More pieces of the puzzle but still no full picture developing.
It actually wasn't too bad. We see more of Q, which is a good thing given deLancies great performance. Concerning Q: Why would he rip himself of his own power in a scenario he himself created ? Doesn't make sense and suggest that someone else is involved ?
So, Laris isn't Laris but a supervisor like Gary Seven. That's an interesting angle that I hope get's further developed than just this short mentioning. I'm also getting some Edith Keeler vibes with Renee Picard in the sense that she was essential for the timeline. Interestingly Keeler's survival would have let probably to the same future as Renee not making the flight. Coincidence ?
The ICE storyline is hopefully done with and it was obviously just there to make a point. Let's leave it at that.
I don't like the Jurati plot because I don't like Jurati. And I'm dissapointed in how they used the Borg Queen so far. But that's just me personally.
Bringing in Brent Spiner as another Soong ancestor is a nice angle that, in a way, gives more depth. Althought I fear he's just a tool here. And Isa Briones finally got to make her appearance in this timeline, too.
One thing that pains me to say a bit is that it feels that Patrick Stewart seems exhausted in almost every scene he's in. It could be intentional in how he plays Picard as a fragile old man. I hope it is because otherwise it would mean it's too much for him. Which could be normal given his age but makes me wonder about his involvement in season 3.
[6.8/10] I’m in no position to say how accurate Homeland is when it comes to the life of a spy. But I have to imagine it’s a hard profession to make friends in. You are in the business of deception, of misdirection, of fooling people to further your own ends, so how could you then turn around trust the people in the same business. How do you know that when your interests aren’t aligned, they’ll use those same abilities on you?
“AltTruth” seems to be playing on the recent Trumpian notion that facts are slippery and malleable. It features plenty of the major players thinking they have a hold of the truth, and having the rug pulled out from under them. It has them doubting who their allies are, questioning whose side everyone is on, with real serious consequences. It raises the question of whether, in a world of spies, you can trust anyone else, or even your own paranoid instincts.
The turns come fast and furious here, the most notable of them being Javadi flipping on Saul when he realizes that his erstwhile partner is on the outside looking in of the intelligence apparatus. When Saul gets him in front of the President Elect, Javadi is suddenly spouting Dar Adal’s party line, telling Keane that there is, in fact, a parallel program, confirming the line of B.S. that Dar has been pitching to her for a long time now.
It is a twist, and a mildly shocking one, but also unsurprising. Javadi was never a true believer, and as much as Saul wanted to believe that Javadi wanted to preserve what they’d built, that they were brothers in arms and not just strange bedfellows, Javadi was also first and foremost interested in saving his own ass over any larger cause or sense of loyalty, which is part of why he became an American agent in the first place.
Because Javadi sees that the winds have changed, and that his best ticket out of this situation is to hit his wagon to Dar Adal. It is a betrayal of Saul, after Saul stuck his neck out for Javadi several times, and it’s cravenly mercenary, but it’s also smart. Who knows if Saul could deliver what he promised. Who knows if Dar wouldn’t just take Javadi out using the same guys he’s been employing as of late. They’re in a business where friends cease to be allies and allies cease to be friends because the power has shifted, and Javadi recognizes that.
Hell, even Carrie recognizes that when she spills the beans about what she’s uncovered and admits that she didn’t know what side Saul was on. He’s certainly been Dar’s pal and running buddy before, and put pressure on her not to advise the President Elect, so it’s not crazy to think that Carrie’s own closest ally in the agency might have been working against her, whether he knew it or not.
But the biggest case of mistaken truths, false hunches, and terrible consequences is Quinn and Astrid. Quinn is paranoid, finding a gun, his papers, and various attendant facts about this wonderful lake house where he can somehow stay indefinitely and begins to realize it doesn’t all add up. He sees a familiar guy skulking around the grocery store; he knows Astrid’s been in contact with Dar Adal, and he thinks something’s fishy.
The neat thing about the story is that he’s not wrong, even though he’s completely wrong. When he stalks whom he thinks is the guy from the grocery store, he knocks out the wrong man. And before that, he thinks Astrid is there to take him out, that she’s untrustworthy. In a charged, skin-crawling scene, he interrogates her, berates her, and hits her. Brain-damaged Quinn has had a woman-beating problem, and it’s uncomfortable as a well the show goes back to. But still, given the history between these two characters, what’s most affecting in the scene is the way he tries to wound her emotionally, telling her they were never friends, just lonely people who had sex.
