LizstarTrek - Picard Season 1 episodes 8 - 10

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

I was not looking forward to DIS, but I think the thing I’ve been dreading the most was this. I have NOT been looking forward to this. Every thing about this sounds bad.

Broken pieces - PIC 2/10

God, TELL ME ABOUT IT, title.

The last time on has a lot of stuff about Rios. My guess is he’ll die this episode, or next episode.

We start with the Zhat Vash or whatever they’re called, which are a secret order INSIDE the secret order. They’re in a like, cult meeting where they’re standing around a glowing thing on THE GRIEF PLANET, as it’s called. They get visions from some artifact thing on it about how all of life is going to be killed by AI. THEY GOT A FUCKING REAPER VISION. And then as the new generation of Zhat Vash sees the vision, all of them kill themselves except for the incest girl, who’s like “WE MUST STOP THEM.”

We also learn the Romulan fortune teller who was borged and insane, adopted the incest twins, and that’s why she knew about the future, she saw the vision from THE GRIEF PLANET. Also her grief about this is why the borg cube broke. Everything about this is stupid. Also it’s trying REALLY hard to make Incest Girl sympathetic now? You can’t do that THE EPISODE AFTER THE LAST ONE. Did you all forget her torturing Hugh, killing innocent ex borg just for the fuck of it, and then killing him just cause?

Back on the Millenium Falcon, things are tense. They do at LEAST realize that the doctor is a spy. But this also means Rios and Raffi don’t trust Soji, at all, and think this is going to fall apart. Rios is also super checked out, and wants out as soon as he transports them to Deep Space 12. He ALSO calls for Starfleet to send a fleet out to help him, and they do. Okay then? NOW they want to do that??

We get a scene where Seven debates reintigrating the ex borg so she can take the borg cube out. But if she does that, might not want to be released after, and she might not want to release them. Then, immediately after, we get a scene with Raffi talking to all 4 of Rios’ clone holograms discussing why he’s so upset. THIS. SHOW. HAS. A. TONE. PROBLEM.

You know, when they said “We’re making a sequel to TNG that brings back elements from the show”, I wasn’t expecting them to do the clashing A, B, and C plots. This scene is really hard to follow btw. No shade on this actor but there are 4 of them, their only differences is they have different accents, and he is NOT Brent Spiner.

Doctor’s awake. She doesn’t want to talk about the vision she saw. She’s like “do you believe in hell? I didn’t. Now I do.” Okay.

We need to talk about Roko’s Basilisk.

This FEELS kinda like a take on Roko’s Basilisk? And if you dunno what that is, content warning, because some fucking idiots view it as a cognito hazard. Basically, it’s a super AI in the future that will become a god. If you don’t help it to exist, it will torment you to hell. It is Pascal’s Wager, just straight up, but for tech bro AI dipshits. Some people have actually killed themselves over this. This reminds me of that. But it doesn’t have a good thing to say on the topic, or much anything.

We get a scebe wgere Rios finally explains his dark traumatic past, but it’s interrupted with edits where it cuts back and forth to the Doctor harassing and interrogating the AI, like “DO YOU EVEN DREAM? DO YOU CRY? DO YOU EAT?” Fuck off, lady, I’m trying to understand the sexy man’s trauma to see if he’s fixable.

So apparently some point in the past, his captain got some envoys from someplace, then a message from Starfleet. A “black flag order”, which means follow this order or your entire ship will be destroyed. That’s not a thing Starfleet has. You cannot convince me of that. Anyways, the captain then killed the envoys violently, then himself. Rios saw all of this and got severe PTSD about it. Honestly, understandable. Will anything happen to the starfleet higherups who ordered this? :) Probably nooooot! Also one of the emmissaries looks just like Soji, so she’s like, a recreation of her.

Seven sees Incest Lady is STILL killing exborg for LITERALLY no reason, and decides fuck it, bring them into the fold to try and save them. It doesn’t work, they’re all killed anyway, thrown out into space. Dude, what IS it with modern Trek and its love of spacing people?

From learning about this tragic backstory, Raffi pieces EVERYTHING together. She’s like “Oh, Commodore Oh is half Romulan.” How did you know that? “Also the Romulans did 9/11” I mean, sure. This is obvious shit I discovered as soon as the characters showed up. Romulans want to kill all AI because they assume from a random thing they found on a rock that AI will kill everyone. Soji hijacks the ship and flies to a Borg warp center, which is apparently only 9 hours away?

Incest Lady gets away so Seven re-borging herself means nothing. But it doesn’t matter cause she breaks away anyway.

