2-10. Farewell.

Picard and Q share an emotional farewell.

Original Air Date: May 5, 2022. Written by: Christopher Monfette, Akiva Goldsman. Directed by: Michael Weaver.


THE PLOT:

The Borg Queen-possessed Jurati has gone, departing for the Delta Quadrant in La Sirena and leaving the others on 21st century Earth. They have no way to get home; but with Renée Picard ready to launch in the Europa mission in a matter of hours, at least the future seems to be back on track.

Except for Adam Soong...

Soong remains determined to stop Renée and to secure his legacy as the hero of a dark and twisted Earth. Wielding outsized financial influence like a weapon, he demands "face time" with Renée before launch - a one-on-one conversation that he will make sure is her last.

Picard and Tallinn beam to the launch site to stop him. Meanwhile, the others discover that Soong has a back-up plan: weaponized drones that are set to target the shuttle on lift-off!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: Accompanies Tallinn against her wishes, in large part because of his fear of losing someone else. On that mission, he proves to be approximately as useful as a spare tire with a nail through its center. Thankfully, he gets some good material in the back half of the episode: an emotional final scene with Q, then a return to the Borg confrontation that started all this, with him exhibiting both patience and authority.

Seven: There's a nice follow-up to her conversation with Raffi in the last episode, when she recalled her rejection by Starfleet - something that Picard effectively fixes with a single order. She's open to rekindling her relationship with Raffi. Not that she's blind to Raffi's flaws: When Raffi starts overthinking a kiss, Seven tells her to just "let it breathe" with a mix of exasperation and amusement.

Tallinn: "You won't let me? It's not up to you!" Finally, a spark of Tallinn's original characterization returns when she snaps at Picard after he insists on accompanying her. Not that one can blame Picard for assuming that he has a say in Tallinn's actions, given that Two of One was the last episode to see her do anything other than tag along after him. Tallinn finally comes face to face with Renée, the assignment who has become a surrogate daughter to her, in a well-written and heartfelt exchange. Her final scene with Picard, however, goes on far too long, with (yet another) speech that retreads a lot of the ground as her speeches in Monsters and Hide and Seek.

Adam Soong: He was introduced as a disgraced scientist who was begging for more funding. Um... why? Based on this episode, he must have enough money to make Elon Musk jealous. I'll ignore the military drones, as those presumably came from the Borg Queen - but he's somehow donated enough to the Europa mission to be able to demand "face time" with astronauts, violating protocols that even American Presidents are expected to follow and with not so much as a security escort. In reality, I'd fully expect his demands would end in "face time" with large, uniformed officers walking him to the nearest exit.

Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg returns to bookend her appearance in the season opener. She fills in the blanks for Picard's crew about what happened after they returned home, since she lived through all of it. She also has a good moment when she thanks Picard for "setting (her) straight" in the past when she was ready to give up on humanity.

Q: "Even gods have favorite, Jean-Luc, and you've always been one of mine." If this does end up being Q's last appearance, at the very least the character is well-treated. His interactions with Picard are emotional, but never too emotional for this mischievous god of sarcasm. He refuses to accept blame for Elnor's death, pointing out that he didn't kill the young man; Seven's "idiot husband" from the alternate timeline did. He also cleans up his mess. As was true in Q Who?, he transports Picard back to where he belongs, making sure his old friend is just a little wiser for the experience.


THOUGHTS:

"Must it always have galactic import? Universal stakes, celestial upheaval? Isn't one life enough? You ask me why it matters. It matters to me!"
-Q reveals the very personal reason behind his actions.

There is much that is good in Farewell. The scenes with Q, and the end scenes with Picard dealing with the Borg back in present, are excellent. Character material is generally strong - again, particularly in the second half, once the plot mechanics are out of the way.

Too bad there's roughly half an episode of crap to wade through to get to the good stuff.

Given that the midseason features so much wheel-spinning, why does all of the activity surrounding the Europa launch feel so rushed? It plays very much as if a full episode of material was condensed into about twenty minutes.

