Star Trek: Picard season 1, episode 7 recap: Nepenthe

Picard rescued Soji on Star Trek: Picard! Now the two of them meet old friends on Nepenthe, while the La Sirena crew escape the Romulans.

Hugh and Elnor helped Picard and Soji escape the Borg Reclamation Site on the previous episode of Star Trek: Picard. Now Hugh must face the Romulans and even Elnor’s fighting skills can’t help him. Get ready for one of the most emotional episodes of the series as Picard meets a couple of Star Trek favorites.

Jurati’s Mission

Way back in episode three, Agnes Jurati got a surprise visit from Romulan operative Commodore Oh. The end result of that conversation was Jurati joining Picard’s mission and then secretly killing her former lover Bruce Maddox. Jurati told the dying man that she had to act because of the horrors that ‘they’ had shown her. We get an inkling into what those horrors were in this episode. The flashback openers have become less tedious now that they encompass more characters.

Commodore Oh had been tracking Picard’s actions and chose Jurati to be her spy on his mission. It’s disappointing that Jurati’s knowledge of synths was not the reason for hunting her down, though. Oh mind-melds with Jurati to show her disturbing images of death and destruction if the synths were to rise again. It’s distressing enough to make Jurati sick to her stomach, and follow the Zhat Vash’s orders to the tee. Jurati chews on a tracker so that the Zhat Vash never loses sight of Picard. She’s a Judas on La Sirena, and her duplicitousness is going to cost her.

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Hugh Taken Captive

Hugh had to stay behind on the Borg Reclamation Site to man the teleporter that sent Picard and Soji to Nepenthe. It seemed that Elnor was protecting Hugh, but we see that Hugh’s been captured by Narissa with Elnor nowhere to be seen.

Narissa pushes Hugh to reveal Picard’s destination, but he won’t budge. The result is that Hugh watches as his precious xBs are assassinated in front of him. Jonathan Del Arco’s performance as he breaks down in unbidden tears is phenomenal. We don’t often see male characters in such a raw state of emotion, but Del Arco doesn’t hold back. All of Hugh’s dreams and accomplishments die with his xB friends – people he’d promised to give a new life to. And now they’re dead at his feet.

Seeing that Hugh will not give in, Narissa leaves him to mourn. She can’t kill him as that would breach the Federation-Romulan treaty. But of course, Narissa has a plan up her sleeve.

When Hugh is alone, Elnor reappears and promises to help Hugh take the cube from the Romulans. Narissa overhears this and informs Hugh that his declaration is a treaty violation. Despite Elnor’s valiant attempts to fight Narissa, she is able to kill Hugh. With his dying breath, Hugh tells Elnor that he’ll need an xB to activate the Queencell and thanks Elnor for giving him hope.

Hiding again, Elnor activates the card that Seven of Nine had given Picard. Is Seven the only xB left? Elnor looks traumatized and scared. I hope Seven gets to him soon.

Drama on La Sirena

La Sirena begins this episode of Star Trek: Picard trapped in a tractor beam. Narissa holds them captive in the hopes of locating Picard, but when Narek has a ship ready to follow them, Narissa lets La Sirena go.

Rios and Raffi try every trick in the book, but Narek keeps finding them. Meanwhile, Jurati is jittery and sick with fear – realizing that she’s the reason La Sirena is being pursued. She can’t reveal to Rios and Raffi why she doesn’t want to rendezvous with Picard, but Jurati’s behavior has Rios and Raffi worried.

Raffi takes her aside to cheer her up, wondering if the sudden death of Maddox is playing on Jurati’s mind. It isn’t. When Jurati doesn’t seem to be getting any better, Rios takes her to the med bay. He sits her down and tells Jurati that he suspects Raffi is being tracked, which is why they can’t shake their tail. Now, Raffi confided in Rios about her estranged son in the previous episode, so one can assume that Rios is actually suspicious of Jurati’s erratic behavior and is plugging her for a confession. Jurati tells him that it’s not Raffi, but he doesn’t seem to believe her.

When Raffi calls Rios away because Narek is back, Jurati has to make a decision. She chooses to neutralize the tracker inside her and sends herself into a coma. The EMH isn’t able to stop her, but she succeeds in throwing Narek off La Sirena’s scent. Will Jurati live as Rios and Raffi finally reach Nepenthe?

Meeting Old Friends

We knew that Picard had a plan when he decided to teleport to Nepenthe. As we discover, his plan was to recoup with his former colleagues and close friends Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). You can see the absolute delight and the decades of history that these three share in every moment they spend together. Watching Sirtis is like stopping time – it’s almost as if she never stopped playing this character. Sirtis perfectly captures Troi’s iconic intonations and mannerisms. Frakes’ Riker is, at first instance, starkly different from the Will Riker we know. This Riker is so exuberant and peppy, but it’s all a façade to hide a much deeper pain.

Riker and Troi’s house looks like a homely wooden cottage, but it is chock-a-block with security. They want to do everything to protect their family, because they moved to Nepenthe to, ostensibly, save their first child. Thaddeus Troi Riker was the apple of his parent’s eye, but he was struck by a neurological disease.

The cure for the disease was simple, except it needed an active positronic matrix. Unfortunately, Thad’s condition was discovered after the ban on synths, which meant there were no matrices available. The first couple of Star Trek lost their first child because the Federation became xenophobic racists. This kind of writing hits you right in the feels. These are characters we grew up with and we’ve always wanted the best for them. But life isn’t full of roses, so these two beautiful happy characters, with a serene life, hide a great deal of heartache just to survive and make the best life for their surviving child.

Soji immediately connects with Troi and Riker’s daughter, Kestra – the child is precocious but kind and friendly. She wants Soji to fit in and trust Picard, because Kestra has only ever heard great things about this man. But Soji’s world has been turned upside down. She doesn’t know if she’s even real, forget the people around her. When Picard jokes that he and his friends are indeed tricking Soji, she angrily shoves him and walks away. Picard takes it on the chin, but Troi immediately chastises him for trivializing Soji’s trauma. Now you know how much Star Trek has grown up. Troi has never been this blunt with Picard, but it’s a good opportunity to remind Picard that he’s known for being kind, compassionate and gentle.

Picard respects Troi enough to take her advice on board and it works to ease Soji into trusting him. Soji tells them about her home planet and Kestra is able to locate it. With La Sirena arriving at Nepenthe, Picard and Soji now have another destination to head to. They have to save the other synths.

This episode was as close to what we expected from Star Trek: Picard as we hoped. Full of nostalgia but smart enough to have evolved beyond the dynamics of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Sirtis and Frakes were outstanding, as was Del Arco, whose gentle presence is going to be sorely missed on the show. After such a rough start, I had written the show off as a lost cause. The last three episodes have been so much better, but are the showrunners making hopeful fools out of us all?