The Story of Shrimp Baby

 

* Shenji and the gang join a naval squadron escorting the German Eva to Japan, but they didn't bring Shenji's Eva so I'm not sure why Katsuragi didn't just go herself.

* They meet the German Eva pilot Oshkosh and her handler Kiyoji who is Katsuragi's ex.

* If they're German why do they have Japanese names?

* The wind immediately blows up Asuka's dress (is she also 14? ) so Shenji's friend drops his pants and shows her his dick.
 

* This may be a continuity error though because later when she's changing into her pilot costume in the hallway she takes off a pair of panties but Sex Offender takes off both his pants and his boxers.

* Disproportionate response if she was wearing underwear.
 

* Fish Angel attacks and Koji Tabuchi makes a run for it in a helicopter. Oddly no one later brings up him cowardly saving his own neck and leaving everyone else to die.

* Asuka forces Shenji to crossdress in one of her outfits and go in the cockpit with her to fight the fish angel, but they can't fight underwater because the Eva is in type B configuration!

* I don't know what that means!!

* Also Asuka keeps calling Shenji "Third Children." I think at one point Rei is called First Children so I assume this somehow refers to the sequence of children chosen to pilot Evas but Shenji was the second pilot so why is he Third Children and also why is it plural?

* Asuka calls Shenji a sex pervert and they kill the angel by driving a boat into its mouth.

* Kioshi delivers a briefcase to Sheni's dad containing a fetus that is Adam, the first human.

* Sure why not?

* Next episode, Shenji and Asuka tagteam the next angel but it splits in two just like Jarex and Larex and the Evas get trashed.

 

* This scene is played for laughs which I feel kind of undercuts the threat of the angels.

* Asuka's the key to all this, she's a funnier character than we've seen before.

* Japan drops a bomb on the angel(s) that paralyzes it for six days.

* Why didn't they just do that to the prism angel when it was drilling into the geofront?

* In the meantime Shenji and Asuka have to learn to work as a team so they can become drift compatible.

* This is the only way to defeat this angel, for some reason.

* The way they do this is by cross-dressing and playing Twister.

* This episode is dumb.

* Katsuragi says "look how in sync Shenji and Rei are, we should just have her fight the angel instead."

* YEAH WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT?

* The night before the angel wakes up Asuka goes to Shenji's room in the middle of the night and he almost assaults her in her sleep but she starts crying so he doesn't.

* The penguin uses a human toilet.

* They go to fight the angel and Shenji's like "we'll kill this thing in 62 seconds" and they put a 62 second countdown on the screen and play comical music so you know this is a very tense scene.

* They fight the two angel halves so much that they turn back into one angel and then they kill it.

* A hologram of Asuka comes out of a landline phone and calls Shenji a sex pervert.

* Wow this is shit.

 

 

Me: So the sequence is the First Impact which is presumably related to the First Angel somehow, then the Second Angel crashes on earth in the Second Impact which vaporizes Antarctica and turns him into a Shrimp Baby somehow. They find him and put him in the briefcase from Pulp Fiction, then there are no more angels for 15 years.

Me: Then all of a sudden they started appearing weekly like Power Rangers monsters, but they don't crash anymore they just appear.

Me: NERV's mission is to prevent a Third Impact, although the event that caused the Second Impact seems not to occur anymore.

Me: Why is Shrimp Baby the first human?

Paul: Honestly I think I remember the show confusing things a lot on people. Creator Hideaki Anno himself said he was trying to be as mysterious as possible because he was worried people would find his show stupid.

Paul: He has the lowest self-confidence of any famous person ever and is super negative about everything, I fucking adore him.

Me: Well he was confident enough to market his show on underage fanservice.

Paul: But Adam, although they just called him "the first man" I think....I forget. But I remember the gist of it.

Paul: To explain the gist of it I would have to explain what the angels are though and that would disappoint.

Paul: Like, too soon for that I think.

Paul: But the angels don't crash to Earth. Or if they did, it was a loooong, loooooooooooooobg time ago.

Me: They are 99% human DNA so maybe they are the progenitors of man!!!

Paul: They're been here the whole time waiting.

Me: Like the ancient humanoid race on Star Track

Paul: Okay yes that's exactly it.

Paul: Nvm you figured it out lol.

Me: So Adam didn't vaporize Antarctica by crashing into it?

Paul: No, he got pissed and blew up.

Paul: Yes that's dumb but I swear that's what happened.

Me: Then turned into a Shrimp Baby.

