Picking up immediately where “Terra Firma, Part 1” left off, this week’s conclusion explores Emperor Georgiou’s efforts to reshape her empire and save her own life and continues Discovery’s attempts to solve the mystery of a stranded Kelpien science vessel that may hold the key to The Burn.

Georgiou’s return to her native universe continues to be campy and lush and fun, but unfortunately also uneven and less meaningful than it could be (but more on that later). Instead of executing the traitorous Burnham like any proper Terran would, Georgiou embarks on a mission to rehabilitate Burnham by… subjecting her to months of intense torture.

It’s an odd way to show mercy, affection, and growth, even for a notorious hardass like Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), but it seems to work. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) professes her renewed loyalty to the emperor and is sent on a campaign of retribution, systematically killing everyone aboard Discovery who was part of the failed coup, including Landry, Rhys, Detmer, and a slew of others.

Whether Georgiou’s strange mix of gentleness and terror was evidence of her trying to find a balance between showing mercy and showing weakness, or the show was simply trying to keep her motives shrouded in mystery, I’m not sure. Either way, I found myself questioning Georgiou as much as I was rooting for her, and that felt odd.

Her decision to grant Kelpians a degree of autonomy and biological agency by explaining to Saru (Doug Jones) that the vahar’ai is not only survivable, but also ultimately positive was a step in the right direction, no question. But Georgiou still seemed bent on the use of manipulation and domination as a means of control, both on an individual and a wider cultural level.

Perhaps there was only so much that could change in a three-month period… or perhaps the show has decided that it’s the thought that counts here.

Once Burnham has cleaned up the remnants of the coup aboard Discovery, the only major player left to find is Gabriel Lorca, who continues to exist — in name only — as a return appearance for Season 1 star Jason Isaacs never actually materializes. The closest we get to him is a lieutenant who, once aboard, gives Burnham the opening she’s been waiting for.

Whether or not she was ever actually broken by Georgiou’s regimen of torture, Burnham is less than impressed with the new, slightly gentler version of Georgiou she’s been spending her time with. Kelpien is off the menu, and the Emperor has decided that constant oppression may not be the most effective way to rule a galaxy… and well, Burnham just can’t stand for that.

A big fight scene ensues that includes Saru and some other post-vahar’ai berserker Kelpians swooping in to defend the emperor from a bunch of rebellious Discovery crewmembers Georgiou impaling “her” Burnham with a wobbly CGI sword, and ends with Georgiou waking up to find herself back in the snow with our prime-universe Michael Burnham and the ever-mysterious Carl (Paul Guilfoyle).

Was it all a dream? Well not quite, since Georgiou’s funky FitBit has recorded three month’s worth of biometric readings, despite her only being unconscious in the snow for less than a minute. But it also wasn’t a linear trip back in time to change or correct the past — instead, that thanks to Carl, Georgiou has created a splintered version of the Mirror Universe timeline, one in which the Terran Empire is perhaps a little less brutal… and in which Kelpians have learned they can survive the vahar’ai.

As a side note, I do have to wonder about the ethical implications of creating an entirely new timeline filled with trillions of lives just to see if one person learned a lesson — especially when the original timeline full of suffering won’t see any of the benefit. Duplicating something bad just to see if you can make it a little less bad this time around still results in a net increase of badness.

(For sure I am thinking too hard about this, but I’m thinking about it nonetheless.)

While Georgiou is still trying to make sense of what exactly is going on and why, Carl finally confirms — or reveals, depending on whether the scant clues we picked through last week were enough — that he is, in fact, the Guardian of Forever. The simple wooden door transforms into the iconic (yet reimagined-for-Discovery) stone time portal first seen 53 years ago in the Original Series classic “The City on the Edge of Forever,” complete with archival audio from original voice actor Bart LaRue.

Georgiou is given the opportunity for passage back to a time when the Prime and Mirror Universes were much closer to each other than they are now, meaning that her temporal and interdimensional psychosis should abate (enough for her star in her own spin-off show, at least).

So why the quick trip back to the Mirror Universe? Why not just passively let Georgiou leap through the same way McCoy, Kirk, and Spock did? After being weaponized as an easy means of time travel during the oft-mentioned Temporal Wars, the Guardian packed up and moved to a faraway planet and decided folks would need to pass a test before he’d let them use the gateway.

By demonstrating that Georgiou’s time in the Prime universe has softened some of her edges and that she is a person ultimately driven by love for her daughter instead of love for power, she’s passed the test she didn’t know she was taking and the Guardian will allow her — and only her — passage.

(The story reasons for the Guardian declining to send the rest of the Discovery crew back to their original time are obvious, but the Guardian’s motivations within the story are opaque and Burnham doesn’t push.)

After a touching goodbye, one that’s so touching it seems borderline out of character for Georgiou — even the less ruthless version of her we saw grow and develop over her three-month side trip to the Mirror Universe — Georgiou steps through the portal and disappears. Godspeed Georgiou, I look forward to seeing you again whenever your solo show actually starts filming.

Meanwhile back on Discovery — the prime Discovery — Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Adira (Blu del Barrio) get some unexpected but very welcome help from Book (David Ajala) while they continue to try and refine the message coming from the Verubin Nebula.

Taking to heart Saru’s statement that Book needs to prove himself if he wants to stay aboard the ship permanently, Book uses a stolen Emerald Chain-built subspace amplifier to give Saru the additional information he was waiting for before going to Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr) with the finding.

