Star Trek: Picard Is Getting a Little Unhinged, And I Kind of Like It

At one level close to the climax of this week’s Star Trek: Picard, a personality exasperatedly says “Fine, why not? Burrow into his psyche, what could go wrong!? Tons, obviously.” And actually? If that’s not the temper of this complete episode of tv, I don’t know what it’s.

If final week’s episode was chaotic in a largely unlucky method—a mad sprint scramble to reunite the disparate, remoted teams group La Sirena cut up into upon touchdown in 2024, whereas organising the true battle of the season to return—then episode six of Picard’s second season, “Two For One,” is chaotic at its most lucky. A bananas quantity of issues occur on this episode that the straightforward premise “Picard and his friends attend the world’s most hyper-big-brother’d astronaut party to stop a woman from having anxiety” merely can not cowl, however as a substitute of feeling like a whole lot of awkward stage-setting getting by on the promise of potential, it looks like a chaos that’s extra gleeful. Picard has arrange roughly 50 issues that might go horribly fallacious for its heroes, and with all of the relish of a cackling member of the Q Continuum, it not solely units most of these issues into movement, it throws just a few stunning catastrophe curveballs in to the combination with the relaxed confidence of “fuck it, why not more.”

Well, don’t get me fallacious. “Two For One” is nonetheless fairly messy, however there’s no less than an fascinating construction to its mania which means there’s much less confusion among the many mess. The episode is largely predicated round a collection of flashforwards, and the very first thing we study is that sooner or later Jean-Luc Picard goes to finish up mendacity susceptible, closely injured, on a physician’s mattress. Everything within the episode is constructed round resulting in that second, counting down minutes and seconds as we head into every act, all of the whereas asking us to look at Picard, Tallinn, and the remainder of the group’s plans on the gala to guard Renee unfold as in the event that they’re going to go off with no hitch. Telling us Picard is 30-odd minutes away from grievous hazard instantly tells us that these plans received’t, after all, so the episode turns into about that inevitability of catastrophe… and leaves loads of alternative to throw in shock additions of what else might go fallacious than a seemingly expiring Starfleet admiral.

And boy howdy, loads does! Some of it’s sensible and comprehensible—fairly rapidly after final week’s revelation that the Borg Queen has turned Jurati’s mind right into a Borg Airbnb we see that Agnes is struggling to keep up management of her autonomy, because the Queen infiltrates increasingly more of her consciousness. It was as soon as once more, an inevitability, however Picard will get into it rapidly sufficient as a substitute of letting the battle between Jurati and the Queen’s minds linger as an enchanting background layer of risk to all the episode—and it highlights an equally fascinating concept that, when their backs are towards the wall, the remainder of group La Sirena is sort of content material to only depart Agnes to her personal gadgets whereas they’ve issues to do. Doing so results in each an absurd musical quantity Jurati breaks into as a distraction for the remainder of the group to flee the absurdly overprotective safety on the gala, and a psychological lapse lengthy sufficient for the Queen to utterly take over her thoughts for some time. Womp womp.

That’s only a subplot. The precise meat of the episode—except for Picard attempting to achieve out to his ancestor and encourage her that the concern and nervousness she feels about her mission is just not one thing to utterly undo her, however a energy to attract on and confront—is much more of Q’s machinations. Turns out that Q’s bullshit powers of having the ability to do something even with out his reality-altering, finger-snapping shenanigans consists of getting disgraced Doctor Soong to only so conveniently occur to point out up on the gala as his agent. Soong, someway because of his and Picard’s mutual frenemy, will get to conveniently instantly be on the Europa Mission’s board of administrators, which provides him the obvious energy to go “excuse me, this elderly bald gentleman is bothering me, have all of your hired goons descend on him like Ringwraiths attacking Weathertop, thank you,” when he bumps into Picard. It’s very foolish, but it surely offers Picard the prospect to flee and discover Renee for that coronary heart to coronary heart, and also you assume, forgetting that countdown to Picard actually getting knocked on his ass, every part may be OK. Renee is impressed to be an astronaut! No one obtained arrested! Only one member of the group has had their physique hijacked by a hostile machine intelligence!

And so that is the purpose in “Two For One” that Picard decides {that a} very offended Soong merely has to attempt to run over the 2 Picards in his automobile. Jean-Luc, after all, pushes Renee to her security, and there we go: that’s why we’ve been teased that Picard is in peril. There’s nothing to do together with his fancy robo-body from season one, no temporal paradox attributable to him interacting surreptitiously with Renee, no Q or Borg Queen messing, nothing. Brent Spiner hit him with a automobile. Reader, how I cackled! Of course, Jean-Luc must be tremendous. Season three is on the best way, they usually already tried killing him final season and that clearly didn’t take. Literally working over the titular star of the present with a automobile is simply one other chaotic roadblock for the collection to throw out of nowhere, but it surely works since you’re simply not anticipating it, at the same time as “Two For One” continuously reminds you that every one these cautious plans laid by Picard and his group are going to go extremely fallacious. You simply go alongside for the trip sooner or later when Jean-Luc Picard will get run over, as a result of tremendous, why not?

And in order that’s the place we’re because the chaos practice pulls into a short lived resting cease. The injured Picard is taken again to Teresa’s clinic, the place we’re advised he’s bodily tremendous (thanks, robo-body) however mentally unable to exit a coma, tramautized by lingering pictures of his mom seemingly dropped at the fore of his mindscape after his interplay with Renee. Tallinn means that, additionally splendidly conveniently, she will go into his thoughts together with her Supervisor tech and coax Jean-Luc by means of the trauma and again out, and that’s the place we’re: we’ve gone from faux-Ocean’s Eleven astronaut gala hijacking to thoughts hijacking. Plus, no person however the viewers is aware of the Borg Queen is on the market! In Jurati’s physique! Making her stroll on LA streets with naked ft! Once once more, we’re left to ask, as an exasperated Raffi does: tremendous, why not?

Really, at this level it’s tremendous. If Picard’s method to its endgame this season goes to be as chaotic as that is—so many lingering threats and threads, a lot confusion, a lot of our heroes simply acknowledging that every part is wild they usually simply need to take care of it if they need their future again—no less than it’s beginning to have slightly enjoyable with it. You can’t run Jean-Luc Picard over with a automobile each week, but it surely’s positively a strategy to maintain issues fascinating as this season continues a wild path in direction of its climax.

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