Rios is like “Oh okay, since Oh gave the order, it’s fine cause that means Starfleet didn’t betray us and isn’t evil” and Picard goes “No, no they still are, because THEY Were the ones who decided to do an evil ban on AIs.” Oh good, glad we aren’t absolving starfleet of their sins. But also I still hate Starfleet being weirdly unrepentantly evil in modern Trek.

This entire episode was weirdly hard to follow, honestly.

Et in Arcadia Ego Part 1 - PIC 2/10

They make it to the homeworld. Alongside the Borg Cube, and also Incest Brother who was somehow still tailing them, THROUGH A TRANSWARP BEACON. They are all subsequently eaten by a giant orchid-like space plants that drag them down to the planet. Including the borg cube. No. No, that’s dumb. Soji: “They used an EMP” THAT’S ALSO VERY DUMB. IF BORGS WERE RESISTANT TO EMPS WOLF 359 WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED.

They crash down, the ship out of energy. Picard wakes up and decides to tell everyone the plan. He will take Soji to her people, and tell them “I am dying btw, it’s terminal. Don’t treat me like I am, you’ll piss me off”. “Remember that scene in the sequel trilogy in Star Trek where C3PO thinks he’s going to die and says “I’m just taking one last look at all my good friends” and looks at the people he’s known for 2 hours? This reminds me of that.” - Neli

The Borg cube landed nearby so they head to it. Yeah uh, no. Those explode so no one can get the technology. They do that. I guess MAYBE the Borg could have turned that off? But okay.

If there’s anything I can say, at least Seven is hot. They lament Hugh for a single sentence then move on.

The Zhat Vash, notably a secret organization of a secret organization that no one thinks exist, are sending 218 romulan warbirds. Reminder that Wolf 359 was 40 ships.

“It’s all on you now” Picard says, leaving Elnor (I legit typed elrond by accident) and Seven behind as he walks into the light. God, I’d be such a good director if this is all it takes.

We reach AI Heaven. We also meet SOONG! Not that Soong, his son actually. This is the THIRD Soong Brent Spiner has played. If you think for even 2 minutes, Soong having a secret son we never heard about before is kinda weird, but look. I’m happy to see Brent Spiner again.

ONE OF THESE AI HAVE LEARNED HOW TO MIND MELD. THAT REQUIRES PSYCHIC ABILITY, AND SHE IS A ROBOT. WHAT? Well at least this one is CONSENSUAL I GUESS.

Fuck this noise so hard.

They think that the message the Vhat Zash found isn’t actually meant for organic minds, but instead for artificial minds. It’ll just drive organics insane. She…. mind melds, and finds out what the message is SUPPOSED to be. We get a weird message with video behind it, INCLUDING A FUCKING FOX DYING AND DECOMPOSING, REALLY WANTED TO SEE THAT, THANK YOU STAR TREK. Basically, at some point in the past, an AI species killed its creators after they turned on them and tried to destroy them. They then went to another dimension, but left a message behind of “hey, synthetics, call for us and we’ll help you kill all organic life.”

The Vulcan synth is now REALLY evil, going to others and going “we should kill organics actually :)” Oh great. Also they drag Incest Boy in.

This episode is giving lots of death flags for Picard. But it’s ALSO showing that Soong is developing a kind of mind transfer device, SO IT’S REALLY OBVIOUS WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.

Narek, Incest Boy, tries to emotionally manipulate Soji again. She tells him to fuck off and he goes “Well it’s fine cause we’ll just kill you all anyway :)” he then manipulates another innocent synth on the planet. Can this guy die yet? Nope, the Evil Cyborg lets him out, he kills the innocent one, and runs off, now working with her. She uses this death to prove that the organics should all be killed. Soong is all good for this for some reason. I guess cause he’s coded to be dying and will mind transfer himself?? Wait IT’S JUST ROKO’S BASILISK AGAIN ISN’T IT. GOD DAMMIT.

Hey, remember how all of these AI arte based off of Data? Remember how Data was unstable and wanted to kill all humans? No? You DON’T remember that??? They end up arresting Picard and decide to kill all Humans. Oh goodie.

One more. We’re almost done.

Et in Arcadia Ego Part 2 - PIC 1.5/10

We are sitting here waiting for the final battle to come as it clearly is. Picard is like “please don’t let the Romulans turn you into the monsters they fear”. Look, if I was more engaged in this, maybe I’d be like “wow, that’s a terrible thing to say to people trying to keep alive who are hunted and hated by the entire galaxy”.

Wait, I just… realized something, watching the incest twins talk about the prophecy. So, they follow the prophecy. But it’s not real, it’s nonsense put into their brains from a beacon meant for synthetics saying “call us and we’ll kill all Humans :)”. But… they knew things that only a prophecy could explain. They knew the destroyer, and the messenger, they knew they were twin robots, and could tell who was which. Okay.

