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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x08 - "Mercy"

Rate the episode...


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    162
Yeah, what happened in Regeneration retconned first contact with the Borg in such a way that it was no longer "Q's fault" - which it arguably was up until said point.
It was never Q's fault. The Borg were already there, they destroyed the outposts in the Season 1 finale.

Well, I suppose it was appropriately symbolic for filler material!
It wasn't filler.

The kid from Carbon Creek is the FBI agent.
Too young. But he is old enough to be a kid in the 70s, which is when Mestral said the next Vulcan Survey team would show up.
 
It wasn't filler.
Yeah, it actually was. It literally filled up screen time while Picard and Guinan were sitting around waiting and being questioned. It did nothing to advance the plot. It just used time. And then Picard and Guinan were sent on their way with no lasting impact.

Perhaps you enjoyed the filler more than I did, but it's still filler.

Tuskin38: "Yum! Carrageenan!"
 
Shouldn't Borgati be able to connect to the collective that exists in 2024? Or would they be too far out of range?

ENTERPRISE indicates they don't have transwarp communication, only transwarp drives (probably using the warp conduit) so it takes hundreds of years to reach their people.

As for how the collective knew about Locutus, I dunno, maybe they took a moment to do a backup before assaulting Earth.
 
Wells did this off the book. He was sent the image personally by someone from the city, not his superiors, and they showed a camera in the room, it was disconnected.
He did say it was off books. Then came down with a box of his desk items indicating he was fired at the end... So I dunno. He raided Guinan's bar with a sizable contingent of cops and arrested two people. Someone knew he was interviewing people. It's a minor nit to be fair.
 
  • Adam Soong is an asshole. How did he get all of those top soldiers so quickly? It seemed like no time had lapsed at all.
  • The soldiers seemed down with the chick in a red dress and black eyes touching all of them a little too easy. Not sure if I care for this new assimilation manner all that much.
  • Detective Wells was cool. Not sure I buy into his black ops interrogation site and the resolution to breaking Picard and Guinan out was kind of contrived. Can't imagine that there were no cameras his superiors weren't listening in on in the interview rooms when they caught Picard beaming into an alley so easily.

These 3 points took me out of the episode also. I mean hours would have to have passed between the BQ arriving at Soongs and the soldiers showing up. The timing of certain events felt off. It's possible that scene takes place during whatever the rest of the crew are doing in 2.9

Agnes touched that guy's face and he just stood there. You can see someone behind him just stand there also LOL. I can kind of forgive this though since we saw she was strong and I guess can fight them all and force them to be assimilated.

Detective Welles couldn't be that low level if he had a strike team with him. Seems weird he had a strike team, took them to an off the books site, and then just let them go. I didn't mind the scenes with him, but this didn't really make sense.
 
So... Q is dying? I really hope that Q is going through something other than death. It makes the entire episode with Quinn pointless if he just had to wait a few more decades and then die "naturally".
 
So... Q is dying? I really hope that Q is going through something other than death. It makes the entire episode with Quinn pointless if he just had to wait a few more decades and then die "naturally".

Not necessarily. Billions of “years” could have passed in Q’s existence since we last saw him. We also don’t know if it’s the entire continuum
 
Not necessarily. Billions of “years” could have passed in Q’s existence since we last saw him. We also don’t know if it’s the entire continuum

Omniscience means that a Q can see all of time and everywhere all at once, all at the same time.

There is no downtime.
 
ENTERPRISE indicates they don't have transwarp communication, only transwarp drives (probably using the warp conduit) so it takes hundreds of years to reach their people.

As for how the collective knew about Locutus, I dunno, maybe they took a moment to do a backup before assaulting Earth.
Voyager's episode Unity featured former Borg who were assimilated at Wolf 359. it's assumed then that the cube that assaulted Wolf 359 had a sphere on it, and that would explain those former Borg surviving and how the Queen (if she was physically present and not just in Picard's mind during his flashback in First Contact managed to survive. It would have departed the cube at some point after Wolf 359 and it's destruction in Earth's orbit.

