An old enemy has revealed itself to be behind the attack on the Federation all along. Now only Picard and his old crew can save the day -- and his son.
To not keep you waiting any longer: yes, I liked this finale. It was notably better than the finales of Picard seasons one and two. It was an enormously better than the last "finale" the Next Generation cast got, in the horrible Star Trek: Nemesis. But no, it was not "perfect." And I think maybe I'll start with those parts that weren't, to then make way for all the good stuff. And as for what wasn't great, I think you can sort of begin and end with all the Borg stuff. (Well, one other thing: I certainly didn't need that bonus scene with Q.)
It's always been sort of the M.O. for Star Trek: Picard to be emotionally right on the mark while being a bit shaky in the fine details, and so perhaps there should be no surprise that we got that again. The Borg Queen's team-up with the Dominion was "explained," but it felt like a brisk and perfunctory explanation. "We're both mad at the Federation, something something, evil plan."
Then there's the problem that has plagued the Borg ever since they started showing up on Voyager on a recurring basis: they were too easily defeated. The day one Borg concept of their technology being decentralized was ditched in favor of a Star Wars style "fly inside and shoot it here" weakness. As we waited for this weakness to be exploited, the spacedock held out for a ridiculously long time against the fire of a hundred starships. (It gave real "why don't you make the whole plane out of the black box?" vibes -- why not build starships out of whatever the spacedock is made of?) Basically, the Borg Queen twirled her figurative mustache for a while, but was ultimately pinned rather helplessly to the wall until it was time for her defeat.
The more weight I give to all that material, the less charitable I'm inclined to be about this final episode. But fortunately, there was so much else to like. Foremost, the finale deftly found a way to give every one of the seven core TNG cast members their own moment to shine. For many viewers, the favorite moment might be linked to a favorite character; for me, is was actually seeing one character finally get their due: Troi got to pilot the Enterprise and not crash it, rescuing half the team thanks to her connection to Riker.
That moment was emblematic of what made the emotional tone of this episode so right: you could see that the writers were also fans, and they wanted to give all fans (including themselves) a better ending than we got last time around. That's why, despite my expectation that a character would be killed off in the finale, it didn't happen. We all got that ending when Data was killed off in Star Trek: Nemesis, and it was terrible. Characters were willing to die, and in this case, that really was enough. I may not have liked most of the Borg's involvement here, but it's undeniably the right move for the character of Picard to make him face his fear one final time -- crucially choosing to embrace it for the sake of his own son.
As I'd hoped, the show also found time for Seven and Raffi do get their moments too. I actually found myself oddly moved, perhaps more than by any other scene, at the farewell between Worf and Raffi. Through some alchemy of using the now-mostly-comedic character of Worf for drama, and/or Michelle Hurd's ability to say everything with a look, I found Worf's gift to Raffi of restoring her reputation to be sweet and profound. And of course, what's not to like about seeing Captain Seven of the starship Enterprise? (Except perhaps not learning her "catch phrase" after so much wind up.)
Other little touches through really made this finale a triumph. The audio cameo by Walter Koenig as Chekov's descendant brought in one more "generation" to a season that's tried to include as many others as it could. (And naming him "Anton" in honor of Anton Yelchin was a lovely accent.) We did indeed get real Tuvok -- and if you're not going to have Janeway be the one to come give Seven her promotion, Tuvok does feel like the next best choice. Ending everything on a poker game was a lovely echo of "All Good Things..." -- and having the camera linger on them for so long subtly reminds us: this Star Trek cast is the one that truly all loves one another in real life, with no behind-the-scenes drama.
This final season of Star Trek: Picard, and this finale in particular, gave us exactly what it set out to give, much like Star
Trek VI for the original cast: one
final, grand adventure, ending on an uplifting and happy note. I'm going to call that an A-. (Even though the more I let myself think about the Borg stuff, the more it might start to look more like a B+.) As they say, the people involved in this final season of Picard "understood the assignment."
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