While I still think Season 2 is an improvement over the first season, this episode hammered home how much I just don't care for where the story has gone this season. So much of this episode, as well as the season, just felt pointless.
I didn't really care for this episode, but it wasn't all bad. I liked a lot of the stuff with Seven (especially learning that she did try to get into Starfleet but was rejected). Allison Pill is the All-Star this season, and while I didn't care much for where they took Jurati and the Borg Queen's relationship I thought both actresses handled what they were given well. I do like that this season corrected the first season oversight of leaving Orla Brady on the sidelines, though I don't think they've figured out how to integrate her character well into the storylines and action. It feels like her role, being inside Picard's head would better fit Guinan and further cement their bond.
I know that mental health is important and highlighting the struggles people are going through is a good thing, though this repressed trauma feels grafted onto the Picard character, a kind of writing room fiat that Picard must be tortured because that's what the big, important characters in the Golden Age of Drama are all about, being flawed and complex/complicated. I had an inkling of where the story with his mother was going and when we got there, I felt a bit cold by it all. Perhaps in part because it made little sense that Picard's dad, or his mother, didn't seek professional help. I also don't see how this trauma has anything to do with Picard's mission to save the future (granted it might play a role next week, but right now, I don't see it). It feels like wallowing in trauma and tragedy just for the sake of it, in an attempt to make Picard some deeper, tragic figure.
While I think the Borg Queen and Jurati have been two of the best characters this season, it's a bit much to take one Jurati speech to get the Borg Queen to change her ways, even to the extent that she did. I feel in a way this episode defanged the Borg worse than VOY did, by making the Borg Queen just a super lonely person, instead of the head of an intergalactic empire who is driven by a goal larger than herself. She's had connections-albeit forced-with countless beings by this point.
I also felt that the season has really underwhelmed when it came to the Seven and Raffi relationship. Perhaps the showrunners really didn't want to explore that, like I don't think they care much to explore synth Picard. While I thought making Picard a synth was a poor creative decision, it did open up a wealth of opportunities to explore the character in different ways, and perhaps better ways than leaving him mired in the past and haunted by yet another past decision.
I don't care for Adam Soong either. Even Alton Soong, from the first season, had more menace. And Adam isn't as nuanced as ENT's Arik either. He's basically just a two-dimensional baddie and a waste of Brent Spiner's abilities.
I have no clue how any of these strands really fit together and can be satisfactorily resolved in the finale. I'm guessing that it's the Jurati Borg Queen that was seeking Picard in the future. I'm also guessing that Jean-Luc will complete the mission and Renee will die (I can't see them killing off Jean-Luc two seasons in a row). I'm iffy on Rios staying behind, but I am still leaning toward that he will.
How Q, and him supposedly dying, play any role in this, I have no clue. I'm not sure the Picard writers do either.
I also had quite a few quibbles:
-Why did Jurati and then Rios both monologue to the bad guys? It made no sense for Jurati to tell the Borg Queen that Elnor possessed the information she needed, just like it made little sense for Rios to tell Soong that the disruptor was rigged.
-I also didn't get why the Borg Queen started fighting with Elnor, or the others, when she could've just used her tentacles or overpowered them in other ways. It just felt like they just wanted to have a gratuitous action scene, perhaps to finally give Elnor something to do.
-Why was a gun down in the Picard family basement, and why did Jean-Luc know that? Was it still there hundreds of years later?
-It also would've been nice to see Picard's older brother or him being mentioned.
