Broken Pieces

Tilt your head one way, and not a lot actually happened in the latest episode of Star Trek: Picard. The characters generally ended the episode in the same place they began it, there was lots of sitting around and talking, and it was full of big chunks of exposition. But this is how I know I'm all in on this series at this point. My head was tilted a different way, and I was really here for it.

Aboard La Sirena, Rios retreats into isolation upon meeting Soji. When he's finally persuaded by Raffi to emerge, his information, combined with more from Dr. Jurati and unlocked memories inside Soji, reveals the full scope of what happened in the Mars attack years earlier, and why. Meanwhile, aboard the Borg cube, Seven of Nine comes to the rescue of Elnor. But what she must do next to rid the cube of Romulans is a step she's reluctant to take.

There hardly seems a way to talk about this episode without wading directly into the SPOILERS, so... you know the drill, people. That said, you may well have predicted the rough shape of what was revealed this episode, even if the particulars were unclear. That's because every part of this story is connected. The synth revolt on Mars was created by the Zhat Vash, precisely to cause the Federation response it caused. The semi-derelict Borg cube? That's connected too, as the assimilation of knowledge in Ramdha's mind is what ultimately caused the collective to sever its link.

And yet, as satisfying as all this revelation was (and it was), I thought there was still more compelling exposition delivered elsewhere in the episode: the story behind what drove Rios out of Starfleet. This episode was all about revealing his secret past... and who better to do that than Raffi? We learned what happened to a captain he admired, and how Starfleet's policies drove a man to kill himself. It certainly reinforces Picard's declaration in the very first episode, that Starfleet wasn't itself anymore.

This dramatic history was exposed with deftly handled humor, as Santiago Cabrera got to chew the scenery as five different holographic characters with five different personalities and accents. (Of course, the engineer was Scottish.) It was something of a microcosm of the series as a whole -- great fun on the way to something deeper. And it was a perfect marriage of performance and, during the big "group therapy" scene, seamless visual effects.

Still more exposition woven into the episode let us know why the Romulans are doing what they're doing -- an ancient civilization left behind a convincing warning. Given what we see in the opening scene, with a half-dozen Romulans committing grisly suicide when exposed to this knowledge, it's a testament to Dr. Jurati that she didn't fall apart more than she did. You could argue that perhaps Oh (revealed to be half-Vulcan, half-Romulan) filtered some of the worst from her mindmeld, but she doesn't come off as the type to be concerned with human frailties.

But if Oh is the leader, Rizzo is the true believer. We saw in flashback that she met all this information with steely resolve. This rounds out her character some, perhaps making her less of a mustache-twirling villain than we've seen so far... though perhaps it makes any restraint she's previously shown less understandable in retrospect? (But she's now totally on a course to be at odds with her softer brother Narek when he re-enters the story, right?)

Seven of Nine re-entered the story herself, in what to me was the weakest plot thread of the episode. I certainly felt for her reluctance to be personally responsible for the re-enslavement of countless former Borg. Yet the culmination of that story largely let her off the hook -- most were vented out into space by Rizzo, while the handful that may have remained seemingly released her with "more work to do." For what this show has given us so far, it felt like an uncharacteristically easy out. (Though, of course, I'm glad to still have Seven in the story.)

There were other treats at the margins, from a reference to Picard's former classmate (shown in "Tapestry") becoming a captain, to the return of the delightfully potty-mouthed Admiral Clancy. (I've seen complaints online from fans who say the language means they can't watch Star Trek: Picard with their kids now. I see few complaints about the more graphic violence of the series, though, so...)

I give "Broken Pieces" a B+. It may have been a little exposition-dense, but then, the way all the threads of the story came together felt quite satisfying to me. I'm looking forward to the next two weeks to see how it all wraps up.