S02.E07: Monsters

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Tallinn ventures inside Picard's subconscious mind to help wake him from a coma and face both his darkest secrets and deepest fears. Seven and Raffi go in search of Jurati whom they fear has succumbed to the monster inside. Rios struggles to hide the truth of who he really is from Teresa.

Dropping Thursday, April 14, 2022.

[Lady Jane]

That was an indefensibly, objectively awful.

I have been a Picard apologist, but I just can't with this piece of crap episode. ZERO plot advancement, zero character development ("I'm Romulan!" is not a character trait), and a whole bunch of navel-gazing about Picard's childhood. 

Only bright spot for me was Sir Patrick Stewart's wife, Sunny Ozell, singing in the dive bar into which Queen Agnes slunk. She's a delightful follow on the 'gram: @madameozell (No, I'm not her publicist! I just like her on insta!) 

[paigow]

Baltar. 2.0... Dutch... Is Vic Mackey next???

Picard and Future!Laris are Daddy & Great... Grand-Daughter??? WTF

[paulvdb]

I wasn't interested in the stuff in Picard's head so I fast-forwarded through that. Outside his head, he was caught on camera beaming in. So he and Guinan get arrested. Because our crew doesn't already have enough problems with Q, Soong and Queen Jurati.

Meanwhile Rios takes his lady friend and her son to his spaceship. Becaus that's what you do when you don't want to mess up the timeline.

And Seven and Raffi go after Queen Jurati who wants to assimilate Earth in the past before it can defend itself against the Borg. Because if at First Contact you don't succeed, try again.

[cambridgeguy]

1 hour ago, paulvdb said:

Meanwhile Rios takes his lady friend and her son to his spaceship. Becaus that's what you do when you don't want to mess up the timeline.

He must have read Kirk's mission log from the Voyage Home.  Hey, if you can transport a marine biologist and two whales to the future then what's the harm of a doctor and her kid?  Although it's still not clear what will happen when they're successful.  Is Q going to just bring them back as a reward?  Will they be instantly teleported to their original bodies?  Vanish from existence?

Edited April 14, 2022 by cambridgeguy

[Llywela]

9 hours ago, Lady Jane said:

I have been a Picard apologist, but I just can't with this piece of crap episode. ZERO plot advancement, zero character development ("I'm Romulan!" is not a character trait), and a whole bunch of navel-gazing about Picard's childhood. 

Plot advancement: Picard is out of his coma and back on mission with new insight; we learnt that whatever is wrong with Q is bad enough that Guinan couldn't summon him; Seven and Raffi learned that Agnes is being turned into a new Borg Queen and is going out of her way to speed up the process.

Character development: Picard confronted longstanding childhood trauma and gained new insight into his parents as individuals, their relationship, and the way his flawed understanding of the issues they faced has shaped him throughout his life. That's a pretty big character development, in fact. We learned more about Tallinn (yes, finding out that she is Romulan in disguise is a development, it is information that helps us understand her a little better, especially that line about having to hide her truth, plus she's a Romulan from before any Romulan we've ever met before, from before that frosty relationship they always had with the Federation, a Romulan who for whatever reason was recruited as a Watcher and then posted to Earth, all of which is intriguing); we learned more about El-Aurians, both as a race and their history with the Q Continuum; Agnes became more and more Borg; Rios got closer to Theresa and her son (dangerously so, his storyline has been pretty thin this season, and he has suffered from being kept away from the rest of the main cast for most of the season). That's all movement.

This was an episode of increments, yes. We're into the slightly flabby mid-portion of the ongoing plot, stretched thin. But it is false to say that there was no development at all. And incremental development is only a problem if we assume that storytelling must always be about moving the plot forward as fast as possible, which isn't true. Sometimes the plot is only there as the excuse to spend time with the characters.

As for navel-gazing about Picard's childhood, this show has always been completely up-front about what it wants to be, first and foremost, which is a deeper examination of Jean Luc Picard. His name is right there in the title, and it does what it says on the tin. Now, personally, I would prefer if it was a proper ensemble show and was a bit more episodic - I'd love to see this cast enjoying adventures of the week, with the character development and relationships as the serialised aspect. I think the most interesting stories the show has to tell have all happened off-screen between seasons. But that's not what this show was ever designed to be. It is doing exactly what it set out to do, and what it told us from the start it was going to do: delving into the psyche of Jean Luc Picard.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Llywela

[thuganomics85]

I'm usually all for these types of "mind palace" type episodes filled with trippy dream sequences, sudden revelations, and good performances, but this one kind of just left me cold.  Maybe it was because I figured early on that the therapist was actually going to be Picard's abusive father.  And then it wasn't massively surprising that it turns out there is a lot more going on and maybe Picard's dad wasn't abusive after-all, which will no doubt make Picard reconsider a lot of his childhood now.  Or maybe it was simply because I wanted more of Borg Queen Agnes after everything that went down in the last episode.  Either way, I didn't find it bad personally, but I was just underwhelmed by all of it.

