Star Trek: Discovery — "Terra Firma, Part II" recap

I hope everyone is having a great week. If you’re into The Mandalorian, Preeti Chhibber and I discussed the most recent two episodes of the show, plus all those Disney announcements, on an episode of Desi Geek Girls. Otherwise, things are quiet before the holidays and I’m doing my best to take some time off before the new year.

🚨🚨 Spoiler alert: The rest of this email discusses the most recent episode of Star Trek: Discovery, “Terra Firma, Part II” in detail 🚨🚨

We knew Georgiou’s time aboard Discovery in the Prime Universe had changed her. But we hadn’t seen how fundamental that shift was until this episode. When Emperor Georgiou returns to her former time and universe, she seems like she’s ready and eager to take up her old mantle. But slowly, the cracks began to form. She’s not the same person she used to be, and she wants a new, brighter future for her people. The question is, will she get the chance to deliver it?

Georgiou truly believes that the way to get through to Michael is to break her with physical pain; it’s the only kind of communication she really understands. She puts Tilly in charge of the task, and manages to communicate her intentions in messages of power. She isn’t showing mercy, she’s breaking her daughter. But in the quiet moments in between, we see what’s really going through Georgiou’s head: She’s a different emperor who sees the value of kindness and decency. She’s never going to be Starfleet, but she no longer finds cruelty for cruelty’s sake palatable.

It would be easy to say this is a sudden shift, but we’ve seen the seeds of it over the last two seasons. Increasingly, Georgiou says one thing but does another: She often goes for shock value, but at the end of the day, she comes through for Michael and the crew of Discovery. And more and more, her casual cruelty has come from a place of fear, of losing her place in this new universe. Now that she’s back in her own, she’s reconsidering everything she’s done.

But cruelty is the Terran way, and what Georgiou’s Kelpien servant says to her is accurate: By shedding that fundamental value, Georgiou is no longer Terran. Even if she’s from this universe, even if biologically she belongs here, her mind no longer does. And that’s a problem, considering all eyes are on her.

And in the end, it’s not enough. Michael still turns on Georgiou, unable to understand her mother’s new vision. And just as the Emperor kills her daughter and dies herself, she’s transported back to the planet. Karl confirms that Georgiou did actually travel back to her universe. But she still isn’t cured.

He also imparts some big information: Karl is actually the Guardian of Forever (from The Original Series’ “City on the Edge of Forever”) but he hasn’t been able to shepherd people into the past since the Temporal Wars. He’s been in hiding, and only Discovery with its sphere data, was able to find him.

Georgiou doesn’t belong in the Terran universe anymore, but she can’t stay in the present. But Karl offers her another option: To travel to a different time, presumably the one that Discovery recently left — but it really could be any time in the past. After all, Deep Space Nine had plenty of encounters with the Mirror Universe. What is clear is that this is Georgiou exit from Discovery, as she’s off to helm her own Section 31-themed spinoff (and it’s worth nothing that Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt are co-writers on this episode, and they’re showrunning the series. It makes sense that they’d be involved in orchestrating Georgiou’s exit.)

This was an emotional episode, from Georgiou realizing she could not save Michael or change the Terran Empire, to the goodbyes between Michael and Philippa, to the crew’s toast to Georgiou. I really loved how her exit was handled, and while I wish we’d gotten some glimpse of where (and when!) she’d ended up, I’m very satisfied with how all of it turned out.