1) Fine, show a recap, see if I care.
2) Ah. Okinawa three weeks ago. Filling in some of the Jurati mystery perhaps?
3) A bold choice by the makeup department, putting
those ears on Oh. Even by Vulcan standards those are some
majestic ears
4) So either that was a very persuasive mind-meld, and Jurati is doing everything that she's doing of her own will...or she's a Manchurian Candidate.
5) Back to the 'present', and very much
in medias res.
6) Well, at least they're not panic-oh
7) Rios and Raffi pausing there to be incredulous at Jurati.
8) I see Rizzo is going for the old standard interrogation method. Point a gun at someone and ask a question. Because that
always works.
9) And she's still a cardboard cut-out villain.
10) Narek on the move.
11) To be frank love, if your grand plans could be upset solely by Picard and Hugh then it doesn't say much for the vaunted Romulan reputation for cunning and intelligence.
12) Raffi at least vaguely genre-savvy.
13) Jurati with the $64,000 question there - what, indeed, about Elnor. Whichever way 4) has gone, she's at least got some kind of conscience.
14) Elnor still going with 'noble'.
15) Another ten minute episode intro then. Also another episode that's longer than the early ones - praise be to $DEITY.
16) Excuse me while the theme tune sends me into a light coma.
17) Would have been a nice touch if they'd put Gene's credit up when the theme segues to the Goldsmith tune.
18) Nepenthe remarkably Earth-like, even by Class M standards.
19) Space bunny! With a unicorn-esque forehead horn so that you know it's a space bunny! Man, I hope the showrunners don't get letters from PETA-types...
20) Sikarian spatial trajector beams Picard and Soji in (wonder what the power requirements for that distance are???). Picard is of course a veteran of wibbly-wobbly phenomena in space so is barely ruffled. Soji is of course
very much not a veteran of wibbly-wobbly phenomena in space so falls over. About caps her perfect day!
21) These camera tricks are getting a bit over-used in TV. That's definitely a kid with the bow and arrow
22) Called it
23) Hooray for continuity! Picard still has an artificial heart. Apparently made out of the same stuff as the casing on a tricorder.
24) And Picard knows who the kid is. Audience, meet Kestra. And pausing for another 'hooray for continuity' moment - Deanna Troi had an older sister called Kestra, who drowned shortly after Deanna was born. See TNG's "Dark Page" and DS9's "The Muse" for the backstory there.
25) Soji deep in depression. Been a rough few hours for her.
26) Yeah...Picard may have wanted to keep that whole "your daddy was an android" deal for a slightly later time. Maybe after fixing Soji's cuts and getting her some shoes...
27) And he gets to pile more misery on her now. Everything
was fake. But Dahj
was real.
28) Soji retreating into non-belief. Definitely a plausible reaction.
29) Deanna!
30) Who at least is another person in the galaxy who is actually happy to see Picard.
31) And, like Raffi earlier, is genre-savvy. She knows Picard wouldn't be there unless there was trouble.
32) Commander Deanna Troi then. Stayed a commander from 2370 right up to her maybe retirement, maybe dropping into the Starfleet reserves.
33) Trailer moment!
34) William T. Riker not just genre-savvy, but crazy prepared. Shields and the works.
35) Troi can't read Soji empathically, reinforces that she's synthetic.
36) You had a plan, did you Picard? Really? While I'm a firm believer in the idea that no plan ever survives the battlefield, I can't help but think that you actually didn't have much of a plan at all
37) Which he's copping to now, at least.
38) The space bunnies are called bunnicorns. Please excuse me a moment while I laugh hard enough to dislodge my spleen from its mountings
39) The band is back together, and the soundtrack heads full Goldsmith. Just going to bask in this for a minute...
40) Kestra asking all the questions that a kid would ask having been told that someone is Data's daughter.
41) She's right though, it
is indeed very weird to make an android with mucus and saliva.
42) Story going into a full-on love letter to Data right here.
43) In 24 hours Soji has gone from having a whole lot of questions and no answers, to having even more questions. And the few answers that she's got make minimal sense to her.
44) Will and Deanna lost their son Thaddeus then. And kept his room as a shrine. Again, a more-than believable reaction, as is Deanna's worry about anything happening to Kestra.
45) Back to the La Sirena, where Rios and Raffi have figured out Narek's amazing plan to...follow them. Though presumably he's still able to follow Jurati from the tracking lozenge that Commodore Oh gave her.
46) And Rios' equally amazing plan is to emulate Harrier tactics - come to a halt, let the enemy overshoot you, they're no longer following. Which, to be fair, might stand a decent chance of working without the aforementioned tracking lozenge.