Paul: Or they had to nuke him to prevent him from doing what all the other angels are currently trying to do.

Paul: But he has a tough fucker, so he survived as a shrimp.

Paul: Like Rambo.

Paul: The first angel and the second angel made humankind, but the first angel got the lion's share of the say in how we developed. Adam was jelly (in his weird godlike alienish way).

Paul: That's all I should say for now.

Paul: The other angels are also jelly.

Me: Why do the other countries have Evas if the angels only attack Japan?

Paul: Because officially Gendo and Nerv aren't a Japanese agency, they're the UN.

Paul: The UN wants everybody participating, even if the angels are only ultimately interested in something that happens to be in Japan.

Me: Is Asuka German or Japanese?

Paul: I think her dad was Japanese.

Paul: Her mom is DEAD.

Paul: What a BONER KILLER.

Me: Is the AT field the same as the ABSOLUTE TERROR VOID in the opening credits??

Paul: Yes.

Paul: Also all the metaphysical shit has weirdly psychological underpinnings that sometimes vaguely have to do with the characters. The AT Field is like, the closest you can let another person come to understanding you without pushing them away? I think it's canon that all people technically have one, we just can't manifest them outside of our bodies like the angels do.

Paul: Absolute terror at somebody coming too close.

Paul: THAT'S THE ENERGY SHIELD FOR THE ENEMY ROBOT

Paul: Idk it's been a while, I forget if that's in the books I read about Eva or in the show itself.

Paul: Honestly the comic book ("mangay") does a lot better job of making the plot coherent.

 

Me: The prism angel made me think the angels were going to get progressively weirder and more abstract so the subsequent ones have been kind of a letdown tbh. 

 

Top 10 Angels 

1. Prism Angel 

2. Plague Doctor Angel 

3. Squid Angel 

4. Snake Angel 

6. Fish Angel 

7. Mortron Angel 

8. Shrimp Baby Angel
 

Paul: It took me fifteen minutes to figure out wtf a Mortron was.

Paul: They didn't have wheels, bro.
 

Paul: The angels.

 

Paul: Dude, Shrimp Baby Adam is the creepiest wtf.

 

Me: He's just a little fetus.
 

Paul: A fetus who used to be a BOSS.
 

Paul: There are weirder, more abstract angels on the way.
 

Paul: I thought squid and fish were about equally bad-ass.

 

Me: When Adam regains his final form will he be a snake whose head is a human skull with a buzzsaw on it.

Paul: Screenshot of Adam's final form:
 

 

Paul: Actually I'd honestly say most of the dull angels (I find the twin angel particularly uninspired) are out of the way at this point. You may find the next one a bit boring, but after that they get WEIRD.

 

Me: Oh good.

 

Me: Do they have the ones from the Bible that are like interlocking chariot wheels or sixteen pairs of wings?

 

 

* They find a baby angel egg sleeping in a volcano so Asuka goes in to catch it but it hatches and turns into a big magma squid but Asuka kills it with "thermal expansion" and Shenji dives into the volcano and pulls her to safety.

* So if angels start out as shrimp babies and getting blown up made Adam turn back into one I guess angels are like Digimons?

* Shenji gets a boner in the pool listening to lesbianism and the penguin is entranced.
 

* Asuka's Eva got a fire protection suit but she still had to wear her own inside of the eva even though it didn't cover her head and would therefore be useless.

* Someone on the animation team just wanted to draw her in a fat suit.

 

* Is Asuka-Shenji-Rei the new Ashley-Shepard-Liara?

You've Got a Lot of NERV

* A weapon you can't control is about as useful as a hysterical woman.
 

* More lore: the asteroid story is just an urban legend and the second impact was actually Antarctica exploding because of some giant creature?

* Was there actually an asteroid then? What was the first impact?

* The point of NERV is to prevent a third impact.
 

* Apparently other countries also have Evas.

* Are the angels attacking other countries as well or only Japan?

* "America sure hates having a high unemployment rate."

* Katsuragi Miysoto (sp) goes to the U.N. (?) to see a new robot that the U.S. (?) has invented to replace the Evas because it doesn't need a pilot and its battery lasts more that five minutes.

* But it breaks and they can't shut it down and it's going to explode unless Katsuragi climbs inside and enters the shutdown password which is <Hope.>

* Shinji holds it in place with his Gundam while she enters the password but it doesn't work because it has been sabotaged so she just pushes the coolant rods into the wall manually.

