Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x08 - "Surrender"

[daedalus5]

I’m racking my brains for an alien that wants vengeance and can do mind control, and I’m only coming up with Arimus or Jack the Ripper from Wolf in the Fold. I don’t think it’s either of them as I can’t connect them to red doors, apart from TOS Enterprise…..
Key highlights:
I loved seeing TNG cast around a conference table.
Data is back!
Spot!
Tasha Yar hologram.
Frozen Changeling.

Enjoyed the episode, but the pacing is too slow.

next week can’t come fast enough!

 

[Racefuel]

What is behind the door?

An absolute stockload of broken starboard power couplings

 

[Captain Shaw]

I'm getting a bit board with the jack storyline.
And I was beginning to like Shaw until this ep.
I don't understand why 7 is his first officer and I know he couldn't really do much but I can't see a starfleet captain just standing there while his crew is picked off.
In any case I think his PTSD is going to be getting worse.

 

[fireproof78]

What is behind the door?

An absolute stockload of broken starboard power couplings

I thought it was self-sealing stem bolts?

I don't understand why 7 is his first officer and I know he couldn't really do much but I can't see a starfleet captain just standing there while his crew is picked off.

To do anything else is to play in to Vadic's hands.

 

[Yistaan]

Vadic killed T'Veen because she was the one person who could mind meld with Jack and discover his secrets.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Vadic killed T'Veen because she was the one person who could mind meld with Jack and discover his secrets.

Brilliant deduction.

 

[thribs]

I just checked that DS9 episode where Jake Sisko is posted by a pah wraith and he does indeed have red eyes but the episode where Keiko is she does not. The one in Jake was supposed to be the “boss” one so maybe that’s why.

 

[jackoverfull]

The God entity from Star Trek V is the only thing I can think of. The Iconians were never said to be malevolent

a very old entity that somehow is in Picard’s brain? Kamin? The alien that took him over in TNG season one? The sun god in Masks? I guess that the Borg queen is pretty old too…

 

[TerryTrek]

Alright. 10/10. I think the final two episodes will get near universal praise (from Redlettermedia, to all the Critics, and the vast majority of fans).

I don't think there are many Star Trek fans out there that would actually dislike this one. This hit all the right beats.

The performances from all the leads really amplified the intensity and joy in the episode.

Captain Worf - Continues to bring the levity and balance to this series. His dialogue with Riker and Deanna was well-timed. Riker's reaction was priceless.

Seven and Jack - If there was ever going to be a Star Trek Legacy spinoff, it was quite clear here that these two are being set up as the main leads. Their defeat of Vadic was very satisfying.

Killing the Extras - T'Veen always seemed like a very redundant character. We've already explored the logical Vulcan science officer trope before in Trek. Lt Matthew Mura (human Bajoran?) and Ensign Esmar (nonbinary alien) always had more unique potential for something unexplored. They made the right choice, and the characters reacted appropriately to T'Veen's death. It wasn't over the top schlock like Airiam's death, and Michael making her surprised face.

The Final Data - This is a beautiful character they've introduced here. Having the abilities and memories of Data, with the snarky wit and humanity of Lore. It allows Brent to finally go full RDJ with this character and be a potential scene stealer.
Hopefully there's a Captain Data in the future.

The Best of Both Worlds - The mystery of Jack is about to be revealed, and it's pretty obvious where its going. Who's your daddy Jack?

His HIVE mind powers are about to make sense in context, and why the changelings want him.

Gangs All Here - The reunion of the Big Seven was very heartwarming to watch. They even gave Troi an important task to perform. All the characters felt like the actual characters. Terry had to undo a lot of the mistakes of past seasons and right the ship. A near impossible task, but he managed to make it work. We're in a great place leading into the potential Final 2 hours of the TNG/DS9/VOY timeline.


If this is the end for this version of Star Trek, it's been a fun final ride. Looking forward to the reactions for episodes 9/10

 

[Yistaan]

The Best of Both Worlds - The mystery of Jack is about to be revealed, and it's pretty obvious where its going. Who's your daddy Jack?

His HIVE mind powers are about to make sense in context, and why the changelings want him.

If the actual Borg could do what Jack did to Mura, BOBW would have been over in less than 15 minutes with an easy Borg victory.

 

[thribs]

Now we just need O’Brien and Barclay.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

So Worf became a freelance head-hunter following his assignment on Deep Space Nine? And I don't mean recruiting. More like the guys that Skipper, Gilligan, and the rest tried to avoid...

 

[Racefuel]

Brent Spiner mentioned in an interview just published over on TrekMovie that by absorbing Lore, Data gained some of his personality traits and talents/mannerisms and gained a "dark side" like all people have..so that might offer up a much broader character to explore if the stars line up again for the crew.

While a villain..I appreciate they didn't do Lore dirty because Lore is correct..Data got the love of everyone showered on him and Lore did not..

Then again Lore is a prick

 

[thribs]

So Worf became a freelance head-hunter following his assignment on Deep Space Nine? And I don't mean recruiting. More like the guys that Skipper, Gilligan, and the rest tried to avoid...