Man, Rios sure went from "Need a find a way to explain this to you without screwing up the timeline" to "Want to see my spaceship, babe?  You can even bring your kid too!" real quick!  I guess Rios really can't resist those attractive doctors who run clinics for the needy and yell at him in Spanish when the time calls for it.

So, the Observer might actually be Laris' ancestor after-all?

Not saying I want to see a Star Trek version of a procedural cop show, but if they did do one, I'd be down for it if Seven and Raffi were the lead detectives!

Picard and Young Guinan are now in the clutches of the good old FBI thanks to video of Picard teleporting.  At least they figured out something bad was going down with the Q Continuum before it happened!

Good guest casting at least.  James Callis played off Patrick Stewart well as the therapist/Picard's father and it's always good seeing Jay Karnes: especially since he also played an agent who got involved with time-traveling on SyFy's version of 12 Monkeys years ago!

[MissLucas]

I'm sure I've seen the plot of a mentally unstable parent dragging one of their kids into their nightmares before - it's probably on TV Tropes but I'm too afraid going there.  Btw. where was Picard's brother in all of this? Ah well, it's always nice to see and hear James Callis. Who would have thought watching Bridget Jones that he'd make his way through many, many sci-fi and genre shows.

But I do hope we can now return to the important stuff: broken timeline - Borg Queen on the loose - a gazillion metaphorical butterflies grinded to dust. 

Poor Raffi and Seven - now they will have to organize another break-out while keeping tabs on the Borg Queen/Jurati AND when they return to La Serena there's another surprise waiting for them. 

 

[paigow]

Raffi alternating between grieving / whining and self-important delusion / whining makes it hard to believe she is an effective Officer... Hopefully, she gets left behind in 2024...

[greekmom]

More shit heaped upon shit.

First, I guess the writers have no creativity as they are lifting more lines from Voyage Home: "No I'm from Iowa Chile, I only work in outer space."

Next thing you know, Raffi will be screaming: "Admiral, there be whales borg here!”

So no mention of JL's brother Robert. Guess Mommy only played with JL and Robert was just holed in his room ala Chuck Cunningham.

On top of the shit about the Jurati turning into a "queen" (she's no Borg Queen), Q losing his power, the timeline and Soong, they heap this issue with Picard and Guinan being arrested for being aliens. (shocked the cop actually believes in aliens).  Guinan's "spell" or whatever it was was confusing. Was it suppose to call our Q or any Q? Because why didn't a Q show up (instead of DeLancie). You can't tell me there are no Q's in and around Earth at this point besides DeLancie's Q.

How many more episodes are left? And why am I watching?!?!?

 

 

 

[marinw]

Ugh. I hate Mindscape episodes. The Dungeon part was so hokey.

New Guinan is growing on me. In this episodes she was much more Guinanish. I thought for a moment that wine-drinking guy was a Q.

Edited April 16, 2022 by marinw

[Stardancer Supreme]

1 hour ago, marinw said:

Ugh. I hate Mindscape episodes. The Dungeon part was so hokey.

New Guinan is growing on me. In this episode, she was much more Guinanish. I thought for a moment that wine-drinking guy was a Q.

So did I. That is what this story is missing; Q lamenting about his growing powerlessness in the midst of screwing with JLP's mind. 

So what do we really know about Picard's parents?  His mother fell prey to mental instability and the Senior Picard locked her up in a room for the rest of her days?  Do you think that she died and Elder Picard had another wife that produced JLP's brother? If the show is going to go there, please tell us the whole story.

At least Rios got his comm badge back; but JLP drops his in Guinan's bar! Gah.  So will Raffi and Seven have to jailbreak JLP and Guinan from jail while waiting for Agnes Borg Queen to pop up?

[Cthulhudrew]

I thought Jay Karnes was going to be a new Q. I guess I shouldn't be surprised he actually turned out to be some kind of law enforcement agent instead typecasting.

I finally figured out what bugs me most about this season. It isn't its reliance on the overused time travel trope of "a single, fated individual's actions determine the course of history and our intrepid characters have to ensure they keep that person on track." (Although this is a pretty terrible storyline, and one that has already been used so, so many times in Trek and with Picard.)

It's that if you're doing that kind of storyline, the fated person should be exceptional. We should see why they are so influential, and why their actions (or inaction) will have such a profound impact on the future. But in this story, Renee is a side-piece. We are told she's exceptional, but when we see her, she barely has any character, she is unremarkable and un-notable. She has absolutely no agency in the storyline. She's an enigmatic MacGuffin.

In short, I don't really care about her, which makes the whole trip pretty meaningless. I get that this storyline is really about Picard (and, shortly to see, Q), but from everything we have seen thus far, that story could have been told without this pointless time travel shtick.

Also, I think the Borg storyline is kind of dumb. The concept of the Borg Queen always kind of felt to me like it defanged the threat of the Q hivemind, and this particular Borg Queen seems to have much more concern about the fun of being a material girl than actually having the interests of the Collective at heart. 

They can redeem some of this storyline for me, though, if Jay Karnes' character turns out to be Agent Gale.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Cthulhudrew

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

So what do we really know about Picard's parents?  His mother fell prey to mental instability and the Senior Picard locked her up in a room for the rest of her days? 

