Star Trek: Picard, Episode 7: "Nepenthe"

* Episode 7 is called "Nepenthe," which i'm pretty sure was a planet in Mass Effect.

* Which is appropriate because the first thing that happens is a flashback to when Karen O met with Agnes before she joined Picard's crew. 

* "Embrace eternity!" Karen O shouts as she does a Vulcan mindmeld. Agnes has a quick-cutting apocalyptic vision of destruction and people being killed by machines.

* She vomits (that's once) and Karen O says that she will have to do something terrible to prevent this future.

* In present day Picard and Soji arrive at the other end of the Stargate on Nepenthe, where Riker and Troi live in an isolated cabin in the woods with their 12-year-old daughter Kestra.

* Kestra is Hunger Games cosplaying and appears out of the woods with an arrow drawn on Picard.

* "You may want to point that at my head instead of my heart because my heart is made of duranium (?)" Picard says.

* I assume she would recognize Picard on sight so it's weird that she would be pointing a deadly weapon at him, especially when, as she explains as she leads them to her parents' cabin, that the arrows are real but she would never use them on a person. 

* Riker is like "let's have pizza!" and starts baking one in his brick oven in the backyard.

* The camera cuts to Soji very conspicuously tilting her head to the side, an action she has never done before in any previous episode, and Riker deduces that she must be Data's daughter because of this dead-giveaway.

* I don't understand why they're still going with this "Data's daughter" thing when Bruce Maddox made her but ok.

* Soji says that she doesn't trust any of them and this could all be another deception. Picard cheerfully exclaims "You're right, it could be! Who knows!"

* Soji violently pushes past him and storms off. Riker yells after her but Picard says he's just glad she didn't break him in half with her android strength. Troi yells at Picard for being an asshole.

* We learn that Riker and Troi also had a son named Thaddeus who would have been 18, but he died of mendaxic neurosclerosis.

* This disease is easily curable by exposure to a positronic brain but since androids had already been outlawed there were none of those around so their kid died.

* Great!

* Troi tells Picard to treat their dinner table as his ready room on the Enterprise. They all gather around to eat and Soji describes her Romulan vision quest, where she saw the planet with two moons and lightning storms. 

* They're like "we've got to find out what planet this is" but Kestra holds up her phone and says "It's a planet in the Whatever system that has a number instead of a name, I asked Some Guy and he knew what it was immediately."

* Meanwhile on the Borg cube Hugh has been captured by the incestuous Romulan sister spy. Legolas is nowhere to be seen. Not sure how this happened since at the end of the previous episode they were still together but who cares I guess.

* Romulan lady (no idea what her name is) starts killing the unassimilated Borgs one by one to make Hugh tell her where Picard went but he refuses, so she has all the ex-B's executed while Hugh is forced to watch. 

* "I would kill you too," she tells him, "but that would violate our treaty with the Federation."

* Isn't she part of the SECRET secret police?

* Like two levels of secrecy?

* Why would she care about a treaty?

* Is Hugh even a Federation citizen?

* Why is this cube called the Romulan Reclamation Center in the first place? Why are Romulans unassimilating Borg in Federation space, or with Federation aid, or... what's happening here again?

* Oh shit I forgot an important thing from the opening.

* Karen O gave Agnes a tracking device so the Jacques Vash would be able to track her.

* For some reason Agnes immediately put it in her mouth without any prompting or indication that this was the correct thing to do.

* I would have just put it in my pocket.

* "It must be chewed" Karen O corrects her.

* So anyway Brother Romulan is tracking Picard's crew through Agnes, who keeps trying to discourage them from rendezvousing with Picard and says they should just go home instead.

* I guess she's feeling remorseful about betraying her friends, which shows that she is still a good person capable of redemption despite brutally murdering the man she loved for... no reason?

* Raffi synthesizes a cake to cheer her up. Agnes eats it, then vomits it up on camera (that's two).

* Rios approaches Agnes in private and confides in her that they're being tracked and he thinks Raffi is a traitor.

* Agnes bursts into tears and exclaims that it's not Raffi. Rios laughs this off. 

* Once he leaves Agnes injects herself with some toxic compound. Not sure if she is trying to disrupt the tracer or to commit suicide, but she collapses on the floor and starts vomiting up foam directly into the camera (that's three).

* The EMH appears and says "Please state the nature of the medical emer-- Oh snap!" I guess he was still working fine and just never told anyone about the murder he witnessed.