Vance isn’t thrilled that Emerald Chain technology was involved, or that Saru waited a bit before bringing him in, but ultimately Vance is pleased with the developments. Even so, after all this, we still haven’t really learned much about this ship or the mysterious music or nebula or The Burn.

The episode — and Georgiou’s time on Discovery — wraps up with a casual memorial in the mess hall. Conceptually it’s a nice moment for the cast to celebrate their departing friend Michelle Yeoh; but for all the pomp and ceremony presiding over her empire in her universe, I suspect Georgiou would prefer folks to knock back a few drinks her honor and move on.

(The woman was practically allergic to sentimentality.)

But in practice, the scene seemed to have forgotten just how prickly and acerbic — and at times downright mean — Georgiou not only could be, but took pride in being. I don’t doubt that some of the people present truly would miss Georgiou, but I have to think that there are those among the crew who are relieved they no longer have to work with someone who took such joy in belittling them.

Not to mention, of course, the whole “enslaver of entire species, subjugator of countless worlds, enthusiastic eater of people” thing that Discovery never really addressed; past a vague “boy that was something, huh?” attitude to her whole reign as Emperor, the show truly never put time into making this version of the character anywhere close to one that would worthy of that kind of tear-filled send-off.

On a less character-driven note, I also found the impact of Georgiou’s departure to be dulled somewhat by the fact that this two-part episode was specifically positioning her for the long awaited Section 31 series. It’s a bit difficult to connect with the sense of grief and loss shared by the crew when I, as an audience member, know she’ll be back.

This sense that the “Terra Firma” story is both an end — and a starting point — undermined the emotional impact of the story in some ways. It seemed like Georgiou’s journey into the Guardian was supposed to be the first step of an exciting journey, but bifurcating the tone between that new adventure — and the Discovery crew mourning the loss of a friend (albeit a scary one) — muddled that effect.

As fun as they were at times, the two-part “Terra Firma” tale felt like a story that the show needed just get past for purely logistical purposes. How do we create a series featuring a character who’s currently stuck in the 32nd century? Grant her a sudden, miraculous, and conveniently-irreversible ticket back in time to… whenever.

Now that that’s checked off the season’s to-do list, the show can get back to The Burn and everything going on with Starfleet, even though it was pretty anticlimactic here in the second half of the story.

(And honestly, the two-parter felt a lot like a long, single episode that got broken in half during editing, requiring the Book-and-Saru stuff to pad out the running time to fill two hours. It was all just so… anticlimactic.)

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

• I have a lot of questions about Carl — a name inspired by, apparently, Carl Sagan — questions that come not from a place of criticism but from curiosity.
   
  As a Guardian (the Guardian?), is Carl the man simply a helpful personification of the gateway — like a UI — or is he a separate being who attends to and administers the gateway? How much autonomy does Carl have?
   
  He can move from place to place but it appears that he couldn’t prevent people from using the gateway during the Temporal Wars, though he could introduce a loophole over which he exerts control. Or perhaps it wasn’t that he couldn’t prevent the gateway from being used, but simply that he didn’t, and he lives with a regret similar to that of Georgiou?
   
• The opening credits sequence is both flipped vertically and color-inverted, in a callback to the altered Mirror Universe titles used in “In a Mirror, Darkly” during the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise – though in this case, there’s no alternate theme song or new footage included.
   
• The monitor on which Georgiou watches Burnham’s torture in the agony booth greatly resembles the Tantalus Field device that was located in Captain Kirk’s quarters on the ISS Enterprise in “Mirror, Mirror” – including the iconic teardrop-shaped button — though the enemy-eliminating functionality doesn’t appear here.

• Shout-out to the Mirror Universe Denobulans – the first mention of the Enterprise-era race since that show’s conclusion – who Burnham expects to be brave enough to join the rebellion against the Terran Empire.
   
• Stamets rightfully asks Reno where she’s been for the last several episodes, since she hasn’t been seen since “Die Trying.” Her response? She’s been here the whole time – conveniently off-screen, of course, thanks to Tig Notaro’s only-occasionally-appearing contract with the show. (I do appreciate a good fourth-wall breaking moment!)
   
• We see planet Risa from orbit from the first time since “Two Days and Two Nights” in 2002; the planet now has rings, unlike its prior appearance. One more difference in the Mirror Universe!
   
• Ellen Landry’s Terran Starfleet serial number is PWH5261-7126SS; Ronald Bryce’s is EUR4000-7524xxx (last three characters illegible).
   
• Lorca’s alias is revealed to be ‘Vicar,’ which Georgiou notes as meaning “substitute” – a veiled reference to the man’s eventual role as a secret Mirror Universe replacement for Starfleet’s Captain Lorca aboard the prime-universe USS Discovery.

After what felt like a two-episode detour, I look forward to seeing if — and how — this third season is going to wrap up the plot threads about Book’s place on Discovery, his relationship with Burnham, Adira and Grey, The Burn, the Emerald Chain, and the current and future state of the Federation.

With with just three episodes left, I don’t expect — or even hope, really — that everything will be tied up in a nice bow by the end of this season, but I do hope the story moment that lost its momentum these last two weeks can be regained as the show heads into the final stretch of the season.

Star Trek: Discovery returns Thursday, December 24 on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International viewers get the episode December 25 on Netflix, in all other global regions.