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| Zhat Vash recruits undergo The Admonition. |
Original Air Date: Mar. 12, 2020. Written by: Michael Chabon. Directed by: Maja Vrvilo.
THE PLOT:
Picard returns to La Sirena to find Jurati unconscious after her drastic nullification of the Romulan tracker she had swallowed. He has little time to absorb the implications. The instant Capt. Rios lays eyes on Soji, he declares that he is done with this mission once Picard is dropped off at Deep Space 12, then disappears into his cabin, leaving his holograms to run the ship.
Rios makes it clear he doesn't want company, but a few careless words from the Navigation Hologram sets off Raffi's patented Conspiracy Radar. Raffi begins questioning each of the holograms in turn. She finds that their memories have been wiped. Still, just enough traces persist to allow her to piece the truth together - and to realize that Rios's trauma is closely linked to their current mission.
Back on the Romulan-controlled Borg Cube, Narissa prepares her forces to attack Soji's homeworld. She has just a few loose ends to tie up first: The Borg drones, the ex-Borg, and Elnor. But Elnor has already sent out a call for help, which arrives in the unexpected form of ex-Borg and current Fenris Ranger Seven of Nine!
CHARACTERS:
Picard: At first he is in denial about Jurati's betrayal. He doesn't stubbornly cling to that denial, however, particularly in the face of the Medical Hologram's evidence that she killed Dr. Maddox; and when Jurati regains consciousness, she is greeted by a stone-faced Picard flatly telling her that she will be surrendered to the authorities when they reach Deep Space 12. Not everything is angst for him this episode: He gets particular pleasure out of calling up Admiral Clancy, who has to interrupt him to admit that he was right and to tell him that he'll have whatever help she can give.
Soji: Continues to struggle with her true nature. A talk with Picard seems to help, as he shares recollections about Data while also telling her that both her past and future are hers to claim. She's helped even more by meeting Jurati, who responds to meeting a real synthetic with enthusiasm. Soji asks very directly if Jurati considers her to be truly alive, and she ends by telling her that she would never give the scientist the opportunity to harm her.
Dr. Jurati: Upon waking up, she ignores Picard's glare long enough to ask if her attempt to neutralize the Romulan tracker worked. She's exhausted by all that has transpired since she was approached by Commander Oh, and she doesn't even try to deny responsibility for her actions. She tells the others about Oh mindmelding with her, and with the added context of this episode we realize that Oh subjected her to The Admonition - the same vision given to prospective members of the Zhat Vash. Oh's conditioning can't stop the longtime cyberneticist from being enthused at meeting Soji, and the two seem to develop a certain rapport at the end of the episode.
Capt: Rios: This episode is a tour-de-force for Santiago Cabrera, who plays not only Rios but also five distinct holograms, each with his own accent and personality. Cabrera has a lot of fun as the various holograms: one seems to have no sense of personal space boundaries, another primly sniffs every line of dialogue, another splays back in his chair while incoherently mumbling responses to questions (prompting an exasperated Raffi to declare, "That's not even a language"). Cabrera's best acting, however, is reserved for Rios's recollection of what happened in the past. As Rios gives the details of the incident that led to his former C. O.'s death, we see both how he is equally haunted and outraged by what happened, even as the final pieces fall into place linking that event to the present-day story.
Raffi: At some point in the last couple episodes, she locked herself out of being able to replicate drugs or alcohol... A major enough character progression that we really should have seen it, rather than learning about it after the fact (perhaps as a button on the previous episode, with Raffi blaming her lack of sobriety for missing the warning signs Jurati was giving off?). In any case, with no substances to distract and numb her, Raffi leans into the mystery of why Rios has such a stark reaction to Soji. When it becomes clear that the holograms have information, but that it's been wiped and/or buried, she gets to enjoy unraveling the puzzle, something that no doubt appeals to her conspiracy-theorist instincts.
Elnor/Seven: When Seven arrives just in time to save him, Elnor is so overwhelmed at the rescue that he gives her a full hug... which she receives very awkwardly. She hesitates over the morality of using her implants to re-enslave the Borg drones, but Elnor responds with practicality: They need the drones to defeat the Romulans, and she can always release them once they've won. She doesn't think it's that simple, observing that once she's joined with the Collective, she may not wish to release either the drones or herself. When circumstances force Seven's hand, she proceeds anyway - and becomes so completely Borg that Elnor asks if she plans to assimilate him. He does not sound resistant to the idea, which is somewhat concerning - Does he so crave a place to belong that he would willingly sacrifice his individuality?
Narissa: The episode opens, as most of them have, in the past, just prior to the attack on Mars. This time, Narissa is the focus of the flashback. We see her joining the Zhat Vash, undergoing The Admonition alongside her aunt - who turns out to be Ramdha (Rebecca Wisocky), the very Romulan mythology expert Soji had interviewed. Oh (Tamlyn Tomita) presides over the ritual, warning the participants that the vision would drive some of them mad. She undersells the experience, which drives everyone mad with one exception: Narissa. The question of the day: Did Narissa become a murderous psychopath because of the vision, or did she survive the vision because she already was so damaged? The present day story pauses to show that Narissa genuinely cares for her aunt and to give us additional backstory about the Borg Cube... before then returning her to her usual role as a gleefully murderous villain.
THOUGHTS:
Broken Pieces is an appropriate title for this episode. So many of the characters are broken in one way or another. The ex-Borg, including Narissa's aunt, are broken: the other ex-Borg, by their assimilation; Ramdha, by her exposure to The Admonition. Commodore Oh "broke" Jurati with that same vision; and though Jurati seems to be regaining her sense of self, particularly in her scene with Soji, she now is left to wrestle with the guilt over her actions.
Rios is also broken. He's been left traumatized by the incident that led to the death of a captain he considered as a father figure, and his Starfleet career was destroyed by that same event. To an extent, Rios as a full person is represented by his holograms: one is outgoing, probably as he was before the incident; another is an intellectual, not unlike the Rios who reads existentialist literature; another is laid-back to a fault... all of them basically different facets of Rios - or who Rios would be, had he not been shattered so many years ago.
The thematic unity is well-done, which helps to carry an episode that is primarily concerned with exposition. The opening fills in the backstory behind the Zhat Vash and their crusade against synthetics. The middle is dominated by Raffi's search to learn about the incident that destroyed Rios, and how it is tied to Soji. The final scenes tie the disparate bits of information together, ending with a direct lead-in to the next episode. We get a bit of action in the Elnor/Seven subplot, but for the most part this is the episode that gets all that pesky information out of the way, so that the two-part finale is (hopefully) not weighed down by it.
This much exposition, much of it delivered via monologue, could be dramatically inert, if not outright dull. Writer Michael Chabon mostly makes it work by structuring it well. Rios doesn't simply recite his backstory upon seeing Soji; he withdraws, prompting Raffi to spend much of the episode hunting for information before finally confronting him. Rios's backstory becomes an intriguing mystery, and even the source of a bit of light humor in the scenes with the holograms, before the emotional revelation comes.
The emotion is the other thing that makes it work. The backstory isn't just dry exposition: It's an event that effects our regulars, and we see the reactions of Rios, Picard, Jurati, and Soji.
OVERALL:
Though mostly a talky episode, Broken Pieces fills in a lot of needed backstory. To an extent, I wonder if some of this couldn't have been parceled out earlier. Still, Michael Chabon's script does a good job of structuring the exposition in an engaging manner. It may be The Exposition Episode before the grand finale, but to its credit it only occasionally feels like it.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
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Next Episode: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1
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