Wow I'm genuinely surprised at the gushing over this episode because it fell flat from the start to me. Picard S1's saving grace was that it was very much non-Starfleet. Cruising around in La Sirena, doing your own thing. It proved Picard didn't need Starfleet. Patrick himself said he wanted Picard to move forward, not backward, and not be in Starfleet doing Starfleet things.
So, why did S2 do away with all that and literally have Picard back in Starfleet doing Starfleet things (complete with fighting the Borg and issuing yet another autodestruct sequence)? As Chancellor of Starfleet Academy no less. Oh that's not enough, let's put Elnor, Raffi, and Rios all into Starfleet too, the latter 2 of who have serious issues with the organization that I don't think S1 magically erased to be blunt. If I were Rios, I just couldn't imagine abandoning the freewheeling La Sirena life to go back into a starship he doesn't own (Starfleet does) with rules and regulations and all that sort of thing.
Wait, where's Zhaban? He's dead? Wait what? Romulans live a lot longer than humans and he didn't look that old last season. How did he die? Doesn't matter because his death is a plot device for Laris to start banging Picard. Wait what?

And they were in such a hurry to do so that they torpedoed even the comic Picard Countdown--man, comics named Countdown in Trek never age very well do they-- from "soft" canon to make room for this (the comic said Laris and Zhaban got together in the Tal Shiar, here it says they were arranged from birth so the implication is Laris never really chose Zhaban but now she's choosing Picard. Ok).
No mention of Crusher in all this? You think either Laris or Guinan would be mentioning her immediately.
If Picard had issues with a violent upbringing, you kind of think he'd have dealt with it before he turned 96, or that at least someone would have mentioned it before.