The crew give Airiam’s obituary as her post-mortem and data erasure takes place, about how she affected all of them. I feel like they could’ve replicated Spock some dress uniforms for the funeral but okay. Saru sings a song of remembrance as the body is launched into space.
Burnham expresses discomfort at Tyler, as while neither he nor the current S31 are responsible for Ariam’s death, he is still loyal to them. Honestly I think it’s a shame the writers got Burnham to forgive Tyler. Showing that a friendship can be irreparably damaged would’ve been something not often seen on TV.
Senior staff discuss the danger of Control, when Tilly comes in having found information on Daedalus, and a bio-neural record of the Red Angel – who it turns out is a future Burnham.
Leeland and Georgiou beam aboard Discovery, apparently to offer their services. The crew tell S31 about Burnham. S31 proposes a plan to capture the Red Angel. The suit is Project Daedalus, that was supposedly destroyed, but once S31 noticed the suit active again, they developed a method of capturing the suit.
Burnham challenges Leeland on what else he knows that he isn’t telling her about their plan to capture her. Leeland reveals that he was in command of her parents, who worked on Daedalus, and stationed them on the planet they were killed on, after a crystal S31 stole was traced back to them. Burnham weirdly tries to argue against this because she didn’t know, as if S31 agents routinely tell their young children details of secret operations. After the realisation that she wasn’t responsible, indirectly or otherwise, for her parents’ death, a defining moment for her, Burnham reacts, and punches Leeland, once for each of her parents.
Culber meets with Cornwall, due to her background in therapy. As she talks him through his feelings, Spock talks Burnham through hers as she beats up a training dummy. Spock sits down to comfort her. An adorable conversation follows that ends with Burnham apologising for bringing her misplaced guilt to his home, and him forgiving her. They both tell each other the conversation has helped the other – making the first steps to rebuilding their relationship.
Spock realises that the Red Angel always appears when Burnham is in danger. They plan to jeopardise Burnham’s life in order to trap the Red Angel.
A Lt. Nilsson replaces Airiam’s station on the bridge – weird fact, Nilsson is played by Sara Mitich who played Airiam in season 1??? If the actor was available I am so confused as to why she got cast into a different character and her original role recast???? Am I missing something???
Georgiou comforts Burnham before she enters the chamber which will be exposed to the toxic environment. Spock ties Burnham down. Burnham asks Spock as he leaves what would happen if she dies. Spock jokes that it would mean him getting charged, again, for the death of an officer. I love Vulcan humour and I appreciate they didn’t lampshade it, but why would he be charged???
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| Gripping television, even the characters are watching it. |
Burnham screams in agony as the toxic environment burns her. Everyone reacts as they watch. Georgiou wants to call it and get her out, but Spock pulls out his phaser and stops them, even after she passes the safe moment.
Burnham dies.
And then moments later a red flare shines as the Angel appears. The Angel descends upon Burnham and shoots a red beam into her, reviving her. The trap is set. They tether the Angel down, but as Leeland tries to use an eye sensor to authorise an override of the safety limits to power the graviton beam to close the wormwhole (why that??? Why not another authorisation method????), a needle spikes out of the eye sensor and stabs Leeland in the eye (ekkhkkhk no thank you nothank you no thank you).
The computer using Leeland’s voice tells Tyler he has the power for the beam. The wormhole is closed as the atmosphere is re-enabled. The Red Angel is deactivated and the operative falls out. An older black woman falls out. It’s Burnham’s mum.
We flashback in the next episode to when Burnham was younger, to the day her parents were supposedly killed. Burnham comes to in Discovery, to the confirmation that it was her mother who was the Red Angel. Burnham understandably freaks out. Spock delivers the 841 mission entries to Bunrham.
Control, taking the holographic form of several Discovery crew membets, confronts a bound Leeland, before taking his form, and then injecting his physical body with nanobots.
In her first mission log, Burnham’s mother tries to travel back in time an hour to warn her family about the Klingons, but misfires and instead arrives 950 years in the future. Unable to travel anywhere permanently, consistently pulling her back into the future, to where Control had wiped out everything. She stands on an abandoned rock, which used to be Earth.
The anchor tries to pull Dr. Burnham back, giving them an hour until it succeeds. Meanwhile a Control-… controlled Leeland walks on the S31 ship, suggesting Dr. Burnham is a fake.
Dr. Burnham’s logs reveal that she put the Sphere in Discovery’s path in order to allow Discovery to safeguard it. Dr. Burnham awakes, and asks to speak to Captain Pike alone. Burnham is upset, but Pike overrules her. Burnham tells Pike he needs to destroy the archive, and that she knows nothing about the seven signals. Pike is hesitant, so Dr. Burnham ends the discussion.
Saru is also hesitant to destroy what would be like burning the Library of Alexandria (I agree and I’m still not over the destruction of that library) .
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| Never forget |
Pike agrees, and Saru attempts to delete the data, but the archive protects itself. Burnham talks to Spock, who supports her wish to go see her mother. She beams down. Burnham wants to speak with her mother, but her mother does not reciprocate, after seeing how savage time is has turned her cynical. She tells Burnham she has seen her die 100s of times, so she let her go as a daughter ages ago, but Burnham doesn’t believe her.
Spock speculates that the reason Dr. Burnham keeps failing is because they have gotten around it the wrong way, and instead they should send the data into the future after Control’s creation – so it can never access it.
ControlledLeeland tries to recruit Georgiou to complete the mission Tyler failed to capture the data for him. She goes to speak to Dr. Burnham, who reveals for her in certain timelines, she has sacrificed her life for Burnham. Meanwhile the S31 ship downloads the Sphere data. A phrase Dr. Burnham uses tips Georgiou to realise Leeland has been compromised.
Whilst putting into motion her plan to save Dr. Burnham, she reveals to her daughter she followed Burnham throughout moments in her life, giving her resolve. But she states she cannot stay until she knows Control has been destroyed. Georgiou disconnects the transfer as Tyler enters Leeland’s office, finding him possessed by Control. Leeland brutally stabs Tyler, but then upon realising the data has stopped, beams down. Tyler warns Discovery as he does so, and the crew attempt to stop him and the data transfer. Georgiou engages ControlledLeeland in hand to hand, but not before he damages equipment. Dr. Burnham tells Burnham the only way for them to survive is to send destroy the containment field, sending her and the suit back, but with no way to return. Dr. Burnham and her suit is sucked back as the away team beams back to Discovery, but Leeland returns to the S31 ship, which leaves just after Tyler escapes on an escape pod.
Burnham despairs, but Spock comforts her saying the present influences the future, and they still have the power to win. He then challenges her to 3D chess.
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