Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 4 Review: No Win Scenario
Diana Keng
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The beauty of serialized television is the continuity that flows through a long arc, connecting the adventures with a cohesive narrative that gets time to breathe and grow.
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 4 solves the problem set up on Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Episode 3 and leaves us with all sorts of questions about the journey moving forward.
Simultaneously, it unmasks the saboteur, airs Shaw's issues, and allows Jack and Picard time to get comfortable in their new roles.
The two-pronged approach to the father-son bonding is elegant in design.
Five years ago, Picard was still biologically human, somewhat comfortable in his so-called retirement, and not at all unwilling to regale cadets with tales of his exploits, sprinkled liberally with wise adages about hope and teamwork and family.
In the present day, Ten Forward is only accessible on the holodeck, but it's the place Picard feels most comfortable sharing with Jack.
He doesn't take him to the Enterprise, Starfleet Academy, or Chateau Picard.
Jack: Given the state of the ship, the holodeck’s still open?
Picard: Well, it relies on a small independent power cell for this very reason, so that in times of distress, it can be a kind of sanctuary.
Jack: Right, everyone crams in here, pretending it’s some sort of paradise while the ship implodes around them.
It's a calculated choice that provides them both with a casual atmosphere where the synthehol is plentiful, and they can create space as needed.
All in all, not a bad first-date option.
It's also not risking too much on Picard's part. It's not as intimate as his home or as meaningful as one of his starships.
Meanwhile, Jack's an old hand at playing things close to the chest.
The memories belie his words of bravado.
Jack: Look, I get that you might think that I need this. That this might make it all better somehow. But I don’t. And I’m not saying this to be harsh. Some people need to be a part of something. Others don’t.
Picard: I think we all need connection, don’t we?
He may insist that he's not looking for -- really has no need for -- a sentimental bridging of the missed years, but the fact that he did seek his father out, and tested the waters of familiality out cautiously, means he did five years ago.
And Picard, ignorant of the biological family sitting a few feet away and still of the mind that he would be a terrible father, burned that bridge unknowingly, declaring Starfleet the only family he ever needed to the adulation of a bar full of cadets and driving his own son back into the shadows.
There's a beautiful irony to the Ryton Nebula's procreative act delivering not only a swarm of space squids but the Titan from its potential (and very likely) demise.
Beverly: We need to move with the waves.
Jack: We divert all power to thrusters.
Picard: And if we fly fast enough, the waves won’t roll over us, they will absorb us.
Jack: We match the speed with the wave, use the energy drawn from it and Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt, we hightail out of the nebula, away from the gravity well, away from that ship out there, and away from our new friends, the space babies.
Beverly: Jack.
Riker: Space babies?
Beverly: This nebula is a womb and we are swimming in its amniotic fluid.
Beverly's attention to the pattern of the bio-electrical waves is an excellent use of her medical expertise combined with her experience with xenobiology. Picard's reference to Far Point drives that hole.
The timing of the Titan entering the gravity well just as the nebula begins to contract makes me suspect the ship may have induced labor, as it were.
All that zipping in and out of the nebula and clashing with the Shrike probably stirred up a load of space debris which was pulled into the well to be expelled as energy.
Ends of days tend to bring out the best and worst in people.
Picard points out to Jack how the crew supports each other as despair sets in, but Shaw drags himself into the Ten Forward program to unload his Wolf 359 trauma rage onto Locutus while he still can.
Forgive me. At some point, asshole became a substitute for charm.
Shaw
It's not a flattering light for the captain to show himself in with his crew there to witness. It does, however, explain Vadic's comment about his psychological history.
His survivor's guilt and PTSD are obviously triggered by the man he blames for the deaths of so many colleagues and crewmates just strolling onto his ship and then stealing it.
Shaw is quite the onion of layers.
I REALLY enjoyed his scenes with Seven here.
Where his high-handed assholery on our initial encounter was intensely irritating, now that Seven's got no flux to give, they seem to be getting along better.
Shaw: You and I got off on the wrong foot. I underestimated you. You have great instincts. You are a natural leader. Make a great captain one day… Which is something I totally would say…
Seven: … if you were a Changeling and not just a dick.
Shaw: Now, you’re starting to catch on.
Like many armchair showrunners, I suspect Seven will be in command of the Titan by the end of the series, which means Shaw will either take early retirement/get a promotion or go out in a character-redeeming blaze of irresponsible but heroic glory.
(Before someone flames me, this is NOT a spoiler. I haven't seen the final four episodes, so this is all speculation.)
But sometimes hot air proves accurate. Several online commenters wondered about La Forge visiting Seven and addressing her as Commander Seven. Sure enough, it proves to be the clue that tips Seven off to the Changeling's presence.
What I found intriguing about Seven's hunt for the Changeling is the reveal that the Borg had never encountered the Changelings before.
They’re goo people. Walking, talking clay-dough. They can replicate a person on sight alone. Voice, mannerisms, speech patterns, but that’s it. Most of the time, you can tell. Ask them a question that they should know the answer to. Simple question, wrong answer, BOOM. Changeling.
Shaw
But then again, can you imagine if the Borg could've found a way to assimilate Changeling abilities into the Collective? Visions of the T-1000 Terminator crossed with The Orville's Yaphit come to mind.
And now, I can't unsee it. Damn.
Another fascinating reveal is Vadic's method of communication with her superiors.
What would they even call that?
Does cutting off the hand allow it to become a receiver for messages from The Great Link or just other Changelings? Does the Great Link have channels, or is it just a giant party line where everyone resting on the home planet can listen in?
Face: Pursue.
Vadic: It is suicide.
Face: It is suicide to refuse.
If it is a connection to The Great Link, does that mean she doesn't represent a splinter cell of dissidents? Could the rumor of dissidents be a red herring for the core surviving Founders to provide plausible deniability?
For all he's done as part of Star Trek, Jonathan Frakes isn't lauded for his acting as much as his work as a director and fantastic all-around representative for the franchise.
That changes here and now. Confiding in Picard the reasons he and Deanna needed a break from each other is done with genuine sorrow and regret.
When we buried our son, I watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. It was only six feet, but it was so dark. It was like infinite emptiness. And you and I have traveled to the far reaches of space, and yet there is nothing, nothing to prove to me that there is anything after. And I have tried to shake that. Deanna, as you know, feels everything, but she couldn’t live with me feeling nothing and neither could I, which is why I left, and I came here. I was running from this, only to find it again.
Riker
But it's when he cannot bring himself to record a goodbye message that tore my heart out.
Directing oneself can't be easy, but Frakes uses silence with the finesse of a swordsman, cutting us to bits with the words he leaves unspoken.
To laud this outing is to repeat what my friends in the press have expressed better than I could.
Visually stunning, perfectly paced, and packed with tension and emotion, it's a spectacular work of television artistry.
However, like The Empire Strikes Back, it is very much a middle piece in the larger work.
It opens on a dilemma created in the before, and it closes with our heroes out of the immediate danger but with real peril still hunting them. The Shrike is their encased-in-carbonite loose end.
Furthermore, something is up with Jack. Who is calling him to find them? Why are all the visions in red? Is this why Vadic is after him?
We saw nothing of Raffi and Worf this week. What are they up to? Have they uncovered more Changelings?
Where can the Titan go next? Who can they trust? And how will they get cleaned up in time for the Frontier Day space parade?
Warp speed to the comments section, Fanatics! What sort of a course do you think they'll chart next?
Diana Keng was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X.
