Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x10 - "Farewell"

My roommates both cheered for it...

 

Cut scene from Star Trek First Contact--

Elderly vagrant near Cochrane's landing site: Picard! It's me, Cristobal Rios! Take me home to the future with you, I can't take it any more! I've been regretting staying here for 40 years, Teresa and her son were not who I thought they were! And World War 3 was too much! Take me home!

Picard: Get away from me you crazy lunatic!

 

Because Trekkies love that stuff.

 

I downgraded the episode a whole point because there was no kiss.

As I said, this is queerbaiting.

 

That damned ten-year-old! He claimed to be nice!

 

The answer for the Borg is that there are, and always have been, two groups of them.

The Queen's Borg, and Jurati's Borg.

Till now, the Federation has only encountered the Queen's Borg.

 

During "Tapestry", I think that's queerbaiting too, to a lesser extent. But it went over my 13-year-old head at the time.

 

Except we learned a LOT about the Borg, especially in Voyager, and there was never any indication there was a rogue faction that was nicer and friendlier. Seven and Picard were outright assimilated and would retain some knowledge of what the Borg know but neither ever mentioned or even knew of a different Borg faction.

 

Yeah, but queerbaiting was more excusable during the Berman-era homophobia.

This season has an open queer relationship between Seven and Raffi. There's no reason they couldn't make it explicit that Q has always had the hots for Picard. If not a kiss, at least let him drop the l word.

 

This analysis presupposes that the Borg Collective themselves would know of Jurati's faction, though.

 

Sure there was, the first episode of Voyager that they encountered the Borg in, Unity.

Also this.

 

Yeah, but this is one of the cases where it's not an inconsistency. It's just a mystery. Jurati may have been hiding, may have been locked away on a CD somewhere, or something else until the present day.

The answer isn't given us but it's not so bizarre as we can't speculate without tying our brains in knots.

 

Well, those drones in "Unity" had been detached from the Collective and were running their own society of former members. They still had implants and other Borg technology but they were no longer controlled by the hive mind.

 

I don't do the "they did it too!" thing. Other people here do that, but that's not me. I'm just thinking while I'm typing. These are my live, real-time reactions. I think you're right.

 

They shouldn't have detailed Rios' death honestly. They should have left an opening for him to come back. Jurati could have come back for him and frozen him until the 25th century maybe.

 

I'm pleased they did a big damn kiss with Seven and Raffi. It was a long time coming.

 

Q isn't even human, why should there be any sexual component at all to the admission of caring for Picard?

 

A part of me headcanons that Seven told Chakotay to go back to chasing Janeway and that Seven wasn't content with being the hastily arranged replacement for her.

 

Seven taking command! As soon as I saw this I thought of Danja.

I won't tag her in case she hasn't seen this yet.

 

They did leave openings for him to return.

As a hologram.