Line #32 Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS2E13SuchSweetSorrow


1	The U.S.S. ''Enterprise'' arrives to aid the ''Discovery'' as her crew prepares to abandon the ship, while Control's forces close in to secure the rest of the Sphere's data.
2	----
3	!!Tropes in this episode:
4	* AbandonShip: Pike, Saru, Burnham, and the rest of the crew evacuate ''Discovery'' before activating the SelfDestructMechanism to try to keep the Sphere data in the ship's memory banks out of Control's [[AIIsACrapshoot artificially-intelligent]] hands.
5	* AllJustADream: Of sorts; Burnham witnesses a BadFuture through the time crystal in which both ''Discovery'' and ''Enterprise'' are beaten by Control's forces and Leland kills her personally-- before snapping back to the bridge of the ''Enterprise''.
6	* BackForTheFinale: Jett Reno (Creator/TigNotaro) and Admiral Katrina Cornwell (Jayne Brook) show up after dipping in and out of the season repeatedly, as does Georgiou. Additionally, Queen Po comes over from the ''Short Treks'', the second character to do so.
7	* BadFuture: By touching the time crystal, Burnham witnesses a future where Control's forces overwhelm ''Discovery'', followed by Leland-Control boarding the ship and slaughtering the bridge crew.
8	* BreatherEpisode: {{Downplayed}}-- there's plenty of important stuff going on, but it's all prep work for next epsiode, when all hell ''really'' breaks loose.
9	* CallBack: Tilly brings [[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryShortTreksE01Runaway a bowl of spumoni ice cream]] to the transporter room for Po.
10	* CallForward: The episode strongly implies that their plan to send ''Discovery'' into the future is what leads to her abandoned state in "[[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryShortTreksE02Calypso Calypso]]".
11	* CuttingTheKnot:
12	** When the Sphere database disables ''Discovery'''s auto-destruct, Pike initially intends to try destroying the ship from the ''Enterprise''. After witnessing the BadFuture, Burnham convinces Pike not to try this.
13	** The time crystal is placed into something like a Faraday cage to keep it from giving everyone traumatic visions of the future, but this slows its charging time. Reno solves the problem by telling Stamets and Tilly to lock her in the room alone so that only one person, herself, is exposed to the potentially traumatic effects.
14	* FailsafeFailure: The remote auto-destruct fails to work because the Sphere data hijacks the ship's systems to protect itself.
15	* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Since ''Discovery'' must survive to [[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryShortTreksE02Calypso meet Craft in the far future]], by dramatic necessity the attempts to scuttle her are doomed to failure. How she ends up completely abandoned, however, remains to be seen-- especially when the bridge crew intend to remain aboard to help Burnham take the ship to the future.
16	* ForgottenPhlebotinum: In classic ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fashion, the mere existence of the spore drive renders most of this two-parter pointless: instead of spore-jumping to Xahea to get help charging the time crystal faster, the ''Discovery'' could have jumped to some location like [[Series/StarTrekVoyager the Delta Quadrant]] or literally anywhere else past the feasible range of standard warp drives, where Control's ships couldn't possibly have caught up to them within a human lifetime. So [[RuleOfCool naturally]] the drive's previously established capabilities are ignored in favor of fighting an operationally unnecessary BigBadassBattleSequence against impossible odds, mostly because the plot thread of Control hanging around needed to be resolved somehow.
17	* FromBadToWorse: Number One reports to Captain Pike that nine more enemy ships have dropped out of warp to confront ''Discovery'' and the ''Enterprise'', on top of the fleet that has already been assembling in the system.
18	* HeroicSacrifice:
19	** ''Discovery's'' bridge crew, joined by Nhan, decide to join Burnham in taking the ship to the future, even though they'll be stranded there.
20	** Commander Reno orders everyone else to leave Engineering and exposes herself to the effects of the time crystal in order to get it charged in time for Control's arrival.
21	* IChooseToStay:
22	** Nhan chooses to stay aboard ''Discovery'' and accompany her crew to the future.
23	** Conversely, Tyler chooses to stay in the 23rd century and make sure that Section 31 is never compromised again.
24	* InsufferableGenius: Queen Po continues this trend from her last appearance, although the only character that she's particularly insufferable towards is Mirror-Georgiou.
25	* InternalReveal:
26	** Tilly reveals that she met Queen Po, confusing the hell out of everyone (since they never knew that Po was aboard ''Discovery'' before).
27	** Mirror-Georgiou explains her true origins to Pike, but he already knows about the MirrorUniverse and had guessed as much.
28	---> '''Georgiou:''' I'm Terran, by the way. From your Mirror Universe.\
29	'''Pike:''' ''(dematerializing)'' What Mirror Universe? ''(winks)''
30	* ItCanThink: Burnham realizes this about the Sphere database aboard ''Discovery'', and concludes that trying to destroy it would be futile.
31	* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Pike's final address to the ''Discovery'' crew.
