S01.E07: Nepenthe

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Picard and Soji transport to the planet Nepenthe, home to some old and trusted friends. As the rest of the La Sirena crew attempt to join them, Picard helps Soji make sense of her recently unlocked memories. Meanwhile, Hugh and Elnor are left on the Borg cube and must face an angered Narissa.

Promo:

Original air date: 3/5/20

Edited March 6, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[paigow]

Riker looks like he is living in the Nexus...like the same house Picard found Kirk!!!!

[paigow]

Seriously, what planet does Riker live on? JL just jumped a few thousand light years. Hopefully, Nepenthe is in the Alpha Quadrant close to Earth.

[Kromm]

So we get the answer to the "how large has Riker gotten" game at last.

And clearly that's Troi Picard is speaking to earlier in the Trailer. Or at least the back of Troi's head.  I guess like Marina Sirtis, Troi is now sporting straight unpermed hair. 

[MissLucas]

I wonder what's up with all the allusions to lost memories/forgotten things. The pilot was called 'Remembrance'. Ramdha and the other Romulans on her ship can't remember what happened when they were about to be assimilated. The ship Rios' served on as XO has been wiped from Starfleet's records. Icheb died on 'Vergessen' (to forget). The last episode dealt with Soji's lost/implanted/fake memories and Nepenthe is a (fictional) 'drug of forgetfulness'.

At this point I'm surprised the stuff Raffi is vaping isn't called 'Lethe'

Edited February 29, 2020 by MissLucas

[starri]

3 hours ago, MissLucas said:

At this point I'm surprised the stuff Raffi is vaping isn't called 'Lethe'

Disco had an episode called Lethe already.

[MissLucas]

4 hours ago, starri said:

Disco had an episode called Lethe already.

Since Disco was scrubbed from Starfleet's records that fits the bill too 😁 

[marina to]

I've waited the whole season for this. I'm finally getting Imzadi. Don't mess 'em up, show.

[paigow]

Even in the wilderness, Riker should have some kind of security system....looks like Picard just walked up and scared him.,.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Finally re-connecting with Troi and Riker was both awesome and heartbreaking at the same time. Kestra, wild girl of the woods, was great.  Plus, Bunnycorns !! And pizza !!

Sad that Hugh was killed.

Elnor pushed the equivalent of 'break glass in case of emergency' button.  Come on 7 of 9.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I would have watched this series just to see the Picard reunion with Troi and Riker. Seriously, my heart! There is something so beautiful about old friends who know you that well. I also loved that Riker knew that Soji was Data's as soon as he saw the head tilt.

And of course Troi was outside gardening in 4" heels.

Kestra was awesome. I loved her persistence with Soji.

Hearing the old TNG theme at the end was the icing on the cake.

I don't know how Peyton List keeps getting cast on tv shows. I find her acting so bad.

RIP Hugh. I hope Elnor manages to get the hell off that cube.

Edited March 5, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[NeenerNeener]

Did Elnor appear to be CGI on anybody else's tv,  or just mine? I thought I had the tv calibrated correctly and I've never seen this on any other show.

[paigow]

3 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Sad that Hugh was killed.

Geordi deserves the revenge kill....

[Capricasix]

“I got a paying client, Agnes - you just came along for the ride” Ha haaaaa 😆

[SourK]

I looked it up to be sure, and Troi's dead sister was named Kestra, too, which is a nice detail.

I liked this one, and don't have much to say about it. But the sequence I particularly enjoyed was the conversation between Soji and Troi, and then Picard and Troi, where Soji said that Troi being super nice to her made her seem less trustworthy rather than more, and then Troi told Picard that other people have had different experiences than he has, and their feelings can be just as valid.

I thought it captured what the show's trying to do (or what I think it's trying to do), and I got unexpectedly emotional about it, remembering times in my own life when someone dismissed what I was saying and I didn't have someone like Troi to back me up.

I'm so on the fence about this show.

[wanderingstar]

I liked it!

