1) Insert standard JRS complaint about recaps here.
2) But seriously, this needs to die. At least this one showed Dream-Data.
3) The flashbacks are inching up on the 'present'. We're at 13 years ago now.
4) Welp, he's in a bad way.
5) Pity that you were a bit late to the party there, Seven. Would have saved him some pain.
6) Oh Lord, it's Icheb. Which puts the "where's your cortical node" line into context - Icheb donated his to save Seven in an episode of Voyager. Hooray for continuity!
7) And Seven puts him out of his misery. To survive all the entertaining opportunities for death that are presented on a ship captained by Janeway, only to die ~8 years after the ship gets home...
8) Almost back to the 'present'.
9) I stand by previous statements. Modern Trek doesn't know how to do compelling bad guys.
10) What, they couldn't get Brian Brophy back to reprise his role as Maddox?
11) Heck of an outfit that she's wearing.
12) Some exposition then.
13) Tranya! Pausing here for a 'hooray for continuity' gush. Tranya first appeared in "The Corbomite Maneuver", the third story of TOS produced (after the first, rejected, pilot "The Cage" and the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before"). The time taken to do the effects in post-production meant that it aired as the tenth episode of TOS' first season. Back then it was, in fact, grapefruit juice - Clint Howard (who played Balok in the episode) apparently hated the stuff
14) 'Molecular solvent'. Ain't no kill like overkill...
15) The Tal Shiar really are just getting blamed for everything going right now aren't they.
16) Maddox clearly too dumb to live. That's going to bugger up Picard's 'plan' somewhat. Meanwhile, you can tell that it's another Frakes episode, that shot of the glass dropping and breaking was purty
17) Getting a real Star Wars, 'wretched hive of scum and villainy' vibe about Freecloud.
18) Seven's back on her feet after collapsing then.
19) "Bourbon, straight up." My kinda lass
20) Yeah, she's changed a bunch in the years in-story since Voyager. But in ways that make sense.
21) Exposition and backstory again. Regarding the Fenris Rangers, which the series press kit described as "an independent group of peacekeepers who try to maintain a semblance of law and order on both sides of the former Neutral Zone" and which the series itself has basically told us next to bugger all about so far.
22) Explains what Seven has been up to for the last few years.
23) He's piqued her interest anyway.
24) Raffi and Rios filling in some more story.
25) Jurati looking back on happier times.
26) Yeah..I don't think Jurati is going to come out of this episode all sunshine and rainbows.
27) Even in the future, adverts will remain annoying.
28) And not just advertising, but targeted advertising. Rios gets starship garage adverts, Picard gets fancy hotels, Jurati gets robot stuff and Raffi gets drugs.
29) Elnor doesn't get one, presumably because he's never been near a computer in his life.
30) Seven going to offer herself up as bait then.
31) Hooray for continuity! Mr Mot's Hair Emporium. Mot was the barber on the Enterprise-D.
32) Here's where the crew gets to play dress-up.
33) It might be quite unlike TNG, and possibly over-heavy on the tropes. But I am rather enjoying this.
34) Amusing dialogue. And once again the series goes with anachronistic ordering to keep a bit of the plot moving.
35) Quark gets a name-drop as well. References to the rest of Trek continuity truly abound, and unlike in STD aren't immediately stamped into the dirt.
36) Nice plan, pump Rios full of drugs to throw off the reptiloid dude Vup's sense of smell.
37) Poor Jean-Luc, no-one appreciates his acting skills
38) Seven doing this because she has to keep order. Appropriate for a former Borg.
39) Elnor finally caught up to the plan.
40) Another amusing moment. Elnor lamenting that he doesn't know how to not be Elnor, Picard telling him to
be Elnor, Seven adding "an Elnor who never talks".
41) Picard getting to ham it up.
42) Full on ham-and-cheese in fact
43) Raffi going looking for the guy she looked up on the computer, Gabriel Hwang.
44) I really like this new transporter effect.
45) Family planning clinic?
46) Ah, he's her son.
47) And I'm thinking I might have been bang on in post #948 when I said Raffi lived out in that trailer at Kirk's Rock because she felt like she didn't deserve better. She clearly had/still has substance abuse issues that she's not telling the whole truth to her son about here.
48) Well, he baited her into dropping the mask there.
49) Nearly a half hour in and we haven't gone over to the Borg cube.
50) So drugging Maddox with adulterated tranya wasn't evil enough for a modern Trek villain, they had to beat him up as well.
51) Picard still vamping as a one-eyed French scumbag.
52) **** might have just gone sideways.
53) Jurati panicking, doing so enough that the onboard computer decides the EMH is required. The EMH is
Clippy...
54) I'll be amazed if Seven lets the villain lady stay alive past this episode.
55) "I was not entirely candid with you."
There's the Seven from Voyager.
56) Oh, Elnor. "Are we still pretending?"
57) Picard somewhat irritated by this latest development. This is why he should have listened to Zhaban, and gone to recruit the old Enterprise crew.
58) Yes, the "famous" Admiral Picard. Quite right Bjayzl. So famous in fact that how you didn't see through the paper-thin disguise of him wearing an eyepatch and a beret escapes me right now...
59) Possibly not the time to get all righteous about stuff Jean-Luc.
60) Backstory.
61) "Murder is not justice." No, but it's quite the timesaver.
62) Vup is gearing up for a move with his fancy deployable wrist-gun.
63) Which Rios spots and takes care of at phaserpoint.
64) Back on the ship with a good few minutes to go. So either everything is about to go sideways again or a plan in modern Trek actually sort-of worked.
65) Nice moment between Picard and Seven about life after the Borg.
66) I guess we're going with 'sideways' then. Though not exactly in the way I expected. Not until Seven asked for the phasers anyway.
67) Bjayzl trying to go for a 'breaking speech' and missing the mark by the odd parsec.
68) Called it at 54). And with phasers set on the disrupt setting as well. Seven was indeed furious.
69) ...
70) Implacable walk towards the enemy, firing while getting fired upon.
71) Maddox is a bit of a mess after the beating.
72) Time for the rest of the exposition for this episode.
73) And here's how it all ties together. Maddox sent the sisters out in different directions to find out the truth about the synths, the attack on Mars and the ban. Dahj to Earth to work in the same place as Jurati. Soji to the Borg cube.
74) This cutting to Jurati reacting to what Maddox is talking about seems meaningful. And then she's left alone with Maddox. Who here thinks that he has longer than a few minutes to live?
75) Is it just me, or has finding some pieces of the puzzle taken a few years off Picard? He looks younger when he's satisfied with something. Same way Kirk looked younger the moment he saw the Enterprise in the box dock when he flew up to board her before the inspection cruise in "Wrath of Khan".
76) Yeah, saw that one coming a mile off.
77) Jurati is probably also going to have to decompile the EMH, or at least 'adjust' some memories. And
boy did I call it at 26).
78) "Next time..." The competing plot lines collide as our heroes head for the Borg cube.
I'm just deeply scared by a 1000 year old ai hating secret, Romulan Vash bosh ala gosh, in charge of a Borg "relic" cube.
