Star Trek: Picard season one, episode 8 recap: Broken Pieces

And Then There Were More

Rios has a hand-drawn sketch of himself with Jana. It was created by Beautiful Flower and Jana was a replica of Soji. Interestingly, we don’t know what Beautiful Flower looked like but the assumption is that he was a bit older than Soji. Could Beautiful Flower have been another version of Data?

These synths were created before Bruce Maddox arrived. He fled to the Vayt system after the Daystrom’s synth experiments were shut down and continued the work. Is he the man Soji believed to be her father? We still have so many questions and there are only two episodes left in this season.

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Soji remembers details when they present themselves, and she recalls her brother and sister Beautiful Flower and Jana. She knows she has to avenge them and save whoever remains in the Vayt system – her home. First, the crew needs to make sure that she isn’t killed by their resident Romulan spy.

Soji as a character has no personality and is little more than a plot device at this point. If she sticks around beyond the first season, the writers are going to have to work harder at making this character come alive. Funny how the Star Trek: The Next Generation writers didn’t have to struggle half as hard when it came to giving Data some personality.

As if Soji’s lack of screen presence isn’t bad enough, Agnes Jurati remains the weakest link on the show. She’s a character we’ve been told is a foremost expert, but Jurati simply plays 20 questions with Soji to learn more about her as a person, than delve any deeper into how she was created or what makes her ‘a work of art’. Talk about superficial – the writers aren’t even trying to make these female characters three-dimensional.

It’s understandable that Jurati’s murdering days are over, but one has to wonder if Picard is in his right mind. He reprimands Jurati for her actions and then leaves her alone with the person she was sent to kill. I’m sorry, what? What would have happened if Jurati hadn’t had a change of heart? Or, if Jurati had been written better, she could have found Soji’s kill switch and ta-da, that would have meant the end of the show.

That doesn’t happen. Instead, Soji takes over the ship and guides them through a Borg transwarp conduit to her home. As La Sirena enters the Vayt System, Narek’s ship decloaks and follows them.

Final Thoughts

Star Trek: Picard has improved in many aspects, but there are so many instances of lazy writing. You can’t move from plot point to plot point, the preamble needs to make sense.

Speaking of women characters, do we have to sit through another episode where Raffi only provides exposition and has no character growth? Michelle Hurd plays the character with aplomb, but she might as well be a computer.

Raffi knew from the start that the Romulans were behind the synth attack on Mars, but we all know that is not going to make much of an impact on the story. This character deserves so much better. At least Narissa was awesome, but she’s unlikely to last this season.

This episode shone a spotlight on Santiago Cabrera, and it definitely benefited from the lack of Narek. But this show has to work so much harder on doing right by its women characters.

What did you think of the latest episode of Stark Trek: Picard? What are you hoping for in the next episode? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!