Star Trek: Picard season 1, episode 2 pits Jean-Luc against the clock, but tests the audiences’ patience as the series continues world building from Earth.
“Maps and Legends” spends most of its time sorting characters based on their attitudes towards to the Romulans. Most feelings seem to be about the same across the board from the new wave of younger, more in tune residents of Earth — Dr. Agnes Jurati — to the older Federation leaders such as Admiral Clancy. There is a rooted prejudice, an “Us versus Them” mentality in just about every person Picard speaks to and every conversation we are privy to from the other side of the veil. And while Laris and Zhaban have nothing but admiration and respect for Picard and his open mind and heart, they too are rooted in their inherited wariness of the big question marks surrounding synthetics.
The walls built on all sides stem from the same thing — fear of the unknown. Will the Romulans become the enemy the Federation remembers once more? If so, when? Will machines become sentient and be unstoppable forces? If so, when? Is that the ticking of the Watchmen’s clock?
Answers, or at the very least, a path to answers seems to rest in one person — Dr. Soji Asha, who, unfortunately, is off planet in an undisclosed location.
Before we dive in to the nitty gritty of Star Trek: Picard season 1, episode 2 there is another clock that we need to keep our eyes on — the one that reminds us there are only eight episodes left and Picard is still on Earth. The pacing is working just fine for me. I don’t think we need to pull a page from Star Wars, run some text and get us into the middle of a rescue mission in a Borg cube turned research facility.
Picard suffers from the same problem that any series that hinges itself on nostalgia does — patience. Yes, I want to see Will Riker. I absolutely cannot wait to see Hugh and Seven of Nine get involved. And I really, really, want to meet the characters we see in clips for next week. However, we need to earn those reveals and unpack at the very least the fallout of the past 14 years for any of the mission to pay off for this particular journey back to Trek.
It’s reminiscent of Lee Scoresby’s entrance to His Dark Materials: The storytelling beforehand is great, the performances are captivating, at yet thanks to months of promotional materials you just can’t help but feel like you’re in Waiting for Godot. Or maybe I’ll just always have one eye on the stars…
‘Star Trek Picard’ season 1, episode 2 recap
Cleaning house and the Zhat Vash
Embedded just over midway through the premiere episode of Picard, Romulan assailants killed Dahj in an attack that seemed counterintuitive to our introduction to her story. Here, instead of capturing her after we learn how rare she actually may be, an agent kills her and himself. If it felt rash in the moment, that’s because it was a rogue move carried out on impulse rather than by tactical design. Everything about this mission was calculated, down to the equivalent of crime scene cleaners being deployed to Dahj’s apartment following the murder of her boyfriend.
The sweep of her apartment opens the door to learn more about Laris and Zhaban’s past. While their duties now are more focused on keeping spittlebugs off the pinot, in their early days under their parents’ watch they were trained in the Romulan operative ways. Laris in particular is adept at unpacking the tactics employed by the operatives, able to walk Picard through the incident with trained eyes. From discerning that these are the actions of the Zhat Vash who are likely using the Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence agency, as a mask for their operation. They have been conducting covertly for thousands of years.
Talking Picard through the annoyingly efficient data scramble, Laris weaves in answers to Romulan operational tactics and lore without bogging the story down with what feels like a procedural “science dump.”
This is in part due to the splicing of the two scenes that take place both during and after the search. I should note that Laris’ response to Picard’s statement that Romulan reconstruction is illegal — “oh, is it?” may be the best read in the episode. She discovers that operatives went through the trouble to completely overwrite particle residuum on top of sterilizing the data imprinted in Dahj’s computer.
A minor detail, a break in the coding that even a Romulan scramble could possibly not catch, proves to hold more weight than simply pointing Picard in a new direction. On the surface, Laris states that the computer could have possibly at some point mistaken Dhaj’s twin for her. It would have corrected the mistake, but there was that single moment where it encoded the error if a call did in fact come in.