* Then it is revealed that Dr. Kitzsku Riyasoko and Shenji's dad were behind the whole thing!

* Presumably to discredit their business competitors.

* Shonji tells his friends that he hates how Katsuragi is a gross slob but they tell him how lucky he is that she lets him see the real her, which means they are a family.

* Next week: Neo-Germany sends their Gundam to Japan!

My roommate RAMIEL

* EPISODE 6?: PREPARING TO FIGHT A GEOMETRIC SHAPE

* The cube angel starts drilling into the geofront and also it has energy shields so it is impervious to harm.

* It even destroys a large balloon replica of Shenji's Eva.

* Why do they have that?

* The only way to kill it is with a giant sniper rifle but Shenji misses his shot so Rei gets fucked up blocking the laser beam.

* Shenji no-scopes the angel and all is well.

AYANAMI'S BAZOONGAS, AYANAMI'S THIGHS, AYANAMI'S SUPPLE CALVES

 

* Shenji goes to school where the kids find out that he is the Gundam pilot who saved them all so they beat him up.

* The teacher delivers helpful exposition about a meteorite hitting the earth at the end of the 20th century and it was called the Second Impact but what was the first impact?

* Another Angel attacks, it is like a big purple snake. A computer calls it Angel #4 even though it is only the second one seen in the series. Will the truth be revealed???

 

* Shenji gets in his Gundam to fight Snake Angel and two of his school chums who beat him up sneak out to watch the battle.

* Kenji is getting his ass kicked and almost squashes his schoolmates. Blue Hair Lady tells him to put them in his Gundam then return to base because the robot battery is almost dead.

* Instead Shenji has his robot pull out a comically small knife and stab Snake in the face while he screams like a lunatic.

* The Gundam's batteries die and Shenji starts crying. Later he doesn't show up to class and the bullies are sad.

* There was no fanservice in this episode despite the promise made in the preview.

 

* EPISODE 4: HEDGEHOG'S DILEMMA

* Aka the episode where the animation budget ran out so they spend a third of the runtime on still images with no animation.

* Shenji runs away from home, leaving a note for Katsuragi (?) aka Blue Hair Lady.

* She says that she would run away too but then spends the rest of the episode calling him an idiot.

* The school bullies come over to apologize and meet Blue Hair Lady, who they say is a total hottie.

* Shenji spends all day on the train until it reaches the end of the line, but apparently it just runs in a circle because when he gets off he immediately runs into kid from school in the middle of a random field.

* They spend the night in a tent and bond over their dead parents.

* In the morning the CIA comes to take Shenji back to NERV, but he refuses to fly the Eva anymore so they just put him back on the train.

* The school bullies come to see him off and apologize by letting him punch the one guy in the face, which he does but then says he's the one who deserves to be punched in the face.

* The CIA forces him onto the train but I guess they just leave then because he just gets back off and waits on the platform.

* Blue Hair Lady comes to the station and finds him there.

* Next episode: The Rise of Rei Skywalker!

* Also I think someone said something about only 14-year-olds can pilot Evas, which seems like a pretty obvious design flaw.

* Back to the drawing board, you fucks.

* This was the Quentin Tarantino fanservice episode.

* The preview for the next episode didn't even promise fanservice so my hopes arent too high.

* EPISODE 5: AYANAMI'S BAZOONGAS, AYANAMI'S THIGHS, AYANAMI'S SUPPLE CALVES

* Wait if the penetration capsule is full of piss how did Shenji get the two bullies into it in the other episode?

* Shenji, Katsuragi, and Blonde Lady sit around eating ramen because I guess that's what they do in Japan.

* Blonde Lady gives Shenji a credit card to give to Rei Ayanami because she's too lazy to do it herself.

* Shenji goes over to her apartment but no one answers so he lets himself in and starts trying on his dad's broken glasses that Rei has as a keepsake.

* Rei gets out of the shower wearing a strategically placed towel and starts attacking Shenji apparently but he falls over, spilling a drawer of her bras everywhere and landing on top of her tits.

* There's a giant chalk outline in the forest like a crime scene in a movie. I missed if they said what this was. One of the dead angels or one they just found?
 

* If it's a new discovery it doesn't count toward the total because the Fifth Angel shows up and it's like a reflective prism.

* The angels are made of light but also 99% human DNA.

* Shenji takes his Eva out and the prism shoots a laser beam through his chest.

* The angel shouts "SEKIHA LOVE LOVE TENKYOKEN" and transforms into a European king.