He became ambassador to Qo’noS after DS9, but later rejoined Starfleet and according to Matalas, became captain of the E after Picard left.

 

[Mr Awe]

How many times did Data and Lore take over the Enterprise? Of course Geordi learned...finally. Starfleet Security
I believe it is setting up the theme for the final act.

The easy takeover of ships is a thing in Trek, but I hate it. Almost always leads to poor episodes. Ugh.

Evolution, change, and combining disparate traits seem to be an ongoing theme. So, I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct.

 

[Bea Jonas]

We're still two episodes from the end of Picard, but for me personally, the best thing Terry Matalas has done is to

Spoiler

bring Data back—oh, and give Spot a role in defeating Lore.

After seeing that, I'm okay with anything that follows.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Vadic killed T'Veen because she was the one person who could mind meld with Jack and discover his secrets.

Kova Esmar is a Haliian, just get her a canar and you'd also have your answers.

 

[SG-17]

Just remembered that now they can detect these changelings because of that isotope that was used in the experiments.

 

[Racefuel]

Who would have thought it was Spot that saved the Federation

 

[SJGardner]

Let me just say, this episode was an absolute emotional rollercoaster, and it definitely felt like drowning, then coming back up to the surface to see the sunrise as we reached the resolution. Things started out really bleak, and Vadic in control was chillingly terrifying, especially with the sequence of her trapping and slaughtering the junior crew. It wasn't my first time seeing it, as it was included in the preview, but I still remember how harrowing it was... imagining myself in the place of someone with absolutely no way out is nothing short of horrifying to my core. And of course the psychological games she played with the bridge crew were also properly terrifying.

Learning more about Jack's nature has been built up as a creeping horror, and the fact that Vadic seemed to know exactly what he is just piled even more dread on top of it until we finally arrived at Deanna guiding him to the red door in his mind and encouraging him to open it. Actually, this last scene seemed like a perfect demonstration of the theme of this episode that permeated it on practically a fractal basis: everything seemed to tell the story that things aren't going to get better or really won't even start going in full gear until the TNG crew is fully back together. Worf is finally there to help break the Rikers out, Deanna is finally there to end this weeks-long beating around the bush regarding Jack's nature, and of course, as the crowning achievement, Data is finally there to not only save the ship singlehandedly but also provide us with all the answers he has in his memory about Daystrom. Data, triumphantly resurrected, turned into a real boy (of a sort) and reunited with his friends, most importantly with Geordi in a sorely needed correction from how they were depicted in Nemesis, was a classic example of the Cavalry here, resolving the entire situation with almost frighteningly little effort, almost like a Dungeon Master adding in an overpowered guest NPC to help an adventuring party that was bogged down by a miniboss for too long, to help them move along to finally confront the BBEG. If it were anything else, I would've marked it down as a Deus ex Machina, but tied into Data coming back, it worked for me just fine.

Oh, Data. I immediately realized he was playing his own game with Lore here, although I initially expected a scenario in which he willingly lets Lore subsume him so that his loyalty and love for his friends would temper his worst instincts, ending up with an amalgamated being. Him passing on his memories of Tasha and Spot to Lore absolutely felt like this way, and I even found symbolism in that after Lore so pettily cast away Data's fond memories of a human relationship, he seemingly wasn't able to resist the charm of a furry little ball of joy purring in his arms, which I believed to be Data finally finding the way in... then it turns out that Data saw right through Lore all along, and knew that despite the show he made of throwing out his memories, he was in fact keeping and savoring them, and ended up taking so much of Data's coding into himself that he became, for all intents and purposes, Data himself. Almost like a heroic version of Agent Smith converting other AI into copies of himself, only with Ctrl+X instead of Ctrl+C.

Worf and the Rikers' reunion was also really touching and lighthearted, to the point where the abrupt change from the very serious scene of them discussing their grief and their mistakes gave me whiplash (they discussed it in a very adult way I might add... no name-calling, no accusations, just a deep understanding of each other and themselves, and owning their mistakes. It was really refreshing). Deanna practically glomping Worf and him proceeding to have a big heart-to-heart with her in front of her husband who very much hears her ex talking was an absolute delight, and I adored Riker's expression being in equal parts jealousy and a complete slack-jawed "WTF" at who this person is and what he'd done with the perpetually enraged Klingon he knew.

Alright, the one thing that pulled me right out of the episode was how Vadic died. Her stiffly rotating around an axis was already goofy enough, but then her frozen body shattered against the Shrike into a pile of red goo, which almost had me thinking of a T-1000-style reassembly sequence... and then she got blown up along her ship for good measure. No kill like overkill, I guess. Almost as if the story itself wanted to assure everyone that there's no chance of her coming back. Of course, I was already laughing when she was blown out the airlock... it felt like a classic "Bloody pirates" joke from Pirates of the Caribbean whenever Jack Sparrow thwarted the plans of the baddies... the fact that she said her "Fucking solids" to someone also named Jack was so ironic I actually burst out laughing.