No character in this section of the episode faces any serious obstacles. Soong swans around (a startlingly empty) Mission Control like he's Madame Empress, sneering at actual officials for being "disrespectful" and making demands even though he has exactly zero official standing. I'd immediately give this episode two additional points if they'd thrown him out, forcing him to evade security and improvise in order to reach Renée. This would have created some suspense and would have made the worst part of the episode feel at least a bit more convincing... but it also would have taken time; and after deviations like an entire episode devoted to Picard's bad dreams, time is now a luxury the season just doesn't have.

The lack of obstacles applies equally to our heroes. Picard and Tallinn encounter the same absence of security - or any other staff - that Soong does. Tallinn steals a flight suit from one room, then walks right in on Renée in another. Convenience stores do more to guard chocolate bars! The episode at least pretends that it's hard for Rios, Raffi, and Seven to stop the drones... but it's still the work of a few minutes, with Raffi punching some buttons to gain manual control before Rios saves the day by essentially playing a video game.

The showrunners should have cut some of the fat out of the mid-season and used that extra time to develop the Europa launch into a full episode. Then the finale could have just been epilogue, which would have been a match for the premiere being the prologue. The Q/Picard, Seven/Raffi, and Picard/Borg scenes are the bits of the episode that work, so I certainly wouldn't object to there being a bit more of it. Maybe we could check in on Soji, who seemed to have a firm friendship with Jurati in the first episode. It wouldn't even have cost much extra, given that Isa Briones is already in the episode, and this might have shown Jurati's change affecting someone on an emotional level.

Oh, and I will give points to a surprise cameo by a TNG character. I did not see that coming, and I rather liked how this appearance was woven in.


OVERALL:

Farewell is an episode of two halves. The first part is mostly terrible, unconvincing and inexcusably rushed. The rest almost makes up for it with some excellent character material. Unsurprisingly, the scenes between Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie are the highlights, but there are good moments for almost everybody.

This episode is much like the season it closes. There are plenty of elements to enjoy... but enjoying the good requires having a fair amount of patience with the bad. In the end, I'd have to rate both this finale and the season itself as a disappointment.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: Hide and Seek
Next Episode: The Next Generation

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2-08. Mercy.

Jurati, possessed by the Borg Queen, attacks Raffi.

Original Air Date: Apr. 21, 2022. Written by: Cindy Appel, Kirsten Beyer. Directed by: Joe Menendez.


THE PLOT:

Picard and Guinan are in the custody of FBI Agent Martin Wells (Jay Karnes). It's not an official arrest. Wells has taken them to a basement in an FBI field office. He has nursed a lifelong obsession with the existence of extraterrestrials, and now he has evidence: surveillance video of Picard beaming onto the street outside Guinan's bar, photos of Picard and his crew infiltrating the gala, Picard's communications badge, and the scornfully true statement that Rios provided to ICE. It's enough, as Wells said, to bring agents who will make Picard and Guinan disappear forever!

Meanwhile, Seven and Raffi continue to track Jurati, who has been taken over by the Borg Queen. The Queen has a plan. She will build off Q's disruption of the Europa mission, enlisting the help - willing or not - of Dr. Adam Soong. Only her end game is not to create a future of mere human fascism. She will use the disrupted timeline to create the foundations for a galactic Borg Empire!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: There's a moment in this episode that showcases exactly what Patrick Stewart brings to this franchise. Picard has to persuade a man who has devoted his entire life to proving that aliens exist. All he has at his disposal are words. Give this same scene, with no changes, to a lesser actor, and it would fall ridiculously flat. Stewart, however, brings the right amounts of authority, empathy, and conviction to the moment that I actually believe it when it happens. 

Jurati: The Borg Queen is in full control... almost. When Raffi and Seven find her, she bats Seven away like a fly and is ready to kill Raffi - only to abruptly let her go before fleeing. As Seven observes: "Mercy is not a Borg quality." Jurati is still fighting the Queen on some level, and she manages in that moment to stop Raffi from being killed. I have no doubt her influence will come into play later.