47) Jurati still having a nervous breakdown.
48) Raffi poking around for the truth.
49) Precision f-strike from Jurati there. Which at least feels slightly less gratuitous than some of them have been.
50) Oh, please tell me Raffi isn't about to give Jurati a hit of the space weed vape pen. The poor lass is paranoid enough already
51) Feels a little weird seeing Riker not address Picard as 'Captain'.
52) Thad's death just as raw for Will as it is Deanna.
53) Cute moment.
54) Will laying out what he's guessed.
55) I wondered when someone was going to bring up the head tilt.
56) Oh, that's good. Pausing to hear that one again. "Now I understand why you wanted to keep it a secret.
Classic...Picard...arrogance. You get to make the decisions about who gets to take the chances and who doesn't and who's in the loop and who's out of the loop and naturally, it always ends up with you. And that's fine on the bridge of your starship, Captain, but now you're dealing with a teenager, more or less. That can be an extremely humbling experience. Frankly, I'm not sure you're up to it." Strong words, with the sting taken out of them by those twinkling Riker eyes and the bearded grin.
57) A toast, to stupidly doing the right thing for the right reasons
58) Deanna, meanwhile, going about getting information a different way. With fresh tomatoes.
59) Exposition.
60) Oof. So, a cure for Thad would have involved synth research. Which was banned by the time he was ill.
61) Will's right, Jean-Luc. You definitely should have gone with 'dinner is served' there rather than sarcasm!
62) Truth bombs from Deanna.
63) "Pretend that our dinner table is the ready room of the Enterprise." I am hard as a
rock
64) Meanwhile, on the Borg cube...
65) Rizzo apparently finally got a step ahead of someone. I guess a broken clock is correct a couple of times in a day.
66) And there we have the answer to how Elnor survived his last encounter with disruptor-wielding Romulans - the kid has Batman-like reflexes.
67) Oh, come on Elnor. Why put the sword away? Just stab her in the boobs and walk off
68) Hugh taking a throwing dagger to the neck is really going to put a dampener on his weekend.
69)
70) Good thing for Rizzo that transporters have sped up a touch over the years.
71) Hugh getting in some dying words of encouragement for Elnor.
72) Raffi still working on unwinding Jurati.
73) Narek's caught back up to the La Sirena.
74) Puking seems to be a fairly typical nervous reaction for Jurati.
75) Pizza time with the Rikers.
76) Exposition.
77) "But now...I'm alive, and I have a mission. Which means there's not a hell of a chance that you or anyone else can stop me." Jean-Luc Picard, ladies and gentlemen.
78) I gotta be honest, if I'd been Maddox and had created synthetic life after a ban on doing so had been enacted, I'm not sure I'd put a memory in that led anyone back to where they were created...
79) In a crazy, upside-down universe, we can still rely on one thing - a teen with an internet-connected messaging device can find out anything for you.
80) Back aboard the La Sirena, and Rios raising the possibility with Jurati that
Raffi is the one being tracked.
81) And Jurati admits that it's her. Unclear yet if Rios actually took that in.
82) Looks like she's about ready to end it all.
83) "What is the nature of your-oh, bloody hell!" Gotta love EMHs!
84) Looks like Narek has lost his tracking lock.
85) "Does it involve shooting me out of an airlock?" We-e-e-ell...
86) Jurati now in a coma. Rios greeting the news with a sprint to the sickbay.
87) Elnor sneaking around the Borg cube, and doing a drop-and-roll right out of the Geordi LaForge School Of Unnecessary Drop-and-Rolls™.
88) Oh, very good. He's called for backup. Fenris Ranger backup. Because, as we know, nothing enrages Seven of Nine quite like mistreatment of former Borg.
89) "So, what are they like? This new crew of yours?" "Well, I would have to say they are decidedly
motley." That's a polite way of putting it Jean-Luc.
90) "They...they seem to be carrying more baggage than all of you ever did. But then, I'm not the one to talk." Self-awareness from Picard there
91) More cuteness between former captain and first officer.
92) Kestra drawing Soji while she sleeps. Not creepy at all, kid...o.0
93) Picard saying goodbye to the Rikers. Adorable.
94) Kestra giving Soji the broken compass and telling her to pretend that it works. More adorable.
95) Soundtrack heads back to Alexander Courage territory. All the feels.
96) "Next time..." Seven's back. The VFX team work a lot of overtime. Jurati wakes up and talks a bunch about hell. Picard gets a determined look on his face.