Kestra is adorable - and indisepensible!

Loved all the scenes with Jean-Luc and the Rikers. Troi was great as always. And I got a little thrill when they were all sitting at the dinner table and Picard said "Thoughts" to Troi and Will like they were still crew (awwww)

Continuing to enjoy Raffi and Rios. Wish I liked Agnes more. The annoying Romulans can go any day now. Pleaseandthankyou.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Gillian Rosh

[starri]

Seeing the scenes between the trio was like getting hugged.  I know a lot of the criticism has been the show coasting on nostalgia (which I don't agree with), but it really worked.  Mostly because it was so clear that everyone was having a good time working together.

[steelyis]

I almost couldn't bare the reunion because the joy and nostalgia I felt seeing Will and Deanna again was overwhelming!

I adore Kestra!

I have never, ever shipped anything in Star Trek, but damn if Hugh and Elnor didn't make my shipper sense tingle!

And why kill Hugh, show? What the fork! I really wanted him and Seven to meet. Not cool.

[greekmom]

Loved the Troi-Riker family. Anyone catch the name on the trophy?Thaddius Troi Riker.

Anges can stay or die in the coma.

I don't believe the prediction is accurate. I honestly think its a plant. Remember evil bitch sister was close to the Vulcan. She could have planted a false memory. 

Damn it, first Icheb now Hugh. Fuck you show. Fuck you! If you can have Seven, Georgi or Worf kill the evil incest brother/sister. Then I might be ok.   It is a GOOD DAY TO DIE.

I still hope they find nothing on the number planet. 

 

[Quickbeam]

It was very powerful seeing Frakes and Sirtis again with Stewart. And the kid was great, too. I’m not so into the overall plot but I love seeing these characters grow older. I’m old enough to have watched TOS first run but TNG got me through nursing school and I hold fond memories of them all.  

[giovannif7]

1 hour ago, steelyis said:

I have never, ever shipped anything in Star Trek, but damn if Hugh and Elnor didn't make my shipper sense tingle!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the chemistry between the two of them. I was all set to start hoping for a spinoff with Hugh and Elnor joining together to travel the universe rescuing XBs and vanquishing enemies. Damn those Romulan Lannisters {Sigh}

[marinw]

Kestra is the best tv child I have seen in a very long time.

Please die Space Lannisters.

[DrScottie]

2 hours ago, greekmom said:

Loved the Troi-Riker family. Anyone catch the name on the trophy?Thaddius Troi Riker.

That's a great catch. 

There has to be something more to this story of Thaddeus Troi-RIker's disease, mandaxic neurosclerosis. Evidently it was silicon based and could only be cured by culturing cells in an active positronic matrix. I suspect this might come into play later. I realize it was the ban on synthetics that resulted in the inability to cure him, but I am guessing somebody is going to get it and Soji will be their cure. 

To echo everyone else, Kestra was just awesome. 

[ottoDbusdriver]

4 hours ago, greekmom said:

I still hope they find nothing on the number planet. 

 

Is it wrong that I'm hoping that the number of the planet is a Roman numeral, perhaps IX, for the ultimate Dune/Star Trek crossover ?


Though I am curious why Troi and Riker didn't take Thad for a visit to the Ba'ku from Star Trek: Insurrection, a planet also with regenerative powers.

So many callbacks in this episode -- Picard's artificial heart, Data's head tilt, reference to the Ready Room on the Enterprise, Deanna's daughter named after her older sister (Kestra), the planet Betazed, Thaddeus Riker (a callback to a distant relative of Wil Riker from the Voyager episode 'Death Wish')

Edited March 6, 2020 by ottoDbusdriver

[Rambler]

It was a relief to find out that at least a couple of characters from one of the old shows found a bit of happiness in this time frame. Though the way this series has been going so far, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Romulans showing up and slaughtering the entire Riker family next week.

[oakville]

14 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I would have watched this series just to see the Picard reunion with Troi and Riker. Seriously, my heart! There is something so beautiful about old friends who know you that well. I also loved that Riker knew that Soji was Data's as soon as he saw the head tilt.