Raffi: A flashback reveals the reason for her guilt over Elnor's death. He was considering delaying Starfleet Academy for a year to return home. Raffi was already losing Seven and couldn't stand the thought of being completely alone, so she passive/aggressively persuaded him to stay. In its way, her guilt is a kind of arrogance, an assumption that she had more control over Elnor's actions than he did. After all, within the same flashback, he observes how transparent her manipulations really are. Still, this makes sense for who Raffi is.

Seven: She's finally getting a taste of feeling truly human for the first time in her adult life. Her first scene sees her continuing to enjoy the sensation of people just naturally trusting her. Then circumstances force her to think like a Borh again. When Raffi is impressed at her ability to analyze the Queen's actions, Seven responds with bitterness: "You could be just a little less happy that I'm defective." These scenes allow Jeri Ryan, who has been pushed far too much to the background during the midseason, to remind us that she can actually act.

Capt. Rios: His relationship with Teresa doesn't so much move as get shoved forward in a forced scene midway through. Meanwhile, in Picard's strand, we learn that Rios is apparently much stupider than he's generally seemed. He didn't merely troll the ICE agent by telling him he was from the future - he gave details about the Borg Queen. This is like Jurati leaving the Queen unguarded - a generally competent regular suddenly losing their brain in order to advance the plot.

Adam Soong: Remember what I said about him being more sympathetic than other Dr. Soongs? Yeah, forget about that. In the space of this one episode, he makes himself the worst Soong - and given that his competition includes a guy who collaborated in an Augment revolution and another who was happy enough to see all organic life in the galaxy wiped out, that's saying something. The Borg Queen doesn't have to do much to get Soong to agree to help her. She teases him with a future that's better for him but dreadful for the rest of humanity, and he jumps at it. What matters to him is that he's remembered as a hero, with the actual welfare of humanity an absolute irrelevance.

Guinan: Ito Aghayere keeps getting better with each appearance. She quickly takes in the basement that's being used for her and Picard's interrogation and the unplugged camera and realizes that this is not a legitimate arrest. Her reaction to Wells's accusation of being an extra-terrestrial? "This guy is buckets of crazy." As much fun as she is with Picard and Wells, her best scene (and the episode's) comes when she meets Q. She matches John de Lancie's energy beat for beat, making for a memorable encounter.

Q: "We're all trapped in the past." In his scene with Guinan, Q finally reveals at least some of what's driving him. There is some terrific acting from de Lancie as Q moves between his accustomed scorn and sarcasm, a hint of anger, and even reflection and regret. The humor is also still there, such as when he snaps his fingers ineffectually while telling Guinan that he is sincerely trying to vaporize her right now - a bit that's all the funnier because I don't doubt for a second that he's telling the truth.


THOUGHTS:

"I know a haunted man when I see one. The things we hold onto, the pieces of emotional shrapnel that drive us all our lives."
-Picard gets into the head of his captor, FBI Agent Wells.

After a lackluster midseason, Picard finally delivers a good episode again! Mercy offers strong roles for all the regulars. It balances emotional material with plot movement, and it even finds time for a moment of danger when the Borg-possessed Jurati has Raffi literally by the throat.

In my last review, I complained that too many of the season's episodes seemed to be just setting characters up to do things later. Well, they finally start doing things here. Mercy fairly zips along. We get payoffs to Kore Soong (Isa Briones)'s discoveries about her father and Raffi's guilt about Elnor, we learn much more about the Borg Queen's plans and Q's changed situation, and we even get to see how Adam Soong fits in. There's very little dead space, with only the Rios/Teresa scene slowing things down.

I'll admit that I was not happy when Monsters ended with Picard being arrested, which just felt like a rerun of the Episode Three cliffhanger. This pays off much better, though, because it forces Picard to remain still. That leaves him in the right state of mind to process Guinan's revelation about Q, which equally applies to Wells: that people tend to get stuck in the past, wherever they were broken, until their minds find a way to resolve the problem. Picard the character is consistently at his best when he uses his intellect and empathy to solve problems, as is particularly shown by the scene in which he resolves the conflict with Wells simply by being open and honest.

