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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x07 - "Monsters"

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Romulan_spy said:
I think Tallin says something like "there is more to the story you are not telling". So I think there is more than just the mother had a mental illness. I wonder if they will say that the mother took her own life. That would definitely add to the trauma.
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And young Picard found her body...
 
StarMan said:
You're telling me this very mortal race (albeit long lived and with some spooky temporal awareness) had a stand off with The Q Continuum - a race capable of effortlessly manipulating space, time and matter on a cosmic scale? Looking forward to some answers here chaps. Phew.
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We don't know how long ago this cold war with the Q Continuum was. Maybe it was a long time ago, when the Q Continuum was less powerful than they are now? Or maybe the El Aurians are more powerful than we think. Didn't Q call her an imp in Q Who? And we saw in Q Who that Guinan raised her hands like she was going to cast a spell or something on Q. The implication was that Guinan could resist or counter Q's powers. So maybe the El Aurians have powers of their own that do allow them to counter some of Q's powers?
 
gweeps said:
Except a lot of that happened only in the original Prime timeline.

Still, the El-Aurians never struck me as a non-corporeal race posing as solids.
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The q's chief weapon is to change time.

The Elurians can see changed time, so they are not confused by having the wrong history. There's nothing a Q can do to stop an alurian from remembering that the q are assh#les.
 
Guy Gardener said:
First of all, irl, the Secret Service is in charge of checking time travelers, not the FBI.

Second, its an immigration problem, so Picard is going to be dumped on the Mexican Border.

Third, look werey, werey closely at the FBI agent.

Don't he look familiar?

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Juel_Ducane

Of course, he was probably hired because he was on 12 monkeys, and the producer, who is the former producer of 12 monkeys does not give a monkeys about Voyager.

Fingers crossed.
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The reason I said FBI is I thought that's what was on the federal agents' jackets. After rewatching all I could make out was the first letter was F. Yes, I recognized the actor, but I don't think he's playing Ducane, even though I had hoped that. It seems too coincidental that he shows up right after Quinan and Picard attempted to summon a Q. Also, I believe whoever he is playing is the main villain of the season. I could be wrong. He doesn't have to be a Q or even the villain, but I am almost certain of the latter and pretty confident of the former despite there being other valid possibilities.
 
Can we mention the other big reveal in this episode that Tallin is a Romulan? We finally get some answers about the Laris and Tallin connection. I wonder if she is an ancestor of Laris or is Laris and hid her true purpose because she was there to protect Picard? It would explain Laris working at Chateau Picard to be close to Picard.
 
Guy Gardener said:
The q's chief weapon is to change time.

The Elurians can see changed time, so they are not confused by having the wrong history. There's nothing a Q can do to stop an alurian from remembering that the q are assh#les.
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Forgot about this. Still, Guinan did say some of them were almost respectable. A backhand compliment perhaps.
 
I was thinking. Could Jurati-Queen really assimilate the entire Earth? If she assimilated a few people and then they went on to assimilate others, the assimilation could spread exponentially like a pandemic. So if they waited too long, it could be too difficult to contain. But Jurati does not have any Borg armor or defenses, does she? She is vulnerable. You could probably shoot her pretty easily. And any people she assimilated, could probably be killed pretty easily. Unless, the nanoprobes create Borg tech and they make like a Borg base and start adding armor to "drones".
 
eschaton said:
I'm going to break with the developing consensus and say that was the best episode since the first two. I say this for two reasons primarily: That the format of the episode shifted considerably from the last several, and we actually begin to get some payoffs for plot threads which were dangled around in the beginning of the season.

The stuff in Picard's head was a bit of a confusing revelation once we reached the end of the story, it's true. I am glad they decided not to go for maximum trauma and make Picard's father into an abusive husband/father. But it was hard to see how this was that deep/dark of a secret in the end (although having a mother with mental illness could explain his fear of commitment). At first I was really perplexed how his "father" (who was just in his head) was providing revelations regarding what really happened, but Jean-Luc undoubtedly learned the truth regarding his mother as he got older, and just crafted narratives in his head to explain away how the mother he adored could have ended up this way. The explanation was really there for Tallinn (and us) not for Jean Luc himself, who was always aware of what had happened. I thought the "inside Picard's head" thing was enacted in a much more entertaining way than say Sloan's Brain on DS9 (though I was really missing Frakes' direction here).

Going round the rest of the plot, the stuff with Rios, Teresa, and her son continues to be well acted, a bit hokey, but ultimately heartwarming. The stuff with Seven and Raffi continues to be awful - I can't tell if they are given the worst lines (the scripting here continues to be pretty poor overall) or if it's just Michelle Hurd isn't as good of an actor as the rest. And then there's the curious decision the episode writers made to not conclude the episode at its obvious end, but append on a whole final act with Picard and Guinan in her bar. I don't know what to make of this because it's clearly Act 1 of next week, but was appended on here because...I guess episodes can't have closure or we'll stop watching?

