Damn, Where Has ThisStar Trek: PicardBeen?

Star Trek : Picardis a show that , for its first two time of year , vacillated wildly between whether or not it require to be a ego - serious look at how meter had exchange and bruise Jean - Luc Picard , or a hardiness , often disquiet heroic adventure for its titular hero . Its third season has been as hard as it is nostalgic , but its halfway point feels like it ’s finally synthesized those two half into some unbelievable television .

“ role player ” marks the halfway point for Picard ’s third and final season , andafter last weekend the first phase angle of the time of year and the quick terror of Vadic — for now at least — the time has come for each and every one of our Hero to reckon with thereturn of the Changelings . That is , until Captain Shaw conceive he ’s about to get the one - up on Riker and Picard by gloating that he has alerted Starfleet to expedite bringing the old friend in to confront the music for their rebelliousness . The USS Intrepid arrives to bring Picard and Riker in , but first a knife has to be twisted when it ’s reveal that the officer responsible for investigating them for subversiveness is none other than one of Jean - Luc ’s biggest regrets :

Michelle Forbes is back as Ro Laren , the Bajoran formerNext Generation Starfleet ensignand protégé of Captain Picard aboard the Enterprise , deform Maquis defector in what wasNext Generation ’s final storyarcbefore “ All Good Things … ” brought the show to a close . In a sea of nostalgic TNG returns this time of year , Ro ’s riposte being kept as a pleasant surprisal is refreshing . But what ’s even more refreshing is that Picard manages to beautifully look into and conclude her arc with Picard , start all those decades ago , in a way that is not simply nostalgic , but reflective of a new dramatic ethos underpinning this generate Changeling scourge . In a world where these rogue denizens of the Great Link are now skilful than ever at infiltrating the solids ’ rank , it ’s not technology and CAT scan that can root them out . It ’s good honest-to-god fashioned relationships and connections — and in Picard and Ro Laren ’s case , a lot of grief and trauma to wade through .

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From the get - go , Ro ’s lurid return into Picard ’s orbit is primed for two thing . The first is fiery conflict : though Riker is spare - wheelingly understanding with the now Commander Ro , Picard is maddened , and not just because Ro of all people is the one enquire him for treason . Here is Jean - Luc Picard , the hot-tempered Admiral who fall in and out of favor with Starfleet like it ’s going out of fashion , at this moment of aroused exposure — he has just become a father , after all — being preached to , dress down at by one of the few hoi polloi to ache him the most in his full life ? This season has been about present a Picard we ’ve rarely seen at times , and that includes a circle of ugly emotions the allow man normally proceed close to his chest . But there is none of that tightness here ; it all come down out as Ro and Picard nibble up almost precisely where they depart off when she defected to the Maquis in TNG ’s “ Preemptive Strike , ” and amplify all that sorrow and ire across nearly three decades of time .

The other priming of course of instruction is that we ’re work to expect that the secret of the time of year ’s big bad is now out , that Ro is a Changeling . In his blind fury and shame , Picard throws himself into it to try and make his way of life out of confronting why Ro is here and now and back in Starfleet . After all , Ro left Starfleet for some extremely valid reasons , and even with so much time passed , her appearance here at this moment of all moment is now suspicious — her snip off , professional smell ; the way she sets up the Titan to have as few bunch depart aboard as potential while her security department officer sweep for Jack Crusher ( who , by the by , is having a perdition of a time with those creepy-crawly vision , run to a horrifying moment where he goes benumbed and coldly executes four Changelings who regain him hiding in unornamented sight in a Starfleet uniform among the Titan crew ) ; even , as Picard lead on to note to Ro , the fact she no longer wears the traditional Bajoran earring she ferociously contend to bear as an Ensign , in spite of Starfleet ’s uniform rules . The setup is there , and Picard have sex it as much as its Hero of Alexandria does , and the sequence spends plenty of clip leading you down this expected path .

But gratefully Picard is good in this consequence — an evolution of maturity that I ’m not quite sure anterior seasons would ’ve been open of — than that , and Ro brings Picard into the Titan ’s holodeck diversion of 10 Forward for an unbelievable , explosively worked up coup de seemliness . It ’s much a squall lucifer in a way we ’ve seldom ever seen Star Trek do , as all this detriment and lugubriousness pours out from the two of them . “ You broke my meat , ” Picard wails , and it feels so earnestly real , as Ro matches him in pain sensation : “ And you break mine ! ” It ’s here that the masquerade party finally pinch . For all the Changelings have develop to avoid traditional form of detective work fashioned by Starfleet inthe Dominion War , cause them good infiltrator than ever before , they can not double the unifying power of sorrow , the harm it inspires in multitude and the hurt that grief then is then in turn bring down on other people . Both equally skewered by the other , Picard and Ro agnise that they are both who they say they are , and the latter can at last reveal her true intentions — the Changelings have already compromised Starfleet with plan to assault it during Frontier Day , and Ro is one of the stay loyalist who has been inquire what ’s go on .

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This is the sort of nostalgia that Picard truly manage with a delicate and effective touch , and far more good than just own old faces show up for the drive because that ’s fun and nice . Is the end outcome still largely the same — a intimate friend ( or really frenemy , with Ro ) coming in to set up the heroes on a path to victory ? Yes , but it is removed from the blush wine - tinted view of Picard as this fabulous legend , and amply exposes just how annihilative one of his greatest failures as a maitre d' has haunt him in the fourth dimension that has passed between these two shows . This is the kind of examination that Picard ’s first season wastoo frightened to commit to , and that its mo was too busybeing absolutely bonkersto even consider — and in the moment , it works thoroughly , link up a bow on a eccentric electric discharge that had tarry for generations after TNG , while countersink up the stakes of this new “ final ” chapter in Picard ’s story .

But of course , not all thing can be truly happy after this minute of catharsis . Having confided her investigation in the remain Titan bunch and quick to go back to her ship and carry on the piece of work there , Ro finds that she herself has been compromise : the Intrepid is in Changeling bridge player , and after she stamp out the two shapeshifting officers on her shuttle she ascertain a bomb planted to still her . In one last number of partake faith , Ro sends a message to the Titan warn them , and Picard discovers that Ro ’s earring , present to him as a farewell and reconciliation , is holding all the datum of her Changeling research so far — as he is forced to watch her make a strike - and - lead sacrifice on the Intrepid , smash her shuttle into its warp nacelle so the uncompromised Titan can escape .

It ’s a tragical but beautifully bittersweet end to one of The Next Generation ’s unsung and most complex of characters , and a befittingly herculean re - enforcement of the wager at play as Picard time of year three enters its endgame . With all our heroes so far reunited , as Raffi and Worf ray of light aboard the Titan with information in tow about the secrets of the Daystrom Station , the die is rove for Starfleet ’s finest to write the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. once again — even as one of those hunky-dory heroes afford their living for that combat chance .

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Image: Paramount

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