* Back on the Borg cube, Legolas emerges from the shadows and reunites with Hugh. Where was he all this time? How did they get separated? Not important!

* Hugh leads him back to the hidden Stargate, angrily explaining that they will use its power to drive the Romulans off the cube and avenge the murdered Borgs, but suddenly Sister Romulan and two guys emerge through a door!

* "Surprise, we were listening to you the whole time! Planning to attack us violates the treaty so now we can kill you!"

* This is like almost verbatim dialogue.

* Legolas draws his Hanzo sword and makes quick work of Sister Romulan's bodyguards after uttering his trademark saying that was kind of badass the first time he said it but is starting to wear thin: "Please, friends, choose to live."

* Sister Romulan says "This is not how Jacques Vash fights Kuat Mulat." She puts down her disruptor and Legolas puts down his sword and they kung fu fight each other while Hugh hides behind a box.

* Hugh pokes his head into the open to see what's going on and Sister Romulan throws a knife into his throat, then is randomly beamed off the cube by someone (?????) before Legolas can revenge-kill her.

* "You'll need an ex-B to help you," Hugh says as Legolas cradles his dying body. He says something like "You taught me to hope again. Thank you." and then he dies.

* That's three secondary characters they've brought back and immediately killed off for no reason.

* I love Star Trek!

* Remember how Geordi was the one who helped Hugh rediscover his individuality after they rescued him from the Borg? Not even mentioned!

* Rios gets in touch with Picard and tells him they're on the way to Nepenthe. As Picard prepares to leave, Kestra tells Soji: "I don't completely understand it, but something bad happened to you. Something bad happened to me too. You know what got me through it? My parents. I have my parents, and you have Picard."

* Then she gives her a broken compass as a remembrance. "You'll have to pretend it works."

* I will not be remotely surprised if the compass is never used or never comes up again.

* But by the same token I will not be remotely surprised if she does eventually use the compass and the power of her belief makes it work.

* Picard and Riker have a nice scene together where they sit by the lake and reconnect. Picard tells him about his new crew. "They seem to have much more baggage than you all ever had," he says, then turns to the camera and winks.

* They say their goodbyes, then Picard contacts Rios on the communicator: "Two to beam up." The TNG theme plays as the camera pans up to the distant mountains.

* Next episode: Seven of Nine returns! Vulcan seers rend the flesh of their own faces! "I saw a vision of hell," Agnes says, "and if we don't stop it--" "Hell is coming back," finishes Picard.     

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 6: "The Impossible Box"

* Just watched an episode of Voyager about Captain Janeway designing the perfect holographic boyfriend in 19th century Ireland.

* Dumb as hell and also the best Star Trek I've seen all month!

* Episode 6 of Picard begins with the Picard gang discussing Bruce Maddox's death.

* "I guess he was just too beat up to live, thoughts and prayers, Agnes." 

* That night Agnes walks in on Rios playing shirtless solo racquetball and they start making out.

* I think this is the first time these characters have interacted.

* Before he died Bruce Maddox told Picard that Shoji Tabuchi was aboard the Borg cube that is the Romulan reclamation center but they need diplomatic clearance to go to there.

* Raffi calls a friend of hers in Starfleet and extorts her into giving Picard the proper ambassadorial paperwork for the Romulans to let them dock. 

* Coincidentally happened to see a pre-9/11 episode of Law and Order SVU yesterday and Raffi was one of the lawyers.

* She was a much better actress in a court procedural than a science fiction show.

* Didn't see her fake-cry once.

* Meanwhile aboard the cube Bedhead Romulan Spy tells Soji that every time she calls her mother their outgoing call logs show that her transmission lasts exactly 70 seconds before cutting off.

* She tries calling her mom but this induces her to lose consciousness.

* After she comes to she uses an iPhone app that shines a green laser on a thing and tells you how old it is.

* All of her belongings, including childhood photos, are three years old.

* She uses the app on herself and discovers that she is also three years old.

* It's BioShock all over again.

* She goes to Hot Romulan and he tells her they will try a Romulan meditation technique to discover the truth about her.

* She enters a recurring dream of hers where she is a child and walks in on her father, who doesn't have a face, working on something on his science bench.

* Romulan walks her through it and for the first time she sees that he's building her!!! 

* She looks out the window and sees two moons and lightning, which was the information Romulan Spy was looking for, because this will help them find her father's lab.

* There can only be so many planets that have those features right?