This also creates some thematic unity in what might have been a fractured episode. "We're all trapped in the past." In addition to Wells and to Q, this applies across the various strands: Raffi, guilty over Elnor; Seven, haunted by her past Borg assimilation; Adam Soong, unable to move on from his research; his daughter, whose discoveries are forcing her to reevaluate her entire life; and Jurati, the most isolated of the crew, striving for connection only to have found the worst one possible. In a handful of lines, the script takes all these threads and makes them feel all of a piece.

It all ends with one of the season's most effective cliffhangers, leaving me very ready to see what happens next.


OVERALL:

Mercy is a legitimately good episode, arguably the first such one since Assimilation. It moves quickly, everyone gets something to do, and it all feels of a piece. Even better, there's a sense of the various threads coming together.

I wouldn't say it makes up for the weaknesses of the midseason. Still, this installment finally puts Picard's second season in place to be back on track. The season opened well, after all; and if the remaining two episodes follow through on the successes of this one, then there's a solid chance that the season can close as well as it started.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Monsters
Next Episode: Hide and Seek

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2-07. Monsters.

Picard must confront the monsters inside his own mind.

Original Air Date: Apr. 14, 2022. Written by: Jane Maggs. Directed by: Joe Menendez.


THE PLOT:

Picard is in a coma. He was injured while saving his ancestor, Renée. The others rushed him to Teresa's clinic, where the doctor was able to stabilize him and treat his physical wounds, but he is not waking up. Instead, he is imagining himself undergoing evaluation by a Starfleet psychiatrist (James Callis), who is pushing him about his childhood.

With no time to wait for him to recover on his own, Tallinn uses her tech to enter his subconscious. She finds herself in the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Chateau Picard. Here, Picard imagines himself as a child, fleeing from monsters alongside his mother (Madeline Wise).

Meanwhile, Seven and Raffi discover that Jurati is under the control of the Borg Queen. Jurati's actions seem erratic, but Seven realizes that everything she's doing is designed to release endorphins, which will speed up her assimilation. If they cannot find her and stop her, then Jurati's transformation may doom the entire planet!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: When he's imagining talking to a psychiatrist, he sees himself in space, just as he did in the dream sequence that opened the series' first episode. He also still sees himself as "captain," not as "admiral." Much of his dream journey sees him reconciling his childhood viewpoint of past events against the more complicated reality. It's not particularly unique or surprising when all is revealed, but I will say that it's well acted by both Patrick Stewart and Dylan Von Halle as the child Picard.

Capt. Rios: "I'm from Chile, I only work in outer space." I suspect a lot of people enjoyed hearing that line recycled from Star Trek IV. To me, it felt forced, because it seemed less like Rios speaking and more like the writers saying, "Remember this bit?" Rios opens up to Teresa, acknowledging that he tends to seek out father figures such as Picard. I wish this was demonstrated rather than just spoken outright, but Santiago Cabrera does at least manage to make the character exposition sound reasonably human.

Tallinn: "You do so much with this pain. You save worlds with it." She all but coos this to Picard's dream/child self when she sees some of the secrets he's hiding. Which begs the question: How does she know? All indications are that Tallinn is from the 21st century. Picard even speculates that she may be an ancestor of Laris's. She's grown to respect Picard very quickly, and he has mostly shown himself worthy of that, but there's nothing that she's observed that should mark him as a saver of worlds. Orla Brady's great, as always, but I'm not sure the character writing adds up.

Raffi/Seven: They get a nice exchange with Raffi envisioning them as an old couple "tripping teenagers on floaty things with (their) canes." Seven naturally takes this as a challenge, insisting that she'd be better at that than Raffi. That moment aside, they are consigned to subplot-land, their scenes existing purely to set up the next episodes.

