Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x08 - "Broken Pieces"
- Thread starter pst
- Start date
Yeah, I thought the fact that they come in pairs meant they were identical. It's of course entirely possible you are right.
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Arriving late. I think this was one of the finest hours of TV that has been made. Yeah, I know, crazy exaggerated. Bear with me.
This is how the characters evolved this episode -
Narrisa - Not much, really. Nice to see that she had a reason to become a cartoon black leather sex bitch, but nonetheless she remains a cartoon black leather sex bitch. But the back story was great for the overall Romulan narrative. Ordinary Romulans don't much care about what allegedly happend in the distant path, but for the fundamentalists, this is their entire lives' purposes. This is cool and powerful.
Elnor - We learned last week that he is not Legolas. Making Legolas in training but not there yet. Still a character who we need to learn more about, but the hug was one more step forward.
Seven - Not sure I would believe that one can put on Borg Queen equipment and then take it off, but I will cut Jeri Ryan and her character the slack. She is great in her return and we learned more about her willingness to do anything, just anything, to get at persecutors of XBs.
Jurati - Great acting, great portrayal. She came out of the coma as massively damaged goods. PSTD. She is an emotional toddler, just trying to stand and walk forward. Her mental shakiness is overwhelmingly evident, and fully deserved based on her experiences. This is a natural outgrowth of being mind fucked and committing murder. It is fully believable that she came that close to killing herself, and has emerged as a shell of a person.
Rios - The flyboy image rocked by a memory. He's not as tough as he seems to be -- but tough enough to recoup after the blow, which after all is what he did way back in the day.
Raffi - My favorite part of the episode. Michael Chabon rescued an annoying loser. Yes, she is weak and prone to addiction, because her emotional status is oh so raw. She cares so much, that makes her vulnerable, and thus likely to collapse. But that empathy can be strong, too, as when she recognizes Rio's pain and rescues him.
Soji - Also an emotional toddler, as with Jurati, but for totally different reasons. Understanding that Jurati killed her perhaps father, and then planned to kill her, but now won't (maybe), and figuring out how to respond ... you can see the neurons firing. Building enough trust to go along, although surely not naive enough to be fully believing.
Rios Holograms - Nuff said. They probably won't evolve, but they don't need to. Awesome.
Admiral Clancy - Maybe not character development exactly, but she's fucking funny. And she did concede to reality.
Picard - Finally. As someone before me wrote, this is his coming-out episode. He has been trashed and insulted this entire series, and taken it all with humility (yep) except for accusations that he helped the Romulans too much. Rebuked by Raffi, the Romulan at the bar, Elnor, Troi, punched by Soji, accepted it all. But now he realizes that for all his errors (which I don't fully buy, these characters have their own problems and are scapegoating Picard to an extent, except for Troi), he retains merit and insight. He is gathering this motley crew together and making it his own once again, maybe as a somewhat motley Captain, but still. Also props to when he wants to engage but does not know how.
That takes some seriously writing ability to lay all those threads together and pull them off in a single episode. This series was meticulously planned.
This is how the characters evolved this episode -
Narrisa - Not much, really. Nice to see that she had a reason to become a cartoon black leather sex bitch, but nonetheless she remains a cartoon black leather sex bitch. But the back story was great for the overall Romulan narrative. Ordinary Romulans don't much care about what allegedly happend in the distant path, but for the fundamentalists, this is their entire lives' purposes. This is cool and powerful.
Elnor - We learned last week that he is not Legolas. Making Legolas in training but not there yet. Still a character who we need to learn more about, but the hug was one more step forward.
Seven - Not sure I would believe that one can put on Borg Queen equipment and then take it off, but I will cut Jeri Ryan and her character the slack. She is great in her return and we learned more about her willingness to do anything, just anything, to get at persecutors of XBs.
Jurati - Great acting, great portrayal. She came out of the coma as massively damaged goods. PSTD. She is an emotional toddler, just trying to stand and walk forward. Her mental shakiness is overwhelmingly evident, and fully deserved based on her experiences. This is a natural outgrowth of being mind fucked and committing murder. It is fully believable that she came that close to killing herself, and has emerged as a shell of a person.
