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| 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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