The doctor joins Soong and the synths in killing all Humans, because she’s “their mother”. But she’s clearly going to just kill them to try and stop this.

This dude calls Romulan Fuckboy a “snakehead”, which is 100% a slur. He ends up teaming up with them to stop the AI. Uh, dude, YOU’RE THE ONE WHO DID THIS AND STARTED THIS. Not gonna own up to that? No? Okay. We get a scene of them doing a heist, sneaking fuckboi back in. They do that classic heist scene, them talking about the setup, interspersed with them doing it.

Soong FINALLY looks through the murdered AI’s data and finds out, yeah, clearly, it was the evil android. So he joins them for their heist. Okay, sure, he’s on our side again and is good. What the FUCK is going on with everyone’s sides here? The doctor also breaks Picard out.

Picard: “They have to learn what living is for. And I will lead by example.” He steals Rios’ ship and goes off to fight the Romulans. I’m sure Rios will LOVE that. Soong also shuts down the evil AI? But uh… doesn’t actually do anything? To stop the other AI from building the Kill Humans Device???

The Romulans show up. More of those orchid plant ships come up to meet them. Dude, 5 of those orchids killed a borg cube, how the fuck couldn’t they kill this fleet? There’s ten of them.

Seven kills incest sister. Thank god. They were fighting btw.

“Soji, I will give you something I hope will make you reconsider killing all Humans. My life.” The doctor, next to him, thinking “WAIT, I DIDN’T AGREE TO THIS”.

Picard does the Picard maneuver. Using the eyeball thingy they stole from the dead AI, they make a million fake images. This holds them off just long enough fooooor

A hundred copies of the exact same 3D ship file they had to show up. Kind of embarassing.

At least he’s here. God bless you, Frakes. He’s like “Alright Commodore or General or whatever the hell you’re talking about. I’ll say stand down, but I’d love nothing more than to kick your Tal Shiar ass.” I love him. Actually good line.

THE EVIL AI FROM ANOTHER GALAXY ARE WRITHING MECHANICAL SPACE WORMS. WHY ARE THEY SPACE WORMS?? Anyways, Soji breaks the beacon, General Oh fucks off, and Riker is like “What was I supposed to do? Just sit there and eat pizza?” and then leaves. No, please, PLEASE stay. Picard immediately has a Brain Attack and dies.

There’s no tension or stakes here. Because they ALREADY SHOWED HOW THEY’RE GONNA BRING HIM BACK FROM THE DEAD. Also there are two more seasons after this, of course. We get signs of them all sad and crying around Picard’s dead body, but like, c’mon.

We then get a bunch of scenes of everyone sitting around sad and crying in pairs. Wow, they’re going HARD on this aren’t they? A butterfly flies between each of the scenes, cause butterflies are human souls or some shit. Then boom, he’s alive again. Kind of.

They are in a simulation. Data has a like, pearly gates talk with Picard. And gives him closer on his death. And then is like “you have to go, goodbye Captain”, as he walks into the light. But he asks for one last thing. “Please kill me”. His consciousness is still here, through that neuron Mattox harvested, but he wants to die to finally be Human-like.

HEY.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT I NEEDED TO SEE?

DATA DYING AGAIN.

I AM GOING TO MORB. I’M GOING TO BECOME A BIBLICALLY ACCURATE MORB.

Watching my favorite Trek character die, SHOULD have been like… some kind of emotion. Mostly it’s just annoyance.

Anyways yes, Picard is obviously revived in this golem. He’s now a replicant. No super powers, no AI anything. He’ll still naturally die in 20 years, just have his body turn off. Which is even more fucked up tbh. But gotta have that… status quo I guess.

We get a scene where Picard talks about how great Data was, in the show called Picard, as they turn his brain off and kill him, again.

Why are we suffer?

Just to suffer?

They all get in the ship, the AI ban is lifted off screen, and Picard says “engage”, and it ends.

I hated this. The entirety of this season. It is, in fact, worse than Discovery season 1. At least that didn’t assassinate characters with bad writing. It just had bad writing.

But in the end, I need to wonder. What is this even about? What was Picard’s goals, what was it trying to say? I mean, my first immediate thought, is it was trying to just be Game of Thrones. It was VERY Game of Thronesy without really understanding it. It wasn’t trying to be Star Trek, that’s for sure.

Picard is cynicism. It’s endlessly cynical and dark with no positive shining light. Star Trek is about optimism, but this series is very much NOT about that. And I cannot wait to never think about this ever again.

Okay apparently I missed this. Apparently Seven and Raffi are a thing? They really did not earn this. I mean, am I happy Seven is gay finally? Yes. It’s been a long time coming. But I think they literally said 3 lines to each other.