Teresa: When she returns to the clinic to find that Rios has locked the door to Picard's room, she reacts immediately, turning to her son and telling him, "Mama's going to use some bad words." She is incensed that he would lock her out of rooms of her own clinic, and she's wary of the secrets he's keeping from her. Even so, her actions show that she believes him to be trustworthy. She lets him be around her son, and she allows him and the others to stay in her clinic unsupervised.

Gunian: Ito Aghayere feels much more like TNG's Guinan here than she did in Watcher. The anger has been dialed back, and a certain wry humor is visible in her line deliveries. She even nails some of Whoopi Goldberg's physical mannerisms. She reveals that there was a cold war between her people and the Q Continuum, one which ended over a bottle of wine. She attempts to summon Q (exactly replicating Whoopi Goldberg's claw gesture from Q Who?), and she is gobsmacked when the attempt fails.


THOUGHTS:

Dons 1990s David Spade Hat. "I liked this episode the first time I saw it... when it was called Family." Removes David Spade hat.

Monsters covers much of the same ground as the TNG episode Family, with both stories focusing on Picard grappling with difficult family relationships and memories. The TNG episode was given added texture because it was a direct follow-up to The Best of Both Worlds, in which Picard had just experienced the trauma of being assimilated by the Borg. By confronting his past, he was able to overcome his more recent pain and move on with his future.

Coming into this episode, I felt a moment of optimism that the writers might use the focus on Picard's subconscious to show some psychological reaction to his new synthetic body. When Tallinn enters his consciousness, she hears echoes from his encounter with (and assimilation by) the Borg, and I perked up. Finally, I thought. But... no. It doesn't even get a mention. Since this would have been the obvious episode to do something with that, I must resign myself to his synthetic body being occasionally reference checked but never meaningfully explored. Which just underscores what a bad idea it was in the first place.

At least the Picard strand benefits from good performances and strong atmosphere. Whenever the episode cuts away to the other characters, it becomes even weaker. I actually think Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd work well together on screen; but the "old lady" exchange aside, they might as well be dubbed The Exposition Couple.

Meanwhile, Rios not only tells Teresa the truth about himself... he actually beams her and her son to his ship. You know, the one with two dead bodies still aboard. I'm assuming they at least cleaned up the mess - but "don't step on butterflies" would certainly include not disposing of two aliens and a bunch of future technology, so both corpses must still be aboard La Sirena.

Now I really wish there was a scene with Teresa finding the Borg Queen's body: the one that looks like a woman was experimented on, chopped to pieces, and then finished off with a gunshot. I'd love to hear Rios's explanation: "No, she was actually an evil alien who was taking control of the ship with her space tentacles. Also, she's infected my ex-girlfriend and is taking her over, and we might have to kill her too! Why are you looking at me that way? Why are you brandishing a scalpel?"


OVERALL:

Monsters re-treads ground that was more effectively covered more than thirty years ago. At the same time, it features logic gaps that frankly snap my ability to suspend my disbelief, from Rios taking his new girlfriend and her child on a tour of his spaceship to Picard being up to walking around, pain free, less than 24 hours after being hit by a car going full speed. The result is, in my opinion, one of the season's weakest episodes.

I would rate it above Watcher. Ito Aghayere's Guinan feels more recognizable as her TNG counterpart, and the episode was at least well-paced and kept me entertained. But the dream plot builds to "Not Much," while the rest of the episode is once again about putting characters in position to do things in future installments. It's Episode 7 out of 10 - It's time for them to start doing things in the episode I'm actually watching!

At this point, I'm becoming very concerned about Season Two. The season started strong. But by this point, it feels as if the plot has been stretched so thin that it's practically transparent. The last three episodes will have to be very good to make up for the lackluster midseason - and I'm just not feeling a lot of confidence at the moment.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Two of One
Next Episode: Mercy

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2-04. Watcher.

Picard reunites with an old friend (Ito Aghayere).

Original Air Date: Mar. 24, 2022. Teleplay by: Juliana James, Jane Maggs. Story by: Travis Fickett, Juliana James. Directed by: Lea Thompson.