Rios - The flyboy image rocked by a memory. He's not as tough as he seems to be -- but tough enough to recoup after the blow, which after all is what he did way back in the day.
Raffi - My favorite part of the episode. Michael Chabon rescued an annoying loser. Yes, she is weak and prone to addiction, because her emotional status is oh so raw. She cares so much, that makes her vulnerable, and thus likely to collapse. But that empathy can be strong, too, as when she recognizes Rio's pain and rescues him.
Soji - Also an emotional toddler, as with Jurati, but for totally different reasons. Understanding that Jurati killed her perhaps father, and then planned to kill her, but now won't (maybe), and figuring out how to respond ... you can see the neurons firing. Building enough trust to go along, although surely not naive enough to be fully believing.
Rios Holograms - Nuff said. They probably won't evolve, but they don't need to. Awesome.
Admiral Clancy - Maybe not character development exactly, but she's fucking funny. And she did concede to reality.
Picard - Finally. As someone before me wrote, this is his coming-out episode. He has been trashed and insulted this entire series, and taken it all with humility (yep) except for accusations that he helped the Romulans too much. Rebuked by Raffi, the Romulan at the bar, Elnor, Troi, punched by Soji, accepted it all. But now he realizes that for all his errors (which I don't fully buy, these characters have their own problems and are scapegoating Picard to an extent, except for Troi), he retains merit and insight. He is gathering this motley crew together and making it his own once again, maybe as a somewhat motley Captain, but still. Also props to when he wants to engage but does not know how.
That takes some seriously writing ability to lay all those threads together and pull them off in a single episode. This series was meticulously planned.
That's probably one of the biggest reasons I like it so much. It's not perfect, but it's very competently executed, which is a breath of fresh air, especially for a first season of Trek.
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I agree. This is probably the best S1 of any series within the franchise since TOS.
And as much as I like the first season of ENT the first season of PIC is more coherent and consistently good.
I was not predisposed to like this series as much as I do. It had a higher bar to clear. So the great job this series has done is undeniable.
I thought the point I was making was so obvious I'm having a hard time believing you could miss it. Then again, this seems to happen to me so often on these boards I guess I'm not being clear.
Hmm. It occurs to me now (and I may have missed someone else saying this) that Elfwich may be the template for the male Synths. He's young and pretty like Soji and he was provided to Picard by an all-female warrior cult who is the champion of lost causes-- which may mean that they are really the opposite number of the all-female warrior cult that wants to destroy Synths. Which still leaves the question of how Soji et al got into Data's painting-- perhaps that's an artifact of Soong using Synthworld technology to create Data.
I'm kind of hoping that Picard's last interaction with Clancy has him turning to leave, then turning back with the Picard grin and saying, "Admiral, you should learn to watch your fucking language."
I would LOVE if this happened, but I'd hate the threads that would come with it.
I got your point. The reasoning you were using to support it was fallacious, as it involved the need for everyone to agree about something, which is a phenomenon you won't find around here.
The problem with that is that Rios didn't recognize Elnor the way he did Soji. It's clear from the way they're playing BF's anonymity to the audience that he's somebody we'd recognize; and he also has to be somebody whom Rios wouldn't. Unless I'm missing someone, the only likely candidates there are Data/Lore/Soong or (*shudder*) Narek.
Also, the implication at least with Soji is that she didn't "grow up", never was a child. But we have seen Elnor as a child.
"Oh, good lord, didn't anyone here build ships in bottles when they were boys?"
"I did not play with toys."
"I was never a boy."
Oh I hope not. It would destroy Soong's character. He was a Michelangelo-level genius artist to create Data et al. through his sheer talent. Don't retcon it so he borrowed from the work of others.
You know nothing, Elnor.
From the gag reel: Worf: "I never played with boy---" Picard and Data crack up.
Is that real?
would be nice to see and hear but truith is, that JLP is not that kind of person.
