Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 1x10 - "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2"

[picardjean-luc]

Narek was forgotten. Narissa did the Palpatine dive, so she's fine (thanks personal Zhat Vash transporter!).

I don't think we have seen the last of the Romulan Lannister siblings

Nice to see that Seven has a new love interest. Not so sure about Rios/Jurati. She's still a cold-blooded sociopath able to fool an android lie detector test. And for someone who's never been to outer space, she sure knows her way around the ship's controls. She should've brought Enoch online.

The fact that Jurati escapes justice completely for her murderous action also bothers me quite a bit. I have a feeling the writers will just going to leave this behind, stating: "We don't talk about Bruce Maddox's murder anymore"

Of course, we all know that General Worf is the real mastermind behind everything. They're clearly saving this reveal for Season 2.

My money is on Gul Dukat who is controlling everything from the Pah-Wraiths hell .

 

[Tim Thomason]

IF there is a season 2. With the COVID-19 outbreak, season 2 isn't a given, especially at Sir Pat's age.

If something happens to Patrick Stewart, there will be no season 2, I feel. The crew of La Sirena will probably reunite in some form in the coming years, if only as an epilogue to the series. Of course, novels and comics and such will keep them around indefinitely.

This is always a possibility, especially with actors of a certain age, and not really necessary to point out just because of one tiny global pandemic going on right now. The ending of Season 1, with a couple hiccups, serves as a suitable series finale with no cliffhanger and the cast sailing off into the Ghulion sunset. We can imagine plenty of fun adventures they'll face, even if the possibility of them being realized is taken from us.

 

[LastRideOut]

please, don't concentrate all your positive energy in one spot.

??? I thought that the entire first season was awesome, and I loved the finale. I haven't read the BS negative nancy posts in this thread because I liked what I saw in the episodes, especially tonight.

But I'm also realistic. The reality is that the outbreak of COVID-19 has brought many TV/film/commercial productions to a halt. My brother and my Dad have lost scheduled jobs in the next few months because of it. My brother works as a grip in the movie business, and my Dad works as a key grip in the TV commercial business with occasional work in the TV show business. Both have worked with Johnathan Frakes on the Librarian TV show. I'm a teacher, so I still get my salary.

Just being grounded in reality- it may be a while before we get to see a season 2. Honestly, if we never do, I'm satisfied because everything was wrapped up. Loved seeing Data/Picard. That fixed some of the damage from Nemesis and brought closure to these two.

 

[picardjean-luc]

IF there is a season 2. With the COVID-19 outbreak, season 2 isn't a given, especially at Sir Pat's age.

Sir Pat is a healthy 80-year old male. I think he'll be doing just fine.

Even Shatner at 89 is still alive and kicking. Shat does not seem bothered by all the Covid news, even writing funny tweets chronicling his adventures inside the quarantine zone:

https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1243211765481181186

 

[Borgminister]

Amazingly TNG. Loved Data's Big Goodbye. Riker to the rescue. Picard's "death" and reaction scenes. Definitely have to rewatch, but how this could not be a 10 on a TNG scale is beyond me. Not perfect, not "sexy", or glitzy. But Trek at it's core, and amazingly acted, especially by Sir Patrick, with a sincere nod to Spiner's bravura Data turn. Wow.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Sir Pat is a healthy 80-year old male. I think he'll be doing just fine.

Even Shatner at 89 is still alive and kicking. Shat does not seem bothered by all the Covid news, even writing funny tweets chronicling his adventures inside the quarantine zone:

https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/1243211765481181186

Pat stew will be at all of our funerals

 

[fireproof78]

My money is on Gul Dukat who is controlling everything from the Pah-Wraiths hell

I'd watch it.

 

[Lord Garth]

IF there is a season 2. With the COVID-19 outbreak, season 2 isn't a given, especially at Sir Pat's age.

If it comes to that, then obviously. But that's not going to be my default assumption.

The realities of Patrick Stewart's age are something that's understood when it comes to Picard. With or without the Coronavirus. So here's hoping they're able to go for as however long as they're willing and able to. If not, Season 1 ended at a good stopping point. But, personally, I'm looking forward to Season 2. And 3.

 

[Tim Thomason]

My money is on Gul Dukat who is controlling everything from the Pah-Wraiths hell .

The Pah-Wraiths are an ancient computer virus that fought against the ancient AI known as the Prophets (that went all singularity on everybody) in the ancient Bajoran civilization that existed 500,000 years ago. Sisko and Dukat were digitized into their respective programs.

 

[hyzmarca]

The synth ban is lifted all of a sudden? Too good to be true. Too Hollywood.

The Synth ban being lifted was an inevitability after the attack on Mars was revealed to be a Romulan plot planned and carried out by the head of Starfleet Security.

