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Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x08 - "Mercy"

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Speaking of Rios, I keep scratching my head at the relatively common opinion on the internet, that his stupid decision to involve Teresa and Ricardo in all of this is stupid writing because it endangers the integrity of the timeline. But why does a character making stupid choices automatically mean that the writers are stupid? It reminds me of that exchange on tumblr on the nature of plot holes that basically boiled down to "a plot hole is when a character doesn't do what I thought they were going to do or what I thought they should've done." Why does this character make an emotional judgment consistent with their personality and morality as opposed to doing the most rationally obvious logical choice appropriate to the situation? STUPID WRITERS!
This. Not everyone makes the right choices. Real people or fictional.
 
Kirk came closest in "The City on the Edge of Forever(TOS)," keeping the ruse of being normal people from 1930 going right up to the end. Not one word to Edith about what her future was meant to be nor where he and Spock came from. But that was and remains a rarity in Trek.

The comments about the poet on the planet in Orion's Belt writing a beautiful piece of literature some 100 years later was close to exposing his mission but Edith likely thought it fanciful dreaming and being romantic.
 
It seems like Q is not responsible for the timeline change, so stopping Q’s interference is not the key to fixing it. As for who/what did change the timeline, I have no idea. I hope we get a satisfying answer.
He is responsible.

Did you miss the scenes where he was trying to stop Renee from going on the mission, and when that failed he got Soong to try and do it?
 
He is responsible.

Did you miss the scenes where he was trying to stop Renee from going on the mission, and when that failed he got Soong to try and do it?
I saw those scenes, and I’m not sure why he was doing that, but I suspect that he was not doing it to bring about the Confederation timeline, considering that he denied responsibility for it in Penance. Of course, it’s possible that he was lying in Penance, but that particular kind of lie seems out of character for him.
 
I saw those scenes, and I’m not sure why he was doing that, but I suspect that he was not doing it to bring about the Confederation timeline, considering that he denied responsibility for it in Penance. Of course, it’s possible that he was lying in Penance, but that particular kind of lie seems out of character for him.
They were taking the Borg Queen's word for the change when they went back. Possibly, Q was trying to stop Rene because she wasn't meant to go on that particular mission or on that particular launch date.
 
Carbon Creek said there would be another survey in 20 years. That’s spot on for the timeline.
And the experience in CC could've sparked their interest, so they send a landing party when they previously didn't plan to...
Whoever cast the kid did a perfect job getting someone who really does like a young version of the older character. But flesh it out more! What were the Vulcans doing there, why was the kid out there in the woods at night, give us more than a few seconds of flashback...
 
The Borg Queen futzed with the transporter.
Yes, I know, that's why I mentioned it. But since he managed to get them there, clearly it was still working at that stage - he had them hanging around for a long time before he discovered the transporter fault. Long enough for the conversation to have explained the whys and wherefores a bit better, which would support the character and storyline more strongly than what we've got. There was a lot of cutesy romantic dialogue that didn't end up going anywhere because they were interrupted before Rios could answer Theresa's questions anyway, so perhaps instead they could have had a more meaningful discussion around whether Theresa actually believes him now - don't call the cops, we really are trying to prevent disaster! That would give viewers something a bit more solid to go on to help understand.
 
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One thing I noticed when Kore was about to look up more info on her "Dad". The shirt she's wearing is pulled down her shoulder on only one side. I've seen this done in movies before. Do women really let this happen in real life? Or is it just a cliched metaphor for disorder? Seems weird and uncomfortable.

Be careful criticizing women or how they dress is a big no no. Even in a tv show. A sign of the SJW and woke band wagon lobby.

I got warned for Raffi looking like a BLANK...
 
Be careful criticizing women or how they dress is a big no no. Even in a tv show. A sign of the SJW and woke band wagon lobby.

I got warned for Raffi looking like a BLANK...
 
Picking up steam again, me likey. A lot of questions were answered, and we've been left with truly interesting ones to keep the cogs in our brains turning for the next two weeks. We learned Q's doing what he's doing because he's dying. It makes me wonder whether the penance he talked about is Picard's or his own. But we still don't quite understand what exactly he's doing. Does he change the timeline because he wants Picard to figure out how to save it? The key words are humans being stuck in the past, and that the trap is immaterial and it's the escape that counts... is the way the timeline is being interfered with as Picard's working to save it Q's very own, dynamically evolving version of an escape room for him?

Also, how much of an outside interference is the Borg Queen now? Is she an unpredictable new variable in this, or is her interference the actual point of this whole exercise, eventually circling all back to what happened back on the Stargazer? Are Q's words about "a timeline of their own making" about Picard's bringing the Borg Queen back to the 21st century being the catalyst for changing the timeline?