Jean-Luc Picard Rochester!

[salaydouk]

1 hour ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

So did I. That is what this story is missing; Q lamenting about his growing powerlessness in the midst of screwing with JLP's mind. 

So what do we really know about Picard's parents?  His mother fell prey to mental instability and the Senior Picard locked her up in a room for the rest of her days?  Do you think that she died and Elder Picard had another wife that produced JLP's brother? If the show is going to go there, please tell us the whole story.

At least Rios got his comm badge back; but JLP drops his in Guinan's bar! Gah.  So will Raffi and Seven have to jailbreak JLP and Guinan from jail while waiting for Agnes Borg Queen to pop up?

Robert was JLP's _older_ brother.  So it would be the other way around- Robert's mother died.    In the episode "Family" there was a dinner scene where JLP specifically says something along the lines of "the same discussion between mother and father" to his brother and sister-in-law. From that it would be normal to assume they were full brothers and not half. But it was never officially confirmed one way or another. It was also never confirm _how_ much older Robert was compared to JLP.  From these mindscape scenes, It would seem that JLP is at least what 9 or 10 years old?  If Robert was significantly older then JLP, he could simply be away at school. 

I believe JLP drop his comm badge on purpose.  He was just shown a video of him beaming in just out side Guinan's bar and going to be arrested. I don't think he would want that comm badge to be collected from him and then some unsuspecting sap hits it and starts communicating with the rest of the team or worse gets beamed on to La Sirena. 

I also hate Mindscape episodes.  Though I am very happy to see James Callis anytime. (I also enjoyed the juxtaposition of seeing him play a psychologist here while in Battlestar Galactica he played a complete and total narcissist.)  There seems to be two separate/dis-jointed storylines going on.  One that is the reason why Q is trying to extract a penance from JLP by altering the timeline and making the gang work to reset it and the other is what is causing JLP to not want to have a relationship/family.  And after 7 episodes, I just don't see how these two storylines are going to converge.  This episode should be or at least very close to the apex of all the information reveals.  But there appears to be at least one more with child JPL holding the key in front of his mothers door, Soong and his daughter are MIA with no resolution if their part is done or not(which I doubt it is), we don't know what is going on with Raffi and her "seeing" Elnor, and Q is still no where at all.   I am just not seeing how this season gets wrapped up in the remaining 3 episodes.   

And I still have to say it... I just don't understand how JLP could possibly be harbouring any deep seeded psychological issues at this late stage of his life.  His character has been shown for a long time actively seeking out therapy for traumatic events.  I just don't see how it is possible to recover from his POW torture in "Chain of Command"  and how it does not bring up any issues stemming from what he now "thought" was an an abusive father.  "There are four lights." 

Edited April 15, 2022 by salaydouk

[paigow]

10 hours ago, paulvdb said:

And Seven and Raffi go after Queen Jurati who wants to assimilate Earth in the past before it can defend itself against the Borg. Because if at First Contact you don't succeed, try again.

She can keep trying different eras.. maybe meet Napoleonic Q while trying to assimilate France... 

[norcalgal]

2 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

I thought Jay Karnes was going to be a new Q. I guess I shouldn't be surprised he actually turned out to be some kind of law enforcement agent instead typecasting.

I finally figured out what bugs me most about this season. It isn't its reliance on the overused time travel trope of "a single, fated individual's actions determine the course of history and our intrepid characters have to ensure they keep that person on track." (Although this is a pretty terrible storyline, and one that has already been used so, so many times in Trek and with Picard.)

It's that if you're doing that kind of storyline, the fated person should be exceptional. We should see why they are so influential, and why their actions (or inaction) will have such a profound impact on the future. But in this story, Renee is a side-piece. We are told she's exceptional, but when we see her, she barely has any character, she is unremarkable and un-notable. She has absolutely no agency in the storyline. She's an enigmatic MacGuffin.

In short, I don't really care about her, which makes the whole trip pretty meaningless. I get that this storyline is really about Picard (and, shortly to see, Q), but from everything we have seen thus far, that story could have been told without this pointless time travel shtick.

Also, I think the Borg storyline is kind of dumb. The concept of the Borg Queen always kind of felt to me like it defanged the threat of the Q hivemind, and this particular Borg Queen seems to have much more concern about the fun of being a material girl than actually having the interests of the Collective at heart. 

They can redeem some of this storyline for me, though, if Jay Karnes' character turns out to be Agent Gale.

Except for the Agent Gale part (because I don’t know who that is), this post perfectly encapsulates what I feel about this episode and this season. I’ll watch to the end of this season since there are only a few episodes left, but at this point S3 and beyond is a NO for me. 

[wmdekooning]

In my lifetime I have seen many crappy hours (45ish minutes) of teevee, but I have little doubt this episode was a singular piece of garbage.

The entire episode I was vocalizing my disgust. Not a darned thing happened, and the mindscape BS was some straight up BS.

