“Imposters” is a ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Episode Three Decades in the Making
Star Trek: Picard loves to look back. But “Imposters” is more than a continuity bomb, it’s a follow up to one of Picard’s greatest losses.
Previously on Star Trek: Picard, the crew of the Titan escapes from a gravity well full of alien babies. Picard and Jack have a heart-to-heart. Riker gets his mojo back. And the team at least temporarily outwits Captain Vadic and the Shrike. It’s a real victory! But victories don’t last.
“Imposters” picks up immediately after the events of the last episode. Riker gives command of the Titan back to Shaw. Crusher heads to sickbay to scan the dead changeling and figure out what she can. And Shaw contacts Starfleet because he’s still mad.
Picard and Riker basically stole the Titan to get their friend back and pulled the entire crew into a deadly battle. I’m pretty sure that’s called treason! And it seems Starfleet agrees as we find our heroes awaiting judgment from a commander en route to them aboard the USS Intrepid.
But there’s a lot more to the story. Worf and Raffi are back in the mix. Jack is having more visions than ever. And the commander tasked with questioning Picard and Riker is an old familiar face with some treasonous history of her own–Ro Laren.
We’re going to recap fast and dirty because what really matters here is the review. Ready? Let’s go.
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To Boldly Recap “Imposters”
Ro Laren takes a shuttlecraft from the Intrepid to the Titan to interrogate Picard and Riker. Picard asks Seven to hide Jack. And when Picard finds out it’s Ro doing the questioning, he is furious.
If you don’t know, in the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Preemptive Strike” Picard asks Ro to go undercover and infiltrate the terrorist organization, the Maquis. The Maquis at the time were fighting off the Cardassian occupation of Bajoran space along with some other neighboring worlds. Ro, who is Bajoran, ultimately betrays Starfleet, quits her post, and joins the Maquis because she believes in what they are doing.
It turns out, Picard still feels very betrayed, even though it’s been nearly thirty years. So Picard and Ro trade barbs at each other. Ro wants to know why Picard commandeered the Titan. Picard wants to know how Ro got back into Starfleet. Things go nowhere fast, so Ro skips the pleasantries and demands to see the dead changeling’s body.
Fun fact: Beverly discovers that the changelings can imitate solid flesh a lot better now and so a regular scan won’t detect them. In other words: Ro may be a changeling in disguise. Beverly relays that information as Ro pulls Picard into the holodeck.
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Broken Hearts
Ro and Picard pull phasers on each other. And then they have a fight for the ages. Picard tells Ro how she failed him, failed Starfleet, and how she is utterly dishonorable. Ro doesn’t have her Bajoran earring on and Picard basically accuses her of abandoning her faith on top of everything else.
Ro fires back that Picard doesn’t understand honor because he too blindly worships the institution of Starfleet. She says Picard failed her by not being able to understand why asking her to betray her own people was too much.
Exhausted, they admit they are both heartbroken. And at that moment they begin to trust one another.
So Ro lays it all out. Starfleet is compromised, all the way up to the top. There are changelings on every ship and no one will listen. Not only that, but something is happening with Frontier Day. Security clearance is so high she can’t find out anything about what’s really going on that day–she just knows it’s bad. Also, Starfleet wants her to bring in Jack above all–but she’s not going to.
Fortunately, Ro has these two agents in the field trying to figure out what’s going on. Guess who!
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Worf and Raffi Are Also in “Imposters”
In what is the most “okay let’s wrap things up” plot this season, Raffi and Worf go back to District 6 AGAIN to hunt down a Vulcan mobster named Krinn. Apparently, Krinn knows how they can get into Daystrom station.
Things go topsy turvy. Krinn knows Worf and Raffi are coming. Krinn traps the pair and forces them to fight each other to the death to decide who lives. Raffi “kills” Worf. But, to absolutely no one’s surprise, it was actually Raffi and Worf who were one step ahead the whole time.
Worf and Raffi take out Krinn’s team. Krinn explains that there’s an AI on Daystrom that is complex and weird and impossible to get beyond–unless you have a hack. Guess who has a hack? Krinn. It’s Krinn. Long story short, Krinn hands his encryption over to Worf and Raffi.
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Between a Ro and a Hard Place
With most of the Titan crew beamed over to the Intrepid, Ro tells Picard that he and the Titan have to run. They have to find out what’s really going on. Ro heads back to the Intrepid, but before she does she gives Picard something: her Bajoran earring.
What Ro does not realize is that her security detail are both changelings. They plant a bomb on her shuttlecraft, beam back to the Titan, and shift shape to fit in on the ship.
Ro, with no choice left, sacrifices herself by flying her doomed shuttle into the Intrepid’s port nacelle. The changelings aboard the Intrepid try to frame the crew of the Titan for what’s happened, forcing the Titan to retreat.