Oh would have been in charge of the investigation into the Mars attacks, the ban would have been driven by her conclusions. Conclusion that synths were too dangerous due to apparent mental instability (which she caused) and the ability to hack their planetary defense systems (she probably gave the hacked synth the codes). It was also predicated on the idea that synths weren't sentient, and that they lacked the tech to produce more sentient androids like Data. Outlawing the existence of sapient beings that already exist is appalling to the the Federation.

Furthermore, the narrative of "The Tal Shiar blew up Mars to stop the Federation from using synths" doesn't naturally lead to the conclusion that a secret branch of the Tal Shiar wants to save everyone from intergalactic god robots that killed the Tkon, it leads to the conclusion that the Tal Shiar wants to slow down the Federation's growth by crippling their biggest shipyard and tricking them into giving up a powerful technology. There's no way the synth ban would survive that revelation.

 

[STR]

It's actually kind of amazing how the TPTB had all the right pieces, and then they managed to put them together in the least satisfying way possible.

Example: Picard, Data, Resurrection via Clone, Mercy Killing are the four pieces to the end. I don't think anyone wanted Picard brought back and Data killed again. I wonder if the opposite was the original plan for a single season miniseries.

Great acting, at least. And despite my deep dislike of how it ended, this is still the best finale (and best season) of Trek since it came back. Also Rios and holo-Rioses is coming back, so it's not all bad news.

4/10

 

[Danja]

I don't think anyone wanted Picard brought back and Data killed again. I wonder if the opposite was the original plan for a single season miniseries.

Spiner has been adamant about Data not being resurrected. He wouldn't have done the show had that been the case.

 

[Noname Given]

I was hoping the show wouldn't have a huge messy battle scene, and was pleasantly surprised that it didn't. I'm glad it was resolved in a very TNG way...diplomacy and discussion. In a way, the Federation and Romulan fleets facing off and the Romulans slinking away reminded me of "The Defector."

Yep - like the majority of TNG - it was sleep inducing. I gave it a 7. Pretty much went as expected as I thought that:

- Yes Riker would show up leading a group of ships. IMO quite a number of them considering the state of Utopia Planita (IE parts of Mars still burning...)

- And yes, Picard "died" but his memory was transferred to the "Golem" (although why Soong decided to give up HIS chance at immortality? <-- And it was what Soong was going for, although it didn't appear that it would be impossible to build another, so yeah, I guess.)

- The female Sutra (aka "Lore 2.0") who really was just a bad mustache twirling style villain was ultimately disappointing in that she didn't even try to stop Soong from deactivating/killing her as he was revealing he found out it was her who killed the other android </yawn>.

- And in true old style TNG fashion, Picard and Riker butted heads with Romulans; but in the end, talked them out of their multi-millennia crusade (all because - for whatever reason after 30 years of putting a DEEP spy/plant in Starfleet Security, they DON'T want to break a treaty.

- As for the Fed Fleet; it looks like the SFX team did take some ship design cues out of the Star Trek online MMO as I though Riker's fleet of ships could definitely be precursor of these ships from the early days of STO (it starts in the year 2409. but the game has progressed two more years to 2411 in it's decade of online existence):

^^^
The Imperial and Noble Class ship lines were from the original STO launch - and I thought Riker's fleet looked very similar to the Noble Class myself (YMMV).

- The final discussion between 'virtual Data' and 'virtual Picard' was a nice touch; but sorry - even with the digital de-aging Data (and even the ST:Nem era uniform he was wearing) looked off - especially Data's hair piece.) Also, Picard didn't really 'kill' Data per se - he just unplugged the memory chips (or whatever those were). Technically Data could be 'plugged back in'. IMO it would have been nice if they showed Picard or someone destroying those huge chips COMPLETELY so not a single positronic engram remains. <--- That would have been a more 'permanent' death for Data (IMO).

Again, I've never been much of a TNG fan as time's gone on since it was aired in first run syndication; but that said, yeah, I could see TNG fans LOVING this episode as yeah, it was pretty much a by the numbers TNG episode - with a lot of good stuff and a lot of what I consider 'bad' and honestly boring stuff <--- But that was TNG in it's last couple of TV seasons and for the majority of its feature films.

What I find really interesting is NO ONE from either the Romulans or the Federation seem to care/make or take any notice that there's a pretty intact Borg Cube WITH A FUNCTIONING WEAPON SYSTEM that a bunch of EX-Borg (sans 7 of 9 who seems for whatever reason, to now join Picard's merry band. Again, disappointing that 7 of 9 didn't use that system at all against the Romulan Fleet. But yeah, it's TNG to again have the BIG buildup that ends with a big nothing/sleep inducing speech by one or more people.

So yeah, a 7. Not too bad; but IMO not really outstanding either. (YMMV).

For the first time in 72 years Picard has a normal, working heart.

