Star Trek: Picard’s Battle of the Borg Is a Battle for Everyone’s Soul

Star Trek: Picard’s second season had a lot to wrap up coming into its final two episodes. As the specter of the Borg Queen and Q’s personal 2024 shenanigans merged into an unholy matrimony between the Borg and Dr. Soong, group La Sirena needed to take care of a complete chunk of mess this week—and paid some massive costs to possibly change certainly one of Star Trek’s most enduring villains without end.

“Hide and Seek” positioned itself as this massive, action-packed factor—a battle between our heroes, and the now-Borgified goons Dr. Soong managed to simply whip up out of nowhere for the Borg Queen to contaminate final week. Never ask questions on how any villain truly does issues on this present, apparently, as a result of just about solely the stuff with the Borg Queen herself is sensible, and he or she was consuming automotive batteries final week. But anyway, that was actually solely a part of the image. Riffing off the extremely duff occasions of “Monsters” a couple of weeks in the past, a lot of the episode is definitely about—out of necessity, as they’re hunted by the Neo-Borg—Picard, Tallinn, Seven, and Raffi slinking their means by means of the shadows of Chateau Picard to keep away from being “assimilated” by computerized weapons hearth. Look, roll with it, the Borg Queen is working with what she’s bought in 2024.

Jokes apart, it is a little bit of a double-edged sword for Picard, as we’re as soon as once more compelled to see our titular hero reckon with the trauma of his previous. In “Monsters” this was accomplished to extremely clunky impact, slamming the brakes on the present’s momentum to do a quasi-mystery field a lot of the viewers may already guess the reply to after about 5 minutes. Although “Hide and Seek” has a whole lot of related flashbacks to the traumatic night time a younger Picard noticed his household splinter aside, the clunkiness of those flashbacks is at the least outweighed this time by being interspersed between scenes of motion slightly than… scenes of Patrick Stewart mendacity on a medical gurney in a coma. Yes, I’d a lot slightly see Seven and Raffi tag-team a Neo-Borg with a knife than that, thanks very a lot.

But in contrast to “Monsters” and its half-hearted mystery-box character arc, on the very least “Hide and Seek” makes use of these flashbacks into Picard’s life as an vital underpinning of the plot, as Jean-Luc’s re-experiencing of that fateful night time is what permits him to recollect tips on how to navigate the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the Chateau, avoiding seize by Soong and his goons. But it additionally turns into an important parallel between Picard and the villain he’s largely prevented for a lot of this season to this point: the Borg Queen herself.

While group La Sirena is off enjoying cover and search with reside weapons hearth, aboard the ship itself the Queen is slowly attempting to worm her means into its programs so she will fly off and get a 400-year head begin on rebuilding the Collective right into a extra fearsome pressure than ever earlier than. After Jurati’s consciousness wrestles sufficient management away from the Queen’s overtaking of her physique, the great physician reveals she’s hidden an unlock code for the ship inside a fight hologram with the type of Elnor (congratulations to Evan Evagora, who truly will get to do one thing for about 10 minutes this season once more!), shopping for her pals sufficient time to get to the ship and attempt to defend it themselves. Or, properly, slightly simply Seven and Raffi, as Jean-Luc is busy processing trauma and getting cornered by goons.

And by “defend it” I imply “immediately get Seven gored by Borg Queen tentacles.” Oops.

As Seven lies dying on La Sirena’s transporter pad, nevertheless, Jurati makes her massive play, tying collectively the Queen’s arc this season with Picard’s personal realization across the trauma of his mom’s dying. As Picard lastly admits to Tallinn the doubts he’s at all times had about his involvement in his mom’s suicide—as a toddler, he couldn’t bear to listen to his mom crying alone, so, towards his father’s needs, he opened the door to her room to sleep together with her, solely to depart it unlocked lengthy sufficient for his mom to depart and cling herself throughout a depressive episode—Jurati manages to wrench management from the Borg Queen in her physique lengthy sufficient to keep away from her ending Seven off. But she additionally makes her massive play, convincing the Queen that a part of the rationale she’s doing all it is a determined act of loneliness. Just like Jurati, the Queen has grow to be aimless and despondent with the lack of the Collective, and as horrifying because the Borg have been earlier than, it was all pushed by this want for companionship. Why not, Jurati argues, work with the lonely lady the Queen now inhabits a physique with to rebuild a collective that’s based mostly on a mutual want for connection, as an alternative of violent assimilation? Why not a Borg Collective that could be a help construction throughout the galaxy, as an alternative of a conquering Empire?

The pitch someway works, and simply as Picard acknowledges and embraces the ache of his personal loneliness to Tallinn, the Borg Queen accepts that her personal loneliness will be formed right into a Borg that’s higher for the entire galaxy—and begins by therapeutic Seven, giving Seven her implants again within the course of. The two most domineering figures in the entire present, finally, settle for the significance of being cherished by these round them—and whereas for Picard it places to relaxation a trauma that has lingered by means of his complete life, for the Borg Queen it appears to current a realization and the possibility that the Borg might be some sort of pressure for real good. It’s not the primary time Star Trek has contemplated if there’s a kernel of one thing good within the concept of the Borg—a number of episodes of Voyager performed on the healthiness of smaller-scale collectives impartial from the bigger hive thoughts, just like the cooperative seen in “Unity,” or “Survival Instinct” and its former, briefly severed Borg. But in a present that has wrestled with, and finally embraced, its relationship with the nostalgia of Star Trek and The Next Generation, genuinely positing that the Borg might be satisfied to alter, and grow to be one thing new on a macro scale, is arguably the boldest piece of storytelling Picard has accomplished for the broader Star Trek universe.

But time will inform if it truly stays as daring going ahead because it does on this instant second. Right now, it’s all potential—and costs have been paid for that potential. Jurati is, primarily, gone, now absolutely aboard with the Borg Queen and now not her personal self as step one on this happier hivemind. Seven has to re-confront her personal relationship to her Borg id, and the trauma that comes with it, metaphorically and actually with the return of her implants. La Sirena is gone, seemingly dooming our pals in 2024 except they restore the timeline. And, now, an unchecked Soong is operating round with guarantees of his personal legacy driving him.

That and… properly, Picard does have yet another season to go. For all of the promise of a modified Borg now, very simply subsequent season we may see this reversed, placing the Borg again of their historically villainous function, and now even worse due to all that further foresight and prep time Jurati has provided the Queen. And what different sort of menace may convey again the basic TNG bridge crew for one final huzzah than an almighty Borg Collective, in spite of everything? There’s additionally after all, the inherent nostalgia of the collection and Star Trek at giant. Could the franchise really deal with a future going ahead the place the Borg aren’t a menace every time they present up? All we will do is wait and see the way it performs out.

Which, in all likeliness, received’t be in Picard season two’s finale. That episode has sufficient to take care of even with the Borg Queen within the rearview mirror now, and though the present has struggled to focus on this backhalf of the season, with one main menace out of the way in which at the least that finale has to give attention to Soong… and no matter Q’s nonetheless as much as. Let’s see if it might at the least wrap these threads up with as a lot potential because it did this one.

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