I’m also sorry I confused James Callis with Alexander Siddig. That contributed more to my annoyance with the episode…

[Cthulhudrew]

1 hour ago, norcalgal said:

Except for the Agent Gale part (because I don’t know who that is)

Jay Karne's FBI agent character from 12 Monkeys (a show that was actually a really good time travel series). 😁

1 hour ago, wmdekooning said:

I’m also sorry I confused James Callis with Alexander Siddig. That contributed more to my annoyance with the episode…

Glad I wasn't the only one that did a doubletake.

[WalrusGirl]

11 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

and it's always good seeing Jay Karnes: especially since he also played an agent who got involved with time-traveling on SyFy's version of 12 Monkeys years ago!

He was also a 29th century Starfleet officer on the timeship Relativity on Voyager. 😊 I was happy to see him too!

5 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

Do you think that she died and Elder Picard had another wife that produced JLP's brother?

Picard’s brother Robert was the older brother, and I’ve been wondering if the writers forgot he existed.

3 hours ago, salaydouk said:

It was also never confirm _how_ much older Robert was compared to JLP.  From these mindscape scenes, It would seem that JLP is at least what 9 or 10 years old?  If Robert was significantly older then JLP, he could simply be away at school. 

Ok, that logic helps me, thank you! Memory Alpha says that the script for TNG’s “Family” had Robert as 6-8 years older than Jean Luc, so while that isn’t on-screen canon, it’s close enough. I remember the actor looking older than Patrick Stewart, and the actor playing him in Family was five years older.

[WalrusGirl]

2 hours ago, wmdekooning said:

In my lifetime I have seen many crappy hours (45ish minutes) of teevee, but I have little doubt this episode was a singular piece of garbage.

THIS. I actually asked “what the hell is this” a few times and damn near turned it off, too. I don’t tend to go for inner-mind metaphor stories (except for Miles and Julian buddy cop-ing inside a dying Section 31 agent’s mind, so maybe I’d have tolerated it better were it Seven and Raffi and, uh, not some prince/queen/monster/dungeon fairy tale crap), but if I need to explore Picard’s innermost secrets and trauma, I want to see Patrick Stewart acting the shit out of that, not two actors in characters I have no connection to and don’t really buy as Kid!Jean Luc.

 

(ETA I’m sure the child actor did fine work, but I hated the entire premise and dungeon shit and this part of the plot anyway, and don’t connect to him as young Picard.)

Edited April 15, 2022 by WalrusGirl

[Llywela]

11 hours ago, MissLucas said:

I'm sure I've seen the plot of a mentally unstable parent dragging one of their kids into their nightmares before - it's probably on TV Tropes but I'm too afraid going there.  Btw. where was Picard's brother in all of this?

As others have said, the brother was older, old enough to have not been involved in these 'games' the mother was playing with young Jean Luc in this particular memory.

11 hours ago, paigow said:

Raffi alternating between grieving / whining and self-important delusion / whining makes it hard to believe she is an effective Officer... Hopefully, she gets left behind in 2024...

Self-important delusion? Are you talking about her playful banter with Seven in this episode, teasing about their relationship compared with Rios/Jurati? There's a big difference between banter and self-important delusion!

We have seen plenty of examples of how very effective Raffi is as an officer. And her grief for Elnor is perfectly valid, especially since she is clearly projecting all her issues with her own son onto him. It was a big misstep from the show, though, that they built her entire relationship with Elnor off-screen, and then expected us to buy into it completely cold.

10 hours ago, greekmom said:

First, I guess the writers have no creativity as they are lifting more lines from Voyage Home: "No I'm from Iowa Chile, I only work in outer space."

So no mention of JL's brother Robert. Guess Mommy only played with JL and Robert was just holed in his room ala Chuck Cunningham.

Guinan's "spell" or whatever it was was confusing. Was it suppose to call our Q or any Q? Because why didn't a Q show up (instead of DeLancie). You can't tell me there are no Q's in and around Earth at this point besides DeLancie's Q.

It's called homage. The line was paying homage to the film. What's wrong with that?

As mentioned above, the brother was older - if Jean Luc was about 10 here, Robert would have been in his late teens. Old enough to be more aware of their mother's issues, old enough to not get involved in her 'games'.

Yes, it was very clearly explained that Guinan's ritual was supposed to summon a Q, and she expected 'our' Q to be the one who responded. The fact that it went wrong and no one showed up was a clue - a sign that whatever is wrong with Q is bigger than just him, the whole Continuum is effected. That's why none of them showed up. A plot point, not a writing failure.

7 hours ago, Stardancer Supreme said:

So what do we really know about Picard's parents?  His mother fell prey to mental instability and the Senior Picard locked her up in a room for the rest of her days?  Do you think that she died and Elder Picard had another wife that produced JLP's brother? If the show is going to go there, please tell us the whole story.

The brother was older, he'd have been in his late teens at the time of this particular memory. The episode was pretty clear that the mother regularly refused treatment for her illness (the right of the individual to choose has always been a big theme in Star Trek). When we saw the father dragging her, he was trying to get her out of the basement tunnels, in which she'd been wandering for hours, lost in her delusion - the episode explained all this. It also told us that there is more to the story that we haven't learned yet, because Picard woke up at that point. So we don't yet know how it ended, but there are still three episodes to go. Having told us this much, I would expect to learn the rest before the season ends.