* He then locks her in the room with a box that starts emitting red CGI radiation.

* He stands outside the door and cries because he really did love her after all.

* Like Agnes though he'd rather stand there and watch the person he loves die a slow and agonizing death than just shoot her in the head.

* Not only more merciful, but also doesn't take 25 minutes and thus give all the time in the world for her android powers to activate, which they do. 

* She starts punching a hole in the floor and escapes.

* Ok, I don't understand this.

* Shoji and Douche, despite being artificially created, are still biologically human, right?

* They're like Replicants or Cylons.

* They're not robots like Data was. 

* So why is she able to punch through the floor without even bruising her knuckles?

* We'll just say it was adrenaline.

* Meanwhile Picard arrives on the cube and is beset with PTSD from his assimilation.

* A bunch of ex-B's close in around him and Picard starts freaking out but then Hugh appears and says they were just trying to prevent him from falling from the catwalk he almost stepped off of in his confusion. 

* This scene is actually ok, if kind of redundant from Picard already dealing with his PTSD in that TNG episode with his brother and First Contact.

* Picard asks Hugh to help him find Soji and they track her down just as she falls through the ceiling. 

* Picard is like I couldn't save your sister, please let me save you! and she's like ok.

* Hugh leads them to a hidden area of the cube equipped with a Stargate for the Borg queen's personal escape. 

* This could have been a retcon for how she survived being on the Best of Both Worlds cube that was destroyed to show up in First Contact but Hugh explicitly says they added it after Picard left the collective.

* I guess the Borg queen gets killed all the time anyway though so whatever.

* Romulans show up but Legolas appears and kills them all with his sword.

* "I thought I told you to stay on the ship!" says Picard.

* "I didn't listen," says Legolas.

* Hugh activates the Stargate but instead of all four of them going through Hugh and Legolas decide to stay behind for some reason, which sucks because they are potentially the best characters on the show, leaving Picard to go on some terrible adventure with the worst character on the show.

* Legolas says that he will hold off the approaching Romulans. The picture cuts to black and he says: "Please, friends, choose to live."

* Next episode: Riker???!  

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 5: "Stardust City Rag"

* Episode 5 is the mid-point of a series in which less has happened so far than in a TNG two-parter.

* Ok episode 5 opens with the scene RLM tweeted about with Yichem? Icheb? Igor? Ichabod? getting his eye ripped out. 

* Apparently this was a recurring character on Voyager but I'm up to the beginning of season 6 and he hasn't appeared yet.

* I'm mostly desensitized to violence and gore in entertainment media but imagine somebody who deliberately passed on all those terrible torture porn movies in the 2000s sitting down to watch the new Star Trek series that's allegedly about an elderly man finding meaning in the twilight of his life and you get some guy awake and screaming as his eye is pulled out of his skull on screen and someone is standing there examining it while it's still connected by the optic nerve and then they snip through the tubes and toss this human eyeball into a little dish and there's a closeup of this dude's bloody gaping eye socket while he's still screaming the whole time and there's not even any dramatic or narrative point to it, you just get rickrolled with almost comically gruesome gore and brutality and then the episode proceeds without a hitch.

* i love star trek!!!

* Seven of Nine bursts into the room and shoots the people experimenting on Ichor but he's like "Seven it hurts too much, please kill me!" and she sadly shoots him in the heart with her phaser.

* We don't see anything wrong with him besides his missing eye but maybe he has some fatal internal injury or something.

* But Seven just got there so she should know as much as we do about what's wrong with him.

* Also this is Star Trek where they have miracle technology that can heal like literally any injury.

* So shooting him in the heart without even running a tricorder over him to see what was wrong with him seems a little extreme. 

* Maybe all he needed was an eyepatch and he would have been fine.

* Anyway she recounts all this to Picard and his crew and reveals that Ishmael was the victim of a lady crime boss named Bejazzle, who captures ex-Borg's and cuts out their Borg technology without any anesthetic, because she is Evil.

* It's not explained what exactly she does with the Borg technology, and it seems like not sedating your victims before cutting them up would just make it harder for you, but this is a show for dummies.

* It turns out that Seven and Picard have a common enemy because Bejazzle has also captured Bruce Maddox and is trying to sell him to the Jacques-Vash.

* Bruce Maddox if you remember was the antagonist in Measure of a Man who wanted to use Data's brain to create an army of android slaves, and in this show he is responsible for the creation of the organic android twins Soji and Dahj Asha (these fucking shit names).