And of course Troi was outside gardening in 4" heels.

Kestra was awesome. I loved her persistence with Soji.

Hearing the old TNG theme at the end was the icing on the cake.

 

I was very excited to see Troi & Riker reunited with Picard. I would definitely move to the planet where Troi & Picard are living.

I hope we get to see Geordi & Wesley Crusher.

 

[TheGourmez]

4 hours ago, Rambler said:

It was a relief to find out that at least a couple of characters from one of the old shows found a bit of happiness in this time frame. Though the way this series has been going so far, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Romulans showing up and slaughtering the entire Riker family next week.

Seriously. I couldn't stop feeling the impending doom for the Troi Riker household all episode. I really wish they hadn't killed Hugh - it was, wait for it....overkill. I liked the knife-throwing action sequence, but they could have managed that without killing him off.

So is the anti-synth cult in charge of the Romulan Borg recovery operation? That's not been clear to me, but with the Space Lannisters' run of the place, I'm thinking yes.

[Llywela]

45 minutes ago, TheGourmez said:

So is the anti-synth cult in charge of the Romulan Borg recovery operation? That's not been clear to me, but with the Space Lannisters' run of the place, I'm thinking yes.

As I understand it, The Reclamation Project at the Artifact is owned and run by the Romulan Free State and is basically what it says on the tin. Narek and Narissa were given the run of the place without having any official status there because they are Tal Shiar, secret police, and that's how the Tal Shiar roll. Beneath the surface of their Tal Shiar status, however, they are also Zhat Vash, which is even more secret, so secret that Laris and Zhaban spoke of it as a myth - and let us note that Narissa didn't openly call herself Zhat Vash until her entourage were all dead. So, no, the anti-synth cult isn't in charge of the cube, they simply traced Soji there and then used their Tal Shiar credentials to infiltrate the project in order to get close to her.

That said, Maddox sent Soji there for a reason.

I really enjoyed this episode. I absolutely adored every moment of the a-plot on Nepenthe with the Troi-Rikers; I loved the way Raffi attempted to take care of Agnes (and the whole little non-verbal exchange with Rios where they agreed that course of action); I am intrigued by Agnes's ongoing breakdown, in which she really doesn't seem to know which side she should be on; I loved the bond Elnor and Hugh struck up in the midst of adversity and am devastated that Hugh was killed!

Roll on next week!

Edited March 6, 2020 by Llywela

[HerkyJerky]

18 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I don't know how Peyton List keeps getting cast on tv shows. I find her acting so bad.

I Googled her and the first person who comes up is a 21-yr-old Disney star and I thought who the heck was she on the show?  You would think that SAG would have a rule about actors having the EXACT same name. 

(P.S.  She's bad but not as bad as Sophie Skelton on Outlander...)

[thuganomics85]

Call me a nostalgic sap, but watching Picard reunite with Troi and especially Riker just had me grinning from ear to ear.  You can really tell how much warmth and affection that Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Marina Sirtis have for one another, and it really made their scenes standout.  I'm glad Riker and Troi had least found happiness and have an awesome daughter, even if they apparently had a son who died young due to not being able to treat him due to the synth band.  But I'll take what I can get at this point.

Especially with what just happened with Hugh.  That was cruel, show!  You make us think he will stick around for a little bit more after Rizzo "spares" him being executed with the rest of the Borg, only to get taken out later.  Boo!  At least Jonathan Del Arco made the most out of his return.  But Rizzo is the worst.  Elnor either needs to recover and take her out, or that wrecking Borg Avenger ball known as Seven of Freaking Nine better dish out some justice!

I don't blame Soji for questioning everything she knows now and still unsure about fully trusting Picard, but hopefully she comes around soon, because they're certainly going to need each other.

Agnes really was Oh's mole this entire time, but I guess she destroyed the tracker with the toxin.  I wonder if the rest will figure it out, or if she'll try to continue the charade.  Also wonder if Rios is ever going to admit his inaccurate suspicions about Raffi, and if that will end up being a problem.