6 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

I finally figured out what bugs me most about this season. It isn't its reliance on the overused time travel trope of "a single, fated individual's actions determine the course of history and our intrepid characters have to ensure they keep that person on track." (Although this is a pretty terrible storyline, and one that has already been used so, so many times in Trek and with Picard.)

It's that if you're doing that kind of storyline, the fated person should be exceptional. We should see why they are so influential, and why their actions (or inaction) will have such a profound impact on the future. But in this story, Renee is a side-piece. We are told she's exceptional, but when we see her, she barely has any character, she is unremarkable and un-notable. She has absolutely no agency in the storyline. She's an enigmatic MacGuffin.

Well, yeah. Renee comes across as a side piece because she is a side piece. Her apparent importance to history isn't about who she is. Renee isn't the actual story being told here, she is just a plot device. The story of the season is about Picard and his team navigating history trying to put the future straight. And this was a pretty important episode that actually gave Picard the insight he needed to take a step back and consider Q’s motivation and the bigger picture.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Llywela

[MissLucas]

I confuse Callis and Siddig regularly but was saved this time from doing so because we first heard the voice and my ears are apparently not as gullible as my eyes.

Almost every plotline in this show is more interesting than Picard's unresolved childhood trauma which reeks of retcon. As others have said at this point in his life he had plenty of opportunities to come to terms with it (and TNG's Picard gave the impression he was aware and dealing with it).

I know that this show is all about deconstructing Picard or the myth of Picard and highlighting his flaws and failures - well, until it isn't since he's the titular character. Last season this worked (to which degree is debatable IMO) because the backstory of his attempts to relocate the Romulans provided a basis for what they were going for. But since they have nothing similar at hand this time around they resorted to good old childhood trauma sprinkled with some gothic horror.

The whole set-up of this season must suck for Isa Briones and Evan Evagora.

[Llywela]

22 minutes ago, MissLucas said:

The whole set-up of this season must suck for Isa Briones and Evan Evagora.

To be honest, I feel like from the start there has been a constant tension between the premise of the show - an in-depth examination of Jean Luc Picard - and the structure of the show, which is set up as more of a regular Star Trek ensemble. And, almost two full seasons in, the show has never really managed to reconcile that tension. They went to all the trouble of bringing in a full cast of regulars, billed as main cast, and created all these interesting characters for them...but the nature of the show doesn't allow them to utilise those characters to anything like their full potential - so much so that they wrote some of them out rather than attempt to weave them into the story being told, and then found themselves scratching around for something to do with the actors, still under contract. There is no real way for the supporting characters to develop naturally, or to follow the progression of their own development in an organic fashion, because the nature of the show requires them to instead trail along in the wake of Picard and his storylines. For a show that promised to be a character introspective, it is remarkably plot-driven!

Like I said up-thread, I do enjoy the show, but I also feel strongly that the most interesting stories it has to tell have all happened off-screen between seasons. And although I will continue to enjoy the story being told, and suspect that like season one it will play a lot more smoothly when watched as a marathon rather than in weekly installments, I would actually prefer it if season one had told Picard's story and the show in this format had ended there, a passing of the baton, with a spin-off picking up the story from that point on, using the newly established characters in a more classical Star Trek ensemble set-up to push the story of the Star Trek universe forward, exploring the geo-politics of the early 25th century through a series of largely episodic adventures, with the character stories as the primary serialised aspect.

I also think they should hire some of the writers from Agents of SHIELD, because say what you will about that show (I enjoy it more on every rewatch) it was really, really good at layering overlapping, successional plotlines through a season instead of stretching a single plot arc thin.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Llywela

[Good Queen Jane]

I thought that the change in history was Renee not going on the Europa mission. But Talinn said Renee was safely in quarantine, so there should be nothing to stop her from going, especially in light of Picard's pep talk. What was once wrong has been set right. Shouldn't the time breach been corrected and the crew from the future be swept back to where they were before Q intervened? 

[marinw]

41 minutes ago, MissLucas said:

Almost every plotline in this show is more interesting than Picard's unresolved childhood trauma which reeks of retcon. As others have said at this point in his life he had plenty of opportunities to come to terms with it (and TNG's Picard gave the impression he was aware and dealing with it).

To me, one of the most appealing things about Picard, then and now, is that he may be one of the most well-adjusted people in fiction. He’s has had  more than his share of trauma, but he has proven to be astonishingly resilient. He has had his romances (and even a just-for-fun fling with Vash), and he choses to be single because he knows that he is happier that way. He is semi-retired, as he is still running a vineyard (A dream retirement gig for many) and doing stuff at the Academy. He has his poop in a group. It is a testament to Patrick Stewart’s acting that Picard is still an interesting, sympathetic character.

This is lazy writing. It is as if everybody on TV has to be horribly damaged in some way. Is anybody allowed to deal with their stuff? Post traumatic growth is at least as interesting and PTDS.

So when did the therapy session with James Callis supposed to take place? Callis was wearing a movie-era uniform and com badge, so it must be when Picard was still on the Enterprise. Wasn’t therapy Troi’s job?