* They come up with a plan to have Picard pose as an evil French pirate and sell Seven of Nine to Bejazzle. 

* Patrick Stewart dons an eyepatch and a ridiculous French accent while Rios dresses like a pimp.

* Agnes Gerardi stays aboard the ship to man the transporter and starts having a panic attack because she's never operated one before, despite being the galaxy's foremost expert on androids.

* I guess the two aren't necessarily related.

* While this nonsense is going on, Raffi goes off to find her son, who is elsewhere on the planet with his pregnant Vulcan (Romulan?) wife and doesn't look more than a decade younger than his "mother."

* Until their relationship was established several minutes into this interminable scene, I assumed they were supposed to be lovers.

* Raffi explains that she's "clean" now, but it's never mentioned what kind of drug she was formerly addicted to, or how chemical addiction is even still possible in Star Trek.

* I'm pretty sure Dr. Crusher could just give you a hypospray and cure that shit in five seconds.

* "Do you know how much it sucked having you as a mom?" Son asks.

* This is very Star Trek dialogue.

* Not at all jarring to hear people from 500 years in the future saying things "suck" and calling one another "dude."

* Son reveals that in addition to being an addict Raffi was also apparently an obsessive conspiracy nut who watched Alex Jones and believed that the android attack on Mars was an inside job.

* She quit space heroin and traveled all this way just to reconnect with her son but she can't keep a lid on her crazy for five minutes and starts ranting about how jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

* Son kicks her out and that's the end of this subplot.

* ...Hopefully.

* Picard delivers Seven to Bejazzle who taunts her about Itchy's death because she is Evil and Seven busts out of her trick handcuffs and grabs Bejazzle by the throat and Picard realizes "Oh no, you never cared about helping us find Bruce Maddox, you were just in this for revenge!"

* He gives her the lamest Picard speech ever about how killing is wrong but Seven relents and they get Bruce Maddox and have Agnes beam them back to the ship.

* An earlier scene revealed that Maddox and Agnes are lovers, as conveyed by having Agnes longingly watch a holo-recording of the two of them baking cookies together.

* Maddox is suffering from exposure and being worked over by Bejazzle's thugs so they have Agnes go with him to sickbay to get patched up.

* Picard is like thanks for your help, Seven, is there anything we can do for you? and Seven says let me borrow these two comically oversized phaser rifles, they might come in handy some day, so Picard gives her the guns and she leaves.

* But she just beams herself right back into Bejazzle's stronghold! Twist!

* "That senile old fool Picard thinks there's still a place for mercy in this galaxy," she says, "but really everything is hate and violent murder. Thanks, Trump."

* She shoots Bejazzle and all her guards and walks out like a Strong Female Character.

* Back in sickbay, Maddox and Agnes reunite. Despite being weak from his injuries, Maddox is excited to tell her about Soji and Douche and how their hard work at android science has finally paid off.

* But Agnes reveals herself to be a secret asshole, tearfully apologizing to Maddox but claiming she has no choice as she turns off the sickbay medical equipment.

* The evil Starfleet Commodore Karen O revealed to her a horrible secret, presumably in such a convincing and inarguable way that Agnes has to murder the man she loves.

* I'm sure.

* The EMH appears and is like "What's going on here! This man is dying!" but Agnes says "Deactivate EMH" and he disappears.

* We've seen previously that he's able to move about the ship at will so this might be a good time for him to materialize on the bridge and warn someone that there's a murder taking place but I guess saying "deactivate EMH" just overrides all his programming.

* Although Maddox's main ailment was apparently just having been beaten up by thugs, for some reason turning off the sickbay equipment makes every vein in his face bulge out and turn black and the capillaries in his eyes burst and he starts seizing and gasping out his last breath for several agonizing minutes while Agnes watches through tears.

* Jesus lady just put a pillow over his face or something.

* You can tell she really loved him because she murdered him on the word of a stranger in the most drawn out and painful way possible.

* The episode began with the gruesome death of a minor character from classic Trek and ended the same way.

* It's like poetry, it rhymes, every stanza sort of rhymes with the last one.

* Hopefully it'll work.

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 4: "Absolute Candor"

* I noticed that I was exactly halfway through Picard episode 4 and said wait but nothing happened yet.

* Picard and his companions deviate from the main campaign to recruit a fifth party member on the planet Vashti, where Picard and Raffi relocated many Romulan refugees with the help of the Moat-Kulat, "Romulan warrior-nuns, the fiercest enemies of the Tal'Shiar."  