He doesn’t know who to trust anymore. He thinks Carrie betrayed him. He has reason to believe that Dar has betrayed him, even if he gets the methods wrong. And thanks to Dar’s little talk with him (plus, you know, a lifetime of trauma) the seed has been planted for him to think that nobody would help him just out of the kindness of their heart. He believes that they must have an angle, and tragically, it leads to him contributing to death of one of the few people who really did just love him.
Unfortunately, that’s also where the episode just gets silly. The show has always been a bit hit or miss about these big action thriller set pieces. (Lest we forget Carrie’s serial killer run-in with the terrorist mastermind in Season 2.) This is no exception. It’s a shocking, if cheesy moment when Quinn is shot by (presumably) Dar’s goon through the window of the house. Suddenly, the whole thing gets unrealistic, with people surviving bullet wounds easily and lumbering around to get into combat situations with the guy.
On top of that, the trick with Quinn taking the bullets out of the gun is a little too neat. Sure, it sells the main story and theme of the episode -- people mixing up who their enemies and their friends are in dramatic ways, but it just reeks of a lesser show, one more devoted to ironic twists than theme. It’s Homeland at its most pulpy, and that has always been a mixed bag for this series. Giving Quinn another miraculous near death experience, one where he can hold his breath and evade gunfire despite being grazed and suffering from mental and physical disabilities strains credulity. It brings down an episode that was already on shaky ground.
But it does work with the larger leitmotif of the episode, including the scene that opens the episode, where the Alex Jones analogue is doing a takedown of President Keane’s son. With creative editing and commentary and tinseltown gloss, somebody who was trying to save other can be painted to look like a coward. The line between a hero and “the opposite of a hero” can be incredibly hard to discern, even for the people who were on the ground. And when somebody is offering you envelopes full of cash, or guaranteeing your safety, or ensuring you’ll continue to get to do things your way, it can be very easy to throw the heroes under the bus, with innocent people suffering along the way.
The soap opera writers that have been put in charge of this ,once revered, franchise continue to distort and abuse the long and beloved history of Star Trek canon to subvert it to their own hand. In past seasons we've seen that Burnham was the reason Spock became who he was, we've lost beloved characters who have rejected everything they were before, Romulus was blown up and now we don't even have Vulcan anymore. Whatever reason these "writers" might have to do this is beyond me but it should be clear by now that it's malicious. Their ilk have destroyed 50 years of canon on Doctor Who, destroyed Star Wars and pretty much done the same to Trek. If rumors are to be believed they will soon include the Guardian of Forever and possibly deliver the final blow to Star Trek.
To the people defending this soap opera dribble... Well I don't know what to say to you. Character development, plot and the concept of coherent writing are cornerstones of anything that's good. These writers can't even keep track of events in the same episode let alone use a massive overarching storyline or how to benefit of over 50 years of worldbuilding.
It's disgraceful really what they have done and they should be ashamed of writing something that is below mediocre. But that appears to be modernday "entertainment" and by god... I hope it bites them back in their ass cause we'll all be worse off if it doesn't.
[7.8/10] In many ways, this is the kind of LWT episode I've missed. There's a good main story covering something I was faintly aware of but did not know was deeply in need of reform -- namely rehab facilities. The idea that these entities are not only scarcely licensed or otherwise regulated, not only that few offer evidence-based treatment, but that there's severe difficulty in getting independent info on whether they're good or bad is eye-opening. I'll admit, the humor was more hit or miss in this one, but it was a great mini-expose on the clear problems with the industry.
My only beef is that, unlike a lot of the best LWT segments, there was no suggestion as to the best or clearest path to reform, but at least the show did offer advice on what to do in case you or a loved one needs treatment for addiction, which is certainly important too.
The other segments were solid-to-okay. I appreciated the quick but piercing dive into why John Bolton putting the prospect of a Libya-style denuclearization out there is counterproductive to talks with North Korea. I continue to grow weary of the "aint local news anchors stupid" material. The stuff about the royal wedding was fine, but easy -- kind of like a video buzzfeed article.
Overall, the main segment shouldered most of the load on this one, but it was quite good and the type of story that I come to the show for.
[5.8/10] When watching Discovery, the easy route is to compare it to prior Star Trek series and films. Between the continuity nods, the classic characters popping up here and there, and some of the usual Trek rhythms, it’s natural to think of the latest show in the franchise in relation to its predecessors.
But “The Wolf Inside” is one of those episodes that reminds you that no matter how many familiar sound effects we here, no matter how neat it is to Mirror Sarek with a goatee like his son would eventually sport, Star Trek Discovery is a show that’s taking its cues from the most buzzworthy hits on cable television -- The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones -- more than it’s pulling from its space-bound forebears.