* To be continued!

ANIME ATTACK

 

* EPISODE 1: ANGEL ATTACK

 

* Rated M for nudity and smoking.

 

* The Kanto region lies in ruins, presumably making this the canonical post-apocalyptic future of the Pokémon world.

* Shinji looks like a little boy but has the English voiceover of an adult woman.

* The Nightwalker is attacking!!!

* They want to use the angel as a weapon because of its three theoretical abilities of self-recovery, self-replication, and self-evolution.

* Wow an actual geofront.

* Title card 50% of the way through the episode.

* THIS IS NO PLACE FOR A LADY WEARING A SKIRT.

* These hard transitional cuts are giving me whiplash.

* Is this Ender's Game meets Pacific Rim?

* The small child doesn't want to pilot the Gundam so they have to get Rey from Star Wars.

* To pilot this craft you have to be submerged in piss.

* This is a pretty shit-looking Gundam ngl.

* Oh to be continued.

* Why are the credits a naked person upside down underwater?

* NEXT EPISODE: The Eva defeats the Angel!

* Oh boy with this much suspense I have to keep watching.

* "Tune in for lots more fanservice!"

 

* EPISODE 2: UNFAMILIAR CEILINGS

* "It's okay, your arm only FEELS like it's being hurt!"

* Not helpful.

* Where is the cockpit on this thing? It just got impaled through the head so I assume not there.

* He doesn't know the ceiling.

* Does everyone live underground or is it just the NERV headquarters?

* "The monsters have returned, we must move swiftly to conduct a misinformation campaign!"

* About what? Couldn't people look out their window and get a general idea?

* Is blue-hair lady going to Mrs. Robinson the little boy?

* Netflix said this episode was called Unfamiliar Ceilings but the title card says it's called The Beast so idk what to believe.

* Yikes they weren't lying about the fanservice.

* Did that penguin just motorboat that child's [area]?

* What the fuck is happening?

* Nice of them to include fanservice for Kirk as well.

* The Gundam's head fell off and a monster head popped out!

* Next episode: The Silent Phone!

Rogue One is trending so here's a reminder that it isn't very good

1. Rogue One shows the Death Star superlaser dish being installed even though Revenge of the Sith showed it being built into the Death Star superstructure 19 years earlier.

Maybe they took it out to clean it.

2. Vader says the Death Star plans were beamed to Leia's ship but in Rogue One some guy manually delivers them on a floppy disc right in front of his fucking face.

3. The Death Star's thermal exhaust port isn't a plot hole, but even if it were, Rogue One doesn't fix it. Hannibal doesn't even know about it, that's why he sent his daughter on a suicide mission to steal the plans!

4. They sensibly recast Mon Mothma but Grand Moff Tarkin got to Rogue One by way of L.A. Noire.

 

5. Admiral Raddus is in a huge hurry to get to Scarif but he waits around long enough for Tantive IV to load up the droids and dock with his ship, even though they already have an important mission to Tatooine and do nothing during the battle except set up the original Star Wars.

6. Besides the droid all the characters FUCKING SUCK. Oh no, Brody's about to be driven irreparably mad by the psychic powers of a tentacle monster! Oh but he's fine now for some reason, what a relief.

7. It's a competently made movie but I really don't understand how people who absolutely loathe the sequels have nothing but good things to say about it, when it commits all the same cardinal sins as the rest of Disney Star Wars, just to a lesser degree.

 

* Pointless and distracting memberberries (Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan, the droids)

 

* Disregard for established lore (you can't jump to hyperspace within a planetary gravity well)

 

* Blatant continuity violations (the Battle of Scarif doesn't fit at all with the beginning of A New Hope)

 

* Flat and undeveloped characters whose interactions make no sense (Andor is established as a cold-blooded assassin yet can't bring himself to kill the father of this person he's just met, Maize Bulbous calls Jyn his sister when they just met like 20 minutes earlier)

 

* Terrible CGI recreations of dead or aged actors (why would they recast Mon Mothma yet have that awful Tarkin abomination in the same movie?)

 

* Random undeveloped subplots that go nowhere (the tentacle monster, Saw randomly letting himself be killed for no reason)

 

* Weak and unimposing villain. There was a potentially interesting dynamic with Krennic as former friend or at least work colleague of Galen Erso, but he doesn't care all when Galen dies and he doesn't care at all when he finds out the person foiling all his plans is Galen's daughter, who he knew years ago as a little girl. His role as the central antagonist is continually undercut by Vader and Tarkin, neither of whom even needed to be in the movie.

