Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher"

Just for some perspective.

 

Damn.

This might be the most active thread for any new episode of a series in years.

 

I think that's what happens when your episode features a black woman who's assertive in her exhortation against social injustice and you accurately depict the material conditions of racial inequality and poverty: more people get upset and argue against you.

 

Toss in canon and time travel and you got a winner.

 

The lamp shades in 10 Forward are very 70s, and the juke box might be even older if it's not ironic.

If nothing has been fixed, renovated or upgrade since 1965, I don't think Guinan has any money.

 

One assumption, another could be the bar was designed to look like the 50s-70s.

 

Compare them with Discovery.

 

I did initially. The Vulcan Hello (first new Trek episode in 12 years) hit 59 pages.

 

Plus the whole ICE thing, which ate up at least 30 pages of heated discussion...

Guinan makes sense to me in this episode. This is a Guinan who has lived through all the atrocities of the last 130 years without having had a formative encounter with Jean Luc Picard in 1893 to give her any hope at all for the future. Our Guinan always had that to hang onto, that no matter how bad things got, the future would be brighter, humanity would eventually rise above it all and evolve, become better than they knew they could be. This Guinan has never had that. And she has lived through it all. All those horrific wars. The prejudice. The abuse. Atrocity after atrocity, and no one has ever offered her even the tiniest sliver of hope to hang onto, so she has no reason to believe things will ever improve. Quite the reverse, she sees things getting steadily worse and worse all the time. This is a Guinan who feels she has given humanity long enough and is not prepared to give them any longer, because she does not believe they are worth it. She has lost all hope and has given up. And when you really think through her circumstances, that's fair enough.

 

Such Sweet Sorrow, Pt.2 clocked in at 130730 views, 136 pages and 2716 replies. Something something Control.

 

Guinan has her bar in LA. Since the 2020's at least. 10 Forward.

She notices the Federation flagship launching with a forward lounge modelled on the Federation President's office, that happens to be based on deck ten and commanded by that bald guy she knew from way back. So she joins up until Troi crashes it.

 

I bet most were people talking about the explosion proof door.

 

This is why I just can't understand some arguments. She's lived through nuclear proliferation, global warming, political polarization, the rise of totalitarian regimes and ideologies, not one but two global wars and Humanity's sudden realization that they could absolutely use their industrial capabilities to murder undesirables en masse, but she has no business being cynical about humanity's prospects because the Humans she happens to look like no longer being subject to Jim Crow means she's personally better off than in 1893? Seriously?

 

If the building is becoming part of the sanctuary district, I think someone said that they saw another sanctuary district poster on a another fence near 10 Forward, then they either condemned a dilapidated building and seized it, eminent domain and overpaid for the building, eminent domain and underpaid for the building, fabricated crimes and seized it, there were crimes on premises and it was seized, it's an abandoned building and it was claimed, or it was already a government building and was now being repurposed.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-border-wall-plans-private-land-seizure/

 

That's just even more assumptions. We don't know the specifics of any laws in this world or what the specifics were with the building Guinan's bar was in. Seizing property in areas with POC happens more often than Americans would care to admit. Los Angeles didn't get its freeway system by being fair to the Latin population. We got the whole country by ignoring folks who weren't white enough to care about. No surprise there wasn't much trouble with the Canadian border compared to the Mexican one.

 

The freeways took decades to build.

4 million Los Angelenos times %5 unemployment equals two hundred thousand gimmes + however so many ghosts.

Finding housing for at least a 1/4 of a million people?

In less than a year?

 

Wow that's some difference to what this seasons finale clocked up.

 

This was the episode I gave up on Picard. The first episode of the season excited me for the first time in years but it's just hamfisted, poorly written nonsense.

Trek has always done well when it shone a light on our own society, and it had its allegories that weren't always subtle but were well executed. Now the writers just look outside their door and just say what they think like an Instagram post. The moment they beamed into LA i said "I bet they make some comment about homelessness" and boom there it was. Now ICE.. and the writers clearly have an issue with that and it's just a soapbox for the writers.

The fan-wank has gone too far. The odd nod to the past/easter egg is fun. But they just can't help but keep on and on and on. It's just a constant demonstration to say "We know Trek!". But they don't. It's like a sociopath just constantly reeling off knowledge but with none of the heart of why Trek is what it is.

I mean having 10 on Forward Avenue... WTF? What are the chances that her bar is on that road... and then she gets a bar on deck 10 which is at the front of the ship. It's just completely pointless other than dumb fans going "Oh wow... 10 Forward. AMAZING!"

When I saw the young Guinan and Seven just driving a car 'just like that' I switched off. I can't be bothered as to what absurd excuses they have for not having Whoopi in the scene. I can't be bothered with car chases... this is meant to be Star Trek.

 

I don't know why I'm railing on Guinan.

She gave away her dog, and put everything she owns in the back of a car.

That means that she is homeless.

Of course she could be inbetween houses, and she has money in the bank and she's planning on moving to a different city... Although, she could take her dog to another city, but she couldn't take her dog into space.

Imagine she has a shuttle craft parked in orbit capable of low warp, and it takes 4 years to get home, now imagine sharing that tiny living space with a dog for 4 years?

She was going Home when Picard found her.

 

Even if she was a direct ancestor she might already be married