As I often say, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that necessarily. Despite rumblings about ousted creator Bryan Fuller’s ideas for the show, it was likely a pipe dream that CBS would revive Star Trek and keep it the same as it was when the franchise last left the airwaves. (Though perhaps the existence of The Orville suggests it wasn’t impossible.) Star Trek was very likely going to need to be updated for a new era of television, and it’s understandable, if not terribly original, that the powers that be, and the studio bankrolling it all, would want a show that emulated the biggest hits of its competitors.
Selecting Sonequa Martin-Green as the lead character is a canny choice, but also a clue where the show’s braintrust was at. One of the biggest issues with The Walking Dead is clunky, overwritten dialogue that spells out the theme for anyone not paying close enough attention to get the show’s otherwise flashing neon signs of theme.
In this instance, that’s “how do you hang onto who you are when the world around you is harsh,” a very Walking Dead theme. You have it in Burnham’s voiceover in the beginning of the episode, you have it in overdone exchanges between characters, and any number of other scenarios designed to let you know that this is what they’re getting at.
And hey, it’s not a bad theme for a Star Trek episode where you’re trying to infiltrate the Mirror Universe undetected. The notion of becoming the mask, of having to pretend to be someone for so long that who you’re pretending to be seeps into who you really are, is a good concept. It’s just dramatized in a blunt, tedious, and even dumb way.
For example, Burnham is ordered by the Terran Emperor to destroy a rebel colony. When told by Lorca that she needs to do it to maintain their cover, Burnham pushes back, and says that no matter who she’s pretending to be, she’s still a Starfleet officer, and she doesn’t want to kill people if she can avoid it. That’s admirable, and an interesting dilemma to play.
The problem is that her solution to this is to try to infiltrate the rebel camp, hoping she doesn’t get killed on sight, and bringing her friend who’s been acting erratically for a while now. It’s a stupid, stupid, stupid plan, one that only works because the plot needs it to work. Sure, it’s cool to see rebel leader Voq, and get our first look at Discovery’s Andorians and Tellerites, but mind meld or no mind meld, it’s a big dumb risk to take, especially when Burnham has the info on the U.S.S. Defiant she needs.
Her reason for taking that risk is even dumber -- she wants to ask Mirror Voq how he managed to unite different species, especially the Klingons. Sure, maybe that’s an interesting question, but it’s not like he’s going to have some magic formula that will tell her how to get the Klingons in the prime universe to accept the Federation. (Right now, my bet is that eventually they take Mirror Voq back to the Prime Universe, where he manages to start the movement of Klingon tolerance for the Federation.) True to that, when pressed, Voq basically says, “we united because we had to -- the Terrans were wiping us out.” It’s not especially complicated, and certainly not information worth risking your life for.
It doesn’t help that we’re only two episodes in and the show is already stretching the Mirror Universe concept a little thin. Let’s be honest, the Mirror Universe was always a kind of silly concept, and the problem is that Discovery wants to be a more serious show than the outsized Original Series was. That means it’s harder to write off convenient coincidences like that everyone Burnham knows is in some plot-relevant, position of significance.
Bits like the reveal that Georgou is the Emperor, or the convenience that Voq is the rebel leader, don’t really hold up to the scrutiny of the law of unintended consequences, where one significant change would beget others, rather than just leaving things mostly the same but with an evil flip here and there. That sort of tack is forgivable, even enjoyable, in the four-color tones of the original Star Trek, but feel goofy and convenient here.
That might be easier to swallow if the nuts and bolts writing were better. Again, the dialogue here is repetitive and often painful, full of banalities and pseudo-philosophical ramblings that fail the smell test. The episode is also aping Game of Thrones and its big twists and betrayals and reveals. There’s a fake out with Lt. Stamets’s death under Tilly’s care, with the hint that Stamets Prime being injected with spores just gave him an invitation to the Interdimensional Council of Reeds (or Ricks, if you prefer), which comes of cheesy rather than cool.
The most significant reveal is that Ash Tyler is really Voq prime, having been made human a la “The Trouble with Tribbles.” In principle, it’s a perfectly fine twist. The show set it up well enough; there’s past precedent for it in the franchise, and there’s juice in the notion of Burnham having to balance out someone she loves with someone she hates. But the show had just been hinting at this reveal for so long now that it comes off anticlimactic. The stilted Klingon Speech doesn’t come off well when Tyler has to speak regular english instead of denture-assisted roughian. And overall, it’s just underwhelming when all is said and done.