THE PLOT:

Dr. Jurati's connection with the Borg Queen was a success. She got coordinates to help Picard find the mysterious "Watcher," and she even has a date: the 15th, a mere three days from now.

With no way to contact the others, Picard beams directly to those coordinates. To his joy, this leads him directly to Guinan's bar! But the young Guinan (Ito Aghayere) is packing her things, having given up on humanity. She doesn't know who Picard is (for some reason), and he has to convince her that he can be trusted while at the same time trying to persuade her not to turn her back on Earth.

Meanwhile, Rios has been confined by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is set to be deported. This leaves Seven and Raffi racing to rescue him - which somehow leads to them stealing a police car!


CHARACTERS:

Picard: "I know you're done with listening, but you are not done with humanity. Change always comes later than we think it should." Picard's idealism shines through in his interactions with the embittered young Guinan. He doesn't deny the legitimacy of her disappointment in humanity, but he pushes her to realize what she already knows: Better is possible, and it will eventually come. Patrick Stewart is particularly good here, helping these scenes to work better than much of the surrounding material.

Dr. Jurati: More than the rest of the crew, she recognizes that Picard - "the great man" - is just human, despite his synthetic body. At the dilapidated Chateau Picard, she recognizes that he's distracted and prods him back to the present. Despite (in part because of) her intelligence, she remains vulnerable. She tries to avoid engaging with the Borg Queen, but every complication brings her back - and her willingness to engage in verbal sparring seems all too likely to lead her into serious trouble.

Raffi/Seven: When Raffi is being overly hostile and aggressive to a desk officer at the police station, Seven pulls her back and smooths things out as best she can. Seven continues trying to be the Voice of Reason, right to the point at which they find themselves stealing a police car - at which point she starts driving with the care and precision of a teenager playing Grand Theft Auto. Wouldn't it have fit the two characters' emotional states better had Raffi been the driver, with Seven begging for her to slow down?

Capt. Rios: Santiago Cabrera, usually one of the cast standouts, gets lumbered with the weakest thread of a pretty weak episode. Rios ends up confined in the cleanest, least crowded immigration detention facility in history. When questioned by an ICE officer, he decides to tell the man the full truth, knowing that there's no chance that he'll be believed. He is outraged that Teresa Ramirez (Sol Rodriguez) was detained, proclaiming that where he came from, she would be considered a hero.

Guinan: I'm torn with regards to Ito Aghayere's Guinan. In terms of baseline acting of the role as written, she is quite good, infusing her lines with emotion and presence. If this was a new character, I would be singing her praises without hesitation. There's only one problem: There isn't a single second in which I believe that I'm watching Guinan. She's simply too brittle and human. I'm assuming that she'll appear again. I hope that when she does, she's able to capture a bit of the otherworldly quality that Whoopi Goldberg pulled off so well.

Borg Queen: She talks about her brief connection with Jurati as if discussing a one-night stand. When Picard leaves Jurati to hold the ship, it's an important task that only she can do; but the Queen wields this task as a weapon, sneering that Jurati has been left behind again. Then she tries to position herself as an admirer, telling her how impressed she is not only with her mind but with her ability to be "more cruel than (she) could have predicted." The Queen remains in a position of weakness, but she exploits every chance to gain even a little power. Annie Wersching makes the most of every line and glance, and her scenes are easily the best of the episode.


THOUGHTS:

This was the entertainment equivalent of whiplash, as Picard jerked from my favorite episode of this season to my least favorite of the series thus far.

As an episode, Watcher seems to exist purely to get the characters into position to do something in the next installment. Cutting between four different character strands, which in this episode only directly connect a couple of times, it also ends up being as choppy as it is transitional.

There really isn't much unifying these threads. A better script, tasked with the transitional issue, might have tried for some thematic focus. Take either Picard's urgings to Guinan that change is possible, or the longing for connection that keeps drawing Jurati back to the Borg Queen, and infuse the other threads with that. If there had been the sense of a single theme that ran through all the character interactions, then it might have worked.

