ā¢ This episode was directed by Johnathan Frakes, who starred in the ENT episode, āThese Are the Voyagesā¦ā
ā¢ Captain Burnham informs Rayner that the Breen Primarch Tahal is going to be arriving at their location in the next episode. We learned in āErigahā that Tahal occupied Raynerās homeworld, Kelerun, and used it as a staging point.
ā¢ The tool Book is using to help effect repairs on the spore drive looks to be the same one he used as a weapon against Burnham in their fight when the characters first met in āThat Hope Is You, Part 1ā.
ā¢ The Progenitorās technology is contained within a structure carefully balanced at the point where the gravity wells of two black holes intersect, i.e. the Lagrange point. Hey, thatās the title of the episode! Which makes sense, because the rest of the episode must surely be about figuring out how to retrieve the structure from such a precarious position without being crushed, torn apart, or spaghettified by the intense gravimetric interactions. It would be silly if, say, the Breen dreadnought was to show up and simply yoink away the structure with a tractor beam while weāre still in the cold open, and the Lagrange point did not matter for the rest of the episode.
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ The structure containing the Progenitor technology looks like a large barrel. Somewhere in Stoāvoākor, a warrior punches a wall and doesnāt understand why.
ā¢ Moll stores Lāakās body in a portable transport buffer. Trek has been using the transport buffer to store people since Scotty did so in āRelicsā, though the other engineer aboard the USS Jenolan, Franklin, a good lad, pattern degraded too far for him to also be retrieved. Presumably no one would notice if Lāakās pattern degraded over time.
ā¢ Adira mentions having been part of the Earth Defense Force, which is what they were doing when introduced in āPeople of Earthā.
ā¢ Burnhamās plan for infiltrating the Breen dreadnought is to transport through a gap in the shield coverage near an exhaust port. In āPreemptive Strikeā, Ro and a team of Maquis exploited a weak point in the USS Enterprise Dās shields created by the shipās impulse engines to steal medical supplies.
ā¢ Rayner asks Tilly to be his acting first officer while Burnham and Rhys are on the Breen ship. Saru also promoted Tilly to be his acting first officer while she was still an ensign.
ā¢ The away team plans to move around the Breen dreadnought in replicated Breen suits. In āIndiscretionā, Kira and Dukat disguised themselves in stolen Breen suits to infiltrate a work camp.
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ When Burnham activates her helmet, it forms around her head, but her braids are still visible hanging down her back before the transport. Upon arriving on the Breen ship, Burnhamās braids are no longer exposed. Later, when Burnham deactivates the helmet, her braids are already hanging down her back before it starts to dematerialize.
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ Despite being Federation technology, the fake Breen suits still have Breen script in their HUD.
ā¢ Burnham uses the term āachwormā during her bluff, something Primark Ruhn called called the Federation representatives in āErigahā before it became apparent that TāRina speaks the language.
ā¢ Assembled at Federation Headquarters we see:
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ Two Eisenberg-class starships
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ A Saturn-class starship
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ A Merian-class starship
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ Two Mars-class starships
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ One starship of the same class as the USS Dresselhaus
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ One 32nd century Constitution-class starship
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ One 32nd century Intrepid-class starship
ā¢ TāRina suggests sending the USS Mitchell to intercept Tahalās fleet. The Mitchell first appeared in āRubiconā.
Ā Ā Ā ā¢ āA shuttle wouldnāt be remotely capable of engaging her entire fleet.ā President Rillak seems to imply that the Mitchell could conceivably be a match for a Breen fleet, which I would argue is very appropriate for a ship named for Kenneth Mitchell, who played Kol, Kol-Sha, Tenavik, and Aurellio on DIS, and voiced the Tweerk captain, one of Ransomās Starfleet black ops buddies, and a Romulan guard on LDS before his passing.
ā¢ Burnham uses her xenoanthropology specialization to understand that joining a Breen feast day would be considered a good thing to do. Xenoanthropology was established as Burnhamās scientific focus in the series premiere, āThe Vulcan Helloā.
ā¢ Burnham relates the results of her self introspection in āLabyrinthsā to Book.
ā¢ āGrum of osikod,ā is a reference to the Kellerun epic, The Ballad of Krul. Burnham quoted the passage in which itās mentioned to Rayner in āMirrorsā.
ā¢ āOh, holy schnoodle.ā In āChoose Your Painā, Tilly was the first person to say āfuckā in Trek.
ā¢ Before sitting in the captainās chair, Rayner does a one handed variation on the Picard maneuver.
You know, the execution was a little clunky, but I really appreciated the idea that Starfleet would sit around chatting about the situation for the bit, while the Breen would just swing in with a YOLO maneuver.
I definitely appreciated it on that level after the moment had time to sink in. Maybe thatās what bugged me so much about it. Watching sci-fi, I suspend a certain amount of disbelief. When something entirely plausible happens, it just hits me off guard.
How dare these people behave semi-rationally! Weāve got a story to tell!
I know youāre being sarcastic, but that is exactly how I felt for about 15 seconds. š
TFW youāre a little too accustomed to genre conventionsā¦
Edit: And I think we all get that from time to time. Whenās the last time you expected the transporters to work during a high-stakes mission?