And what is Kore's role in all of this? Did Q cure her to put Soong in a devastated and desperate mood enough that he'd readily accept the Queen's deal with the devil? Or maybe Kore herself is the key? Without her being cured, Soong would be able to keep the truth about his experiments hidden from the world (the board that denied him funding - to me, at least - seemed to be under the impression that he was using illegal research to cure a naturally born, only daughter), but if Kore went public about what he really did, it might just discredit him forever and they wouldn't reach out to him even if Renée's mission failed... AAAAH, like I said, too many possible outcomes, I can't wait to find out.

There's one piece of info that worries me though, about the extremophile lifeform Renée is supposed to find on Io somehow rendering Soong's work obsolete. What does this mean? I really, REALLY hope it won't end up as a microbe that eats greenhouse gases, because it would send the worst possible message regarding global warming, and play right into the hands of the enterpreneurs currently trying to monetize carbon scrubbing technology as a be-all and end-all to fix climate change without actually having to do anything about it. Still, for now, we're missing a piece of the puzzle we're probably getting soon.

Yeah, what else? Things that everybody else said, I guess: Pill, de Lancie and Spiner carried the episode on their backs with their stellar villainous and/or anti-villainous performances (like they've always done in the season), Raffi and Seven's fighting was heart-wrenching to watch with both their emotional wounds being laid bare, and Rios just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper.

Speaking of Rios, I keep scratching my head at the relatively common opinion on the internet, that his stupid decision to involve Teresa and Ricardo in all of this is stupid writing because it endangers the integrity of the timeline. But why does a character making stupid choices automatically mean that the writers are stupid? It reminds me of that exchange on tumblr on the nature of plot holes that basically boiled down to "a plot hole is when a character doesn't do what I thought they were going to do or what I thought they should've done." Why does this character make an emotional judgment consistent with their personality and morality as opposed to doing the most rationally obvious logical choice appropriate to the situation? STUPID WRITERS!


Yes, lots of plot hole, it boggles the mind. Just to play devil's advocate, what if a lot of characters are lying, 'specially Q and the Borg Queen. Q hasn't lost his powers, he just is pretending he is, even with no one about, because his fellow Q can hear him and for some unknown reason that matters.

Or else he has mad social hacking skills (beggars belief). Borg Queen lied to Soong to manipulate him, he and everyone else are Borg chow to her. He can supply mercs because he's rich and they work freelance, they are off the books as far his money can take them. Raffi can order these people around because she is more motivated than they, as some of them are going native: basically only she, Seven and Picard are on mission.

Obviously their relationship weighs more than her insubordination. Plus, she is manipulating them. I can't explain any of the Guinan stuff. Wells' friend lied to him and left out certain photos that exonerate the Picard gang. The Vulcan behavior is bewildering; but seldom have we seen Vulcans blending in anywhere they go. They just seem mentally incapable of clandestine operations.

I'm going to allow for the possibility that maybe the Borg Queen had her ability to assimilate people removed from her when she was captured by the Confederation (which could have been explained away with a simple line of dialog), but that still doesn't explain why she can't just use the ship's replicator system to replicate all the things she needs to create new nanoprobes instead of that 'Jurati eating car batteries idiocy from writers who don't even seem to know that (non-Electric)car battery technology works different from cellphone battery technology.

I mean, they could have helped themselves even a bit by showing that all the cars she had taken apart were actually EV's (Electric or Hybrid cars) which use Lithium-Ion battery technology that's closer to what cellphones use - instead of all those CLEARLY gasoline-powered cars. But all that is just putting perfume on the turd of an already stupid plot-point. The Borg queen had control of a ship that has a replicator that Star Trek lore tells us can fabricate pretty much ANYTHING you need in terms of raw materials.

No need to destroy Jurati's body by having her injest chemicals that are undoubtedly toxic and corrosive.
 
For me, it isn't the thinly stretched plot that's the problem. It's the failure to give anyone but Picard an actual character story that's truly about them, as individuals, picking up from where we left them last season. If the character journeys for the rest of the cast felt more organic, if more of the threads of who they were last season had been picked up and moved forward, everything else would be falling into place a lot better, I think. It wouldn't even have taken very much, I don't think. Take Rios, for example. He's had two character stories this season - the ICE arrest and the romance with Theresa - and both have been generic in the extreme, with no connection whatsoever to anything we learned of him in season one. Cabrera said in interviews that we'd see a different side of Rios this season, which at this point I am reading as a very diplomatic way of saying he'd been written almost as a different character entirely. Yet it would have taken very little to form a bit of connective tissue between the grumpy, depressive recluse we met last year and the Rios we're seeing this year. All it would have taken was for Theresa to recognise him as forces/ex-forces, leading to a few meaningful conversations about his discharge and reinstatement, an opportunity to tease out how he truly feels about it all, whether or not he has any regrets, any difficulties he's had adjusting. Throw in a mention or two of his having just got out of a semi-serious relationship and how he's still worried about his ex, and you've got a character story that's actually personal to him, developing out of what we already knew of him, which would make the arrest and romance stories feel more grounded and meaningful, less generic. And we could make similar arguments for the repetitive material Seven and Raffi have had, running around LA thrashing out their relationship issues while searching for missing crewmates - material that's much more personal to them, but it's been very circular with no real progress being made, and there's not much connective tissue to anything that came before to keep their story grounded - especially given the emphasis on Raffi's grief for Elnor, who she bonded with off-screen between seasons.

