Star Trek Picard – Maps and Legends

Having learned about the existence of a synthetic created from his late friend Data, Jean-Luc Picard looks to get himself reinstated by Starfleet for one last mission to the stars in this week’s Star Trek: Picard — a task complicated by both his own troubled history with the organization, as well as more nefarious forces at play.

“Maps and Legends” opens with a flashback to 14 years before Picard’s main action. It’s First Contact Day on Mars circa 2385, and at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards, a group of human workers joke around with F-8 (Alex Diehl), one of the many bald-headed synthetics that help man the station. “Dude creeps me out,” says a female staffer about F-8, and though she shortly assures a colleague that “you can’t offend them — they’re not people,” that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. Without warning, F-8’s eyes go wonky — as if another entity has taken control of him — and he begins messing with the computer system, causing satellites overhead to turn toward Mars and allowing invading ships to enter the atmosphere and fire on the shipyards. F-8 kills everyone who tries to stop him, and once his mission is complete, he blows his own robotic brains out.

Having now depicted the Mars calamity that led to the intergalactic ban on synthetics (referenced in the premiere), the series returns to Château Picard, where Picard, Laris, and Zhaban watch video of Dahj’s demise — footage from which Dahj and the Romulan “death squad” have, mysteriously, been erased. Laris deduces this cover-up could only be the work of the Zhat Vash, a cabal of deep-state “boogeyman” that reside within the Romulans’ Tal Shiar secret police. According to Laris, the Zhat Vash’s sole purpose is to keep “a secret so profound and terrible, just learning it would break a person’s mind.”

To investigate further, Picard and Laris beam to Dahj’s apartment and use tech to watch a holographic recreation of the night she was attacked and her boyfriend was killed. Unfortunately, that footage has also been scrubbed. Laris asks Picard if he ever noticed that there’s a complete absence of artificial life in Romulan culture, thereby prodding him into realizing that the Zhat Vash have “a hate and fear and pure loathing for every form of synthetic life” – and that their secret must be related to this anti-synthetic sentiment. Further computer analysis leads to the revelation that Soji called Dahj multiple times from somewhere other than Earth.

In space, Narek and Soji are enjoying post-sex pillow-talk. Narek is surprised that Soji finds the Borg Cube “beautiful.” She corrects him by saying it’s an “Artifact” because “a Borg Cube is mighty and omnipotent [and] the Artifact is lost, severed from the collective, broken, vulnerable.” Narek teases her about being a subversive and then confesses that, like most Romulans, he’s “a very private person.” It’s clear from their talk that the Romulans are looking to extract intel from the Artifact and its dead Borg inhabitants, and that Narek isn’t necessarily who he claims to be.

Back at his French vineyard, Picard is visited by Dr. Moritz Benayoun (David Paymer), who references their earlier adventures together aboard Picard’s first ship, the Stargazer. Benayoun reports that “for a relic, you’re in excellent shape.” It’s not all good news on the medical front, however; Picard does have some parietal lobe abnormality, and while further tests are required, the prognosis is that they’ll eventually kill him. Given this bombshell, and hearing that Picard seeks clearance for an upcoming mission, Benayoun asks him, “You really want to go back out into the cold? Knowing?” Picard resolutely responds, “More than ever. Knowing.”

Picard beams to Starfleet, where he meets with Admiral Kirsten Clancy (Ann Magnuson) and tells her everything that’s taken place involving Dahj, Data, Maddox and the Romulans. He asks for temporary reinstatement, a small-scale ship and a light crew for one last mission — a request that doesn’t go over well. In the face of Picard’s “hubris,” Clancy rips the former Starfleet hero for his TV-interview criticism of the Federation’s handling of synthetics and the Romulans. When Picard defends himself by saying that the Federation doesn’t get to decide which species live or die, Clancy counters by asserting that’s precisely its role — and that it had to sacrifice the Romulan refugees in order to keep the Federation intact.

Picard warns Clancy about ignoring him, to which she sneers that he should do what he does best: “Go home.”

Back on the Artifact, Soji chats with new recruit Dr. Naashala (Chelsea Harris) at the Borg Artifact Research Institute. Nashaala asks Narek if the Borg collective might decide to reconnect to this Cube. He assures her that’s not going to happen, because as far as the Borg are concerned, this abandoned vessel is akin to a graveyard, populated only by those who feed on the dead, ghosts, and individuals — like Soji — who are hoping for resurrection. Narek accompanies Soji to work, where she oversees the dissection of a Borg male. Soji objects to the Romulan surgeon referring to these patients as “The Nameless,” and after the creature’s ocular processing core is removed, she gazes at the corpse, stating (in Romulan), “You are free now, my friend.”