 

The central premise behind the movie is so weak it feels like the movie doesn't even need to exist. It's a meme that the Death Star thermal exhaust port is some kind of plot hole (it's not) but it turns out the Death Star did have a weak spot intentionally built into it. It wasn't the exhaust port, though, it was the main reactor, which Galen Erso made more prone to blowing up, I guess. Did he also design the second Death Star and the Trade Federation droid control ship? In Star Wars, when you blow up a ship's main reactor, the ship blows up with it. I'm so sorry, Galen, but you wasted your time.

 

I don’t hate the movie but I don’t think it’s particularly good and given its problems it always blows my mind when people say it’s as good as or better than any of the Original Trilogy.

 

8. AND PUNDA BUBU.

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 10: "Et in Arcadia Ego II"

* AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION

* Rios and Raffi get back repair their ship with a magical device the androids gave them that looks like an ocarina.

* This scene is about ten minutes long and serves no other purpose in the narrative.

* After last week's episode there was a lot of speculation that Alton Inigo Soong (aka A.I. Soong omgwtf), Noonien Soong's never-before-mentioned biological son, was secretly Lore in disguise as a fat old Brent Spiner. 

* This is not the case.

* While they're preparing the robot body to receive Brent Spiner's brain Agnes tricks Brent Spiner into leaving the room, then she runs off to free Picard.

* In the next scene they're instantly back at their ship after a very tense escape sequence that presumably happened offscreen.

* Presumably they also missed Rios and Raffi, who left the ship and are on their way back to the android city in the company of Sexy Bedhead British Romulan Brother, who has joined forces with them to prevent the apocalypse.

* On the crashed Borg cube, Seven of Nine fistfights Romulan Sister, who was hiding aboard for some reason I guess. "Poor little Anika," says Sister Romulan. "Six years old and all she got for her birthday was assimilated." 

* Seven kicks her into a bottomless pit and Sister Romulan falls screaming to her death.

* "This is for Hugh!" shouts Seven.

* Hugh and Seven have never interacted on screen in any iteration of Star Trek.

* Maybe they knew each other from ex-Borg therapy.

* Meanwhile Brent Spiner has seen the memory of the android who got killed last episode and it turns out that she was actually killed not by Brother Romulan but by Sutra, the evil gold-skinned Soji doppelgänger. 

* Brent Spiner teams up with Rios and the gang and tases Sutra.

* She collapses, dead or unconscious, and is never seen or mentioned again.

* Not sure why they even bothered to introduce that character or why she was identical to Soji.

* Maybe they couldn't afford to hire any new actors.

* For some reason though no one explains to the other androids that they were duped and one of their own was the real murderer, so they continue building the transmitter that will summon the Reapers.

* The Romulan fleet arrives and Picard and Agnes fly up to stop them.

* I kind of zoned out for a little bit but apparently Agnes has some kind of device or technology that can create a thousand holographic (?) duplicates of a thing so they use that to create an illusory armada.

* I swear to God this was never mentioned or set up before.

* Picard contacts the planet and begs Soji to reconsider ending all life in the galaxy. "I have something to give you that I hope will change your mind: my life."

* But the Romulan fleet shoots them once and all the fake ships disappear like ten seconds after they were created.

* "No!" Soji screams on the planet below, horrified that Picard might be killed even though she is in the process of committing mass genocide of all organics in the galaxy, including Picard.

* She then immediately hits the button that shoots a laser into space and opens a portal.

* Giant robotic Cthulhu tentacles appear from the other side of the portal.

* Suddenly a huge Federation fleet emerges from warp!

* They are led by Acting Captain Will Riker, who hails Karen O aboard her warbird and says "I am on the meanest, toughest Federation ship ever created, and I would love any excuse to kick your traitorous Tal'Shiar ass!"

* For real though the dialogue is all wrong but Jonathan Frakes is the only returning actor who feels like he's still playing the same character. 

* Good on him I guess.

* Karen O gives the order to nuke the planet anyway.

* Picard calls Soji again and again asks her to reconsider releasing the Reapers. He says that the Federation will protect the synths from the Romulans.

* The Federation were the ones who banned us she protests but Picard points out how the Federation is now trying to stop the Romulans from killing them.

* "I trust you, Soji, I believe in you! I saved you so you could save us! That's what life is all about! Don't be the Destroyer they think you are!"