* There's a five minute scene where Dr. Gerardi asks questions so the other characters can deliver exposition for the audience's benefit but no one asks exactly what the warrior-nuns' place is in the Romulan Star Empire.

* Since they fight the Tal'Shiar I guess they're expatriates?

* Idk. But Picard says they're the best hand-to-hand combat masters in the galaxy and I guess he knows there are going to be a lot of fight scenes ahead so they go to recruit an asari Justicar.

* Picard tracks down a young Romulan boy he knew when resettling the refugees.

* He has grown into Romulan Legolas now and completed the training of the Moat-Kulat but because he is a man he can never join them. 

* The Moat-Kulat leader asks Picard to take him along so he has something to do but Legolas is angry with Picard for abandoning him and everyone else on Vashti, which in the years since the Romulan supernova and the android attack on Mars has fallen into squalor and is besieged by warlords and marauders.

* "You couldn't save everyone so you decided to save no one."

* Picard heads back to the ship but on the way he stops to pick a fight at a local tavern for no discernible reason.

* He rips down the sign that says "Romulans Only" and defiantly stomps over it to demand service from the wait staff.

* A Romulan tries to swordfight him but Picard refuses, then Legolas appears and decapitates the Romulan, announcing that he has pledged his sword to Picard.

* Picard is angered however and declares that that man didn't deserve to die. 

* I assumed that Picard had picked a fight to intentionally endanger himself and force Legolas to save him, so I'm not sure what the fuck he thought was going to happen. 

* Meanwhile Bedhead British Romulan takes Sochi to a deserted part of the Borg cube, promising to show her an ancient Borg ritual.

* He tells her to take off her shoes and follow his example, then slides across the floor in his socks. This scene goes on for about 45 minutes. Later his sister shows up in his bedroom and they incest-bait.

* Picard and his companions are leaving Vashti when they are attacked by the local warlord in his "antique Bird of Prey."

* They are in a tight spot until a mysterious ship appears and helps them fight off the bad guy.

* The ship is damaged in the battle however and they beam the pilot aboard. Picard tells Legolas to be ready to decapitate him if he turns out to be a villain, but then the unknown pilot materializes on the transporter pad... and it's Seven of Nine!

* The music swells dramatically and then goes silent as the camera cuts to Picard and he says "Who the hell are you?"

* No I'm just kidding, that actually would have been funny.

* He actually says "Seven of Nine!" and she says "You owe me a ship, Picard" and then it ends.       

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 3: "The End Is the Beginning"

 * Ok I'm watching Picard episode 3.  

* I think I hate this show.

* Episode opens with another flashback to the android attack on Mars.

* Every character calls them "synths" but in Star Trek they've always been called androids so that's what I'm going to call them. 

* Picard and Lady go to Starfleet HQ to discuss how the plans to rescue Romulus will change now that the rescue fleet being built on Mars has been destroyed.

* Lady's name is Raffi, like the children's singer. 

* Starfleet tells Picard they're canceling the rescue mission bc they wanted the Romulans to die anyway, even though in continuity the Romulans just helped them win the Dominion War and helped stop Picard's evil clone from destroying Earth.

* Picard says they can accept either the revised rescue plans or his resignation, and they choose the latter.

* With Picard out of Starfleet, Raffi is immediately fired. I guess his status was protecting her somehow? Even though he didn't have enough clout to get them to listen to him...

* Apparently it makes sense to Raffi though because she blames Picard for the loss of her career and spends the next 14 years being mad at him.

* Patrick Stewart appears digitally de-aged for the flashback but Raffi looks exactly the same when Picard shows up at her place in the present day looking for a ship and pilot.

* Raffi's name for Picard is "JL." She says it about a dozen times throughout the episode and I want to scream every time.

* Raffi lives in a trailer where she grows space marijuana and smokes an e-cig. She tells Picard that she saw his interview on Space Fox News. 

* She #OccupyWallStreets his bougie vineyard and complains about how she's been on skid row since Starfleet canned her. 

* Picard is the 1%!

* Isn't this supposed to be a post-scarcity, post-wealth future, what the fuck is even happening

* Also apparently people still say "protip" in the 25th century. 

* Through tears and abysmal acting, Raffi tells Picard to leave, but as he walks away she relents and tells him to contact a pilot named Rios.