The single moment is the root of the Romulan fear. Laris tells Picard that the Romulan culture does not just instill a general dislike of androids, but a fear and loathing of synthetic life. The fact that there can be, even for a fraction of a second, a moment where a computer can be infallible is enough prove a point — synthetics are not entirely under anyone’s control.
The marriage of this information leads to one major dead end for both the Romulans and the people looking into their intentions — the Zhat Vash. Described as guarding a secret so profound and terrible that just learning it can break a person’s mind, the Zhat Vash is believed to be connected to the pursuit of Dhaj and Soji.
Laris makes a point to correct Picard’s language when he says, “your Zhat Vash.” Laris meets this with, “It’s not my Zhat Vash.”
While this is practically laid out at our feet, the mystery is less about what the secret is and more about the rippling ramifications that secret has on several different people.
Mars is on fire
First Contact Day left Mars in flames 14 years ago with the destruction of the Utopia Planitia shipyards by rogue androids. While many workers enjoyed a paid holiday, those who were left working were a skeleton crew of sentient beings and a class of synthetic workers. We meet one in the opening minutes of Picard episode 2, F8.
The workers do not exactly come off as cruel as they try to teach the android humor, but there is a certain playfulness lines with superiority and detachment that does not sit well. F8 takes the audience through the events of the synthetic attack. A change washes over his eyes as he takes to controls and plays his part in shutting down the defenses of the planet.
In what is the most disturbing programming takeover, the androids put a phaser to their head and pull the trigger. The suicide element is a striking detail, that reveals something about the programming mastermind behind the attack. The androids were not acting on their own accord, but under the orders of someone who was not willing to get their hands dirty and couldn’t even be bothered to ensure the mess was cleaned up.
Borg Artifact Research Institute
The Romulans have control of a Borg cube. Granted, it is not as secretive as the final moments of the Star Trek: Picard premiere lead us to believe. The damage to the cube is severe enough to have severed the link to the Collective rendering the cube as an artifact to be deconstructed rather than reignited. Though there are still ulterior motives at work inside the cube, they are being handled under the guise of Institutional procedure. Soji, for example, is conducting her work in reclamation. Parts are being taken from the bodies of the Borg. Her capacity to see them as people, regarded as “Nameless” by her Romulan collogues, Soji is viewed as being more closely aligned to those who are simply not regarded at all. In one moment, she whispers to a body ready to be discarded, “be free now my friend.”
The top minds are gathering in this central spot for reasons that are unknown even to them. For example, Dr. Naàshala Kunamadèstifee of Trill Polytech was revoked of entry to the program only to be reinstated months later. There does not seem to be an orientation on proper outerwear either. One thing is abundantly clear, however, the Romulans are providing the oversight of the entire operation, acting as times like Disneyland gatekeepers. (The guard all but said, “Please keep your arms in legs inside the vehicle at all times.” Like Soji points out, they have a flair for the dramatic.)
Narek’s special interest in Soji is not contained just to her body, or her work, but to her entire being. He takes in her questioning — refusing answers — but offers compliments,
‘Picard’ never cared for science fiction
Picard scoffs at a volume of work before divulging with peaked interest in creating organic synthetics and the hypothetical work of a man who once forced him to prove that Data was entitled to the same freedoms as other species.
Bruce Maddox’s presence lingers in every word that Dr. Jurati says to Picard. Two identical synthetics formed from Data, the girls took the visual of Data’s art that Maddox was once privy to see as a friend of the former commander. As for Dahj and Soji’s memories, well, that programming was not fired up until approximately three years ago when the first known records of them begin to align in real time.
Picard is a man who is running against time. His own time left on Earth — as a visit from Dr. Moritz Benayoun reveals a problem with Picard’s parietal lobe, the symptoms of which are already present: the mood swings, unsettling dreams.
“It could be one of a number of syndromes,” Benayoun says. “A few are treatable, but they all end the same way. Some sooner than others.” Irumodic syndrome is already something the retired admiral has dealt with, albeit in a timeline that does not exist.