* Soji is like ok and hits the off button on the transmitter, closing the portal and leaving the Reapers trapped in dark space. 

* Karen O is so moved by this that she shakes off the training for her millennia-old death cult and the Jacques Vash fleet heads for home.

* See, it's just like a star trek!

* But then Picard collapses! 

* "It's his brain abnormality!" cries Agnes.

* I wonder if there's some legal reason they can't call it irumodic syndrome.

* Soji beams them both to the planet, where she, Raffi, Rios, Agnes, and Legolas gather around him as he lies sprawled on the pavement.

* "You were right, Raffi" Picard says. "About what, JL?" she asks. 

* But Picard is already gone.

* I too have no idea what she was right about though.

* Picard finds himself in a living room where everything is painted black. Data is there and they recap the ending of Star Trek Nemesis.

* "I always felt bad that I never told you..." says Picard, trailing off. "That you loved me?" asks Data. 

* "A not insignificant percentage of my memories are filled with the knowledge that you did."

* This is not Data's soul, it turns out, but rather a reconstruction of his consciousness made from the memories he downloaded into B4.

* Alton Soong reconstructed them at some point for some reason. Data asks Picard to do him a favor when he leaves this place and pull the plug on him.

* There are 10 minutes left in the episode and this is just coming up now for the first time.

* Picard has been dreaming about Data and trying to save Data's progeny for the whole season, might have been relevant to know that Data was basically still alive all this time.

* Picard's consciousness wakes up in the android body Soong had built for himself.

* Soji and Agnes are quick to assure him that they didn't make him immortal or give him super strength or any other enhanced abilities; his android body is identical to his original body except "the brain abnormality is gone for good." 

* He will now live however long he would have lived without it.

* If I was Picard I would be so fucking pissed.

* "Couldn't you have brought me back to life as like a 20-year-old or something instead of in this frail old man body with crippling arthritis and incontinence?"

* The episode ends with the new crew all together on Rios's ship, the La Serena: Picard, Rios, Soji, Raffi, Agnes, Legolas, and Seven of Nine. 

* The camera pans briskly across them all.

* Seven and Raffi intertwine their fingers and stare into each other's eyes so I guess they're lesbians now.

* They never shared any scenes or dialogue together but they're dating now. 

* I guess we're also just going to ignore how Agnes murdered a guy and Picard said they were going to turn her over to the cops.

* "Engage!" says Picard.

* Cue credits.

* Hahaha oh I forgot, after Picard comes back to life he goes over to a box with a lightbulb on the top of it and I guess this is Data's brain now and he starts pulling USB drives out of the side of it and when he pulls the last one out the light goes off and the simulation of Data in the black room ages into an old Data and evaporates into smoke.

* In his final moments he finally experienced the one part of humanity he could never have: the finite nature of life and the finality of death.

* Just like already happened in the 2002 hit film Star Trek Nemesis.

Star Trek: Picard, Episode 9: "Et in Arcadia Ego"

* Picard and friends come out of the transwarp conduit and arrive at the android planet, which Shoji Tabuchi informs them is called Compaelius because her android memories have magically been restored but only the ones convenient to the plot. 

* Brother Romulan immediately comes out of the conduit behind them in his starfighter. They wonder how he was able to track them since the tracker that was eaten by Agnes had been disabled when she tried to kill herself.

* "He must have extrapolated our destination based on our direction and last location," Soji explains.

* What the fuck

* They have a space dogfight and the Romulan fighter appears damaged. Picard orders that Brother Romulan be beamed to sickbay but it's a deception! 

* The damaged fighter was an illusion and the real one attacks from behind them. "He reversed his cloaking device and uses it as a projector!" Rios explains.

* What the fuck

* Suddenly a third ship emerges from the conduit. It's the Borg cube! 

* At the same time several giant flowers take off from the android planet and come to meet the ships.

* One closes its petals around Picard and friends, instantly draining their ship of all power.

* The Borg cube just smashes them aside however and plunges into the planet's atmosphere. 

* The flower holding Picard's ship is knocked out of control and they plummet to the planet below. Picard blacks out.

* He comes to to find Agnes holding an "old-fashioned medical tricorder" over him.

* She explains that the ship is okay but it has no power and all its systems are offline.

* How is it okay then?

* She tells him that the tricorder detected a fatal abnormality in his brain so Picard gathers the crew around and explains that he is dying.

* No one ever says what's wrong with him though, they just say "brain abnormality."

* Is this supposed to be the irumodic syndrome from All Good Things or something different?