Edited April 15, 2022 by marinw

[greekmom]

5 hours ago, Llywela said:

It's called homage. The line was paying homage to the film. What's wrong with that?

As mentioned above, the brother was older - if Jean Luc was about 10 here, Robert would have been in his late teens. Old enough to be more aware of their mother's issues, old enough to not get involved in her 'games'.

Homage is fine. Maybe once (aka the punk dude on the bus). But comeon, lifting lines as well?! IMHO it's lazy writing.

Chuck was older too. And at the end good old dad Howard only remembered that he had 2 children.

[Llywela]

47 minutes ago, Good Queen Jane said:

I thought that the change in history was Renee not going on the Europa mission. But Talinn said Renee was safely in quarantine, so there should be nothing to stop her from going, especially in light of Picard's pep talk. What was once wrong has been set right. Shouldn't the time breach been corrected and the crew from the future be swept back to where they were before Q intervened? 

They travelled back in time in La Sirena and currently at least believe they will need to travel back the same way when they are ready (if they can retrieve all their lost crew members, that is). But the job here isn't done yet. If they are right about Renee being the change, I imagine they will want to wait until her mission is safely underway, to be absolutely sure - Q has already posed as her therapist to undermine her confidence, and recruited Adam Soong to get at her during the gala, he could still try to infiltrate mission control some other way. Plus, with Agnes turning into a Borg Queen and on the loose, there is now a far worse change to the timeline to prevent! Either way, they don't envisage being swept back to where they were before the intervention because a) the time travel was a thing they did on their own initiative, so there's no reason to assume it will be magically reversed once the timeline is straightened out, they are planning to return under their own speed (which is why the Borg queen didn't believe Agnes would shoot her), and b) Q plucked them out from the moment Stargazer exploded, which I suspect is not a moment any of them are in a hurry to return to. To be swept back to the future, to a moment before Stargazer explodes, to stand a chance of preventing that from happening, they need Q. And it was established in this episode that there is still something very wrong with Q, since he did not respond to Guinan's summons. Which means the mission is not complete yet.

44 minutes ago, marinw said:

To me, one of the most appealing things about Picard, then and now, is that he may be one of the most well-adjusted people in fiction. He’s has had  more than his share of trauma, but he has proven to be astonishingly resilient. He has had his romances (and even a just-for-fun fling with Vash), and he choses to be single because he knows that he is happier that way. He is semi-retired, as he is still running a vineyard (A dream retirement gig for many) and doing stuff at the Academy. He has his poop in a group. It is a testament to Patrick Stewart’s acting that Picard is still an interesting, sympathetic character.

This is lazy writing. It is as if everybody on TV has to be horribly damaged in some way. Is anybody allowed to deal with their stuff? Post traumatic growth is at least as interesting and PTDS.

So when did the therapy session with James Callis supposed to take place? Callis was wearing a movie-era uniform and com badge, so it must be when Picard was still on the Enterprise. Wasn’t therapy Troi’s job?

The therapy session with James Callis never happened. It was a dream, not a memory - he was in a coma and his unconscious mind conjured up the entire scenario, inserting his father into the role of a therapist, because he has longstanding issues with his father - and no, that isn't a retcon devised by this show, it was established way back in TNG days. Papa Picard was, as Picard told him in this episode, a very hard man, relentless. He hated modern technology, wouldn't even have a replicator in the house, strongly opposed Jean Luc's application to Starfleet. What we saw of the family here merely built on what was established back then, and expanded on the story, added extra nuance. The therapy session was Picard's unconscious mind trying to work through those long-buried issues.

Watch TNG again. Picard always had his issues, always. He was very good at keeping them clamped down, at presenting a calm, diplomatic face to the outside world, but he always had issues. Although a lot of what he is exploring this season was triggered by Laris making a pass at him, the theme of the season isn't really about why he's stayed single all his life, that's just a symptom of a wider issue, which is his fear of emotional commitment  - friends as well as lovers. Even his closest friends aboard the Enterprise only got so close and no further, just look at the relationship with Dr Crusher as an example of that. You cite his romance with Vash - it was a holiday fling that he was reluctant to be drawn into in the first place and never had any intention of continuing, so really only supports the theory of Picard being a man who prefers to avoid emotional commitment of any kind. None of this is newly invented. It was always there, in the character. It was just never focused on in this way, in TNG, was always just part of how the character was presented - that he was a standoffish sort of person who did not easily form emotional attachments and held those around him at arm's length. What we saw in his dreamscape in this episode was simply his unconscious mind exploring a formative experience that helped to shape him that way, that's all, an experience that has been buried deep until now. 

As for no one on TV being allowed to deal with their issues and move on, Rios clearly has done just that between seasons one and two. Even what he said to Theresa in this episode about seeking out father figures because his dad wasn't around when he was growing up, that was a level of self-awareness that speaks strongly of a man who had a lot of therapy before returning to Starfleet!