Um, it's STILL mechanical now - like the rest of him...

 

[Danja]

Technically Data could be 'plugged back in'. IMO it would have been nice if they showed Picard or someone destroying those huge chips COMPLETELY so not a single positronic engram remains. <--- That would have been a more 'permanent' death for Data (IMO).

Picard didn't have the heart to wipe his friend completely out of existence. It was difficult enough to unplug his memory chips.

What I find really interesting is NO ONE from either the Romulans or the Federation seem to care/make or take any notice that there's a pretty intact Borg Cube WITH A FUNCTIONING WEAPON SYSTEM that a bunch of EX-Borg (sans 7 of 9 who seems for whatever reason, to now join Picard's merry band.

Maybe Seven is tired of being a lone wolf? Maybe she's concerned about Elnor? (He who got himself trapped on a Borg cube with two thousand drones.)

For all the negative stuff she's done over the years, perhaps she's seeing a chance to do something positive for once.

 

[Lord Garth]

We don't really know what Seven was doing within the Fenris Rangers. I think La Sirena has joined the Fenris Rangers. They'd fit in, doing what no one else is. Seven will have much more of an equal footing with Picard (and everyone else) on La Sirena than she ever did on Voyager.

I see Picard as the elder statesman, Rios as the actual Captain, and Seven being a liaison to the Fenris Rangers, where she'd have seniority. I don't hold it against the Season 1 Finale for glossing over all of this because I fully expect it'll be shown or explained at the beginning of Season 2.

 

[Thomas Elliot]

I have some mixed feelings about this episode but overall I found it pretty disappointing as a season finale and as a wrap-up to this storyline.

The Good
For the most part I was entertained. Harry Treadaway as Narek has delivered a great performance and I liked his portrayal of the conflicted bad boy bad guy. Cabrera is very likable as Cristobal Rios. Evagora as Elnor has been a delight, and it only his portrayal of Elnor's grief that actually got to me. Although the story overall has been so-so, the dialogue has been witty and clever at times.
Ex.
"Do you believer this is a prophecy?"
"No, I believe it's history. And history repeats itself."
Isa Briones is also a likable character and the smile she gives at the end can melt anybody. Raffi continued to be cute through this episode.

The Bad
Everything else was horribly cliched and a significant let down from the intrigue that seemed initially promised from the first episode and on.
The dialogue between Narek and his sister is awful.
Found any synths? Fucked one? Killed any?
So witty and edgy, right? It's hard to sell me, the viewer, on this threat of Judgment Day when they're cracking jokes at the end like this. That's right at home in a mainstream action flick from the 80s/90s, but if I remember correctly, even towards the end, the characters typically got serious, ie Terminator 2, Aliens, etc. In this particular scene in PIC its more like Lethal Weapon.
It's kind of weird that these characters who live in the 24th century and travel through space regularly, talk just like humans in a Hollywood version of the 20th century. An Earth woman and an android see these floral-like things approaching them and crack Orchid jokes. Two alien Romulans who were trained as CIA/doomsday cult operatives and are trying to prevent Armageddon are also continuing the theme of flower-space ship jokes.

The magic device that you just use your imagination for was a cop out from the writers. Just a magic device that can fix anything. It sounds good though, having this beautiful, innocent and naive synth give Rios and Raffi the device and just tell them "use your imagination." It's like John Lennon in his white suit speaking to you.

"I'm not their mother, asshole." Ah, Jurati found a loophole in the synth lie-detector test! The writer's got me on that one. I thought it was a foreshadow for her sacrifice and redemption but how can she be redeemed for something she wasn't really responsible for (murdering Maddox)? I'll get to that later.

And Jurati knew of Alton Soong this whole time???

And they really doubled down on the mythical Judgment Day/Armegeddon/Ragnarok theme with "Ganmedon," complete with "demons." Less of a sci-fi approach, and feels like the most generic action-fantasy film.
Jurati takes Saga's eyeball out so she can open the retina-scanning door locks. I saw Minority Report too.

So Soji is activating the doomsday device. Soji doesn't even know if she's real or not, but has no problem calling forth this unknown race of supposed advanced synthetics that may destroy ALL organic life. I find it hard to believe that Soji, who just found out she's a synth, would suddenly value her own life and this little android town over the lives of ALL organic life. What about her friends, her boyfriend, the xBs, the people she encountered in real life?

And the doomsday device shoots up into the sky and is opening up a portal to another dimension and we get Lovecraftian monsters coming through the void that look like the Sentinals from The Matrix, or the scene from the end of Hellboy where they also have a similar-working doomsday device and dark tentacle demons are coming through the void, or like the scene in Pacific Rim, or the portal in Ghostbusters remake.