It’s not all bad. While a little predictable, the episode sets up “death by transporter” well enough to subvert it in a clever way with Tyler at the end of the episode, and transmit the Defiant info in the process. The interactions between Burnham and both versions of Saru are more revealing and emblematic of the show’s themes than all the hamfisted dialogue in this one. And Lorca admitting that his judgment may be impaired by his torture, and his sense of someone who’s putting on a steely facade but just barely holding things together.
But overall, “The Wolf Inside” is too on the nose with its themes, too skimpy on using those themes to craft a story that’s compelling and makes sense, too committed to clunky dialogue that drags the whole enterprise down (no pun intended), and too enamored with those wild twists that keep Game of Thrones in the news. I’ve enjoyed Discovery so far, but this episode was a reminded that it could use a scaling back of its efforts to ape its high-class genre show brethren, and more efforts to just be Star Trek.
3.5/10. This was, if you will pardon my french, a shitshow, especially afer how good the last episode was. The plotting was contrived, the acting was off, and the character motivations were haywire.
Let's start with the worst part. Robyn has been an unpleasant character from the moment she's been on our screens. Sure, to some extent that's the point, but it takes any story involving her down a notch from the getgo. She's a very broad character on a show that aims for something approaching naturalism even as it depicts super-strong heroes and mind-controlling villains. While I appreciated Malcom's dliemma (his character has quickly become one of my favorites for his quiet earnestness and strength despite what was done to him), giving Robyn such outsized characteristics and personality quirks just made it hard to have sympathy for her even in what should be a situation filled with pathos for the character.
And my god, how ridiculous was it that this crazy woman is able to not only rally the troops to go after Jessica, that it happens to coincide with Malcolm baring his soul, and that they just so happen to show up at Jessica's when she has Kilgrave on lockdown and things are otherwise fairly stable. The concept of the misguided outsider thinking the hero is the real villain, and that the villain is the victim, thereby freeing the bad guy and unraveling the hero's good work, is such a tired cliche in superhero stories especially. Channeling that story through Robyn was a poor choice especially, and it was all too convenient that it happened when it did. It seemed as though the writers said, "we need something to upset the applecart here, and this is just random enough to do it."
Speaking of convenient, I'm apparently one of the few people who's enjoyed the Hogarth-Wendy-Pam triangle this season, but Pam showing just at the right time to unintentionally kill Wendy was a bridge too far. There were tons of ways you could have had Pam realize that Hogarth is full of crap and realize that she was trying to use Kilgrave to get Wendy to sign the papers without ending up in this contrived, all-too-on-the-nose morality play where Pam ends up in jail. The scenes with just Hogarth and Wendy were actually pretty solid. The combination of Wendy's disgust and woundedness worked, and the "death of a thousand cuts" setup was tense. But the utter plot-convenience of how it ended up, especially with the hamfisted scene in the jail afteward, were facepalmingly bad.
And then what was with crazy Simpson? I mean, I get that he's taking some strange super solider pills, but his going all crazy Riley Finn seems unmotivated. His killing Detective Clemmons and torching the place felt out of character, and even if you can sell it as a Jekyll and Hyde situation with Dr. Koslov's pills, I just didn't buy the actor's performance. The insane incarnation of Simpson just seemed kind of goofy, rather than a deranged extension of the character we already knew. I don't know what to make of him.
Then the flashback with Jessica Jones in the dreamy past was so strange as well. Again, it was an extraordinarily blunt way to deal with the idea that she and Kilgrave look back at things differently. Plus I nearly died of ugh when Jessica said, "I'm all ears." And then we have some weird setup where Kilgrave's dad is trying to make a vaccine and has to use Trish? It's fine in principle, but it all goes so fast and strangely.
Then, of course, there's the end with Hope. I actually like the idea of Jessica allowing lots of collateral damage from Kilgrave's continued existence because Hope is a symbol for her -- of herself, of innocence, of a way she can make herself right with the world, and I like the idea of Hope rejecting that because she's much more pragmatic, her wounds are fresher, and she can't imagine what kind of life she can have now anyway.
But ye gads, did we really need this sort of complicated SAW-like set up from Kilgrave in the restaurant. There's a point in most seasons of Dexter where after the show has spent a great deal of time introducing characters and setting up cool conflicts, you get these more and more elaborate and convoluted setpieces as the cat and mouse game continues and the show keeps throwing more and more balls into the air. I think we reached that point here, and it's not a good look for this show, especially if, as Dexter did, it struggles to stick the landing after all the insanity it invokes.
