History TearJerker / StarTrekDiscovery

* Kwejian has been destroyed. Book's brother and nephew are most likely dead, along with most (if not all) of their people.

* Even if Mirror Detmer might (or might not?) have been evil and just trying to save her own skin, it's oddly heart-wrenching to see the pained shock in her eyes when Michael suddenly stabs her. Made especially poignant as Detmer had tried to comfort Michael while she was in the brig, as she likely was one of Michael's closest friends and confidants (if not actually the closest). Detmer may also have been the only Terran (other than Georgiou, who's also had the benefit of living in the Prime universe) shown to display emotions like concern and affection, rather than simple bloodlust or cruelty.

* Georgiou’s video will, made before Michael seemingly ruined everything, talking about how proud she is of her, like Michael was her own daughter. You can ''tell'' that Michael is feeling “[[Recap/StarTrek S2E1AmokTime I have killed my captain and my friend]]”.

[[AC: "The Vulcan Hello"]]

* Landry suffers an absolutely ''brutal'' mauling by "Ripper" when she tries to sedate the tardigrade and take one of its claws by force. Burnham gets her an emergency transport back to sickbay, but all Dr. Culber can do about her [[BodyHorror extensive injuries]] is to apply a MercyKill via hypospray and move on.

** Stamets realising the reason Hugh is trapped in the network is that Paul bought him there himself in his fugue state. Having briefly woken up, he found Hughs dead body, and subconsciously pulled his energy into the network while cradling him and crying. It's not a fun flashback.

** Special mention goes to the moment where he blows up at Paul, leading to Pauls voice cracking over asking Hugh why he's so angry at him.

* The pride and joy of everyone moving out to start a new chapter in the Federation is marred by one person - Stamets. While he's very thankful to be reunited with Hugh and Adira, he's still hurting that Burnham did was she did last episode.

** We see what caused the Burn - Su'Kal accidentally deactivating the holo environment and seeing his dying mother, who begs him to wait for the Federation before the radiation finally kills her. Su'Kal's grief at what happened caused him to send out the subspace pulse that wiped out almost everything. The entire universe was nearly sent into a Dark Age because of ''one'' child's immeasurable sorrow.
** Gray's panic and terror knowing that they have to turn off the holo, because he'll disappear again and he can't go back to no one except Adira seeing him.

* Stamets is desperate to rescue Hugh from the nebula, not only for himself but for Adira. Then Burnham tells him that Adira left the ship to help Hugh. He becomes so distraught he immediately begins prepping ''Discovery'' for a jump despite the fact that the ship is still under the Emerald Chain's control. Burnham has to physically restrain him and finally neck pinch him to stop him. She has to get him off the ship so that Osyraa can't use the spore drive to escape, and knows he won't leave the ship willingly, so seals him in an emergency forcefield before setting her phaser to overload and cause a hull breach. Just before the phaser goes off, he gives her an absolutely ''blistering'' WhatTheHellHero speech through clear emotional agony.