In his chateau study, Picard finds Dr. Jurati flipping through an Isaac Asimov book; he remarks that she has “a taste for the classics,” but confesses — wink, wink — that he never liked science fiction (“I just didn’t get it”). Over Picard’s favorite, Earl Grey tea, Jurati informs Picard that all of Dahj’s personal and school records are fabrications, and were probably created within the past three years.

Clancy reports her meeting with Picard to Starfleet Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita), a Vulcan who says that if Romulans were running secret operations on Earth, it would amount to an act of war. Oh calls for Lieutenant Rizzo (Peyton List), and shows her video of the aforementioned Dahj ambush. It turns out that Oh was the mastermind behind the attack, not the Romulans, and she’s furious that Rizzo’s team killed Dahj instead of capturing her for interrogation, as had been the original plan. “We have one more opportunity — do not squander it,” Oh tells Rizzo, thereby revealing that she knows about Dahj’s twin Soji. Oh promises to take care of Picard herself, while Rizzo assures the Commodore that she already has her best man on the job.

Having donned his combadge late at night to call old comrade Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), asking for help and a ship, Picard is now yelled at by Laris for his stupid plan, which she implies is really motivated by his ego. Zhaban suggests Picard enlist his old crew for the mission, but Picard — in the aftermath of Data’s death — doesn’t want to once more be responsible for those loyal to him. He subsequently taxis out to a rocky desert home, where Raffi greets him with a pointed gun. Nonetheless, upon hearing he’s there because secret Romulan assassins are operating on Earth — and seeing the vintage wine he’s brought — she reluctantly invites him inside.

That meeting is followed by one between Narek and a hologram of Rizzo, who’s Narek’s sister, and the person behind his secretive surveillance of Soji on the Artifact. Gazing at Narek’s unkempt bed, Rizzo says that she can see her brother is “on top of it.” Rizzo asks if the Artifact has given up the location of its “fellow abominations” — meaning their orders involve finding the Borg. Rizzo warns Narek that if his undercover approach doesn’t get them their coveted intel by the time she arrives on the Artifact, they’ll try her method instead — or face a disaster that will consume them both.

Star Trek Picard – Remembrance

Star Trek has always been a series about family, and that remains true in Star Trek: Picard, CBS All Access’ new streaming series that picks up with one of the franchise’s greatest leaders (and paterfamiliases), The Next Generation’s Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), for an adventure set approximately 20 years after the events of his final film appearance in 2002’s Star Trek Nemesis. Decades may have passed since Picard last saw action, but as proven by this new 10-episode affair from creator Alex Kurtzman (and executive producers Michael Chabon and Akiva Goldsman), he’s still ready for heroic duty — no matter that he’s long since broken ties with Starfleet.

Picard’s premiere, “Remembrance”, opens to the sound of “Blue Skies” — the song that Picard’s beloved synthetic sidekick Data (Brent Spiner) sang at William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi’s (Marina Sirtis) wedding in Nemesis, and was heard at the close of that film as well after Data had sacrificed himself to save Picard and the Enterprise crew, and then seemingly downloaded his consciousness into an android dubbed B-4 (which looked just like Data). That tune sets the mournful tone for the ensuing scene of Data and Picard playing a game of cards, during which Picard deduces that Data has a “tell” — namely, that he’s playing straight when he tries to fake a “tell” (via an ostentatious pupil dilation), and that he’s bluffing when his eyes are neutral.

Picard pours them both tea, and Data asks why the Captain is stalling. “Because I don’t want the game to end,” he replies. After Picard bets everything on the current hand, Data wins with an impossible collection of five queens. This confuses Picard, and when he looks out his starship window at Mars, everything starts shaking, Data disappears and an explosion rocks him out of this reverie and causes him to wake up in his bedroom at his French vineyard Château Picard, his trusty dog Number One by his side.

In Greater Boston, a young woman named Dahj (Isa Briones) is having a romantic drink in her apartment with her alien boyfriend. After Dahj announces that she’s been accepted into Okinawa’s Daystrom Institute as a fellow in artificial intelligence and quantum consciousness, the two are rudely visited by a trio of helmeted assassins who kill Dahj’s boyfriend and put a hood over her head, saying, “She hasn’t activated yet.” Unfortunately for them, she promptly does activate, turning into a killing machine and felling them with ease. Freaked out by her heretofore-unknown abilities, Dahj then has a vision of Picard.