* Meanwhile, Scientist Lady Who Studies Androids is visited by the Vulcan chief of Starfleet security who is secretly in league with the Romulans.

* Her name is Karen O and she's wearing sunglasses that look straight out of the 20th century.

* Either the costumer bought them at a gas station on the way to work or the actress was wearing them on set and forgot to take them off and nobody noticed.

* Karen O is like "Tell me everything you talked about with Picard in the first episode!"

* Picard beams aboard Rios's ship where he is greeted by Rios's EMH, who I'm almost positive is played by the same actor who plays Rios except with an Irish accent.

* Bizarrely, no one comments on this.

* Rios has a grudge against Starfleet but Picard can tell from how neat he keeps his ship that Rios too was a former member.

* Picard goes back to his vineyard to pack his bags but the Romulan biker gang attacks!

* Picard's Romulan servants kill them all. In the fight Picard is thrown through the air over the back of a couch. He should have about half a dozen fractured bones but he's fine.

* It seems that the danger has passed and everyone starts to relax but then one last assassin bursts into the room! He's immediately shot from behind, however, and Lady Scientist steps into the room, holding a Romulan disruptor rifle.

* This confused me to no end. At first I thought she had gone there with the Romulans, like Karen O had them take her to Chateau Picard to eliminate them all at the same time, but she says that she was just coming to warn Picard that Karen O was looking into him.

* So I guess it was just a coincidence that she arrived at the exact same time as the assassins?

* But where did she get the rifle then? All the dead Romulans were already in the room that she entered after she already had the rifle.

* Maybe there was a split-second shot of one of them throwing his gun into the hallway for no reason.

* Anyway one of the dead Romulans is actually alive so they tie him to a chair then revive him by misting him with water from a plastic spray bottle, as you would a cat.

* Picard asks why the Jacques Vash killed Douche, and where her twin sister is.

* "You'll never find her before we do," says the Romulan. "She's not what you think she is. She is the Destroyer!"

* Then, even though Picard's Romulans are apparently experts on the Tal'Shiar and even though Picard was there when Douche was killed by a Romulan assassin cracking open an acid capsule in his tooth, apparently no one thought to check this guy's molars because he deploys his own acid pill, which instantly dissolves his entire body somehow.

* Scientist Lady, whose name I just remembered is Agnes Gerardi, tells Picard that she wants to join his party. The two of them join Rios aboard his ship, where they're immediately joined by Raffi.

* "I found Bruce Maddox," she says, whom you may remember from Measure of a Man (I didn't). "He's on Free Cloud," which I guess is a planet.

* She swore she would never work with Picard again after how he wasn't really at all responsible for her getting fired, but she has personal business on Free Cloud anyway so she too is joining the party.

* If you think I'm RPG-memeing too hard I swear to God that in the preview for the next episode an Elf Vulcan pledges to Picard "You'll have my sword."

* The opening notes from the TNG theme play and Picard says "Engage." Agnes starts grinning like an idiot because I guess she gets the reference, and Raffi dramatically rolls her eyes.

* They're like the avatars of the two types of Star Trek fans watching this show. 

* So at the very end of the third episode of this Star Trek series, someone finally takes a starship into space!

* Also I completely neglected the Douche's sister subplot. I'm pretty sure that her name is Soji this time, and she's trying to rehabilitate former Borg who were unassimilated from the collective and went crazy.

* "Ex-B's are the most hated people in all the galaxy," some guy says. 

* y tho

* So for some reason all the crazy Borgs are Romulans. Soji starts talking to this one Romulan lady who is playing with Tarot cards. "I remember you from tomorrow," the crazy lady says. "Are you the sister who lives or the sister who dies? You are the Destroyer!"

* She pulls a gun from a guard and tries to kill herself but Soji uses Force speed to take the gun from her hand.

* She calls her fake mom on her iPhone but I guess this somehow triggers something in her that makes her pass out.

* She wakes up sometime later and Sexy Romulan Bro comes in and says "I have to tell you a secret: I think I'm falling in love with you."

* Also one of the crazy Romulan "ex-B's" had a Space Rubiks Cube.

* "Traditional Romulan houses have a false front door, you have to enter through the back."

* Millennials can't conceive of a future without wealth inequality or corrupt political establishments. They've been conditioned to think that such a suggestion is so unbelievable as to be laughable.               

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 2: "Maps and Legends"

* I'm 10 minutes into episode 2 and I've said "What?" out loud about three times.

