Star Trek: Discovery - Terra Firma Part 2 Review

DIS "Terra Firma Part 2"

"Terra Firma Part 2" is an episode with a laser focus on Georgiou's character that stands on the shoulders of giants - specifically, two iconic Star Trek episodes. We'll get to what those two episodes are. But the headline is that after Part 1, which surrounded Georgiou with the posturing nastiness of the Terran Empire and only at the end set up the shape of the story, Part 2 finds Georgiou and the show working toward constructive goals.

Georgiou's goal: to try, with a remarkably earnest line in monologues about a shining Federation in place of an Empire, reshaping the Empire and her daughter Michael Burnham into something humane. Good luck!

The show's goal: to send off the Georgiou character from the show, highlighting her personal growth and setting her up for a potential spinoff.

Georgiou's attempts to reform Burnham are doomed to fail, but a convincing veneer of progress is made, with touching motherly anecdotes, and yes, also copious amounts of torture and entreating Burnham to execute conspirators against the throne. Building on her bond with Saru in Part 1, Georgiou also blows his mind with knowledge that reframes his entire understanding of Kelpien life.

In the end, it's revealed that the entire experience was an exercise, a test of sorts within Georgiou's head, to weigh the scales of her soul. It's a logical twist, and in fact the only way to make this backward-looking story work. Georgiou lived a crucible of several months in the span of a minute or so, aligning her experience to Picard's in "The Inner Light".

It's also revealed that the mysterious Carl with his metaphysical door is none other than the Guardian of Forever. In my review last week, I called Carl and the door "a workaday Guardian of Forever", which was not so much a prediction but an observation. But taken as prediction, it paid off! (There is also a hint of tragic future backstory for the Guardian, who was abused by bad actors during the Temporal Cold War.) So "Terra Firma Part 2" gives Georgiou "The Inner Light" experience and "The City on the Edge of Forever" treatment. (Not to mention "Mirror Mirror"...)

The episode's main business is lowering the curtain on Georgiou's time on Discovery, sending her back to a time when the Prime and Mirror Universes were more closely aligned (read: original series time). And so the episode ends with a touching toast to what Georgiou meant to the crew and the show. A Michelle Yeoh-less Discovery is not a joyful thought, but the show closed the door on her well. 7/10.

Stray observations:

- In one of her scenes with Saru, Georgiou wears a blinding gold robe like she's Supreme Leader Snoke himself. Another Star Wars villain connection: last week she said, "Long live the Empire", which Moff Gideon was heard to say just a few weeks ago on The Mandalorian.

- Look at Georgiou being all Shakespearean and using the word "orison".

- Title sequence is upside down, get it?