The biggest issue the season has, mind - well, apart from the fact that the most interesting stories the show has to tell all happened off-screen between seasons - is the impact of the covid shooting bubbles, keeping most of the cast apart for much of the season.



Exactly which fight do you think Seven held her own in? Because in the fight I saw in this episode, Borg-Jurati took her down immediately with one kick.


Absolutely spot on. These alleged Star Fleet Officers, are an absolute disgrace. Any Officer is Commissioned and to be commissioned they must demonstrate leadership, intelligence, temperament and responsibility, and absolutely none of these clowns have shown any of that.

Raffi wouldn't have made it through the screening process let along pass the academy. She certainly wouldn't have lasted very long if she did because her fitness reports would have shown her to be a terrible officer. There's no way she would have been commissioned let alone risen to the rank of Commander. It's clear that the writers are absolutely ignorant when it comes to anything to do with Star Fleet, or Star Trek, or leadership qualities.


They're also completely ignorant about science. Lead Acid Batteries are nothing like lithium batteries and anyone eating lead and or acid would be in the ER, and likely the morgue, in very short order. What on earth are they thinking?! Furthermore, who is this show aimed at? People without logic or any basic understanding of science or Star Trek cannon? I mean they have to be aiming this at children, (but why the swearing?) or childish morons, or drooling fans who are willing to throw out everything Trek stood for just to see a com badge and a couple of their old favorite characters on the screen, even if they act like cartoon character versions of themselves and the writers have them doing South Park impersonations. I just don't get it..

I realize a lot of these actors are well past their prime and feel lucky to have jobs, but if they cared about the legacy of the characters they portrayed in the past they'd run from this show like their hair was on fire.. Patrick Stewart has lost his marbles and the writers never had any.

My guess is they sit around the offices getting stoned on mushrooms to come up with some of this, then forget what they've written, but by the time they've sobered up and figured it out the director's have shot the episode already.. Either that, or this is one massive inside joke like when Joaquin Phoenix said he was giving up acting to be a rap artist. Maybe they just want to see how stupid the "new" fans are while at the same time giving the middle finger to the "traditional" fans... Whatever it is, it's bloody offensive..
 
Urgh. Offer a teeny bit of critique after enjoying the season for the most part, and suddenly you get the neggers agreeing with you...

I still like the show. I don't think it's perfect, I think a combination of covid restrictions and plot-over-character focus have weakened the season tremendously after a promising start, but I still like it. I like the characters and I like the universe they operate in. (I just wish they all had storylines that were more about them as individuals instead of trailing around after the plot...)

I also respect the writers, even if I don't always agree with the choices they make.
 
Urgh. Offer a teeny bit of critique after enjoying the season for the most part, and suddenly you get the neggers agreeing with you...

I still like the show. I don't think it's perfect, I think a combination of covid restrictions and plot-over-character focus have weakened the season tremendously after a promising start, but I still like it. I like the characters and I like the universe they operate in. (I just wish they all had storylines that were more about them as individuals instead of trailing around after the plot...)

I also respect the writers, even if I don't always agree with the choices they make.
It's especially annoying when they've been putting out episodes so short. They could have added a few minutes for each of the groups to get more character material that would have informed the story. Seven and Raffi could have talked about their situations in the police car rather than doing a car chase. The ICE business didn't need to be dragged out the way it was yet still given the same message while Rios and the doctor could have more time to talk. Him learning about the past and her getting some hope for the future for her son instead of the prolonged story of 'will Rios get away' when he's a name character in the credits. of course he will.

Too much time spent trying to be an action show. Too little time on the character building for a mystery that would take up one episode of TNG in the old days. The show's enjoyable like cotton candy and as messy.
 
Urgh. Offer a teeny bit of critique after enjoying the season for the most part, and suddenly you get the neggers agreeing with you...

I still like the show. I don't think it's perfect, I think a combination of covid restrictions and plot-over-character focus have weakened the season tremendously after a promising start, but I still like it. I like the characters and I like the universe they operate in. (I just wish they all had storylines that were more about them as individuals instead of trailing around after the plot...)

I also respect the writers, even if I don't always agree with the choices they make.

I saw a review this past week that noted Seven using the dead guy's phone to look for clues is literally the first time this season that the plot has been moved along by a character actually investigating, rather than just getting a "hunch" - or something randomly happening because a character is in the right place at the right time.
 
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