Picard Season 1 Episode 8 Review

The one where even the Romulan special agent gets humanized.

Yeah, I literally meant that. See, there's this great moment early on in the episode where Narissa's sitting by her "auntie's" bedside. In her own twisted way, she does care. Narissa even marvels at how her Auntie lost her mind quote "with such panache" unquote. She even comments on how her own despair drove an entire Cube mad. She's still Narissa but... huh.

Everyone's getting their odd little heartwarming moments here and there, such as this great bonding scene between doctors Soji and Jurati. Jurati just marvels at all the little things about Soji, such as her drinking, crying, sleeping. Little things like that.

Now, it's not all feels. Oh no, there's more to it than that. Once again, we have to continue with the -frankly dull- plotline on the Borg Cube which... to be honest, I'm not even sure where it's going. In any event, this episode brings us some great character moments. Aside from showing us how much of a badass Elnor is -he's been trapped on this cube for days on the run and yet it still takes three security officers to subdue him- it also gives us the return of Seven of Nine. This episode honestly has some of the best moments of Jeri Ryan's entire career.

Let me explain okay? Seven recognizes she will have to plug in -feel free to shudder in horror- to save both the Drones, herself and Elnor. You can hear her voice breaking during this exchange.

Seven: Assimilate them? Invade their minds? Suppress their identities, enslave them? Again?
Elnor: You can release them when we win.
Seven: They won't want to be released, and I... I might not want to release them.

Makes us wonder what will come out when Seven becomes a Queen. And become a Queen she does, and you will be both horrified and in awe when she says: "We are Borg."

TV Tropes puts what happens next best. To quote: "Seven made the choice to become a Borg Queen to stop the Romulans' wholesale slaughter. Annika made the choice to give up the throne, and did so not out of technobabble preparation but pure will. In an amusing way, both the Delta Quadrant's Borg Queen and Janeway would have been proud of her."

This episode also does plenty of worldbuilding. I don't want to spoil it, but it makes the Zhat Vash look like either lunatics or makes you wonder exactly what's coming...