Well, that was a bit of a step down...again...in quality. Not a bad episode, but not an amazing one either.
Part of the issue is, much more than the first two, this doesn't feel like an episode - it's just a collection of stuff that needs to happen in order to move the arc forward. We have a quick first act which wraps up the Confederation plot before titles role, then a bunch of shipboard scenes that establish the "mission" and the stakes, as it were, and then finally - around halfway through the episode - we finally get to 2024, and presumably the main plot arc for the season. This has been the third episode straight which is placing items on the table for a new setting, so I hope we're strapped in here for awhile and can enjoy the story.
Elnor's death didn't surprise me after he was shot last week, plus I saw he didn't appear in the promo pics for this week, and we haven't seen any shots of him in the trailers from future episodes. This might be the end of his character on the show. I've thought Evan Evagora's acting has been far and away the worst of the leads, so in a way I won't miss him. On the other hand, he seems like such a wasted opportunity, since they spent an entire episode introducing him and did jack shit with his character ever since. But my biggest issue with the death is that despite the last two episodes trying to sell me on a close relationship between Raffi and Elnor, I just don't buy it. Yes, I know that there were two years of off-camera development of their relationship, but we as viewers didn't get to see it - we saw maybe ten minutes of interactions between them. So a character we barely know/understand died, and another character who we know better is upset because they had a close relationship which developed off camera. Only maybe he's not dead after all - maybe the timeline reset will fix everything. Time will tell.
Unlike some others, I really wasn't sold on the Borg interactions this episode. The initial scene in the opener was great. The scenes with Jurati attempting to link with the Queen were...okay. But I thought this was one of those situations where maybe some more VFX could have helped (like something showing her own POV) because for the most part it's just Alison Pill with a cable stuck to her neck acting weird. The final scene when the Queen is fully awake...this is the kind of Borg Queen I hate, TBH - the kind that reminds me of Voyager. Not creepy and alien, but relatable and a bit catty. It diminishes the Borg seeing them so personified like this. Though I understand she's cut off from the collective, thus effectively an individual at the moment.
I started enjoying the episode a lot more once we finally got some of the characters in Los Angeles in 2024. Raffi and Seven don't get much to do, but they have good chemistry, and I thought their scenes worked well. But Rios's scenes were by far the highlight of the episode. I can't be the only one who's wondering now that they've plopped in down with a single, cute woman who's raising a son alone (and who happens to be Latina) that ultimately he's going to marry her and stay in the 21st century? His getting captured in an ICE raid was a bit on the nose, but Terry Matalas said they wanted to explore contemporary issues this season - I guess immigration is one of them. At least it looks like California got single-payer health insurance in the Trekverse by 2024 though.