I'm sure there are some moments might end up bugging me later one (well, beside Hugh's fate), but I'm going to continue to ride the glorious wave of seeing Picard, Riker, and Troi together again for now.

[paigow]

8 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

I don't blame Soji for questioning everything she knows now and still unsure about fully trusting Picard, but hopefully she comes around soon, because they're certainly going to need each other.

Why would Maddox program one sister to fully trust Picard [after activation] but not the other?

[marinw]

This was the first episode where I liked Raffi, when she was being kind to Agnes.

[marinw]

4 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Elnor either needs to recover and take her out, or that wrecking Borg Avenger ball known as Seven of Freaking Nine better dish out some justice!

Dear Elnor and Seven: Please team up and go on a revenge killing quest. I won't judge or lecture about how vengeance is never the answer.

As to Oh, I see that non-consensual mind melds are still a thing. CMIIW, but is "Commodore" the rank between Captain and Admiral? Why did Kirk (and maybe Picard) get to skip that rank?

Edited March 6, 2020 by marinw

[greekmom]

2 hours ago, lora said:

And I think Rios was leading her on to admit that she was the one with tracking device. I don't think he really suspected Raffi.

I like how Raffi was kind to Agnes.

I really thought that Raffi (being a person who is totally into conspiracy theories) was trying to work Agnes to admitting that she was a mole or behind the fact that evil space brother was successfully tailing them. 

I agree about Rios. I really think that he trusts Raffi completely.

[jah1986]

I'm pretty sure this has been my favorite episode so far. Didn't realize how much I missed Riker and Troi until I saw them. And I loved Kestra, the actress also looks like she could be their daughter.

I really liked Troi's explanation to Picard about why Soji is having such a hard time. I also think Picard thought she would trust him the way Dahj did and that hasn't happened yet.

I couldn't tell if Chris was playing Agnes or if he really suspected Raffi.  I hope it's clear now that Raffi is not the problem. I did like seeing her being so kind to Agnes. What kind of EMH is that though, doesn't show up when you ask for him and then just shows up randomly?

Was bored with the Romulans, although I did like Elnor and Hugh working together. Show better not kill Elnor...yet. This show has a high body count for the first seven episodes.

[Quickbeam]

56 minutes ago, marinw said:

Dear Elnor and Seven: Please team up and go on a revenge killing quest. I won't judge or lecture about how vengeance is never the answer.

 

My husband still loves to talk about how that woman who took on the crystalline entity was right, not the TNG "we are the world" take away. 

I also thing Rios was egging Agnes on to admit her involvement.

Space Lannisters! I'll never be able to see them any other way. 

[Llywela]

21 minutes ago, jah1986 said:

I'm pretty sure this has been my favorite episode so far. Didn't realize how much I missed Riker and Troi until I saw them. And I loved Kestra, the actress also looks like she could be their daughter.

I really liked Troi's explanation to Picard about why Soji is having such a hard time. I also think Picard thought she would trust him the way Dahj did and that hasn't happened yet.

I couldn't tell if Chris was playing Agnes or if he really suspected Raffi.  I hope it's clear now that Raffi is not the problem. I did like seeing her being so kind to Agnes. What kind of EMH is that though, doesn't show up when you ask for him and then just shows up randomly?

Was bored with the Romulans, although I did like Elnor and Hugh working together. Show better not kill Elnor...yet. This show has a high body count for the first seven episodes.

The EMH didn't show up randomly. It activated because the medical emergency was detected. It was the hospitality hologram that failed to activate when Raffi called for it. I'm wondering if Agnes turned all the holograms off to cover her tracks, but couldn't override the critical protocol on the EMH perhaps. Either that or the EHH was just slow! 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Llywela

[benteen]

Good lord, they had to have Will and Deanna lose a child?  I'm all for the darker tone of this series but you have to give every character on this show misery?  I admit, that put me in a foul mood as I watched the episode.  

