Picard and his crew infiltrate the gala where his ancestor Renée is appearing before her mission to Europa. There, they must deal with security, the sabotage efforts of Adam Soong, and a cunning Borg Queen lurking inside Dr. Jurati's consciousness.
I think that the "magic trick" of Picard season two has been how well it's maintained the suspension of disbelief, even as there have been moments pretty much every episode that probably should make you question whether everything really makes sense. The overall shape of the story has been that strong, the pace well managed, and the acting potent enough to pull me through. But we're in that "middle section" of the narrative, where complications pile up, where things are being set up for the eventual payoff... and it felt to me like this week, it was just a little easier to latch on to the weak spots.
Take the Borg Queen subplot with Jurati. All season long, it's probably been true that it's been much better in execution than in writing. I don't think it's ever really been clear just why the Queen's assimilating powers have been controlled, but it's kind of worked anyway, with Annie Wersching (and Alison Pill as her primary foil) giving us a delicious performance. But this week asked more of the audience. We learn that Jurati planned to let the Borg Queen into her mind, and for some unspecified reason thought she'd have it all under control? What exactly was the thinking here? What are the mechanics of any of this?
Yet... does it matter when the performances remain so fun? This week, the Queen was like the Jurassic Park raptor testing the fence, and the moments she broke through were all entertaining. The kiss with Rios might have been the stand-out, had we not then gotten Alison Pill's rendition of Pat Benetar's "Shadows of the Night." (This was pure Terry Matalas. The show runner created a similar showpiece in the final season of 12 Monkeys, upon apparently learning that one of his cast members could sing. He seems to have reused the gimmick here... again, to great effect.)
Raffi's role in the story this week was quite small (though not as small as Seven of Nine's), but what was there felt pretty far off-brand to me. First, she was really laying into Rios for risking the timeline -- quite rich, considering her behavior so far this season. (That's fine; people are inconsistent. But how about having Seven call her out on it?) Later, things culminated in a scene where the roles felt exactly backwards to me. Tallinn, who barely knows Jean-Luc Picard, is arguing for a "rescue mission" inside his head, while Raffi is arguing that it's too risky. Shouldn't it be Raffi, with another friend near death and absolutely determined not to lose anyone else after Elnor, arguing for the risky move? And shouldn't it be Tallinn, who has spent her whole life as a bystander, who needs pushing to get in there and try something?
Speaking of Jean-Luc Picard, this was the third straight episode where he ended up in a one-on-one with a woman, trying to change her mind. It's starting to be a little repetitive -- though I can't argue that Patrick Stewart can give one hell of a pep talk. (There was another Terry Matalas touch in this subplot, with the circular nature of this whole time travel adventure beginning to assert itself. Jean-Luc advises Renée to "look up" -- at the model -- which will become the very advice his mother one day gives him.)
The handful of other plot developments felt on stronger footing to me. I'm glad to see Dr. Teresa Ramirez back again; it didn't feel like we were done with the character before, but it's nice to know that the story (like me) thinks there's more to reveal there. I was also intrigued by how swiftly (but effectively) the story fundamentally changed the character of Adam Soong. Last week, he was a pitiable and desperate man indulging the dark side out of desperation. Just one episode later, we've learned he's really more of a Dr. Frankenstein, playing god and developing a god complex in the process. I'm interested to see where the story takes both of these significant side characters.
Once again, I feel like I've just watched the weakest episode so far in Picard season two. It has hardly slipped low enough for me to question the season as a whole, as I think they've set up for plenty of interesting things for the "final act." But I would give "Two of One" a B-.
No comments:
Post a Comment