* Episode opens with a flashback to the destruction of Mars, "14 years ago."

* Which unless they changed the date is two years before the Romulan supernova so the Romulans had years to evacuate their population onto any of the other worlds of their huge empire but they didn't for some reason.

* The androids who destroy the Utopia Planitia shipyards are creepy bald albino dudes with serial numbers tattooed on the backs of their heads.

* Another character says the word "dude." 

* Also heard in this episode: "shit," "fuckers," "fucking."

* Finally I can take Star Trek seriously! 

* Picard and his Romulan slave beam into Douche's apartment, which is something I didn't know anyone could just do from anywhere.

* They use the banned Romulan technology of "forensic molecular reconstruction" which is where your holographic iPhone shines a laser around the room and somehow that shows you a hologram of what happened in the room the day before????????

* But they're only able to see Douche and her boyfriend sitting on the couch; the hologram cuts out right before the Romulan attack because the room has been "scrubbed" with "anti-leptons."

* Picard's Romulans tell him there's only one group who could be responsible for this. He's heard of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan secret police? Well the Tal Shiar have their own even secreter police: the JACQUES VASH. 

* The Jacques Vash have existed for thousands of years and are dedicated to one goal: destroying synthetic life!

* This is why the Romulans have never developed androids or AI. 

* Meanwhile Douche's twin sister whose name I still don't know is fucking sexy British Romulan bedhead-and-stubble guy.

* The Borg cube they're on has suffered a "matrix failure" and whenever that happens the Borg cut all the Borg on that cube off from the collective.

* As we know from several episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, whenever a Borg is cut off from the collective they slowly regain their individuality but all the drones on the cube seem to just be comatose.

* Twin Sister is working with surgeons removing the drones' implants for some reason.

* "You're free!" she tells them.

* Meanwhile Picard and the Romulans trace Douche's phone records to find her sister. "Wherever this call originated from, it wasn't on Earth," the Romulan says dramatically as the music rises to signify the end of the scene and Picard looks fucking shocked.

* DID THEY FORGET WHAT SHOW THEY'RE ON OR

* Picard contacts a physician he served with on the Stargazer and asks for a physical so his Starfleet commission can be reactivated. The doctor says that Picard is in perfect health except for a minor abnormality in his parietal lobe, which makes it sound like nbd, but then the doctor is like "IF YOU'RE LUCKY THIS MISSION WILL KILL YOU FIRST" so idk what to think.

* Picard goes to Starfleet headquarters and asks to be reinstated so he can have a ship and try to find Data's other daughter who seemingly has no actual connection to Data besides possibly being imbued with his "essence."

* Picard says that he's been mourning Data for two decades. TNG Picard would have been over it by the end of the episode.

* Bitchy Starfleet Admiral yells at Picard for shitting on Starfleet during his Fox News interview in the last episode.

* She exposits that 14 species threatened to leave the Federation unless they let the Romulans die. Picard says the Federation doesn't have the right to decide if an entire species is killed. "We absolutely do!" says Bitchy Starfleet Admiral.

* She throws out Picard then calls Vulcan commodore and is like "Picard was just in here raving about androids and Romulan assassins, isn't that crazy?" and Vulcan commodore is like "haha yeah so craaazy" but actually she is secretly aligned with the Jacques Vash!!!

* Her assistant is a Jacques Vash agent surgically altered to appear human, and also the older sister of the Romulan fucking Douche's sister.

* Her actual name is like Dodge or Dash or something but it's so unmemorable and she's dead so it doesn't matter.

* Episode ends with Jacques Vash agent hologramming to sexy Romulan and asking if he's gotten the information from the android yet.

* "I'm on top of it" he says. She looks over at his unmade bed where he screwed whatshername and responds "I can see that!"

* Good joke, everybody laugh.

* Roll on snare drum.

* Curtain.

* Also I forgot but there was a scene where lady scientist from the last episode was reading Isaac Asimov and Picard said "I never really cared for science fiction. I guess I just didn't get it."

* That should be the tagline for Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 1: "Remembrance"

* Star Trek: Picardo is here!!!! 

* I haven't watched it yet so I'm trying to avoid reviews but I accidentally saw one headline call it "bafflingly bad" so we're off to the races.

* Ok it opens with Picard and Data playing poker on the Enterprise D and they both look depressingly old but it's a passably heartwarming opening.

