WiC Watches: Star Trek: Picard
Pictured (l-r): Patrick Stewart as Picard; Michelle Hurd as Raffi of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Episode 102, “Maps and Legends”
Picard continues to look into Dahj’s death and whether she has a twin sister somewhere. Along the way, he finds out all about the Romulan Gestapo called the Zhat Vash, a thousands-of-years-old top-secret organization filled with deadly assassins who really hate synthetic beings like Data. Apparently, the Zhat Vash has the capability to scrub away all trace of their existence, and they’re very efficient at their job.
The episode opens on the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars, right before it was attacked and destroyed by rogue synthetics. We’re shown a synthetic named F8 who works with the humans and other species there. F8 is, as one might expect, robotic and analytical, taking everything said by its co-workers at face value.
Skip ahead to lunch break, and for some unknown reason F8 bugs out and kills everyone in the lunchroom. He drops the shipyard’s defenses, thus allowing warships in to destroy everything in their paths. Now we know why everyone hates androids…it’s literally like the plot of Westworld season 2.
Pictured(l-r): Orla Brady as Laris; Jamie McShane as Zhaban; Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard; of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Meanwhile, Jean-Luc meets with an old doctor pal of his at his vineyard and is told he has some sort of brain tumor and doesn’t have long to live. I’m sure Picard’s tumor will get sorted out somehow before the end of season 1, unless they want season 2 to be about him finding a good space hospice.
Picard wants his friend to give him a medical clearance to take on another mission for Starfleet, and he does. However, when Picard goes to Starfleet headquarters, he’s met with hostility from an old colleague who didn’t appreciate the way he slammed the Federation in the premiere. Official permission is denied, so Jean-Luc has to find his own ship and crew. He starts by meeting with Raffi (Michelle Hurd), who lives in a silver camper in the desert.
Pictured (l-r): Harry Treadaway as Narek; Isa Briones of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: PICARD. Photo Cr: Trae Patton/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
At the Romulan reclamation site aboard the now-dead-but-still-ominous and terrifying Borg ship, Soji — Dahj’s twin — and Narek (Harry Treadaway) are shown in a post-coital embrace. It’s clear that Narek is there on behalf of the Zhat Vash in order to assassinate Soji, but for some reason, his method is to get into her pants before killing her.
A Romulan Commodore named Oh is told of Picard’s request to return to Starfleet for one last mission. She calls a member of the Zhat Vash operating undercover as the human Lieutenant Rizzo to come in and speak with her. Once they’re alone, Oh berates Rizzo for not staying on mission and tells her to get Narek under control.
Rizzo then appears to Narek by holo-communicator as he works in his office on the Borg ship, and it’s revealed that he’s her brother. I guess the Zhat Vash as an organization doesn’t have a problem with nepotism, but hating inanimate objects like androids is all wrong. Priorities, people.
Anyway, Rizzo warns Narek that if he does not persuade Soji to reveal the location of the “nest” where her synthetic siblings are hiding, she’ll have to come to the Borg ship and handle things herself.
“Maps and Legends” was a good episode that expanded the story and gave us a clear reason why the Romulans — and really, all of Starfleet — hate the synthetics. The Romulans were blamed for the attack that was carried out by the synthetics, forcing the Federation to abandon them to their home planet of Romulus before it imploded and was destroyed.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Star Trek: Picard, but it lacks the fun and exciting missions taken on by its sister-show, Star Trek: Discovery. Let’s hope the action gets turned up a notch or three in the next episode.