Star Trek: Picard “Assimilation” Goes Back to the Future
It’s Star Trek: Picard time! Time to go to the past to repair the present. It’s just like that movie where they have to get back to the future. What’s it called again? Oh, right. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
When last we left the crew of the La Sirena, they were trapped in an alternate, fascist timeline. Thanks, Q! Everyone in this world is very evil as is evidenced by their high collars. High collars: they’re like arched eyebrows for your neck!
Picard et al nab the Borg Queen (no legs attached). However, once they’re on La Sirena, Seven of Nine’s tiny husband man and his squad attack. Elnor is wounded in the process. You won’t believe what happens next! Please understand: you already know exactly what happens next.
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To Boldly Recap
“Assimilation” picks up right where “Penance” left off. As you might expect, the Confederate soldiers are dispatched (read: vaporized) quickly. As you also likely expected, the Borg Queen takes over La Sirena before hurtling her and her crew back in time to 2024.
What you might not expect is that Elnor dies in the process, and, yes that appears to be a definitive death. Yes, the Borg Queen uses up too much power traveling through time and has to power down. Power is diverted from the med bay and Elnor just… dies. For now, at least! This is still a time travel season, after all.
From there we have three branching plots but they all involve figuring out where this “Watcher” the Borg Queen mentioned is. The crew splits up with Rios, Seven, and Raffi all heading to Earth while Agnes and Picard stay on the ship.
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A Three Plot Meal
Plot the first involves Rios getting transported three stories up and collapsing face first into some concrete. Ouch! Learn how to transport, Jurati! Rios winds up at a clinic run by a woman named Teresa. The good news is that she patches people up who want to stay off the grid. The bad news is that ISIS shows up and cuffs both Rios and Teresa.
Plot the second involves Seven and Raffi trying to get a signal for the Watcher. They pretend to be a couple while Seven enjoys not having Borg implants. It’s a date. Their plot is a date.
Plot the third involves Jurati allowing part of her mind to be assimilated by the Borg Queen. The plan is to quickly repair the Borg Queen and also made pump her for some info. Yes, it’s a terrible plan. Yes, it totally works anyway.
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To Boldly Review
Unlike the previous two Star Trek: Picard episodes, “Assimilation” is a little light on plot. But that’s okay! We already have two episodes of info crunch, making “Assimilation” a breather episode.
Let’s get this out of the way: I’m so good with Elnor being dead. I doubt very much Elnor will stay dead, but he’d likely be dead weight for this segment of the story. No Elnor means more time for Raffi and Seven to flourish. And no Elnor also means an opportunity for Rios to fall in love in the past. Classic time travel shenanigans.
Jurati passively getting assimilated on purpose by the Borg Queen is silly, but not without precedent. After all, Captain Janeway allowed herself to be assimilated along with Tuvok and B’Elanna in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Dark Frontier”.
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Change the Past? In This Economy?
There’s something (I think) the writers are doing with “Assimilation” which I like a lot. There’s a heavy leaning on Seven being happy without her Borg implants. If the past is fixed and they go back, Seven goes back to being a Borg. And that’s a big reason for Seven to not want to leave 2024. Counterpoint: Raffi lost Elnor and so she’s heavily fixated on changing time and going home.
And then there’s Rios who is absolutely getting a “City on the Edge of Forever” storyline, right? Rios is obviously falling in love with Teresa already and so he’s going to want to change the timeline, right?
And while we’re questioning everyone’s future motivations, it feels pretty safe to say that the Borg Queen and Jurati are still connected. We’ve already heard a lot about how lonely Agnes is in any timeline. Could it be that Agnes and the Queen are headed towards an assimilation of their very own? Could be!
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Stray Observation Deck
This episode was directed by Lea Thompson. Most of you know her as Lorraine McFly from Back to the Future. And some of you know her as the lady who has sex with a mallard in Howard the Duck. Y’all people are weirdos. Regardless, it’s cool that someone from a staple time travel movie is covering a time travel story for Star Trek.
Speaking of time travel, the scene where the crew travels back to the past is an Easter Egg in and of itself. The camera focuses on the faces of the crew which is a direct reference to the time travel sequence from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. And that’s neat!
“This is the only kind of life you understand. Shall we see what else has been lost in the wake of your fear?” That’s the one and only line Q has this episode. But my question isn’t what does this line mean? My question is, why can only Picard see Q? Is it the usual nonsense, or is something else going on? Does Q have to expend energy to be perceived?
Did you know the 2020s are bad? Bold claim, Star Trek: Picard! There’s a point where Raffi wonders how a civilization of such contradictions didn’t collapse sooner. This acts as a counterpoint to a conversation between Julian Bashir and Ben Sisko in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Past Tense”. “Causing people to suffer because you hate them is terrible,” says Bashir. “But causing people to suffer because you have forgotten how to care, that’s really hard to understand.”
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Questions, Queries, Quibbles
We’re fully ingratiated in the past, but what’s next? Now that we’re in the 2020s, how long before we meet the Watcher and will they be someone we know already? We heard Agnes say the word “watcher,” but we also heard her utter the number fifteen. Does the number relate to the Watcher, and, if not, what does it relate with? We know that characters like Soji and Laris are both set to return, but how and when will that happen? As for Agnes, is she the future vessel of the Borg Queen or is her speed running in a red dress just a clever reference to The Matrix? Tell us what you think will happen next!
Until then, this is your humble recapper signing off. Computer: end program.
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