9 minutes ago, greekmom said:

Chuck was older too. And at the end good old dad Howard only remembered that he had 2 children.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. If you are referring to a different show, it really isn't relevant to this discussion.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Llywela

[marinw]

57 minutes ago, Llywela said:

As for no one on TV being allowed to deal with their issues and move on, Rios clearly has done just that between seasons one and two. Even what he said to Theresa in this episode about seeking out father figures because his dad wasn't around when he was growing up, that was a level of self-awareness that speaks strongly of a man who had a lot of therapy before returning to Starfleet!

Good point about Rios. I would also put Seven and Rafi and that category, more or less, excepting of cource Rafi's visions of Elnor. Rafi and Seven seem happy and comfortable with each other.

Edited April 15, 2022 by marinw

[marinw]

2 hours ago, MissLucas said:

Picard's unresolved childhood trauma which reeks of retcon.

Very minor thing, but IIRC the only other time we saw Picard's Mom was in "Where no one has gone before" where she is a nice older lady trying to get Jean-Luc to drink some tea. This may be only an indealized version of Mom. What was her name? I think it was mentioned but I missed it.

Edited April 15, 2022 by marinw

[Llywela]

34 minutes ago, marinw said:

Very minor thing, but IIRC the only other time we saw Picard's Mom was in "Where no one has gone before" where she is a nice older lady trying to get Jean-Luc to drink some tea. This may be more than an indealized version of Mom. What was her name? I think it was mentioned but I missed it.

Amazon Prime says her name is Yvette, but I don't believe it was spoken aloud in the episode. Picard seeing her in "Where no one has gone before" was a vision, as I recall, not a visit. We'll need to see the end of Picard's childhood memory this season to understand how the two fit together, but from what we've seen so far, the two can be reconciled - Picard's vision may have been of an idealised version of her, as you suggest, or she may well have lived into old age, either accepting treatment to conquer her demons or continuing through the same cycles of treatment versus mania. Either way doesn't change that this particular breakdown on this particular day was a particularly traumatic formative experience for the young Jean Luc, one which his subconscious mind buried deep until the memory became fragmented and distorted.

That episode was quite early in TNG's run. Later in the show we met his brother and I think Q gave him an encounter with his father, both of which tie in with the theme this season of his family background being difficult.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Llywela
typo

[DavidJSnyder]

8 hours ago, WalrusGirl said:

Picard’s brother Robert was the older brother, and I’ve been wondering if the writers forgot he existed.

Picard's mother mentions his brother "toiling away at school" in Picard's memories in the first episode of the season.

[marinw]

You just joged my memory @Llywela. The name Yvette was mentioned in "Chain of Command".

Edited April 15, 2022 by marinw

[paigow]

2 hours ago, marinw said:

Callis was wearing a movie-era uniform and com badge, so it must be when Picard was still on the Enterprise. Wasn’t therapy Troi’s job?

She was busy sending Holo!Geordi to certain death in quasi Kobayashi Maru simulations...

[Quark]

I never saw the original Patrick Stewart Star Trek series, so I don't have the familiarity other fans may have with certain characters that were in the original TV show, but this whole season has been very mediocre for me. There's a lot going on - Q stuff, Borg stuff, Rios stuff, but the execution has not been great (it doesn't help that I am a bit sick of time travel in TV shows).

Hopefully, the rest of the season improves.

[Stardancer Supreme]

3 hours ago, Good Queen Jane said:

I thought that the change in history was Renee not going on the Europa mission. But Talinn said Renee was safely in quarantine, so there should be nothing to stop her from going, especially in light of Picard's pep talk. What was once wrong has been set right. Shouldn't the time breach been corrected and the crew from the future be swept back to where they were before Q intervened? 

Apparently Renee was a red herring. Something or someone else is the linchpin to getting the gang to fix this timeline and back to their own.

[TVbitch]

I thought this was going to be a season about Q's long-standing love/hate relationship with Picard, delving into both of them but also with some interesting plot points and developments for the other crew members. But, for me, they have thrown way too much into this pot and it has kind of ruined the soup. How could they possibly do all of this stuff justice in any meaningful way:

Q's attachment to Picard

Q losing his powers again

Picard's fear of intimacy

Picard's issues with his parents

Depression/mental illness in Picard's bloodline

The Borg Queen escaping via Jurati

Jurati trying to launch a new singing career : D

Guinan's experiences on Earth 

Soong's work and motivations

Soong's daughter discovering who she is

Treatment of persons without citizenship

Rios ditching the code of conduct for a hottie and opening up the ship for day tours  

Raffi's guilt and hallucinations of Elnor

Seven discovering what it's like to not have her Borg implants

The Watcher 

and now, Picard ~been caught beaming

Did I miss anything?! 

Edited April 15, 2022 by TVbitch

[Llywela]

5 minutes ago, TVbitch said:

I thought this was going to be a season about Q's long-standing love/hate relationship with Picard, delving into both of them but also with some interesting plot points and developments for the other crew members. But, for me, they have thrown way too much into this pot and it has kind of ruined the soup. How could they possibly do all of this stuff justice in any meaningful way:

Q's attachment to Picard

Q losing his powers again

Picard's fear of intimacy

Picard's issues with his parents

Depression/mental illness in Picard's bloodline

The Borg Queen escaping via Jurati

Jurati trying to launch a new singing career : D

Guinan's experiences on Earth 

Soong's work and motivations

Soong's daughter discovering who she is

Treatment of persons without citizenship

Rios ditching the code of conduct for a hottie and opening up the ship for day tours  

Raffi's guilt and hallucinations of Elnor

Seven discovering what it's like to not have her Borg implants

The Watcher 

and now, Picard ~been caught beaming

Did I miss anything?! 

