December 6, 2018
Burnham and Lorca are summoned to the Emperor Georgiou's ship. Stamet's is in a coma and working with himself to get out of it. Burnhamn deals with Georgiou and unexpected matters.
To get right into it: I thought the twist about Georgiou being the Emperor was the big twist for this season, but it was not. Lorca being from the Mirror Universe caught me completely by surprise. It was not a cheap twist either, it was well earned and thinking back about the season, I can see how they planted hints throughout the season. Well done writers.
That said, this episode was a shorter episode -- about 37 minutes long -- the feel of the episode was quite long. The episode dragged along until the end reveal about Lorca.
The Stamets bits, I can see being needed, but that took longer than necessary. The Tyler thing also was dragged out. I can see this as a bridge episode and setting up things to come for the remainder of the season, but it was rather slow.
I am very happy to see Michelle Yeoh back and playing a radically different role than the one that she was originally introduced as.