* But it's all a dream and Picard wakes up at his vineyard with his unneutered dog and his Romulan servants who he took in after Romulus was destroyed in the JJ Abrams movies.

* Picard gives a TV interview for the anniversary of the Romulan supernova where it's established through exposition that the Federation wanted to let all the Romulans die in the supernova, but Picard convinced them to form a rescue armada to save them, but that mission was aborted when rogue androids attacked the planetary shipyards on Mars and set the whole planet on fire. 

* Starfleet left the Romulans out to dry and Picard resigned in protest.

* Elsewhere we're introduced to the girl from the trailer, she's in her college apartment with her alien boyfriend when dudes in biker helmets transport into the room and attack!

* The bikers kill the boyfriend and give the order to knock out the girl but instead of stunning her with a phaser they just stand around and let her murder them with kung fu moves.

* She goes to see Picard even though she doesn't know who he is and introduces herself as Douche, explaining that she suddenly has these superpowers she doesn't understand like instant kung fu and being able to overhear conversations from a block away.

* Picard finds an old painting of Douche that Data made 30 years ago, the painting is called "Daughter."

* Picard is overjoyed to meet Data's daughter and promises that he will never leave her but then more bikers show up and Douche jumps 300 feet in the air and kicks them all.

* One biker gets his helmet knocked off revealing that he is a Romulan, but he spits acid on Douche and it melts a phaser rifle, causing it to explode and kill Douche in a massive fireball.

* Actually maybe it's a disruptor, I don't remember what Romulans use.

* Anyway Picard is thrown 20 feet by the explosion which in real life would have turned his bones to powder because he looks like he has the fortitude of papier mache.

* Picard regains consciousness back at the vineyard, where his Romulan servants tell him that the space police dropped him off instead of taking him to the hospital or questioning him about the destruction.

* Also the Golden Gate Bridge is just a giant field of solar panels now, which seems... weird.

* Picard goes to the AI research center where he asks a lady scientist if it's possible to create a fully organic sentient android, because apparently Douche was fully organic instead of artificial like Data? And Picard knew that somehow? How did he know th

* The scientist explains that that won't be possible for 1,000 years, but after the Mars attack the Federation outlawed synthetic life and put a stop to their research.

* Scientist opens a drawer that contains the dismembered body of B4, who if you remember was the [mentally exceptional] Soongh android Data found in Star Trek Nemesis.

* She explains that Data tried to upload his brain into B4 (which happened in the movie) but he was so [mentally exceptional] that it didn't work and he died I guess.

* Without Data's neural net no one is able to construct another sentient android, but Data's neurons died with him so the android Picard claims he met can't exist.

* The androids who attacked Mars were built in this very laboratory but they weren't sentient, I guess? Idk it's not explained.

* It's also not explained why they couldn't just use Lore's neural net since they should still have him in a drawer somewhere too but he's never even mentioned so maybe they just forgot. 

* But Picard shows scientist lady Douche's necklace, which looks like two slightly overlapping circles.

* Scientist says this is the symbol for fractal cloning, the idea that if they had just one neuron from a neural net it could regenerate the whole net including memories. 

* Picard says so Data's "essence" could still live on and scientist lady says yes and fractal clones are always created in twin pairs, even though I thought it was just hypothetical and had never been done so "always" seems like a strange

* "So there's another one out there" realizes Picard. 

* We then cut to Douche's twin named Loji or something and she is like a psychiatrist on the Romulan Reclamation Station.

* A sexy Romulan approaches her and says he just arrived on the station, he used to have a brother he was very close with but he's dead now, and other ominously veiled things.

* Logjam is like why don't you tell me about your psychological trauma and then we'll fuck?

* Then the camera pulls back to reveal DUN DUN DUN they're in a Borg cube!!! ROLL CREDITS

* tldr it stinks

* The things that annoyed me the most were the dumb action/crazy camera cuts.

* The music, which would not go away.

* Like on TNG they'd have nice quiet conversations, here the sappy music was constantly playing "you saved us picard, you're a great man, be the captain they remember."

* So emotionally overwrought.

* And the set and tech designs, which followed Discovery's lead and were super slick and shiny with lots of holographic displays and interfaces.

* Really wanted to see an extension of the 90s Trek design aesthetic.

* But of course they couldn't do that, it would be way too cheesy.

* People might get confused.

* Also the use of contemporary language when the girl and her boyfriend are in the apartment. She says "dude" and he describes her replicator selection as "tragic," it was really jarring and silly.