* Even Picard's personal doctor from the second episode of the show wouldn't give it a name.

* Anyway the crew sets out for the android city to warn them of the impending Romulan attack.

* On the way they notice smoke rising from behind a mountain range several miles in the distance.

* They immediately assume that this is the Borg cube. "Something that massive falling that fast couldn't have any survivors," says Raffi.

* Why would they assume it's the cube? The cube didn't take any damage, it entered the atmosphere of its own volition so why would it crash? Also Picard's ship fell from just as high and they're all fine.

* Why did the cube even enter the atmosphere in the first place? It doesn't make any sense and no answer is ever given.

* Picard is like "I know we're in a hurry but we should go see if Hugh and Legolas are all right."

* There's plenty to say about the show's AI apocalypse plot being ripped from Mass Effect but they're also really nailing the whole "ignoring the ticking clock of the main story to waste time on optional side quests" aspect of those games.

* Picard already wasted an entire episode recruiting this ninja dude who has been completely irrelevant to everything that's happened since, now he wants to do it again!

* They get to the cube and find Legolas and several ex-B's making repairs.

* WHY DID IT CRASH IN THE FIRST PLACE

* Seven of Nine is there and they tell Picard about Hugh being dead and Picard says "Hugh was such a gentle soul, I can't imagine what he could have endured that would turn him to such violence."

* Wtf are you talking about, old man?

* Picard asks Seven to get the cube's long-range scanners online and they reveal that a fleet of 218 Romulan Warbirds is on its way toward the planet.

* TWO HUNDRED EIGHTEEN

* If I remember correctly just one Warbird was a match for a Galaxy-class starship during TNG.

* And the Jacques Vash, the most secret society to ever exist, has more than 200 of them?

* How many did the whole Romulan Empire have?

* Or are the Jacques Vash being supported by the main empire now?

* Does the Romulan Star Empire still exist in any capacity?

* I predict that none of these questions will be answered.

* Again remember that this show is being written by a Hugo Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning science fiction novelist.

* Legolas tells Picard that he needs his sword now more than ever but Picard says no stay and help the Borgs and then they're off again.

* They arrive at the android city which resembles a cross between an Ancient Greek acropolis and a community college campus, where gold-skinned yellow-eyed androids wear togas and play hackysack on the quad. 

* By gold-skinned I mean literally sparkling gold, not the yellowish hue Data had but who can even remember that?

* It's unclear how many androids there are but they must be few enough to all fit aboard Rios's small ship because that is Picard's plan to evacuate them.

* Only 3 characters in the city are of any importance however: Ro Khanna, the naive but good-intentioned spokeslady for the nameless citizens; Sutra, a gold reskin of Soji/Douche who is evil; and Brent Spiner, who plays Alton Inigo Soong, the son of Data's creator. 

* "I know what a shock it must be to see me, Captain Picard," says Brent Spiner. "I look like Data if he got old and soft." 

* Rios sees Sutra and says "omg it's Janna" who was the android that his former captain murdered in that first contact assassination he described last episode.

* But Brent Spiner says no no this is Sutra, Janna was her sister.

* So are they saying that all androids are created in twin pairs, not just the "fractal cloning" biological androids like Soji and Douche?

* Is that supposed to be a reference to Data and Lore?

* But weren't there three identical Data's? B4 already appeared in the first episode of this show.

* If androids are created as twins and Soji/Douche were cloned from one of Data's positrons, why are the Soji/Douche clone pair identical to the Sutra/Janna clone pair?

* I predict that none of these questions will be answered.

* Just then two nameless androids drag in Brother Romulan who they have captured.

* I guess he also crashed? Maybe another flower for him? Whatever, he's here now too.

* They put him in jail and the group discusses their options. 218 Romulan Warbirds are on the way and the androids have only ten flowers remaining. They can construct more but it will take time.

* They also have no ships because they lost their only one when Janna and their ambassador were killed.

* A city full of hyper-intelligent androids can make spacefaring ship-killing giant flowers but they don't know how to build actual ships, I guess?

* Maybe they just never saw a reason to.

* Brent Spiner and the androids are upset with Agnes for murdering their fiend Bruce Maddox but Rios defends her because they had sex that one time so they are in love.

* Agnes tries to explain that the vision Karen O gave her made her crazy and made her do it.

* Sutra believes that the reason the Admonition drives people insane is because it isn't a warning about synthetics after all but a message intended FOR synthetics!