Back at Château Picard, Picard is told by his Romulan staffers Laris (Orla Brady) and Zhaban (Jamie McShane) that he was muttering in his sleep. “The dreams are lovely. It’s the waking up that I’m beginning to resent,” sighs Picard. But waking up is what “Remembrance” is all about, and that process continues when a TV crew arrives to interview Picard — the first he’s given post-retirement. He doesn’t want to talk about his departure from Starfleet, and Laris tells him to “be the captain they remember.”

The topic of conversation is the supernova that destroyed Romulus — an event first referenced in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot. Even though the Romulans were Starfleet’s sworn enemies, Picard felt a “profound responsibility” to help relocate 900 million survivors to worlds outside the supernova’s blast — something the antagonistic reporter says was “a logistical feat more ambitious than the pyramids.” Ever the historian, Picard corrects her by saying it was more akin to Dunkirk (an event about which she knows nothing) and defends his actions by making clear that he was saving refugee lives.

Their chat veers toward a subsequent calamity in which a group of rogue synthetics hacked Mars’ defense net, wiped out a rescue armada and destroyed a shipyard, resulting in explosions that have left Mars uninhabitable to this day. As a result, synthetics were banned throughout the galaxy. Picard confesses he doesn’t know why the synthetics acted as they did, but he states that he never lost faith in his own synthetic mate, Data. Moreover, he angrily admits that he left Starfleet because the organization’s decision to call off Romulan rescue efforts was “downright criminal.” At that, he storms off set.

Dahj sees Picard on TV and, recognizing him from her vision, visits him at Château Picard. She explains that her knowledge of him comes from someplace deep within and that the power that overtook her was like “lightning seeking the ground.” The same sort of inherent instinct led her to Picard’s vineyard. Over Earl Grey tea, she shows him a necklace of two intertwined circles, which she says she received from her father.

At night, Picard dreams of Data painting in the vineyard. He offers Picard the brush and asks him if he’d like to finish it. When he awakens, Picard realizes that the painting — of a faceless woman in white, standing at the edge of rocky waves — is the one hanging over his mantle. Laris informs Picard that Dahj is gone, and he races off to Starfleet Archives. There, he gazes upon a painting similar to the prior one (they’re a set, made by Data in 2369), except that in this version, the woman’s face is clearly visible — and it’s Dahj. The title of the painting is “Daughter.”

In the rainy streets of Paris, Dahj phones her mother (Sumalee Montano), who mysteriously knows that Dahj has already visited Picard — and tells her to return to him. A bewildered Dahj hacks security systems to locate his whereabouts at Starfleet Archives and meets him there. He tells her of Data and the painting, and suggests that though she has lovely memories of her childhood and family, she’s actually a synthetic related to Data — thereby making her “dear to me in ways you can never understand. I will never leave you.” He says they should go to the Daystrom Institute to investigate further. But before they can depart, more black-clad assassins materialize.

On a rooftop, Dahj fends off these attackers while Picard takes cover. At the moment of her triumph, a fallen adversary spits acid on Dahj, causing her to explode and knock out Picard. When he awakens, he’s back at Château Picard. Having spent years nursing his wounded dignity, writing books about history no one wants to remember, and hiding out “waiting to die,” Picard is now galvanized, and ready to uncover the truth about — and avenge — Dahj’s death.

Picard travels to Daystrom, where he questions synthetics expert Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) about the possibility of sentient synthetics. She says humanity was unable to create them even before the ban — a development about which she’s clearly bitter since it effectively neutered her research. She shows Picard B-4, informing him that Data attempted to download the contents of his neural net into the replica before his death, but almost all of it was lost. B-4 turned out to be a pale imitation of Data, as have all subsequent synthetics.

Furthermore, she tells Picard that, per her mentor Dr. Maddox, any new synthetics would have to be made from the neurons of Data. Jurati says Dahj’s necklace is a symbol for fractural neuronic cloning — a Maddox theory which posited that Data’s entire code could be reconstituted from just one of his positronic neurons. Consequently, if a synesthetic was out there, it would have to contain some “essence” of Data. Picard tells Jurati that Maddox must have created Dahj in this way, modeling the girl after one of Data’s old paintings.

In response, Jurati explains that fractural neuronic clones are created in pairs — meaning Dahj has a twin.

Following this bombshell, we’re transported to a Romulan Reclamation Site floating in space. Out of the mist, a Romulan named Narek (Harry Treadaway) appears and greets a woman named Dr. Soji Asher — who’s clearly Dahj’s twin. He praises her work and admires her intertwined-circle necklace. Upon hearing that she has a twin sister, he confesses that he was close with his own brother, but lost him last year in an unexpected manner.

As the two hit it off, the camera pulls back to give us an idea of the enormous scale of this Romulan site. More chilling still, we realize the exact nature of this outpost — it’s a fully operational Borg Cube.