But that doesn't happen. Instead, we just get a collection of scenes. The Picard scenes are good. The Jurati scenes are clever and suspenseful. The Seven scenes feel like they were pulled out of a bad '90s action/comedy. Worst are the Rios scenes, which attempt political commentary on the topic of immigration enforcement.

For the record, I have no issue with Star Trek tackling divisive issues head-on. TOS did so with racial unrest; DS9 did so with homelessness; and I found both episodes to be effective. I do take issue, however, with the reduction of the complex and messy into the simplistic and sanitized. There seems to be only one other detainee in the entire center with Rios. There's also only one guard, who is portrayed as a sadist - but whose abuse never threatens to be anything to actually disturb home viewers. And no, nothing here is as bad as TNG's clunkiest efforts (I refer you to The Outcast or Force of Nature)... but I'd hope for the writers to aim a little higher than that.


OVERALL:

Despite some strong scenes featuring Picard and Jurati, Watcher ends up being my least favorite episode so far. Not just of the season, but of the series. Threads cut in and out of each other abruptly, creating a sense of choppiness, and there is no sense of connection. It doesn't help that two of the four threads are pretty bad to start with.

It does end with a pair of interesting reveals, though, which at least leaves me with hope that the next episode will go back to engaging me.


Overall Rating: 3/10. And only that high because of the Picard/Guinan and Jurati/Borg Queen scenes. Take those away, and I'm not sure the rest would even merit a "2."

Previous Episode: Assimilation
Next Episode: Fly Me to the Moon

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2-01. The Star Gazer.

Picard delivers an impassioned speech to a class of Starfleet Academy graduates.

Original Air Date: Mar. 3, 2022. Written by: Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas. Directed by: Douglas Aarniokoski.


THE PLOT:

Picard is back in Starfleet. He is chancellor of the Academy, focusing his energies on the next generation of explorers. The ragtag La Sirena crew members have gone their own ways. Seven is still a Fenris Ranger. Soji is acting as an ambassador for the synthetics. Raffi has taken command of the USS Excelsior, and the recently-graduated Elnor is among her crew.

Capt. Rios is also in Starfleet again, in charge of the USS Star Gazer. Named after Picard's first command, this starship is the prototype for a new class that uses research from the Borg artifact. The Star Gazer is orbiting Delta, where Soji is impressing the local populace, when Rios receives new orders. A tear in space-time has been detected, and he's been ordered to investigate.

The anomaly is emitting a transmission, one which Dr. Jurati is able to decipher. It is a plea:

"Help us, Picard. Help us..."


CHARACTERS:

Picard: No longer the bitter old hermit of early Season One, Picard seems to be enjoying his return to Starfleet. He has purpose again. When he speaks at a graduating class, it is with passion and joy. Despite this, his personal life continues to be barren, something commented on at various points by Raffi, by Romulan ex-spy/housekeeper Laris, and by Guinan. Laris directly expresses interest in him, and he seems to reciprocate... but for whatever reason, he cannot quite make himself close that gap.

Capt. Rios: He's generally informal as he splays in the captain's chair, perpetually chomping on a cigar. This default demeanor makes it all the more effective when he is sharply in crisis mode near the end. When Picard arrives on the Star Gazer, he defers to him without a word of complaint. He remains alert, however, ready to step in to protect Picard or to take over for him.

Seven of Nine: Has taken command of La Sirena, Rios's old ship. She has not hired a crew, preferring to rely on the Rios holograms. She tells Picard that others feel paranoid about the presence of an ex-Borg. Though she seems reluctant to interact with others, she still insists on helping others - though being Seven, her way of helping tends to involve violence.

Dr. Jurati: Broke up with Rios in the gap between seasons, yet she continues to work with him. They still "read" as a couple, with a distinct flirtatious undertone to their interactions. She continues to carry scars from the events of Season One. When she figures out that a Deltan is interested in her - "This is how really pretty people flirt, isn't it?" - she shoots him down by talking about how alien influence resulted in her murdering her previous ex.

