1) Ugh.
2) Don't even know why I'm doing this. Must be a glutton for punishment.
3) This was boring enough the first time around, let alone in flashback.
4) Tatiana Maslany doing her best 'freaked the **** out' for Anisha here.
5) First Trek trope of the day, comms are back up for a short burst.
6) And another trope, shared by most of sci-fi to be fair, with writers having absolutely no sense of scale.
7) MCU level stakes being reiterated for the audience. I am begging,
begging at this point for nuTrek writers to quit with this kind of crap.
8) Discovery's spore drive out of the question because [reasons]
9) Bored. Bored. Bored bored bored bored bored...
10) That's about it for comms. But Vance and Thok going to get some last exposition in.
11) Gotta love single points of failure!
12) Yes, yes. How about we just get on with it? Wouldn't that be a novel idea, just getting on with a plan rather than wanging on incessantly about that plan?
13) Incoming.
14) The excitement. The drama. The crushing boredom.
15) Witless dialogue is witless.
16) Lord this script even sucked all the life out of Tig Notaro, huh?
17) I would laugh quite hard if this episode had the balls to leave the cadets in here the entire time while the adults save the day. That won't happen of course but it would be, at least, vaguely realistic. Mind, I'd laugh a lot harder if they all died.
18) Meanwhile, on the bridge. An explosion. Because that's
always dramatic and not at all a boring and wildly overused trope, eh?
19) Quick pause - the Doctor got tossed by that explosion. I know Trek holograms have a physical presence, but really? They have the same kind of mass and inertia as a regular ol' living being? I reckon by rights he should probably have been rooted to that seat when everyone else went flying.
20) A spot more witless dialogue.
21) Yeah, I'm even kinda over Paul Giamatti's Paul Giamatti-ing. It's great in lots of productions, but here? In what's supposed to be Star Trek?
22) Exposition.
23) Jesus H. tapdancing
Christ can we just get on with it? Eight and a half minutes in, and there's been about three minutes of plot.
24) Pause. Need tea, and paracetamol.
25) Back. And the witless dialogue remains witless.
26) You know, I can understand ol' Nustopher there. In his position, if I heard the computer chime in about a warp core breach being imminent I'd think it was a ruse too. Because nuTrek characters almost never have more than one idea in an entire season, so would definitely reuse the same tactic from earlier.
27) Welp, turns out that Nahla does indeed have another idea in her. How exciting.
28) Doc's mobile emitter. Hooray for continuity!
29) So they're going to use holographic trickery then. Wholesale ripping off of other works continues at pace, this time the victim being Diane Carey's (fairly terrible, but it was early in her career) Trek novel "Dreadnought".
30) And all they had to do to see through this plan was actually hang around for a few more seconds after they 'destroyed' the Athena. Got lucky there, then.
31) Bridge flamethrowers still working. It's like being at a Nightwish gig

