Logline
When Captain Burnham is trapped within a “mindscape” designed to test her worthiness to retrieve the Progenitor’s powerful technology, Book, Rayner, and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery must hold off the Breen long enough for her to escape.
Written by: Lauren Wilkinson & Eric J. Robbins
Directed by: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour
Reno partying with Hysperians –– now that is a show I want to watch
I thought the "challenge" was a little on the obvious side, but then it's the sort of thing that would be obvious to someone not undergoing it.
Book's reaction to the Kweijian artifact was probably David Ajala's best work on the series so far, really great stuff.
Moll usurped the Primarch perhaps a little too easily, but I like Eve Harlow's performance enough that I really don't care.
Lastly, it's a small thing, but I thought the Badlands looked really great. They finally seem as hellish as they've always been described.
I thought that the twist to Burnham's mindscape challenge would have been that she needed to empathize with others, and thus take a look at what Book was reading the whole damn time.
Turns out holographic facsimiles of people you know get bored, too.
Something about the former Primarch really reminds me of Sarris from Galaxy Quest.
Sonequa gave possibly her best performance of the whole series in this episode. I know everyone makes fun of how much Burhnam cries, and like- it is a lot, but this time it really felt like she was being maximally vulnerable.
Also I really liked the Klingon(?) lady. Did not expect that to be her personality based on the promo pics.
Annotations for 5x08 up at: https://startrek.website/post/10307058