Regardless of his health afflictions, there is no way that Starfleet will reinstate him even with a clean bill of health. In his meeting with Admiral Kirstin Clancy, Picard is short tempered, less reserved and diplomatic — I cannot recall another episode where his voice is raised as much as it is here. The man is on edge, battling not only the Federation that no longer responds to judgement, but the ticking clock in his head. There is only so much time to get to Soji, to find Bruce, to get answers that can bring him closer to making good on the sacrifice of his best friend.
Picard’s speeches get him nowhere in Starfleet, being reduced to having to state and spell his name at the front desk. Clancy goes as far to say, “There is no peril here only the pitiable delusions of a once-great man desperate to matter. This is no longer your house, Jean-Luc. Do what you are good at, go home.”
The hermit of La Barre, as the admiral later refers to him, still gets under her skin enough to send her to check in on a few operational oversights. While she is reassured of the security of the Federation from Romulan attacks, the Romulans are already operating under her nose.
Someone who hates you and has nothing to lose
Brother and sister dynamics are great. Romulan brother and sister covert operation dynamics are better. Look, we all knew Narek was up to no good from the second he walked on screen. Confirming this theory is the arrival of his sister who is currently acting as a Starfleet lieutenant in disguise — complete with rounded ears like plucked wakwak. Her communication with Narek is brief in this episode, but disappointment in his progress on the cube is evident. The events that occurred on Earth during the capture of Dhaj place added pressure on how things are going to unfold with Soji. It helps that the pair have the chief of Starfleet Security, Commodore Oh, on their side.
These siblings are at the heart of whatever operation is occurring and their clock is ticking just as fast as Picard’s. The two timelines share one other similarity — they must work with people they hate to deter emotions hindering action. Whether or not sentimentality will come between Narek and his sister remains to be seen, but Picard has opted for a tried and true association.
For a man who just speak out against the Federation on universewide news the other day, I cannot imagine what he was expecting to happen at Starfleet. He is entering new territory, where he must scrape together resources without asking too much of too many. There is one person who might take his call, so long as he brings the ’86 and an enticing offer.
Enter Raffi Musiker a security analyst and hacker. She was Picard’s first officer during the relocation of the Romulans aboard the La Sirena and was introduced in the comic Countdown. Their relationship is shaky at best, but she is captivated by the knowledge that there are Romulan assassins operating on Earth.
The crew is starting to finally come together as Picard heads in to chat. But there are still many moving parts across the universe that need to be shifted into place. For a second outing, I’m quite done with Earth at this point. As Starfleet has proven to hold nothing much for us, the synthetics lab is just a bunch of theory, and the wine is nearly ready for harvest, it’s time for Earth to keep spinning and time for Picard to go back into the cold.
Benayoun: “You really want to go back out into the cold, knowing?”
Picard:“More than ever knowing.”
Final thoughts on ‘Picard’ 1×02
- I have patience for good storytelling, I really do. But if I don’t see Will Riker soon… well… I just don’t know.
- Jean-Luc’s reaction to, “May I have your name please, sir?” is all Stewart being at the top of his game. I’ve seen it before in clips, but it sits so much better in the context of what follows.
- The Romulans definitely have a theater club in the cube.
- The description of the work being done at the Borg Artifact Research institute is never quite explained, but I do like Narek’s comparison of the descriptions to the types of people you may find in a graveyard: Some feed on the dead, some are ghosts, and a few have the hopes of resurrection.
- The little nods to exposition that reveal a whole lot about the buried feelings of an entire race are very nicely constructed. The Romulan loathing of androids countered against Larisa’s description of the computer’s lack of infallibility even for a moment is one of the best.
- I can’t get The Watchmen ticking out of my head.
Star Trek: Picard will release new episodes on CBS All Access in the U.S. on Thursdays, on CTV Sci-Fi channel in Canada on Thursdays, and on Amazon Prime elsewhere on Fridays.
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