Also,  shoehorning his death into the whole synth ban thing.  Contrived as hell.

That being said, it was wonderful to see Riker and Troi again. to see the characters relatively happy and to see them utilized in such a great way.  Overall, it was an immensely satisfying reunion with Picard and great to see how they slipped back into their roles with Picard when they knew there was trouble.  You could definitely feel the love here with the characters.  I liked the fact that Riker had his cabin completely locked and loaded for potential trouble.  Nostalgia is great but it's even better when it works perfectly.

I enjoyed the Kestra character a great deal, a well-realized character.  Very much enjoyed her interaction with Soji.  Naming her after Troi's sister was a nice touch but to be honest, I was hoping they would have named her after Tasha Yar.  Which is what they did in the USS Titan series a number of years ago.  

Elnor and Hugh was a good team-up and I'm sorry that's over.  Good-bye, Hugh.  I had a feeling it was going to happen but disappointment anyway.  You definitely should have gone with Picard last week but you didn't give him or Soji up.  How did he and Elnor get separated in the first place?  Looking forward to seeing the Romulans pay for this.

I thought Rios was suspecting Agnes but Raffi?

Anyway, this show has been on a roll lately and it looks like it's going to continue from here.

Edited March 6, 2020 by benteen

[marinw]

2 hours ago, Quickbeam said:

Space Lannisters! I'll never be able to see them any other way. 

I will say that the actress playing Narissa is doing a great job of making me hate her.

Edited March 6, 2020 by marinw

[Pallas]

8 hours ago, paigow said:

Why would Maddox program one sister to fully trust Picard [after activation] but not the other?

Dahj wasn't programmed to trust Picard: she was programmed to trust her maker in the form of her "mother." She still believed in her mother after being activated, so she also believed when her mother said, "Find Picard." By the time Soji was activated, she already knew that her mother, wasn't. 

[DavidJSnyder]

Just now, Pallas said:

Dahj wasn't programmed to trust Picard: she was programmed to trust her maker in the form of her "mother." She still believed in her mother after being activated, so she also believed when her mother said, "Find Picard." By the time Soji was activated, she already knew that her mother, wasn't. 

Dahj goes to Picard before talking to her mother just after seeing him on the FNN broadcast and tells him that she has a feeling she can trust him.

Outside the actual content of the show, but what Michael Chabon said about Soji is

Spoiler

that she wasn't programmed to trust Picard because Maddox didn't foresee her running into him on the Borg cube.

 

[Llywela]

4 hours ago, benteen said:

Good lord, they had to have Will and Deanna lose a child?  I'm all for the darker tone of this series but you have to give every character on this show misery?  I admit, that put me in a foul mood as I watched the episode.  

Also,  shoehorning his death into the whole synth ban thing.  Contrived as hell.

That being said, it was wonderful to see Riker and Troi again. to see the characters relatively happy and to see them utilized in such a great way.  Overall, it was an immensely satisfying reunion with Picard and great to see how they slipped back into their roles with Picard when they knew there was trouble.  You could definitely feel the love here with the characters.  I liked the fact that Riker had his cabin completely locked and loaded for potential trouble.  Nostalgia is great but it's even better when it works perfectly.

I enjoyed the Kestra character a great deal, a well-realized character.  Very much enjoyed her interaction with Soji.  Naming her after Troi's sister was a nice touch but to be honest, I was hoping they would have named her after Tasha Yar.  Which is what they did in the USS Titan series a number of years ago.  

Elnor and Hugh was a good team-up and I'm sorry that's over.  Good-bye, Hugh.  I had a feeling it was going to happen but disappointment anyway.  You definitely should have gone with Picard last week but you didn't give him or Soji up.  How did he and Elnor get separated in the first place?  Looking forward to seeing the Romulans pay for this.

I thought Rios was suspecting Agnes but Raffi?

Anyway, this show has been on a roll lately and it looks like it's going to continue from here.