A number of the things you list are tied together and will therefore be dealt with simultaneously. And other things you list have already been resolved (i.e. the ICE sub-plot was over a couple of episodes ago).

[salaydouk]

8 hours ago, TVbitch said:

Rios ditching the code of conduct for a hottie and opening up the ship for day tours  

No kidding... it was bad enough that all he told her was to "keep an open mind" before she went into the room to find Talinn all mind meldy with Picard.  I mean no fight to keep her out at all... And then just showing her 24th century medical devices arriving by beam in after using his comm badge to contact Raffi to get it... It just seems like he just wanted her to find out so he could just have an excuse to ask her to go back to the 24th century with him.  

8 hours ago, TVbitch said:

Did I miss anything?! 

Yes... the Buddy cop drama that is Raffi and Seven

Edited April 16, 2022 by salaydouk

[Chit Chat]

7 hours ago, TVbitch said:

and now, Picard ~been caught beaming

What I learned is that street cameras in the year 2024 are hella good.  Hmm.  

[salaydouk]

4 minutes ago, ChitChat said:

What I learned is that street cameras in the year 2024 are hella good.  Hmm.  

And that Picard and the crew of La Sirena are stupid with their beam in coordinates - beaming to a location right out in the open... 🤦‍♀️ 

[millennium]

On the plus side, they got to reuse the dungeon set from "Catspaw."

[formerlyfreedom]

Future casting news is not appropriate for an episode topic. Posts have been removed. Thank you!

[tessaray]

I recently read somewhere that Patrick Stewart was responsible for the writers incorporating his own maternal issues into JLP.  (I'm too tired right now to search my browser history for links.)  

[Zaffy]

Rios is ready to join DC's Legends of tomorrow. 
I so much really do not care about Picard's childhood dramas..
And now they got arrested by the FBI/someother agency? oh please..
The only interesting thing in the last few episodes is Borguti.
And I want them SO much to leave 2024 and go back to their present.

Meh...

[Hiyo]

Although this was probably the weakest episode this season, I'm still enjoying it all so far overall.

[Haleth]

On 4/14/2022 at 3:16 PM, thuganomics85 said:

James Callis played off Patrick Stewart well as the therapist/Picard's father

<slaps forehead>  Of course that was Callis.  I too thought it was Siddig and felt it was a cool crossover.  Why did Picard not recognize him as his father right away?

On 4/14/2022 at 5:07 PM, MissLucas said:

Poor Raffi and Seven - now they will have to organize another break-out while keeping tabs on the Borg Queen/Jurati AND when they return to La Serena there's another surprise waiting for them. 

Herding cats comes to mind.

On 4/14/2022 at 7:42 PM, marinw said:

I thought for a moment that wine-drinking guy was a Q.

I'm not convinced he isn't.  His voice is similar to DeLancie's.  On what grounds was a raid and arrest warranted?  Why would the video of Picard teleporting in come to anyone's attention?  I think we're going to find in the next episode that the cop is a Q playing games.

On 4/14/2022 at 10:09 PM, Cthulhudrew said:

But in this story, Renee is a side-piece

When her name came up I couldn't remember at first who Renee is.  So that's it?  Timeline problem solved?  Pretty anticlimactic.

When Rios beamed the doc and son to the ship I was glad the Queen wasn't still hanging there.  That would have freaked Theresa and the kid out even more.

[Chit Chat]

4 hours ago, Zaffy said:

And I want them SO much to leave 2024 and go back to their present.

Agreed.  I get too confused when they start jumping to different timelines and/or parallel universes.  Also, 2024 is basically now, and we're living it, and parts of it really suck.  Please go back to searching, exploring, and fighting baddies in space.  I don't need any more earthbound episodes!

[SnarkShark]

Well that happened.

On 4/15/2022 at 8:16 AM, Good Queen Jane said:

I thought that the change in history was Renee not going on the Europa mission. But Talinn said Renee was safely in quarantine, so there should be nothing to stop her from going, especially in light of Picard's pep talk. What was once wrong has been set right. Shouldn't the time breach been corrected and the crew from the future be swept back to where they were before Q intervened? 

Heaven forbid I try to make sense of this dumpster fire, but what from previous Star Trek gives you the impression that Time Travelers magically get returned once they "fix" something? 

Also, I think it's safe to say a Borg Queen running around the past is another thing they have to fix, even if they caused it. 

Plus, just because Renee now wants to go doesn't mean she makes it.  We've already seen Q is willing to have her killed instead.  I imagine sabotaging the space mission is a real possibility too. 

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, SnarkShark said:

Also, I think it's safe to say a Borg Queen running around the past is another thing they have to fix, even if they caused it. 

Borg Queens and Borgs in general freak me out, so needless to say, I'm watching this season with great trepidation.  ;)