Picard 1x10 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”

rating: ****

the story: Conflict resolution; saying goodbye to Data.

review: Yeah, that was about right. The general plot of the series was a juxtaposition between duty on a large scale and a small one. The large scale was confronting bigotry in opposing forces, and helping both sides realize there was more than one possible response. The small scale was finding peace with the death of Data.

For much of the season, the small scale goal was in the background, as Picard assembled his response to a crisis that in effect happened in large part because he was no longer in a position to prevent it, and that was largely because he no longer had Data at his side. “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2” is a much bigger success than its preceding component largely because it doesn’t allow itself to become lost in the details. In any proper ending, the details ought to be clear enough, and in this case they are because the goal was already explained in the beginning.

Except Data doesn’t return. He stays dead. He has a chance to explain why he actually prefers to remain dead, and it’s the perfect completion of the journey he began in his first appearance, finally understanding that the idea of being human is basically embracing the limits he was always determined to push.

Anyway, there’s also Riker’s pitch-perfect cameo (which sums up his command dynamic with Picard), characters who didn’t make sense last episode making sense (including yet another Problematic Soong Android being summarily deactivated; I’d really like if just one of them had a chance to be anything but binary).

Basically the best possible ending to the season, and everything it needed to be to celebrate Picard and his legacy. Until they figure out how to include, y’know, Guinan. Q. And, uh, the rest of the Next Generation gang...

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Final resolution for Nemesis. Maybe fans can decide to embrace it?
• series - A great ending to the season.
• character - The final statement on Data.
• essential - The final statement on Picard’s moral, heroic character.

notable guest-stars:

Brent Spiner (Data, Soong)

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x9 “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1”

rating: **

the story: Picard’s team reaches their destination.

review: Sometimes the problem with serialized storytelling is that it boxes the story into elements that need to happen but become difficult to tell interestingly. That was always the biggest problem with Deep Space Nine, especially in the six- and ten-episode arcs that were laden with plot elements that squashed all opportunity to explore their potential. They ended up hammering points without elegance. What Enterprise accomplished so brilliantly in its third season was the ability to break its ideas down to concrete points, particularly as the importance of Degra blossomed. Even after he was necessarily taken off the table, there were enough moving parts still in play that even the inevitable was interesting.

With this penultimate episode of a season-long arc, we reach a point that ought to have been can’t-miss, and...it nearly does. The problem is in the introduction of two characters. One is a good addition handled poorly, and the other is a bad addition also...handled poorly. The first is another Brent Spiner Soong performance, but the character is almost completely marginalized, his significance taken for granted, perhaps. The other is another android played by Isa Briones (who also portrays Soji, the twin from the first episode, the one glimpsed last episode, and probably dozens of other iterations), who turns out to be the latest treacherous turncoat. The reveal is somewhat akin to the Founders in Deep Space Nine (in fact, the whole conflict is very similar), which is why I tended to have a problem with the Female Founder in that series; she had no nuance at all, in a series where shades of gray were everywhere.

There was a good way to handle all of this material, but I don’t think this was it. But let’s get to the point summary to clarify:

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I think you have to be invested for any of this to work. I think general viewers would be even more inclined to dismiss the creative approach to this episode than I am.
• series - I mean, it’s interesting and relevant, obviously. 
• character - The introduction of the new Soong was the only good thing about the episode.
• essential - The results are too perfunctory. After all the creative thought put into it, I would almost greatly prefer to Picard movie default ending of him needing to stop some giant machine from blowing up. Or having to blow the machine up. 

notable guest-stars

Brent Spiner (Soong)

Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x8 "Broken Pieces"

rating: ***

the story: Rios grapples with his past as it catches up with him, and we learn...a lot.

review: If I weren't feeling particularly generous because I generally love the results of the series to date, I'd call this latest episode...a glorified infodump.  Basically it's...everyone...explaining...everything.  The exception is Rios (even though he's thoroughly wrapped up in it, too).  Between his holograms (best part of the episode) and how learning about his past informs his, and the show's, present, he finally grabs the spotlight, without any of the flashback material that might in hindsight seem something like a crutch elsewhere in the series.

Speaking of flashbacks, we see the evil Romulan conspiracy take shape, the continuingly fairly vague nature of the AI apocalypse, past and present, although now of course it looks all the more like fear-mongering (as I write this, I'm grappling with the effects of COVID-19 in American and personal activities, so I seem to have pretty relevant recent experience).  Someone on the internet, which is capable of reducing even the most complex concepts into the least helpful summaries possible (which, again, because I'm feeling cynical at the moment, seems to be the extent of human discourse, at least at the moment), pointed out that Picard and the second season of Discovery both have AI apocalypse plots.  The difference of course is in the storytelling, and in that you really have to go out of your way to worry about similarities.  Picard weaves a tale drawing on rich Star Trek tradition, where Discovery invented its out of sheer cloth (and maybe a Pocket Books novel). 

Anyway, Jurati comes clean, and even finds some peace and solace with what's happened, Seven (or, Annika) is back, and feeling somewhat ambiguous about bringing back a hive mind to kick Romulan ass, Soji is starting to understand the scope of what lies behind her (and ahead), Raffi is plunging well into the mess at last, Picard is playing a truly supporting role in his own show for the first time, and...

Rios!  The holograms have been around since he first appeared, but this is our first chance to truly enjoy them, and their relationship to Rios himself.  It's Raffi's best showing, too, by the way, trying to get information, any information out of them, through which she demonstrates her newfound commitment.  And we learn the circumstances of how Rios left Starfleet behind (really makes you wonder what Voyager would look like in the CBS All Access era), and how they directly tie into current events.  That part is extremely artful.  That's why I hesitate to dismiss "Broken Pieces" as infodump, because (and it's Michael Chabon writing solo, so maybe this is not surprising) the Rios elements are artful, in ways the episode, and the series, and maybe Star Trek itself, really need them to be.