32) Reno explaining what the Doctor did. Lots of Treknobabble that boils down to
deus a medico 
33) And he's back, but has hologram aphasia.
34) Jay-Den sent on his way to do medicine. On a hologrammatic doctor.
*sigh*
35) Well, Tig's trying. Gawd bless 'er.
36) Caleb going with 'moody ****'. Because that's helpful.
37) Witless dialogue continues unabated.
38) 1/8th impulse is less than 1,000km/sec according to Reymi. Quick pause. So, impulse speeds have never really been nailed down too hard but full impulse has been commonly held by fandom to be 0.25C. 1/8th of that would be 0.03125C, or 3.125% of light speed. Now, as any fool knows 3.125% of light speed is significantly more than 1,000km/sec - it's nearer 9,375km/sec in fact. But, as I say - impulse speeds have never been firmly established and they could even scale differently than 1:1 with 1/8th, 1/4th, etc. Certainly we've seen impulse used in situations that had a ship moving pretty slowly (see the sixth film, and Kirk ordering impulse power inside Spacedock).
39) Though Reno's mentioning thrusters. Did the writers confuse the two, impulse and thrusters? Are the two part of the same tech in the 32nd century? Who the hell knows, the show certainly isn't going to let us in on things like that.
40) So, everyone has their assignment. This happy few, this band of brothers and sisters and all points in-between and outside.
41) Back with our antagonist, who is wanging on about something. Honestly not paying a lot of attention to his dialogue at this point, there doesn't seem much point in doing so.
42) Nahla reassuring Anisha. Doesn't look like she's massively reassured, but we'll see.
43) As we're 'treated' to a bit more of Braka wanging on I find myself slipping into a light coma.
44) The grand plan, such as I can make out from all this noise, is that Braka wants to put the Federation on trial for allegedly destroying his colony world and killing his father. And if that sounds out of character to you for even the Federation of the post-Burn universe then I'm right with you. Stand by for the plot non-twist about how it wasn't them at all.
45) Oh, and Braka clearly wants to lead his own Federation. With hookers, and blackjack.
46) Over on what's left of the Athena, a new wrinkle provides a teaching moment. Or at least would, if they weren't busy panicking and falling out with each other.
47) Everyone tossed around. And Tarima's lost her inhibitor.
48) "It's not easy to total a shuttle." Reno obviously right out of the Voyager school of crashing shuttles!
49) Reno still teaching. And giving Lythe the conn, while Reno and Caleb go try and patch up the warp core again.
50) Pause.
Oh. My. *******. God
If there was a line that is just emblematic of the writing issues this series has, it's right there.
"Wait...I think I have to pee."
How can
anyone involved in making this show think that what that moment needed was a quip about bodily functions. This isn't Deadpool. This isn't Suicide Squad. This isn't a Wayans brothers spoof. This is - allegedly - Star Trek. What was wrong with just having Lythe steel herself and sit in the chair? But no. So the button on the scene becomes "...I have to pee." Outstanding work, everyone. Way to hustle.

51) More Braka and Nahla back-and-forth. And back-and-forth. And back-and-forth. And...
52) Shifting back to the Athena, and Treknobabble.
53) 'Reserve' nacelles?
54) Caleb's 'oh, woe is me' act makes me homicidal.
55) Reno delivering home truths.
56) *strangled screaming*
57) Anisha and Nahla now doing the back-and-forth.
58) Tatiana Maslany so far doing a better acting job than many of the regular cast.
59) Pity that the script can't match her ability. Or, indeed, that of anyone here in this episode.
60) Back on the Athena, and Jay-Den has finished defragmenting (*Spock eyebrow*) the Doctor. Who still isn't sorted.
61) "She needs you."

62) Lythe abandoning the conn to go support SAM.
63) For the love of all that's holy I need this writing to just
stop.
64) *insert gif of Jed Bartlet beating his head against the Oval Office desk*
65) *and again*
66) Title drop.
67) And now Rubi
ncon makes sense.
68) Jesus this computer is ******* slow.
69) Sex position joke.
70) Caleb and Tarima in their little headspace.
71) Going to get Tarima to use the Force to find Anisha.
72) I'm pretty sure that all that bit served to do was bring an already slow episode to a complete halt.
73)
Deus e palatio mentis, I guess?
74) *hums "Careless Whisper" to himself*
75) Exposition.
76) Ah. That's Reno's "go" phrase then. Not as awful as some on nuTrek have been, to be fair.
77) Trek is getting a bit fond of that 'drop out of warp into the upper layer of a gas giant' bit.
78) Exposition. And got Braka's broadcast on now as well.
79) Nahla vamping for time.
80) Trek as social commentary. Not done very well, but let us at least applaud them for trying.
81) Still going.
82) Braka back to wanging on.
83) Caleb incoming.
84) Athena crew hard at work.
85) Caleb now the one vamping.
86) SAM still algorithm-ing.
87) On and on and on it goes.
88) Braka attempting to stomp on the moment.
89) Nahla and Caleb joining up to break Braka's hold on proceedings. With the key being the colour of the weapons. Because these hacks so desperately want this to be Star Wars, where everything is colour-coded for good versus evil

Oh, and there's your twist from 44).
90) Braka would apparently rather scream about ending things than just...end things.
91) Giving SAM time to finish their work.
92) Here comes the cavalry.
93) Some gratuitous punching of Braka. Pretty sure that's against a few conventions regarding treatment of prisoners.
94) The wrap-up.
95) 'Witty' conversation about forks.
96) I assume that they commuted Anisha's sentence then, since she's free? Did I miss that?
97) Caleb voiceover to finish this dreck off.
98) And I'm done.