I understand the feeling of 'oh no, not more sorrow', but then I took a step back and looked again at how many characters were given Tragic Backstories in previous Treks, and realised that the Troi-Rikers losing their son fits right in. The telling of the sad backstory is done a bit differently today than it would have been back in the 80s and 90s, but Tragic Backstory is nothing new for Trek. Heck, Geordi lost his mother and Data lost his father right there on-screen in TNG. Deanna lost a child on TNG. The storytelling has more depth now, but tragedy is par for the course for Star Trek.

I've seen a few people wishing Riker and Troi had named their daughter after Tasha, but honestly, naming her for Troi's dead sister seems far more natural to me than naming her after a workmate they only knew for a short time.

I'm in two minds about what Rios said to Agnes - I think we'll understand more when we see how things play out next week. Because part of me wondered if he was sounding her out with his 'theory' about Raffi to see how she'd react because she's the one he actually suspects - not expecting to get called away at the crucial moment, leaving her to take drastic action. But another part of me can see how Raffi could fall into the frame, since things started going wrong after Freecloud and Raffi was the only person who left the ship at Freecloud whose time off-world is unaccounted for, and a man distracted by multiple sources of stress could easily leap to the wrong conclusions. But he and Raffi are so tight, it does seem weird, so I do wonder if Agnes was the one he actually suspected and he was just sounding her out. I guess we'll find out next week - this is the trouble with serialised storytelling, you don't get the full picture in a single episode, so it can be hard to judge the story accurately as it goes along!

[benteen]

True, many Star Trek characters have suffered tragedy.  Will and Deanna losing a son was tragedy for the sake of tragedy, because EVERYONE on this show has to have a tragic background.  Because that's "edgy" and "dramatic" in today's television landscape...

If it wasn't for the fact that Riker and Troi are legacy characters, I would fully expect for Narek to find them next week and wipe out the entire family given this show.

Also true that Riker and Troi only knew Tasha for a short time but that was a lot longer than they knew Kestra, as harsh as that sounds.  Naming her Kestra works wonderfully and is another good callback to the show but I think naming her Tasha would have been even more effective and it's something I can see both Will and Deanna doing because they did both care about Yar.

I did find myself wondering if Lwaxana is still alive.  DS9 left her in an interesting place although considering how devastating losing her daughter was, I can't imagine her taking her grandson's death any better.

Edited March 6, 2020 by benteen

[Llywela]

10 minutes ago, benteen said:

True, many Star Trek characters have suffered tragedy.  Will and Deanna losing a son was tragedy for the sake of tragedy, because EVERYONE on this show has to have a tragic background.  Because that's "edgy" and "dramatic" in today's television landscape...

If it wasn't for the fact that Riker and Troi are legacy characters, I would fully expect for Narek to find them next week and wipe out the entire family given this show.

Also true that Riker and Troi only knew Tasha for a short time but that was a lot longer than they knew Kestra, as harsh as that sounds.  Naming her Kestra works wonderfully and is another good callback to the show but I think naming her Tasha would have been even more effective and it's something I can see both Will and Deanna doing because they did both care about Yar.

We're going to have to agree to differ on both counts. This wasn't tragedy for the sake of tragedy any more than any TNG tragic backstory was, imo, and certainly no more so than any of the on-screen tragedies the characters suffered, none of which had any impact on them beyond the episode it happened in. The loss suffered by the Troi-Riker family was meaningful within the story being told here as well as having a thematic link, it provided common ground for Soji and Kestra, and demonstrated the wider implications of the synthetic ban. There was plenty of meaning and story justification for it - far more so than Troi being impregnated by a passing alien lifeform and losing the child just days later, then acting as if nothing had ever happened. Now that was tragedy for the sake of tragedy.

As for everyone on this show having a tragic backstory - in TNG we had Tasha Yar growing up an orphan on a hell planet, Worf's parents had been killed at the Khitomer massacre, Beverly Crusher was a widow, Wesley had grown up without his father, Riker's mother had died and his father abandoned him in his teens, Troi's father had died, Picard was more or less estranged from his family...and that's just TNG, never mind any of the other Treks. Tragic backstories are very much par for the course for any TV show, not just Picard!