It's the kind of episode that pushes along the narrative exceptionally well, the necessary connective stuff that doesn't look like it's as amazing as other, flashier episodes, but, for fans of Picard, is absolutely essential.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I think the "infodump" nature would most affect viewers who aren't as invested in Picard as in Star Trek as a whole.
• series - And yet, this is crucial material that builds up everything that has come before, and will follow.
• character - Finally, the Rios spotlight!
• essential - The Rios spotlight probably no one could have expected, but becomes a definitive lynchpin of the season.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x5 "Stardust City Rag"

rating: ****

the story: Seven's revenge is a dish best served cold.

review: This is the sort of episode that will be easy to view on its own terms as well as part of the overall narrative, and as such is a de facto highlight in a serialized story.  And it is: Seven's spotlight.

In a lot of ways, Seven finally got around to joining the Voyager family.  Voyager was a series about a crew in part made up of Federation renegades who despised the results of a policy decision.  It didn't end up feeling like that because those renegades soon enough signed up with their Starfleet counterparts and for all intents and purposes looked indistinguishable within a handful of episodes (though it really took a few seasons for all the rough edges to work away).  Seven came along well after that point, and her journey was an entirely personal one.

In a lot of ways, then, Seven and Voyager serve as a template for Picard itself.  Picard views his quest as a personal one, but he's really being drafted back into a much bigger cause, and is forced to work alongside whoever's available rather than his old Starfleet colleagues (except, of course, Raffi, who might be eating some humble pie, after being forced to confront a past she was just lambasting Picard for resembling).  Seven herself has finally become a renegade, choosing a side.  It seems circumstances are always defining our choices, and what they look like.  Star Trek will always, or should always, choose to follow those who prefer principle over form, what's right rather than what Starfleet says, and has since we first met Kirk (and, technically, Pike before him).

Seven's journey is dramatized by...the death of Icheb.  Icheb was Voyager's Wesley Crusher, a boy genius who happened to be a former Borg drone.  He ended up with a far more anonymous career (and fan legacy) than Wes, but he meant a great deal to Seven, even during Voyager (he appeared throughout the show's last two seasons).  And someone butchers him for parts. 

Understandably, Seven takes this personally.  It's the same as what motivated Picard to action, really, only, at this point, Picard has less immediate results available to him. 

The episode also shows us Bruce Maddox (like Icheb, played by a new actor) for the first time (and, uh, last time), thanks to Jurati (here I am, using character names for the first time!), finally exhibiting some agency of her own (even if it seems awful!).  Rios has another great showing.  No Soji (that's the other twin in the Borg cube).  Elnor (that's the Romulan samurai dude we met last episode) is kind of the Justice League Flash in the episode. 

It's the first episode of the series to cede the spotlight to someone other than Picard, and so that's remarkable in itself, and Seven of course is a worthy substitute, and the acknowledgement of their shared Borg past is nice, and of course it does link up with what Soji's working on, which Maddox is able to point toward before Jurati offs him.  The whole episode feels like one of those classic pivotal arc moments from Deep Space Nine or Enterprise. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A huge shout-out to Voyager!
• series - While remaining completely relevant to Picard itself.
• character - Focus shifts to Seven, brilliantly.
• essential - The spotlight is also shared by Maddox, finally, but I bet he wishes it hadn't.  This is a crucial turning point.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)

Picard 1x4 "Absolute Candor"

rating: ****

the story: Picard's latest recruit is from a Romulan colony he was forced to abandon.

review: The Romulans have existed in franchise lore since the original series, and have been a treasured aspect of it since that first appearance, "Balance of Terror."  But their role has been about as aloof as they've tended to be themselves, famously featured in Next Generation, but never to the level of the Klingons.  But their presence has been steadily expanding since Star Trek Nemesis, which showcased them as the principal antagonists in one of the films for the first time, and then again with Star Trek (2009). 

"Absolute Candor," however, is the new Romulan peak.  In exactly the way Next Generation finally allowed Klingons to be more than mere warriors, to flesh out a whole culture, Picard has now allowed Romulans to be something other than mere prototype, more than just "devious Vulcans."

Some fans might chafe at the notions emerging in the episode, that because we'd never seen it before, it seems too contrived now.  But Picard himself, having pierced the veil of Romulan society, thanks in part, no doubt, to his experiences in Nemesis, found himself in a perfect position to learn far more than the Federation itself ever knew ("Balance of Terror" itself was the first time anyone had seen a Romulan, much less knew the Vulcan connection).

And he immersed himself in a community.  Arguably, what always stood at the heart of Picard's reluctance around children was the fear that he himself would never have them.  That's addressed in "Candor" as well, and itself is a valuable aspect of the episode.  And yet, it's that community that always defined Picard, whether his Enterprise days or even earlier, as he bonded with the Crushers, and what he so tellingly lost, as everyone keeps reminding him, when he left Starfleet.  He put himself in isolation, not merely from Kirk's notions of "making a difference," but from any real semblance of family, which he probably thought he had sacrificed permanently to pursue his youthful dreams.

And so as we learn more about Romulans, we see Picard himself once again more clearly.  And it's probably the best window into the man we've yet gotten, at least in this series.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Romulan society blossoms!
• series - We meet another member of Picard's new crew!
• character - The deepest look into Picard's recent past we've yet gotten.
• essential - Will serve as a defining look into the Romulans.

notable guest-stars:
Jeri Ryan (Seven)