Everyone onStar Trek: PicardIs Finding Their Traumas at the Worst Possible Time

Star Trek : Picardis heading into the end game of its first time of year , but it palpate as if it ’s only really just started spinning up the biggest rack of its arc . That ’s adept for us because it have in mind major impulse on the show ’s most intriguing storylines . It ’s bad for the heroes ofStar Trek : Picardbecause it ’s happening just as they ’re all examining their own harm .

“ The Impossible Box , ” on a character level , palpate like an appropriate moment of rest period for our persona after the worked up drains “ Stardust City Rag”put on them . At least , for two members of the La Sirena ’s work party : Agnes Jurati , who now has to attempt to conceal from her crewmates her part inBruce Maddox’sdeath , and Raffi Musiker , who has to reckon with the emotional aftermath of being so completely rejected by her son back on Freecloud . Jurati ’s answer to the horror she confront having to kill her former paramour and mentor — for reasons still cryptically left unknown — is to retreat almost entirely . Outside of the opening scenes , she ’s scarcely in the episode , but when she is there she is suddenly distant and drawn — well , when she is n’t grow into bed with Rios , that is . But she ’s specially remote from Picard , as if the thought of him reaching out to her in an attempt to ease her over Maddox ’s death would undo her frontage entirely .

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A familiar face lends aid to Picard, in more ways than one.

A familiar face lends aid to Picard, in more ways than one.Image: CBS

Raffi , meanwhile , has a much more open — and openly messy — reply to her fellowship dramaturgy . After spending hebdomad presenting that she ’d tried to move on from the addictions and vices she had turned to after Starfleet chewed her up and clap her out , the Raffi we now see has instead totally re - embraced them . No longer hide them away , she ’s once again partaking in excessive quantity of drugs and alcohol , and reveling in the fact ; when needed on La Sirena ’s bridge circuit , she stumbles her way to her keister , vape in one hand , nursing bottle of John Barleycorn in the other . She even makes the belligerence part of her pitch , when she ’s involve to call in an former favor to help with the late leg of Picard ’s saving operation , playing the art of the washed - out weirdo not as an act , but as a tragic acceptance of it who she might as well really be .

And yet , in spitefulness of the emotional angst aboard La Sirena , the show must go on . The ship is on a direct path to the decommission Borg Cube , now that they bonk Soji is there , and one last bridge burned by Raffi to get the favor of giving Picard diplomatical access to the facility without trigger off Romulan intuition . It ’s finally time for Picard to issue forth face to face with Soji Asher , and undertake to save himself for the death of her sis under his watch . Without metre to soothe the injury of his fellow crewmates , it ’s a journeying he has to make alone . Except that going aboard the block alone means it ’s time for Picard himself to face up a few traumatic demons , too .

or else of continuing his malaise about the moral rot of Starfleet , Jean - Luc get a novel - honest-to-god trauma to imagine with : his meter as Locutus of Borg , flashes of which stab away at his brain ’s center as he beams aboard and is instantly horrify by the realism he find himself in . It ’s perhaps the most vulnerable Picard has present its titular hero so far : when he was needled by the newscaster in the show ’s first step installment , he answer that second of vulnerability forthwith with impassioned indignance . Here , he ca n’t do the same — he ca n’t afford the fury of Captain Ahab going to hound his whale , as he did inthat renowned momentfrom Star Trek : First Contact . This is Jean - Luc as a tired , quondam , and very afraid man , buckling under the harm of being faced with his meter in the collective , only sway out of his haunted stupor by Hugh reach out to remind him that not all memories of the Borgare forged ones .

Rios helps Raffi in a low moment.Image: CBS

Picard ’s reunion with the Borg he once facilitate personalize is a two - fold boon . It ’s not just that Hugh ’s light uneasiness of having to process with the Romulans means he ’s more than willing to help Picard witness and press out Soji from Narek ’s dirtbag clutches . But the ex-husband - Borg also can distinctly see that Picard ’s traumas from his sentence as Locutus have , whether he want to believe it or not , instilled not just a great reverence of the Borg within him , but a bias built out of his own antipathy for having been drawn into the collective in the first stead . Subtly but persistently , as Hugh and Picard go through the facade of their diplomatical spell of the “ artefact , ” the former constantly kick the bucket out of his direction to highlight to the latter the respectable work being done away from the Romulans ’ horizon of rehabilitate and aiding masses who , like Picard , have undergone a cataclysmal injury . To show to him that , while they were once Borg , underneath that nightmare they always were , and are now , just hoi polloi .

