The dynamic between Stewart and his old friends, Frakes and Sirtis, super-charges this episode. Sirtis’ first scene is simply beautiful as Troi’s empathic abilities enable her to wordlessly understand not just that Picard is in trouble, but that he is gravely ill as well. It’s never said out loud in the scene, but we know exactly what is going on. And Riker, despite having no Betazoid powers, can also read much of what’s happening with his old captain without a word being said. They just know each other that well. And yet, as much as Troi and Riker want to help Picard, there’s only so far they can go now. They have Kestra to worry about as well. “I’m not as brave as I used to be,” Deanna tells Jean-Luc.
There’s a familiarity between these three characters now that was rarely seen on Next Generation, with hugs and embraces and shoulder pats and all the rest of it. I completely buy that they would’ve reached this point by now, and I love it.
Also terrific is the B-story with the unlikely pairing of Jonathan Del Arco’s Hugh and Evan Evagora’s Elnor, who are attempting to stoke a rebellion from inside the Borg Artifact. That Hugh doesn’t survive the first day of this uprising was perhaps inevitable -- this show is happy to kill off supporting characters for the emotional gain of its lead cast -- but it works, as the former Borg drone has maybe, just maybe, never lived as much as he did in those final moments with Elnor. “I was that much of a hopeful fool again for a minute… thanks for that,” he says with his final breath. His death scene is the stuff that inspires fan fiction the world over, and both Del Arco and Evagora sell it in spades.
And then we have another B-story (I’m not sure that either of these count as C-stories) over on La Sirena with Rios, Raffi, and Agnes trying to shake the in-pursuit puzzle boy Narek, even while Agnes winds up attempting suicide because of what she did to Maddox… and perhaps also because of what we now know Commodore Oh showed her back on Earth. (Suicide in Roddenberry’s perfect Federation? Whoa.) The episode opens with another flashback to that meeting, depicting the Vulcan mind meld that Oh performed on Agnes… which apparently indicated that the world will end if the synths are allowed to “live.” How or why that would come to be remains a mystery. But the question for the comatose Agnes is now whether or not that knowledge is enough to give the character a pass for the murder she committed?
There’s a familiarity between these three characters now that was rarely seen on Next Generation, with hugs and embraces and shoulder pats and all the rest of it. I completely buy that they would’ve reached this point by now, and I love it.
Also terrific is the B-story with the unlikely pairing of Jonathan Del Arco’s Hugh and Evan Evagora’s Elnor, who are attempting to stoke a rebellion from inside the Borg Artifact. That Hugh doesn’t survive the first day of this uprising was perhaps inevitable -- this show is happy to kill off supporting characters for the emotional gain of its lead cast -- but it works, as the former Borg drone has maybe, just maybe, never lived as much as he did in those final moments with Elnor. “I was that much of a hopeful fool again for a minute… thanks for that,” he says with his final breath. His death scene is the stuff that inspires fan fiction the world over, and both Del Arco and Evagora sell it in spades.
And then we have another B-story (I’m not sure that either of these count as C-stories) over on La Sirena with Rios, Raffi, and Agnes trying to shake the in-pursuit puzzle boy Narek, even while Agnes winds up attempting suicide because of what she did to Maddox… and perhaps also because of what we now know Commodore Oh showed her back on Earth. (Suicide in Roddenberry’s perfect Federation? Whoa.) The episode opens with another flashback to that meeting, depicting the Vulcan mind meld that Oh performed on Agnes… which apparently indicated that the world will end if the synths are allowed to “live.” How or why that would come to be remains a mystery. But the question for the comatose Agnes is now whether or not that knowledge is enough to give the character a pass for the murder she committed?
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