LOVED IT! Loved it! Loved it! They stuck the landing! Which is something I have not said about any prior Disco season!
It is interesting to read all the comments critiquing a lack of consequences. Last week, I was someone posting "Book better die or be off the show for this to work!", but as I watched this finale, I realized I no longer held that view. That's not what this show is.
All these seasons, I've just really been wanting Discovery to find it's own identity, find a clear vision of what it wants to be, and this season it finally has. Some aspects of this identity are ridiculous, but the same has been true of every Trek series (and affectionately mocking the specific ridiculousness of each is part of the fun).
But Discovery has arrived at being a show that is all about feeling and affirmation and self-care and positivity and love and found family.
So it can't also be the show that lands it's season arc with lots of death and punishment. If it did, we would just be back to Disco being a schizophrenic show that's always undercutting itself with it's many contradictory ideas.
When Book's transporter beam first blinked out, I thought "that is too mean for this show." Book being rematerialized -- that fits with the clear vision Disco has created for itself this year, and I am here for it!
A couple of nitpicks/thoughts:
I was disappointed that there were no real consequences. No one died, except for the villain, who they probably didn't need to kill off anyway. I was really hoping Detmer would have been the one to make the sacrifice, because it would have paid off the earlier plot point of Michael being "unfit" for command because she couldn't make the hard choice.
She finally does make the hard choice, and it's immediately undercut by the General taking Detmer's place... and in the end, nothing happens anyway. They didn't even want to kill off Booker, so it's like she beat the Kobayashi Maru without learning anything.
That said, my god, can't we actually have some fucking consequences here??? Everyone pretty much gets off the hook for everything. The episode teases on multiple occasions Book's death, but ultimately he survives. Then it drops that he's arrested, and he's left off with "community service." Reno gets off (which I expected). They say someone needs to be sacrificed to stop Tarka, and for 10 seconds it seems like Detmer is going to do it, then Ndoye volunteers to rectify her mistakes - and survives anyway. Stamets says they have to destroy the Spore Drive and it will take decades to get home, and then 10-C decides to send them to Earth anyway. Ultimately the only losses were Tarka and...Book's ship?!? I don't need to have a body count for season finales, but decisions should have consequences, and this is a consequence free finale, where everyone is happy at the end and goes off on vacation, as if the writers were concerned we would be traumatized if there was the slightest bit of bittersweet here.
If anyone was to be killed off, I think the "right" one would have been Ndoye. She's peripheral enough that her death would not specifically shatter one of our regular heroes, and she fucked up soooooo severely that it makes sense she is compelled to sacrifice herself as penance, and we know and like her enough that her death would have meaning. I did think they missed their window for "consequences" with her.
But then it was so lovely to see her moment with President Stacey Abrams that I was even relieved Ndoye survived!
