Star Trek Discovery 2.13 'Such Sweet Sorrow' review

[fardell24]

Such Sweet Sorrow
The Penultimate episode of season 2. Discovery is evacuated, but that's just the start of the episode. The Enterprise looks cool, but more on that below. Then there is Xahea (or rather, Po). Not sure what to make of her, given I didn't get to see The Runaway. Sarek and Amanda seem to come out of nowhere too (more on that below, also). There is also the Time Crystal, with Burnham having premonitions from it. (Hence Po's device, more on that also. It also seems Reno also sees something yet to come.)
The Sphere Data continuing to protect itself, ensuring that Discovery's self-destruct doesn't work and that the Enterprise's torpedoes don't work, is quite believable, given it doesn't allow itself to be deleted. It doesn't stop Pike and Saru from initiating the self-destruct sequence, or the remote initiation from the Enterprise. The evacuation scene is interesting, but how would such corridors work if a both ships were under fire? Probably something Starfleet would phase out at some later point.
However, it is an impressive scene, and leads to the scenes aboard the Enterprise. Maybe a little bit too much red in the corridors, but otherwise the turbolift and the bridge look rather good. A rather effective update. Discovery can't be destroyed. The solution, send Discovery into the future using the time crystal. Hence, going to Xahea to enlist Po's help in getting it charged. Po seems rather eccentric, but she certainly gets on well with Tilly. Pike's comment about her after he learns that she kept the Dilithium recrystalisation technology to herself was quite apt.
The Sarek and Amanda scenes could stand to have been written better. They were somewhere (Vulcan?) and Sarek senses something, and he and Amanda then leave to go to Xahea, where Discovery would end up. Then they leave before Enterprise gets there (given that Discovery had Spore-jumped there.) A better way to write them in would have been to have Sarek been negotiating with Po about something (Xahea beginning the process of accession to Federation membership, maybe) and then Discovery arrives.
That would have been a better story, and wouldn't impact the flow of the episode too much. (And maybe would have worldbuilt Xahea better. How much power Po has as Queen, for example.) In any case the premonitions obviously relate to the next episode. How the situation will be resolved is still up in the air. Overall it is a good episode, but the Sarek and Amanda portions drag it down a bit. 7.6/10.