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General Anderson was doing the best job he knew how to do, with a Superman who clearly didn't trust him. But Anderson is classic military, as much so as General Lane: As honorable as he is hard-nosed. When he realizes he is wrong about people or a situation, he owns up to it. He's been like DCEU Batman: All he sees, all he has reason to see is an alien with powers who happens to be our ally. Superman, and I think a lot of the audience unfairly held Anderson to the same standard as Anderson's predecessor and his *father in law* General Sam Lane. Maybe one reason Superman forgives him so easily is he realized that even though he had a good reason for it, holding Anderson at arms length for so long and keeping so many secrets played a part in the man going so far over the edge. It felt like a mutual moment of "We should have been allies, what was stopping us?" When Anderson sees the photo and realizes exactly how badly he screwed up it crushes him and we feel that with him. He was never as much of a jerk as we assumed. He was misguided and hard, but not heartless. It was a touching, well deserved moment, hatchets getting buried and Superman finally seeing Anderson clearly, probably for the first time.

When Discovery found its way to the mirror universe and didn't know about it, a lot of people were very confused because they thought it took place ten years AFTER Kirk's five year mission. It's actually ten years before. And Kirk's crew don't know about thier trip because everything was triple classified. If Memory Serves reveals The Cage, Pike's first trip to Talos has happened. Menagerie, his return to Talos with Spock's aid is in his future. I miss Ash Tyler. He was a lot of what Discovery needed. A conflicted character who was on our side but had a dark side. They did come up with a plausible reason for him to stay behind. Someone had to keep Section 31 from screwing up the exact same way again. Which if you've seen Deep Space Nine's Luther Sloan you know he utterly failed at.

Season three was well not plodding but a learning curve for the audience. Which is fitting because it was a learning curve for the crew: a world that is the future and barely recognizable. The show maintained a standard, up until the return to the mirror universe in Terra Firma. And then pretty much dissolved. Season four was shallow and preachy, ploddy, rushed sappy and...hard to *want* to keep up with.

This episode had my jaw very quietly on the floor. Cass is back and Sam is catching up with everything. There is so much everything finally felt like it was coming to a head. Sam is understandably confused thinking Cass left to protect them when Dean actually kicked him out. . Cass doesn't have a problem with being told to leave, his faith in Dean is absolute. But he thought at least Sam would know Dean asked him to leave. You can almost feel that Dean juggling that many lies is about to bite him. We also see the first evidence that Ezekiel isn't the lying jerk we believed. He lied about his name but he isn't putting on an act about his nature. Dean is stuck a trap they are all famous for: Trying SO hard to make up for your mistakes you blindly make stupider ones. And usually go through h--l trying to take it back. Cass gets beat up and saves himself. Having learned at least one important bit of intel. Snake scales are torn from EVERYONE's eyes by the end.