It's assumption, as its not specifically shown on screen but it would make sense, and the physical model of the Cube used in Best of Both Worlds, Q-Who and Emissary wasn't a complete cube it only had 3 sides, I believe so there is plenty of room for a side never shown to have a sphere hatch.
 
I'll go with an 8. This is finally coming into focus.

Dr. Soong is being corrupted by the Borg Queen who's inhabiting Jurati. Raffi and Seven know that Jurati is still in there. It's just a matter of bringing her out.

I liked the scenes between Picard & Guinan and the FBI Guy. The FBI Guy is like Mulder from The X-Files: They'll think he's crazy if he goes on about aliens. It's a good thing I binged ENT two years ago. Whoever thought "Carbon Creek" would ever figure into Picard?

Core is appropriately pissed off at her father. Dr. Soong says he loves his work but also loves her. I think that's true, and eventually he'll come around and resist the Borg Queen.

Seven got a lot more to do. And I liked how Raffi kept asking Seven "What would you do?" Seven being or having been Borg helped them figure out what the Borg Queen was up to.

The scenes between Rios and the Doctor show that Rios would make a good Family Man.

That's all I've got for now. Other than this: Death is the last new experience we'll ever face in this life. I never thought about it quite like that before until Q put it like that. Hopefully I'm only half-way there. On that somber note, that's all I've got.

Other than this: Dr. Soong talking about all of his previous genetically-engineered experiments before he got to Core reminds me of all the experimental Ripley clones before they finally got to the eighth one in Alien: Resurrection.
 
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It advanced Soong, and Q's story lines, and Core's. Plus Picard got more information he may need to solve this. Plus all the Raffi, Seven and Queen stuff advanced that plot point.

It isn't filler.
So, if you read my comment that you were responding to, you would have known that I was specifically referring to the washed out FBI plot, not the other things you mention.

However, while there was some movement on those fronts that you mention, it wasn't that much. Soong got exposited upon (using the always lovely telling rather than showing style of storytelling) a few details by the BQ about an alternate future. Core learned of her nature, which advanced it ever so slightly from the previous episode where she had already uncovered her "sisters."

No, Q's story wasn't advanced. We already knew he was sick and in very serious condition since the very first episode. It was reinforced multiple times already. When he tried to influence Renee and the magic bottle summons.

Raffi, 7, and BQ really didn't advance much. We only learned that there was still a bit of Agnes left in the Queen, but that wasn't a surprise. We already knew that the BQ was working to take over Agnes and wanted to assimilate people.

So, lots of window dressing. But in actually, extremely little plot developments. Just a few added details here and there. Like Q isn't just dangerously sick but "fading away." We learn why Renee doing/not doing the mission affects the future--and not even exactly, just a vague thing about making Soong's work redundant.

Here, have some Guar Gum, you might like that too!
 
Not necessarily. Billions of “years” could have passed in Q’s existence since we last saw him. We also don’t know if it’s the entire continuum

Yeah, that's true. A long time may have passed from a Q's POV.

However, even if a billion years passed in the Continuum and that is the reason Q is "dying" - then why didn't Quinn just wait it out? The episode definitely implied that he wanted to be the first Q to die. If they die of old age, then why was Quinn's actions even shocking? Because he didn't want to wait the usual trillion years and die "naturally"? Meh.
 
Crazy Thought: Core is spelt like Lore, except with a different first letter. Lore was the first successful Android that Dr. Soong's descendent created. He turned on him. Core is the first successful daughter he created. She turned on him.

Core has good reasons for turning on her father. She was misled her entire life (just like Dahj and Soji). Did Lore have food reasons to turn on his father? Reasons that we were never made privy to on TNG? Is Q a corrupting force just like the Crystalline Entity?
 
Yeah, that's true. A long time may have passed from a Q's POV.

However, even if a billion years passed in the Continuum and that is the reason Q is "dying" - then why didn't Quinn just wait it out? The episode definitely implied that he wanted to be the first Q to die. If they die of old age, then why was Quinn's actions even shocking? Because he didn't want to wait the usual trillion years and die "naturally"? Meh.
Perhaps Quinn was unaware that Q had a natural lifespan. Or, perhaps Quinn's decision to choose to die somehow had ramifications for the entire continuum.
 
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