Picard - Absolute Candor

While we do not typically write reviews of Star Trek episodes I felt I had to with this latest episode of Picard. There are four lights! I mean actually there are two reasons why I have suddenly felt compelled to write something new after almost six months from the blog. Truth be told I have been writing, just not on the blog (my book is 2/3rd’s complete). I was suddenly stricken by something like the Flu after a recent trip to Detroit. Yes, I flew, No it's not the coronavirus. I used protection and had a lime with mine. Back to the point, I was too ill to discuss the show with the guys on the podcast and missed it dearly. The other reason is I listened to the podcast….

I don’t mean to make any slight, it was another great show! It was shorter than usual which means I must bloviate an awful lot more than I suspect. My point though is to go over a couple of things I saw in the episode that the guys missed. I have not seen or heard anyone else talk about it either so I must be a genius! (That's the meds talking) No doubt Denise is reading this right now and will find every instance where I spell there wrong, like right thier. I do know the difference between to and too, I just don’t care. 

The first thing I noticed was the the good Doctor Agnes Jurati has a knack for showing up at the exact right time. She has done this several times now it is becoming more and more obvious each time she does it. The other members of the crew and even Picard's body guards don’t seem to notice. Only Raffi seems to care, but only for a second before she goes back to the snake weed. She shows up at the Chateau at the perfect time to kill that last member of the shot glass assault team (I know is Zhat Vash). Which given how she is so timid and squeamish with everything else, wouldn’t she run screaming the other direction? Then in this episode she walks into Picard's office (Don’t you love how JL just takes over the place everywhere he goes? The sheer fucking hubris right?) and just says, hey, you guys were talking without me, hard to spy that way you know? Now I am not of the conspiracy group that says she's an organic synth. Nor do I believe that she is working for CSI:SF, I mean the Vulcan, I mean the Romulan possing as a Vulcan who is too stupid to remember that Vulcans have second eyelids that means they don’t need sunglasses. I actually think Commander O is cool, I also don’t mind the sunglasses really, why does everyone else? You just wish you were as perky as those ears. No I think the good doctor is just hiding something. She knows a lot more than she is leading on. That whole conversation with the pilot, Rio, you know the guy that is making every trekkie girl out there swoon already…(he’s okay I guess) was odd. Are we really suppose to believe she has never been in space? I mean people can transport from one planet to…. Rule Number One on this blog, we never speak of the JJ Verse Transporters. Rule number two, refer to the oldest cliche in the book, which is to refer to rule number one. However you want to look at it, she's shifty in some way. Either it's a big secret like she made all the organic synths and killed Maddox a long time ago (reference her ease of use with a romulan disrupter) or she helped. I don’t think she is a synth, that would be too easy. I hate saying this but, the writers just are not that lazy, stupid at times but not lazy.

The other thing I noticed which is a small thing but also a big thing has to deal with Picard himself. I don’t know about you but I imagine the “safari” Picard dolls (action figures) will be huge this year. He goes to see the Clippity Clop (Qowat Milat) to hire an assassin. Sorry JL you can smooth grandpa talk all you want but your guilt tripping aka hiring an assassin. Only to find that Elnor is still there and also, in the past 14 years he has been training to be an assassin! JL didn’t know? He didn’t ever keep up with anyone? Now I know they make it seem like he simply walked away from everyone and everything. Even emphasizing it with his walking away while beaming up at the beginning of the episode. (Good pick up Dan, Daniel, your wrong). And perhaps he did walk away from everything, I mean they are doing a good job knocking Picard down a couple notches. Even letting someone give him a nickname of JL is a way of showing this. But I don’t believe for a second he thought he wouldn’t find him. Raffi even makes mention of this in his holo-office (damn I need one of those, imagine never physically leaving your house again, I wouldn’t have to get dressed and) before they get to the planet. The biggest point I have to make here is the 7 minutes of civil rights protest. You know when he has to wait for an opening in the planetary shield. I was waiting for a giant vacuum to show up and suck all the air from the planet. Anyway he isn’t just wasting his time. This is Jean Luc Picard, the man is smarter than that. He knows what it takes for a Clippity Clop to bind his sword to someone, it takes a hopeless cause. Picard trying to redeem himself and the federation to the Romulans only club, a former senator no less, is as hopeless as it gets. Either Elnor shows up and decides the old man is hopeless and helps or he doesn’t and he gets beamed up in the knick of time. That was his plan all along. He just didn’t expect Elnor to be so damned good with a blade. This is obvious by his reaction when they get on the ship. Also when he has to explain to Jurati who just has to be super noisy again he finely spills the beans about what it takes for a super secret women only Romulan sec of ninja nuns with one male to become a quol-un-kia it has to be a lost cause. (I have no idea how to spell that and google was no help, seriously you try it). So that was his plan all along albeit a desperate one, which fits. 

All that aside it was a great episode and you could tell it was directed by someone who has directed Trek in the past. Sure it jumps between a couple of different stories that have not completely crossed into each other yet, but it was far less jarring than the first three. Jonathan, glad to have you back man, we all missed you. 

I have two final comments on the episode - SEVEN! So it looks like she and Hugh will be larger characters in the story than even I suspected. WAY FREAKING COOL!

Secondly, did Rombda say Garmadon? Now I can only see the legendary warriors from Ninjago saving the day..