Soji: Is only seen briefly, apparently to write her out. She is confident and charming in her diplomatic relations on Delta. She also retains her friendship with Jurati, which makes me disappointed that this one scene is probably the character's full role for the season. Their friendship is both entertaining and convincing, and I suspect I will miss it in future episodes.

Raffi: She's made sure that Elnor is assigned to her ship, feeling protective of the young man whose "absolute candor can get his ass kicked." Her relationship with Seven is in a holding pattern, and she wishes that there could be something more... which would be a lot easier to care about if their relationship had gotten any build-up at all. As of now, I still can't judge them as a couple, because they've barely exchanged two words in the entire series to date!

Laris: Her husband died between seasons of a terminal case of "Orla Brady has screen chemistry with Patrick Stewart." After Picard fails to act on her overtures, she rejects the suggestion that they continue as they have been. "It would all be too awkward, and I'm too old for awkward." Either they're a couple, or she'll move on.

Guinan: Whoopi Goldberg appears in one very good scene in her old TNG role. Guinan is still a bartender, and she is still ready to serve Picard a drink and listen. She tries to get him to open up about why he has never had a lasting relationship, waving away his attempts to talk about space exploration and Starfleet. But when it becomes clear that he isn't willing to talk more openly, she agrees to just share a quiet drink with him.


THOUGHTS:

"The only place you have ever been afraid to explore, be it flesh and blood or an artificial synthetic, is (the heart)... Your answers are not in the stars, and they never have been."
-Guinan, refusing to accept Picard's reasons for remaining alone.

As a season premiere, The Star Gazer has the confidence to take its time. The episode touches base with the characters and just lets them chat: Picard and Laris exchanging toasts in multiple languages; Jurati and Soji, more relaxed than we've ever seen them as they joke with each other at a diplomatic event; Jurati and Rios, interacting like an old married couple despite their breakup; Picard sharing a drink with Guinan even as he studiously avoids saying anything meaningful. The script centers itself on the characters, only pivoting to a plot focus in the last fifteen minutes.

The writers are clearly setting up a season theme for Picard involving his avoidance of relationships. Multiple characters comment on this. Raffi remarks that she wonders if Picard even gets lonely, and the way Patrick Stewart's posture changes for just a second is all the answer the viewers require. In this one way, he is still - to paraphrase his own words in Season One - not actually living.

I'm not sure as yet how this strand will connect to the external threat introduced at the end, though too much time is given to it for there not be some type of connection. Within this opening hour, I was mainly just pleased to see that the episode didn't try to rush. By putting the characters first, there is more investment when the action finally comes at the end.

I had only one major disappointment with an otherwise highly enjoyable opener. Season One ended with Picard's consciousness transferred into a synthetic body. Even with Dr. Soong's assurances that this body remained his - human and mortal, just minus his illness - I felt that Picard's acceptance of the situation was a cheat. A character-focused Season Two opener provided an opportunity for him to demonstrate discomfort, however private or buried. Instead, the only mention it receives is a quick throwaway line by Guinan. Yes, I thought it was a bad story move - but it happened, so the show really should engage with it.

The opening credits have been retooled, presumably to fit the story and themes of this season. The theme is still recognizable, but it has a darker tone. The visuals now include: the piece of painted glass that Picard looks at early in the episode; the enemy introduced at the end; and the image of an hourglass.

The production team appears to have learned its lesson about billing for surprise guest stars. Whoopi Goldberg receives a credit on the front, but another guest appearance is reserved for the end credits to preserve the surprise. Admittedly, that surprise was spoiled by basically every trailer and write-up for Season Two - but at least the show is no longer spoiling itself!


OVERALL:

The Star Gazer is a strong opening to Picard's second season. The character focus is welcome, and all of the actors continue to do good work. I'm not sure yet exactly where the season arc is going, or how the external threat will tie into the personal arc being set up for Picard. Based on this opening, though, I look forward to finding out.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2
Next Episode: Penance

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