32	-->'''Pike:''' Serving as your captain has been one of the greatest honors of my career. You are exceptional officers. Exceptional individuals. Every single one of you. Lieutenants Detmer and Owosekun, I wouldn't be here if [[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS2E01Brother you hadn't saved my life on the way to that asteroid]]. Lieutenant Nilsson, you stepped up for Airiam in a way that honors her. Lieutenants Bryce and Rhys, you're calm under pressure. And Commander Saru... I'm gonna miss the hell out of you. Lieutenant Spock... there are no words.[...] ''(to Burnham)'' And as for you... most people will never get a chance to learn what's in their own hearts. If we figure it out, it's often not what we expected, or even what we would have chosen for ourselves. I am very grateful, Commander, to have been here to watch you discover your heart. Thank you. I know that you... ''(to the bridge crew)'' I know that all of you will face your destinies with bravery and honor, even those moments to come that will test the strongest among us.
33	** The bridge officers then respond by standing at attention for Pike's departure.
34	* NoMacGuffinNoWinner: Since destroying ''Discovery'' is no longer an option, Burnham hits on the idea of just launching it 1000 years into the future, where Control can never reach it.
35	* NoWrongAnswersExceptThatOne: When everyone's trying to figure out how to generate the colossal amount of energy needed to power the Red Angel suit, Georgiou recommends finding a nova and shooting an anti-matter missile into its core. Appalled, Saru points out that this would wipe out all life within several ''dozen'' light years to which Georgiou flippantly responds "yeah."
36	-->'''Burnham:''' We're not doing that.
37	-->'''Georgiou:''' I thought there were no bad ideas?
38	-->'''Pike:''' That's a lie.
39	-->'''Cornwell:''' That's a bad one.
40	* OneWayTrip: Burnham's solution to the indestructible Sphere data remains [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture sending it far into the future]], which she intends to do by driving the Red Angel suit. Since this will overload the time crystal, ItOnlyWorksOnce.
41	* PlotDrivenBreakdown: In order to charge the time crystal enough to use it, the crew have to pull the power directly from the spore drive, which prevents them from using it to simply escape Control's fleet.
42	* ProperlyParanoid: Number One had the ''Enterprise'' shuttles retrofitted for combat and picked up Starfleet's experimental fighters because she [[CrazyPrepared assumed that things would go south]].
43	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Discussed by Po, who would rather be aboard the ''Discovery'' protecting Xahea and ensuring that everything goes to plan, rather than "wave a hanky from [her] throne".
44	* SelfDestructMechanism: [[TwoKeyedLock Pike and Saru]] try using this to destroy ''Discovery''. It fails when ''Discovery'' herself refuses to be destroyed.
45	* SentientPhlebotinum: The Sphere database proves itself to be this, shutting down the ''Discovery'''s self-destruct sequence to protect its own existence and activating the ship's shields to prevent ''Enterprise'' from destroying her with torpedoes.
46	* ShoutOut: Perhaps an unintentional one, but the BigBad barging into the vessel's bridge and gunning down the main crew before the lead character ends up back in time to avert the catastrophe sounds eerily similar to the ending of ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' (except with time crystals instead of the Omega-13).
47	* ShutUpHannibal: Po casually puts Mirror-Georgiou in her place after one too many sarcastic comments.
48	-->'''Po:''' One of the fun things about becoming queen of the most politically relevant planet in the galaxy is that I don't have to listen to any snark. [[NotHyperbole I made it an actual law.]]
49	* SoProudOfYou: Sarek and Amanda express this to Burnham in a brief visit to ''Discovery''.
50	* SpottingTheThread: The senior officers conclude that Burnham, not her mother, must be the source of the red signals, since Gabrielle was focused solely on keeping the Sphere data out of the hands of Control, and knew nothing about the source of the signals themselves-- while the Red Angel suit included two sets of neural patterns, including both Michael and Gabrielle.
51	* StarKilling: When Burnham recalls that her parents used a stellar lensing array -- to power the Red Angel suit's time crystal, as she later discovered -- [[TokenEvilTeammate Mirror-Georgiou suggests using an antimatter missile to trigger a supernova]] to achieve the same effect. Cornwell, Pike, and the others [[EverybodyHasStandards shoot this idea down]] in short order.
52	* TrueCompanions: The ''Discovery'' family comes together one more time. Remaining aboard to help Burnham with her SuicideMission are Saru, Detmer, Owosekun, Bryce, Rhys, Nilsson, Nhan, Stamets, Tilly, Reno, Po, Spock, and an unnamed Osnullus -- who, despite this act of UndyingLoyalty, has yet to get lines. Or a name.
53	* VideoWill: We see a montage of several of the main characters recording goodbye messages to family and friends.
54	* WalkAndTalk: And eat ice cream.
55	--> '''Pike:''' Can you eat and walk? I'll fill you in on the way.\
56	'''Po:''' Mm-hmm.
57	* WheresTheKaboom: Everyone has this reaction when ''Discovery's'' auto-destruct timer hits zero and no explosion follows.

Context Recap / StarTrekDiscoveryS2E13SuchSweetSorrow