Star Trek: Picard - Episode 8 "Broken Pieces"
By: Andy Kelly for TechRadar
From TechRadar
Star Trek: Picard episode 8 recap: The truth behind the attack on Mars is revealed
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
On Aia, a planet with eight suns, a group of hooded Zhat Vash – including Oh, Rizzo, and Ramdha – take part in a ritual. They touch an artifact, the Admonition, which gives them apocalyptic visions. They say it's a warning from a long extinct race about the perils of developing synthetic life. The visions drive some of the group to suicide. On the Borg Cube, Rizzo talks to a comatose Ramdha, who was apparently driven mad by the ritual. We also learn that she took Rizzo and her brother Narek in when their parents died. Elsewhere on the Cube, Elnor is overwhelmed by Romulans, but Seven of Nine appears and kills them before they can finish the job.
The crew of the La Sirena learns that Jurati had been implanted with a tracker, and had injected a hydrogen compound to neutralize it. The ship's EMH also informs them that she killed Maddox by disabling his life support. Picard asks Admiral Clancy for help, and she agrees to send a squadron to a nearby starbase, Deep Space 12. While on the Cube, Raffi noticed a symbol being drawn by the Romulans. The ship's Emergency Navigation Hologram thinks it could be an octonary star system; a planetary system with eight component stars. Raffi wonders if this is the Conclave of Eight, a term she heard while trying to find out who attacked Mars. On the Borg Cube, Seven of Nine activates its regeneration systems, and we see swarms of mechanical insects repairing the broken sections of the destroyed ship.
Soji and Picard talk about Data over dinner. Picard says he was brave, curious, gentle, and unclouded by bias or habit, with a child's wisdom. He made the crew of the Enterprise laugh, except when he was trying to get them to laugh. Soji seems reassured by this, realizing that being synthetic doesn't mean she's worthless. Raffi learns from the La Sirena's engineering hologram that the chances of an octonary system forming naturally are basically zero, implying that if this place exists, it would have been created to draw attention to itself. In his quarters, Rios looks through a box of memories including his old Starfleet uniform, a photo of an older man, and a drawing of himself and someone who looks a lot like Soji.
On the Cube, Seven of Nine tells Elnor that she might be able to take control of the drones in stasis and create a micro-collective, turning them against the Romulans. On the La Sirena, Raffi gathers the holograms and asks them why Rios has sealed himself away in his quarters. They reveal that something happened on his old Federation ship, the USS Ibn Majid, but that it's been marked as classified. In sickbay, Jurati wakes up and confesses to killing Maddox and working for Oh. She tries to tell Picard about the visions Oh showed her, but says a psychic block has been placed on her. She tells Picard about Seb-Cheneb, the Destroyer, and says Hell is coming.
Rios opens up to Raffi about what's been troubling him. When he was serving on the Ibn Majid, his ship encountered two beings in a ship: one called Beautiful Flower, and one called Jana, who looked exactly like Soji. But as first contact was being initiated, the captain – the older man in Rios's photo – was ordered by Starfleet to kill them. They were synths, and the person who gave the order was Oh. On the Cube, Seven of Nine wakes the sleeping Borg drones up, but Rizzo responds by opening an airlock and blowing them out into space. On the La Sirena, Raffi, having figured out what the Zhat Vash are and believe, and how Oh infiltrated Starfleet, tells the crew. She confirms the Romulans were behind the attack on Mars, which was staged to justify a galaxy-wide ban on synthetic life.
A Romulan fleet gathers near the Cube, beaming Rizzo away and warping to Soji's homeworld, the location of which they learned through her dream. Picard reassures Rios that his captain was a good man, and was betrayed by Starfleet. Soji, whose memories are flooding back, uses the Borg's transwarp conduit network to go to the same planet the Romulans are racing towards. She wonders if the Zhat Vash are right, and she is the Destroyer. Picard says that happened 200,000 centuries ago. The past is written. But they have the tools to change things: positivity and curiosity. The La Sirena enters the warp conduit, with Narek's ship following close behind.
Verdict:This is perhaps the most revelation-heavy episode of Picard yet, laying out the motivations and history of the Zhat Vash, and what their next move is, in detail. It's also one that doesn't give Picard much to do, focusing largely on Raffi, Rios, and his crew of holograms. But Patrick Stewart steals the episode when he fondly remembers his relationship with Data, which is a hugely satisfying moment for Next Generation fans.
Extra data
• Picard learns that Soji was implanted with a viridium tracker. A version of this device first appeared in the 1991 movie Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country. One of them was used by Spock to rescue Kirk and McCoy from a penal colony on the planetoid Rura Penthe.
• Rios has a book in his quarters called Surak and Existentialism. Surak was a legendary Vulcan philosopher, who is mentioned in too many Star Trek episodes to count. In the Enterprise episode Awakening (S4E8), Surak appears to Jonathan Archer in a vision, played by Bruce Gray.
• Picard and Rios briefly talk about a Federation captain, Marta Batanides, who Picard says he went to Starfleet Academy with. This character plays a major role in the TNG episode Tapestry (S6E15), in which the mischievous Q gives Picard a chance to relive his youth and alter his past.
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Preview of next week's episode "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"
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Well, that answers the mind meld question. Oh is half Vulcan, half Romulan.
Awesome episode.
What say you, Trek fans?
I was again overwhelmed by yet another great episode.
WOW!
I will have to watch it again tomorrow and hope for fewer interruptions by employers & customers who make me a slave to Mr. Mortgage.
WOW!
Who knew that the Borg Queen could connect and disconnect like Annika did?
Holy crap, how do Annika & Elnor escape, now?