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Unlike Picard , however , they did n’t have the exclusive right or importance to justify a crowd of Starfleet ’s all right to rescue them from the Borg or to see to it they undergo the most beforehand operation to remove the physical scar of their absorption as quickly as possible . While Picard has the exemption to have his prejudice and conceal that under his real and understandable injury , these citizenry did n’t , and need the help and understanding of mass like Hugh far more than they need the impassioned hate of the Borg that still linger deeply in Picard ’s substance .

Image: CBS

Rios helps Raffi in a low moment.Image: CBS

It lead to an important minute of realization for the ex-wife - full admiral : These people were made into monsters by the Borg , but they themselves are not monster . And maybe he does n’t have to hate the part of him that is still Borg late down , that the collective took from the great and mighty Jean - Luc Picard . Maybe he can just accept that it ’s a part of who he is , as Hugh has — as Seven had last week — and as the artifact remnants have had to .

Meanwhile , in and around the edges of Hugh ’s Borg Tour / Therapy Session , a ticking time turkey finally goes off at the worst potential clock time . The other traumatic revelation of the episode which bubble up throughout “ The Impossible Box ” is that Soji , constantly being crusade towards the precipice by Narek ’s excited use , is finally catapult over the mystifying oddment all told , watching her simulated living slowly untangle before her eyes . After sowing the seeds of dubiousness in her , Narek almost joyously watches as she goes through the memories of her life and finds out just how fake they really are — not as old as they should be , perfectly imperfect , or in the casing of her mother entirely , just downright cook completely .

All this culminates in Soji trip her synth abilties and shit hitting the Borg - Cube - Fan . The activating itself is move by the more tangible hurt of Narek trapping her in what is think of to be a Romulan meditative way but is , handily for him , a place to trap and souse her with deadly radiation . It ’s commodious for Picard and Hugh at least , because the suddenly top-notch - strong Soji literally crashes her means through a ceiling to land right in front of them , making their leakage a petty simpler . It ’s inconvenient because , considering the abject state La Sirena ’s crew is in powerful now emotionally , a cool extraction mission turning suddenly hot leads to things barrelling out of control real tight .

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Picard realizes he has to face this particular nightmare alone.Image: CBS

Cornered by the Tal Shiar and out of selection — and with La Sirena ineffectual to pull out them — Hugh leads Picard and the almost delirious Soji to a underground bay within the block , caparison a spatial trajector , a variety of teleporting gateway that allowed the Borg Queen to translocate off from a cube in case of parking brake . Now , it becomes Picard and Soji ’s only opportunity to escape , but it means temporarily ditching La Sirena , and , on the cube itself environ by unfriendly Romulans leaving Hugh and … Elnor behind ? Because if thing were n’t complicated enough , our loveably unacquainted Qowat Milat decides to ignore all warnings and beam aboard the cube , seemingly choosing to give himself to hold off Picard ’s pursuer . Buddy , there is enough break on without bewilder in a heroic forfeiture or two !

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And so , as Picard and Soji beam away to Nepenthe — a creation identify for the drug of forgetfulness of Greek mythology — it seems our wider crew are in a state of disarray they would indeed prefer to forget right now . At least with some of their traumas out in the out-of-doors , and with Soji ( somewhat ) assure , they can all begin to find a path to move on from them . If they make it away from the Borg Cube in one piece , that is .

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Narek’s emotional manipulation finally pushes Soji over an edge she can’t come back from.Image: CBS

Assorted Musings

One would call up , turn over the Cube is now run away by Hugh ’s Research Institute , they ’d take place some safety railing around these clearly very high up and very unsafe gangways , in instance of experiential - trauma - induced falls . mayhap it ’s not in their budget .

There ’s a peck going on this episode as is , so I get that we do n’t spend a lot of time with Agnes here but … how did Rios ’ EMH not show up and be like “ Hey , so what was up with whatever you did to the now - dead person in my Sickbay ” at any point ?

A weirdly present yet rarely addressed aspect of Picard is this underlying realisation that our darling hero can be a flake of a jerked meat , whether it ’s because of his own privilege or the fact that possibly , just maybe , Jean - Luc Picard has give into a piffling moment of his own hype . That felt no more seeming than this sequence where he leads a stave of applause on La Sirena ’s bridge for Raffi ’s “ performance ” as the drunk washout convince an old Starfleet admirer to get him diplomatic resistance , when it ’s very clear that she ’s under great duress and also extremely dangerously drunk , which only Rios picks up on , head to their spirit - to - heart in her quarters . Hopefully , at some point the show will direct that elephant in the elbow room , because it mat up … very not nerveless ?

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The crew of La Sirena, approximately five seconds before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.Image: CBS

I still do not get why Narissa and Narek ’s vibe is so … painfully incestuous . Her watching him and Soji go through the ( also weirdly - fucky , even for the Romulans ) meditation process feel bizarrely uncomfortable .

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Image: CBS