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Star Trek Picard: Mercy

"Humans. They're all trapped in the past."

Better. But this season is still dragging, and there are only two episodes to go.

I didn't think I'd like the FBI plot, but I did. It was actually sort of sweet. The flashback that began the episode showed Agent Mulder Wells as a child encountering two Vulcans in the woods. Wells wasn't harmed, but clearly, the mind meld intended to make him forget the incident didn't take. For his entire life, Wells has longed to understand what happened to him.

And there Agent Wells was, in the right place at the right time to believe Picard and save humanity. I mean, the coincidence levels are off the charts, but hey. Let's give this one guy understanding and meaning in his life before we're off to save the world, right? And the fact that Wells had Rios' com badge to give to Picard was super convenient, but made sense.

Meanwhile, Seven and Raffi pursued Jurati the Borg Queen, who was eating car batteries and leaping over cars while still rocking that killer red dress and black boots. Honestly, the hint that Jurati herself is still in there makes me... well, still freaked that she's assimilating Soong's mercenaries, but hopeful that eventually Jurati will regain control and stop all this. And at least they just combined two of our villains into one plot thread, since Soong, who has just lost his daugher's love because of his arrogance and hubris, is going to help Jurati sink the Europa Mission.


Why did Q save Kore from Adam Soong? I'm having such a hard time figuring out Q's end game here. Guinan's enjoyable discussion with Q ascertained that he is doing all this in order to find meaning before he dies. Apparently, "The trap is immaterial. It's the escape that counts." So what do our heroes need to do to escape the trap and fix the future?

Back at La Sirena, the Rios and Teresa romance is suffering from the numerous plotlines and is coming across as an afterthought. While the romantic repartee had some interesting nuance (yes, let's pretend we're a long-married couple breaking apart, what don't I know about your previous life?), I was taken out of it by those four extremely large wedges of replicator cake. What mom worth her salt, much less a medical doctor, would let her kid try to eat all that, even under such unusual circumstances? Take me out of the story with a silly detail, why don't you?

Bits:

— This week's Elnor reminder was a flashback to him telling Raffi he was needed on Vashti, and Raffi pretty much talking him into staying and joining Starfleet instead. Therefore, Raffi was responsible for Elnor's death? Come on, people. I get the guilt, but that's not pushing someone in front of a bus.

— The magical blue liquid that Q left Kore was labeled "Freedom." Maybe they should have gone completely Alice and have it say, "Inject Me."

— During the FBI cellar sequence, Q was wearing an FBI jacket.

— Seven remembers being assimilated when she was six. That's just horrible.

Quotes:

Rios: "There's a Borg queen loose in L.A."
Raffi: "You think I don't know how bad this could go? It's 2024. People have trouble with revolving doors. They can't handle a Borg queen."


Guinan: "I knew you could kill each other, but otherwise, aren't you..."
Q: "Immortal? So I believed. But now, for the first time as I look across the temporal horizon, it darkens. You think I'm dying. I prefer to believe that I am on the threshold of the unknowable."

Q: "When I first felt it, I thought to myself, 'This is good. This is new.' Infinite life, after all, has its drawbacks. And so, I prepared myself to be enveloped in the warm glow of meaning. Now that moment has yet to come. Not even a glimmer. Dying stars burn brighter as they spin towards extinction. I, on the other hand, seem to be simply disappearing into nothing."
This is actually quite sad. I'm not sure how I feel about losing Q forever.

Agent Wells: "The thing is, obsession is only obsession until it pays off. Then it's diligence."

Soong: "Anyone can procreate. You exist because I willed it."
Kore: "Maybe it's you who doesn't exist without me."

Seven: "Mercy is not a Borg quality."

Jurati/Borg Queen: "Who is in the mood to add their biological and technological distinctiveness to our own?"

Two and a half out of four wedges of replicator cake,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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