As for Kestra, it seems far more natural to me for a couple to give their child a family name, one with bittersweet sentiment attached, than to name her after someone they were friends with for a short time years ago, however sad they were when that person died.

[benteen]

The show also seems to be using all these deaths to spur the characters into action.  That's a legitimate flaw beyond killing Riker and Troi's son.

[Llywela]

Now, Hugh's death I'll agree seemed to be tragedy for the sake of tragedy. I wanted him to live, dammit! That one smacked more of clearing the field of extraneous characters than anything.

But honestly, most narratives both cinematic and literary use character deaths as a means of spurring other characters into action. It is a trope as old as time, so not exactly unique to Picard.

[Kostgard]

Man, the stuff with Troi and Riker REALLY worked for me. I thought I would enjoy it all for nostalgia reasons only, but the scenes with them were some of the best in the series so far. I thought I would be annoyed since the plot basically stopped while they were there, but it felt like time well-spent. And they really threaded the needle perfectly with Kestra - it's hard for a kid character to be precocious without being annoying, but she was great. 

And this is the first time I actually cared about Soji, so good on them for that, too.

I liked the stuff with Agnes too because OF COURSE that would happen. She's not a spy, she's not an assassin, this stuff would absolutely shake her. My one complaint is that she should have started breaking down much sooner. 

Raffi is back to kind of annoying me. I'm just not down with a lot of the acting choices being made here. It just doesn't feel natural.

And I am pissed that they killed Hugh, and that it was Space Cersei who did it. He deserved better, and we deserved more of him. I hope Elnor shreds her to bits.

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Kostgard

[Llywela]

7 minutes ago, Kostgard said:

I liked the stuff with Agnes too because OF COURSE that would happen. She's not a spy, she's not an assassin, this stuff would absolutely shake her. My one complaint is that she should have started breaking down much sooner.

In fairness, Agnes did begin her breakdown pretty much immediately after killing Maddox and has been spiralling downward ever since. She held it together to give her account of his death to Picard, but Elnor noticed that she was haunted by something almost immediately. By the time she seduced Rios, she was visibly distressed and completely honest about her desire for no-strings-attached comfort sex - Rios attributed it to her being upset about the death of her mentor, but to viewers she was clearly struggling the weight of what she'd done. So her breakdown absolutely started right after Maddox's death and was merely continuing here. If everyone else on the ship wasn't so distracted by everything else going on, they'd have noticed a lot sooner.

[Kostgard]

16 minutes ago, Llywela said:

In fairness, Agnes did begin her breakdown pretty much immediately after killing Maddox and has been spiralling downward ever since. She held it together to give her account of his death to Picard, but Elnor noticed that she was haunted by something almost immediately. By the time she seduced Rios, she was visibly distressed and completely honest about her desire for no-strings-attached comfort sex - Rios attributed it to her being upset about the death of her mentor, but to viewers she was clearly struggling the weight of what she'd done. So her breakdown absolutely started right after Maddox's death and was merely continuing here. If everyone else on the ship wasn't so distracted by everything else going on, they'd have noticed a lot sooner.

Oh, I know that, I just think that she should have been frayed (if not completely breaking down) much sooner. We learned that she was asked to do "something terrible" and I assume that meant killing Maddox. She set out on this mission knowing she was going to kill someone she is/was close to. I just feel like we should have seen her nervous about this all along (she could have chalked it up to not being used to being in space or something like that, since it also seemed that going "off world" was not something she had a lot of experience with, to throw the other characters off the scent). It makes sense that killing Maddox would put her over the edge, I just feel like we should have seen her teetering on that edge all along, but we didn't because they didn't want to give the twist away to the audience.

[F8.]

21 hours ago, steelyis said:

What the fork!

Now it's over, shirt it's great to see a Good Place callback !