SP, I am pretty sure that they showed the Borg Queen doing that... connecting and disconnecting.
I am guessing however Annika got there. Also, the Romulans are on the run.
The story only gets better with each ep. I can't wait till next week!
I was wondering if the cube had a sphere in it, like the one in 'First Contact', and if she might take it.
But Perrie's right. Surely she came in another ship.
I really love this series. It is well written to be exciting, thought-provoking and importantly believable.
Discovery, in contrast, seems to be written one episode at a time with very little comprehensive foresight.
And it seems like they're doing it on a bit of a budget, too. Think about the sets. La Sirena is small, and most of the filming takes place in that one double level bay. They even reused the Chateau set as holo-quarters for Picard. And they saved money on the main cast with Santiago Cabrera playing not just Rios, but also the rest of the ship's crew in the form of holograms.
Just goes to show that writing is what really matters when to comes to creating a great entertainment product. Elaborate sets and effects are always nice, but (listen up JJ Abrams) they can't carry a show by themselves. There's no substitute for good writing.
Not that it's perfect, though. I still want to know how Elnor found that Fenris SOS beacon.
While it's logical to assume that Picard lost his Fenris beacon while playing hide and seek with Hugh and Soji, it does seem to be a loose thread in the story.
Picard would have to have dropped it either when he first arrived on the Artifact ( possibly when two of the Borg attempted to steady him when he was in danger of falling ) or when he met Soji and he and Hugh took her to the Queen's Cell.
Having watched it again, Seven clearly expected to find Hugh, nor Elnor. So was it a beacon that Seven had given Hugh and Hugh knowingly or not lost it or left it during the fight with Nariss and the other Romulans?
?
I've only seen this episode once so far, but after Narissa visited with the unconscious Ramda, she contacted someone and asked if they'd found the freak yet (meaning Elnor). The person responded that they had, and that he was hiding in the former administrator's office (or compartment or work area, I can't remember the specific word). If the signal was coming from Hugh's office, then that might explain why she was expecting to find him there.
Then again, how would she know where Hugh's office was in the cube? Had she been there before, with Romulans in charge of the place?
Maybe she gave Hugh a beacon at some point in the past, and knew that the particular signal she received was from that particular device? Kind of like caller ID? That could explain why she was expecting him. But that would mean Picard still has his. Maybe we'll find out one of these days.
Only 2 episodes left this season, though.
I was so worried Seven was taking a terrible risk of not being able to let go of the collective once she'd formed it. I was afraid we had a new Borg Queen to contend with. Rejoining the collective was something she'd both wanted and dreaded since she was liberated.
Exactly what I was thinking, too.
I can't believe I was cheering for the Borg there for a minute, and felt sorry for the ones sucked out into space.
I always felt sorry for individual drones. After all, they had all been assimilated against their will.
I suppose I have too, at times, going all the way back to TNG with Hugh.
How about that hug between Seven and Elnor?
Has Seven found someone new to look out for like a child, maybe filling some of the void left by Icheb?
Perhaps. Or maybe she realizes that there are people left who care about her. I imagine that's something she's come to doubt, out in deep space on her own so much, and having been betrayed by Bjeyzl.
Funny similarity between Avenue 5 and Picard this week....
Hmm. I didn't even know Avenue 5 existed. I haven't been paying much attention to HBO since GOT ended.
What's the funny similarity?
Passengers panicked, start to believe they are stuck on some sort of reality show, and demand to be released.
They enter the airlock one or two at a time thinking they will be back on earth, only to freeze instantly
and get jettisoned into space.
Even after several deaths, some passengers insist it is just world class special effects, and repeat the folly
until one passenger's frozen arm shatters on contact with the airlock frame.
And that's supposed to be a comedy?
Is it any good?
What do you guys think about the situation with Agnes? Should she be sent to prison after she's turned herself in, or should it be determined that she was under direct influence of Oh's mind meld (essentially brainwashed), and cleared of the murder?
It's been a while since I watched "The Search for Spock", but wasn't McCoy cleared of responsibility for stuff he did while carrying Spock's katra? So it seems a valid defense to me, or certainly a mitigating factor.
Oh, good one. I'd forgotten about that.
My guess is they figure out some way to clear her, unless she was intended to be a one season character.
I wish they'd bring Laris and Zhaban back into the story. I'm kinda missing them. Being former Tal Shiar, surely they could be useful against the Zhat Vash along the way.
Laris and Zhaban are badass. Add their skills to Elnor's and Seven's, and the Zhat Vash don't stand a chance.
Well since they abandoned the plan to meet the Starfleet squadron at DS12, I am thinking Agnes goes to Jana's Home planet
and stays there. Apparently Picard hasn't updated Clancy yet. Did he tell her about Oh?
I'm not sure about that. They didn't make it very clear, did they? Seems like an awfully big detail for him to have left out, though. I can't imagine them wanting to leave a known Romulan agent in charge of Starfleet Security.
Actually, Picard doesn't find out about Oh's treason until Agnes wakes up, while they were already headed for DS12, after the Clancy conversation.
Oh, yeah. The conversation with Clancy was pretty early on.
You'd think he would have contacted Starfleet again, though, as soon as he found out about Oh from Agnes.
I can't remember if they gave a reason for why he didn't. I need to watch it again.
So,
at the end of this episode, Rios guides the La Sirena into the Borg tunnel located by Jana/Soji
Then a second ship uncloaks and follows them?
Judging from the cloaking, the small size and the Romulan signature green light speed jump trail,
it was Narek.
Narissa.
Narissa narrowly escaped the weaponless XBs and was beamed onto the last Romulan warbird before following the rest of "her" fleet to the Vayt system