostly unconscious and muttering things with his eyeballs going white and holy shit we have no idea where we are. And we won't know until January 7.

[4thofeleven]

You know, I'm actually going to miss Kol? He seemed to be the only Klingon who put a proper growl into his voice and seemed comfortable speaking his own language. I really wasn't expecting him or the Ship of the Dead to go down so easily - I was expecting him to stick around the rest of the season at least until the Voq 'n' L'Rell arc was concluded.

I do wonder why we had to have half a season of Klingon gibberish before they decided to just have him speak English.

I was pretty convinced Cornwell was dead. Glad she's not, and still kicking ass even badly injured. Sad she didn't get to stick around and be stranded with everyone else, that would have been fun, and it doesn't make sense that she'd get a separate ride home when Discovery is presumably faster than any shuttle.

[cheyinka]

Agreed on Cornwell getting a separate ride home not making a lot of sense, but if they sent a medical shuttle that could start treating her immediately, that would mean she got treatment sooner than Discovery warping to Starbase Whichever, since Discovery wasn't going to spore-drive there.

I wasn't convinced she was dead - it felt like too much of a waste of character setup - but I was afraid the writers were going to do "lol yeah every woman who works with Lorca gets zorched". On the other hand, that she was not only not dead, but just hanging out in the corpse room as prisoners, means either Kol knew he had a living Federation prisoner, or L'Rell was still giving Cornwell water, if not also food. (Without the ability to move her legs she couldn't really go get it herself.)

[cheyinka]

As I said in a thread elsewhere:

I was really intrigued, right after Tyler was introduced as a character, by the "he's secretly a Klingon!!" theory, but now I think it'd just be infuriating and a pretext to humiliate Burnham and make her reject having tried to have normal feelings. I just don't see a way it can be done well. Even if the reveal is "we tried to make Voq a sleeper personality and instead we pureed the two personalities into this charming-soldier-dude smoothie" it's still bad for her.

Further in the "not doing this well" department, I'm not sure what I think of them setting up so clearly that Stamets was going to die in the last jump - "one more jump, to keep the crew safe? of course you can manipulate me into that, Captain Lorca!" "I'll go see an opera with you!" "Now I'm staggering out of the spore chamber and collapsing in a heap!" - and then showing him alive during the preview of the next episode. *facepalm*

As I didn't say in that thread elsewhere:

HOORAY THE ADMIRAL'S NOT DEAD
her talking him through the flashbacks was MARVELOUS, and I don't mind that she told Burnham that Tyler was 'in shock' - it got Burnham out the door without additional explanations, and it's close enough for governmentStarfleet work, both in-universe ("okay, it wasn't literally shock, but I wasn't going to explain PTSD to someone raised by Vulcans when we had 20 seconds to discuss it!") and writerly ("well he's shocked and unhappy, right? right, guys?").
L'Rell grabbing Tyler to escape! Even though she had no way to know whether Discovery was going to win!

[kore]

I was really intrigued, right after Tyler was introduced as a character, by the "he's secretly a Klingon!!" theory, but now I think it'd just be infuriating and a pretext to humiliate Burnham and make her reject having tried to have normal feelings. I just don't see a way it can be done well. Even if the reveal is "we tried to make Voq a sleeper personality and instead we pureed the two personalities into this charming-soldier-dude smoothie" it's still bad for her.

I really agree with this. It puts too much emphasis on him and buys too much into the "Strong Woman learns to love, and whoops, she shouldn't have" storyline I got sick of on shows like Buffy. Although the actor is so good and expressive, he could handle a "no I don't want to be a sleeper agent" storyline well, but I want MICHAEL at the centre of things.

close enough for /government/ Starfleet work, both in-universe ("okay, it wasn't literally shock, but I wasn't going to explain PTSD to someone raised by Vulcans when we had 20 seconds to discuss it!") and writerly ("well he's shocked and unhappy, right? right, guys?").

LOL, I hadn't thought of it as Kat trying to explain PTSD to a Vulcan! Or rather, thinking fast and deciding the best way to say "He's BSOD-ing right now, I can't walk, you gotta save the day."

[lizbee]

I haven't even read the comments here yet, but I just want to put on my Mass Effect hat and say:

LORCA FUCKED UP EVERY LOYALTY MISSION EXCEPT MIRANDA'S AND THEN JUMPED THROUGH THE OMEGA 4 RELAY

Lorca: *exists*

Me:

Kinda bummed that the show has contrived to send Kat away, even though this probably ensures her survival for a bit longer, and also a lot of things about this series only work because the nearest mental health professional is a long, long way away.

I have more to say about the mirror universe, crack theories, etc, but I should probably have breakfast, go to work, and read the rest of the comments here. Not in that order.

[nenya_kanadka]

I understood that reference!

Man, this episode was so good to me. Way better than I expected.

ALSO ADMIRAL KAT!

[cheyinka]

Just had a thought regarding Voq and Ash Tyler: regardless of the saws and furrowed forehead grimacing in the torture flashback, there's a big difference between "hello I'm just a Human merchant, totally just a Human" in Trouble with Tribbles, and Tyler's situation! He was recovered injured and would have been examined by a doctor on Discovery, and Klingons have two livers, three lungs, and an eight-chambered heart. Sure, I guess they could have pulled out one of his lungs - if Humans can live with one lobe of one lung, surely a Klingon could manage with two instead of three lungs - and I suppose they could have removed one of his livers, but the heart is problematic.

(I am probably grasping at straws, here.)

[rivendellrose]

Phew, that's an interesting point, I hadn't thought of all the internal biology of Klingons that's different from Humans (and vice versa). We have instances later in Trek (DS9 and VOY) where Cardassians are surgically altered into Bajorans in ways that supposedly completely elude Starfleet medical technology, but we don't know enough about either Bajoran or Cardassian physiology to know whether they have similar levels of difference. Hmmmm... it's certainly an interesting quandary!