Sutra really was just a one note, femme fatale cliche. And they foil her plan by just stunning her MIB-style?

xBs lives are cheap. Elnor is still mad at Narek for killing Hugh, but doesn't mention the massacre of the xBs. It's okay, they were all just nameless bodies to drop in order to make Narissa look even more stereotypically evil. In fact, they're not even people. They're "xBs." PIC was trying to humanize the Borg, show that racism is wrong, and yet they're constantly referred to using pejoratives, even by the good guys. Did none of them remember who they were? Regain their humanity? Refer to themselves by their birth names? Did none of them scream, or beg for their life when they were being massacred? Might as well have been ants being vacuumed into space.

Commodore Oh is trying to prevent the end of the world. But she sounds like a typical villain, even the way she shows up on screen. You'd think they'd portray her to at least look somewhat sympathetic, or shades of grey and all that. And this Zhat Vash organization has been in existence since primitive times, and it's been their mission to end the threat of the End of Days, and after hundreds/thousands of years, they give up just because Soji turns off the beacon and Starfleet shows up? I would have expected them to at least attempt a kamikaze mission considering what's at stake. Or if not that, try to genuinely convince Riker that billions/trillions/uncountable innocent lives are hanging in the balance. But the white hats showed up and the black hats turned tail. We even got some cliched dialogue from the pizza maker about kicking traitorous ass! Starfleet, fuck yeah!

Picard dying didn't carry any weight at all.

But he comes back to tell Data that he loves him. And Data asks Picard to pull the plug, because our finite existence is what makes us human.
But that doesn't apply to Picard because we got Season 2 coming !!!! Data's whole speech was negated by the cheap tactic of transferring Professor X's conscious into a new healthy body.
And Jurati and Rios get together. I guess her having murdered someone doesn't matter. They already made an excuse for it by having Sutra imply that Jurati wasn't in her right mind. It wasn't her, it was the vision. How convenient, because we gotta keep this ragtag gang together for Season 2.
And Raffi getting with Seven was completely random.

Conclusion
Not a very good series. The Borg didn't tie into anything serious. Just an excuse to bring back Seven, some Borg cube eye candy, and to have a moment where Picard overcomes his Borg racism in 5 minutes.
I was expecting this series to be a little more imaginative but really it was a generic Hollywood ACTION/sci-fi movie, decompressed into 10 hours, but with some TNG characters and the novelty of contemporary slang and dialogue.
Patrick Stewart's performance wasn't very good, and Picard was the least interesting character in a show named after him.

 

[cooleddie74]

Um, it's STILL mechanical now - like the rest of him...

Actually, it's more organic than mechanical. Like 3D-printed tissue.

 

[Skipper]

It's the 2020 and we are talking about a just aired Star Trek episode.

In these grime times, it's simply wonderful.

 

[SolarisOne]

A second pair of handcuffs?
Whipped cream?
Kasseelian opera?
A holodeck with the safety protocols removed?

IDK, but Seven's not my type, so... none of the above.

I'm disappointed Oh didn't order her armada to fire at Will.

You should be proud of yourself.

The robot tentacles coming through the portal were the same things that crunched Pike and Tyler's shuttle in Disco, right?

You got a genuine laugh from me.

The robot tentacles coming through the portal were the same things that crunched Pike and Tyler's shuttle in Disco, right?

Um, no. They didn't look the same at all.

Bet they show that the closing red portal actually cut off a piece of the tentacle thingie. And that plays into next season.

Memory Alpha seems to confirm that there are two beings named 'Picard' now....

It has been suggested that this article should be merged with Jean-Luc Picard.

You can discuss this suggestion at Talk:Jean-Luc Picard#Human Picard and Android Picard.

My headcanon for now is the "hey Locutus!" guy is the new leader of the xbs.

And every time Picard runs into them again, he'll be there and say the same damn thing.

And no one seems to care that there is a master race of synth/tech life extradimensionally waiting to wipe us outl A beacon is a message. They could still open their own gateway.

That's not necessarily even what it was. Remember who called it a beacon first.

In a blinding white space, two figures stand.
Data: "Q? Where am I? What is this place?"
Q: "Data (smirks)...you're dead, this is the afterlife...and I'm God."
Data: "I find your assertion dubious at best, Q."

Um, it's STILL mechanical now - like the rest of him...

It's no more mechanical than Soji's is.

I just want to see Picard's robo brain with the flashing positronic brain christmas lights like Data had

You're gonna be disappointed. His brain isn't like Data's.

Actually, it's more organic than mechanical. Like 3D-printed tissue.

I appreciate someone actually paying attention.

 

[SJGardner]

You're gonna be disappointed. His brain isn't like Data's.

I don't think we actually see his brain on the screencap, just the head muscles... I still believe the Soji-type androids are basically vat-grown and, with the exception of the golem, augmented human bodies with positronic circuitry in their skulls.