Still, at least this episode was trying to do something other than just keep a bunch of stale B plots moving until the end of the season.
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There was likely a lot more perceived conflict between Jean Luc's parents than what we saw, and from a child's POV it probably seemed to be more about them fighting and the father being the bad guy. Over a long period of time, that would cement it in Jean Luc's mind as abusive.


gweeps said:
And young Picard found her body...
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And if this turns out to be the case, Jean Luc as a child will see it as something the father did. Though, JL saw his mother as a much older woman in WNOHGB, so she must live on or how would he recognize her as an 80 or 90 year old?
 
INbVcDL.png
 
ThreeEdgedSword said:
That is one of my issues with this storyline.


Yes, on the surface level, Picard had to realize that monsters did not abduct his mother, and that his father wasn't a monster.

At the same time, the madwoman in his proverbial attic - pardon, basement - had to be exorcised from his subconscious. She was, however unwittingly, the real monster who threatened his liefe AND mental well-being.

Just like she was, apparently, exorcised from his life and the rest of society, albeit hopefully under more humane conditions than in the past. No hope to get better, no mind melds for her... Just erased from Jean-Luc's life.

Whatever happened, apparently nobody thought of talking to young Picard or giving him the counseling he would need. I don't think the 24th century is perfect, but I'd expect it to be a bit more progressive than ours, and even we know kids need support after such a drastic experience and change.

Maybe I'm wrong and I missed something, or we'll learn that things played out differently. So far, nothing seems to be very well thought out.

Smaller complaints are:
Raffi and Seven go to check on Jurati's whereabouts becaue they know something's wrong with her, but are in no hurry whatsoever. Sure, let's throw in some bick... bantering first!

(Oh, you want to spend old age together? Why? Because you're having so much fun now? Anyway... Although, watching them trip up teenagers might actually be fun.)

On the bright side. I am interested in finally exploring what's up with Q, so there's that.

Question: Was the counselling supposed to really have taken place at some time in Picard's life? I mean, what's with the phrase "Even your close friends call you Captain"? Raffi's called him JL for ages, and didn't Beverly call him Jean-Luc? Troi even?
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gweeps said:
And young Picard found her body...
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Picard sees her as an old woman in TNG season 1.

IMG_4530.jpg
 
Tuskin38 said:
Maurice’s uniform is interesting. It could just be Picard’s brain playing tricks on him. Considering he didn’t even recognize his own father. But it was like a dull version of the early DS9 uniform.
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It looked like a FC uniform ordered in a cheap Chinese cosplay shop. Honestly, it made no sense whatsoever. Why create yet another uniform (or badly recreate a FC uniform), instead of just using a civilian outfit.
 
Romulan_spy said:
I was thinking. Could Jurati-Queen really assimilate the entire Earth? If she assimilated a few people and then they went on to assimilate others, the assimilation could spread exponentially like a pandemic. So if they waited too long, it could be too difficult to contain. But Jurati does not have any Borg armor or defenses, does she? She is vulnerable. You could probably shoot her pretty easily. And any people she assimilated, could probably be killed pretty easily. Unless, the nanoprobes create Borg tech and they make like a Borg base and start adding armor to "drones".
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One could probably throw bottles of booze at Agnes to stop the Queen, if it's not too late, that is.

Pandemic is indeed the result of a Borg Queen on the loose in the world in the 21st century.

So the Queen needs Jurati's endorphins to regenerate and make nanoprobes? Okay. So she sends Agnes to a bar to hook up with as many patrons as possible to get those chemicals flowing. Oh. Wait. Just break the plate glass window instead. Hmm...
 
So.... how can the timeline not be absolutely borked worse than it even originally was at this point? :vulcan:

This whole season has just devolved into a mess of shitty writing and pointless tangents. I'm only going to finish it because I'm morbidly curious as to whether it can be salvaged in any way at the end.

Someone else nailed it: this is, at best, a three-parter being stretched painfully into an entire season.
 
Maybe the Cold War between the Q and the El-Aurians was before the Q's ascent to near-omnipotence, or maybe the El-Aurians found a way/are naturally impervious to the Q's abilities.
 
gweeps said:
Would have been perfect.
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Keegan DeLancie's q could show up to undermine his father's plan showing the positive influence Aunt Kathy Janeway had on him.

Guy Gardener said:
Omg.

Yvette wasn't allowed a replicator because she wanted to do dangerously crazy things with it, and Maurice preferred it if his home and family was not set on fire.
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But if they have a gas stove instead of a replicator wouldn't that just make it easier to blow up the house?

gweeps said:
Oh, and Raffi's "We're the main story" nonsense was embarrassing.
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Especially considering we've seen more of Rios/Jurati than Seven/Raffi overall.

ThreeEdgedSword said:
OMG, I just realized... Did they just tell us why Picard was into Beverly?
His mother was a queen, with fiery red hair!
Onto season 3:
Run, Bev, run!
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It's too late, Picard already killed her husband and drove her son away.
 
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