Saints of Imperfection

 ** (2 magic teardrops out of 5)

Because the audience hopes to see Spock on our Spock chase, we chase Spock's shuttle a little more and who should turn up inside it but Emperor Georgiou, now an agent of Section 31?! Pike knows what 31 is. Mike knows what 31 is. We all know what 31 is! More Covert than Covert, my rump.

Pike gets on the hologram with Leland, also an old chum from Section 31, like it's a an ordinary branch of Starfleet Intelligence that Archer or Sisko should've easily known about a century ago and a century from now, no biggie. And also here's a Section 31 liaison in the person of handsome Ash Tyler and this lovely Section 31 gift card redeemable nowhere because we surely don't exist.

Nhan is mentioned to be chief of security, so watch out- because on Discovery that's the Defense Against The Dark Arts post.

Speaking of space magic, Tilly was kidnapped by the Spore People into the Mushroom Kingdom through a cocoon, and her Spore buddy May has to convince the local Spores not to eat her alive in tiny painful bites because their natural approach to new things is eating them. They need her to fight a monster named Culber. A monster the Spores found awhile ago and chose to revive instead of just eating him. The monster has covered himself in poison bark to stop them eating him, which they want to do. Won't Tilly help them?

Culbers are friends, not food! Why did the jahSepp heal him just to start trying to eat him again? No time! 

Pike rides to Tilly's rescue, Stamets bringing the whole ship half in, half out of the mycelial network like a doorstop. Try to avoid getting a hundred people twisted into flesh and blood pretzels like the crew of the Glenn!

Tearful reunion of traumatized Stamets and Culber, which is always good, especially when the prevailing theory is that Stamets' mushroom soup tears transported Culber's energy into the mycelial network "like a lightning rod" where the locals gave him a body that can't leave their dimension.

"I need you to make it make sense," says Captain Pike, a tall order which no one fulfills. But on the bright side we still get Culber back, thanks to more cocoon shenanigans.

Admiral Cornwell pops in to tell us she knows about Section 31, and she condones its terrible, weirdly public, sly, sexy nastiness, so Pike should too, and maybe subscribe to any streaming service that gives us more of it someday.