* Brent Spiner explains that Sutra has studied Vulcan culture extensively and even "taught herself the famous mindmeld."

* What the fuck

* They came up with that Karen O being half-Vulcan asspull to explain why she could mindmeld even though there's no reason Romulans shouldn't have the same psychic powers as Vulcans, but now a robot can do it because she read about it in a book.

* Sutra mindmelds with Agnes and learns that the message in the laser table with the eight suns wasn't left by the protheans but by the Reapers themselves.

* As organic life grows and evolves and strives toward perfection they will create synthetic life, but when they realize their creation doesn't age or die they will become jealous of its perfection and try to destroy it, and in doing so will destroy themselves.

* The message contains instructions for how synthetics can contact an ancient hyper-advanced race of synthetic life to come get them. 

* The group splits up, with Raffi and Rios going back to the ship to try to fix it and Picard trying to Starfleet.

* Brent Spiner shows Agnes an android body he's building for himself. Agnes is like "omg have you perfected the mind transfer?" and Brent Spiner is like not yet but if you help me you can make up for killing Maddox.

* Meanwhile Ro Khanna is guarding Brother Romulan but Sutra comes in and sends her out, then she releases Brother Romulan and says "Now you will help me with my evil plan."

* Soji talks to Picard about moral questions like "can the good of the few outweigh the good of the many?" and "maybe mass genocide is okay sometimes?" when they hear a scream and run outside to find Brent Spiner cradling Ro Khanna's body, except it's not Ro Khanna it's her twin Saga for some reason, so who cares.   

* Brother Romulan has apparently escaped and in doing so murdered Saga by stabbing her in the eye with a hummingbird pin she was wearing.

* "What did he do to your beautiful golden eyes?" Brent Spiner weeps, apparently much more upset about this than the fact that she's dead.

* Sutra is like this proves that the organics will destroy us all, we must call the Reapers and have them cleanse this galaxy of organic life.

* We also learn in this scene that the Reapers apparently have a federation that spans entire galaxies. Is this the first time we've heard of extra-galactic life in Star Trek?

* I feel like the Traveler might have sent them to another galaxy one time? Or was that another quantum realm or something?

* In any case they shouldn't be in any danger because I'm sure the writers will respect the galactic barrier established in the second TOS pilot. 

* Picard gives a Picard speech about how violence is not the way and he has a plan to fly everyone to safety aboard his ship and then he will become an advocate for them and lobby the Federation to respect android rights like he already did back in season 2 of TNG.

* But Brent Spiner declares that the Federation didn't listen to him after the Mars attack and they won't listen to him now.

* Look how the androids look at him, they've never known anyone like him before, someone willing to stand up for them and fight on their behalf.

* Everyone else wants them dead, so they have to lock up Picard in jail so he can't make them doubt themselves.

* "Don't do this, Soji," pleads Picard. "You will become the Destroyer they feared you to be all along."

* But she's like "No we have to kill everyone."

* So basically the Jacques Vash had the right idea the whole time.

* Jesus Christ.

* Ro Khanna says lock up Agnes too but Agnes says no wait I can help you and Brent Spiner says yeah she's gonna put my brain in a robot body so they're all cool with her.

* Meanwhile Karen O and the fleet of Warbirds are on their way...

* TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK

* Something else I just thought of:  

* The whole reason they were able to find the android home planet was because of Soji's dream where she was on a planet with two moons and lightning storms, which is apparently unique to this one world.

* But when they get there it just looks like California.

* I expect better of this $50 billion prestige series than the 30-year-old shows where they had $45 to spend on cardboard sets and costumes from Spirit Halloween.  

* It's like this show was written by Gen Xers who watched TNG as kids and thought "this is pretty good but it would be even better if it was more like real life! why doesn't Picard call Q a motherfucker?"

* Not to harp on the swearing bc I swear like a fucking sailor but it's an easy example. It's not that swearing is anathema to Star Trek but 1) it's always been a PG franchise so it's weird that it's suddenly R now and 2) humans in Star Trek are supposed to be more thoughtful and enlightened than humans in real life. Like that's the point of the franchise I think?

* Swearing is fine but casually dropping f-bombs mid-conversation is how people talk today. Why do they still talk like that in a utopian future?   

* Pretty sure there's only one curse word in the entirety of TOS, when Kirk says "Let's get the hell out of here" after letting Edith Keeler die.

* That's like the tamest swear word there is but it packs more of a punch than any "fuck" said on Picard so far.