Picard is beside himself. He confesses to Riker that he didn’t realize until it was too late that he always saw Ro as his surrogate child. On Ro’s earring is a data chip with her entire investigation thus far. As Picard and Riker sift through the data, the chip receives an encrypted message from Worf.
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Jack is Also in “Imposters”
All throughout the episode, we see Jack having terrible visions. First, he slaughters the entire bridge crew. Then he kills a bunch of people in the transporter room. Neither of those events actually happens, but it’s clear that reality and visions are tearing Jack apart.
Then, Jack runs into FOUR shapeshifters on the Titan who want to take him away. Something triggers inside Jack, he sees some visions and proceeds to kill all the changelings without breaking a sweat. In all of these instances, we see a red ring around Jack’s eyes. And he hears things like “Jack come home” and “Connect us”.
Finally, Jack talks to Beverly about what’s going on. Beverly tells Jack that he also had nightmares like this when he was a child–a fact Jack does not recall. Jack admits to Beverly that he didn’t actually know the people he killed were shapeshifters as the fight was happening. Jack tells Beverly that he thinks something is very, very wrong with him. Hard agree, Jack!
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To Boldly Review “Imposters”
How much is a legacy show beholden to new viewers? How you answer that question is directly tied to how you’ll feel about the quality of “Imposters”. Personally, I believe that, so long as a story provides basic context clues it is okay to dive deep into the lore.
That being said, “Imposters” is, for me, the best episode of the season so far. And that boils down to one thing: Ro Laren. Of all the characters from TNG past I hoped would return, Ro was always number one on my list. But I didn’t dare hope she’d actually turn up. After all, Michelle Forbes famously turned down the chance to star on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine because she didn’t want to get bogged down only playing one role.
The entire behind-the-scenes reason Ro quits Starfleet and joins the Maquis is basically to write her out of Star Trek indefinitely. But while there’s a non-story reason for why Ro winds up where she does, I’ve always considered “Preemptive Strike” to be one of the best, unsung episodes of all Trek. There’s something so tragic but right about Ro ditching Picard and taking up arms against the Cardassians with the Maquis.
But as final as that story was, I always wondered what would happen if Picard and Ro ever crossed paths again.
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Ro’s Final Farewell
Back on the Enterprise D, the entire crew always followed Picard’s orders more or less no matter what. But not Ro Laren. That’s what makes her special. She’s able to cross swords with Picard and challenge him in ways few can. And in “Imposters” she does that again, but better than ever before.
Patrick Stewart and Michelle Forbes give the most heartbreaking performances. Every line resonates so profoundly. The anger of two people who feel the other betrayed them. The sorrow at having failed one another. Ro Laren is hard as nails, but that’s only because she doesn’t think anyone will really see her. Picard is hard as nails because he believes he has to be in order to stay sharp and always do the right thing.
Both Ro and Picard are incredibly vulnerable people unable to show it. In “Imposters” they finally do show each other how deep their feelings go–but it’s too late. Ro Laren’s death has a weight and a tension that few character deaths on television possess.
When she dies, Picard loses a woman he’s only just realized is like a daughter to him. And Ro is also the one who’s been doing all the work to figure out what’s going on with the changelings and Frontier Day. So now the Titan and her crew are in deep trouble.
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And Also Other Things Happen
The only real flaw in “Imposters” is that nothing else is going to touch the Ro and Picard scenes. That being said, Worf and Raffi do just fine. The only real flaw in their scenes is that they keep going back to the same place and it’s impossible to avoid the fact that they’re trying to save money by reusing sets.
So help me, though, but the stuff with Jack this week is actually pretty darn good. As much as I hate a mystery box, they sell it really well this time. Whether or not it’ll retroactively be silly and pointless is unknown. For now, I’m just grateful that Jack’s way of dealing with the abject terror brought on by my horrifying visions is to TELL SOMEONE. Seriously, just knowing that Beverly and Jack are going to work the problem together instantly improves the entire affair enormously.
Honestly, though, the best non-Ro part of the episode was Shaw’s giddy humming as he waits for Starfleet to come and spank Picard and Riker. Shaw is such a bastard. I love him.
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Stray Observation Deck
There’s not a ton to report, if only because so many of the Easter eggs are directly baked into the story. But Worf does utter one of his most famous lines: “today is a good day to die”. And, yes, in continuity Ro does demand she is allowed to wear her Bajoran earring in the TNG episode “Ensign Ro”.
But, again, all the fun Easter eggs come through Shaw. After Picard points out that Starfleet should be chill considering all the times Riker and Picard saved the universe, Shaw lays them out.
First Shaw brings up the time the Enterprise D’s saucer section wound up crashing on Veridian III–that’s a reference to Star Trek: Generations. Then he calls out that time Picard breaks the Prime Directive by making out with a nice Ba’ku lady in Star Trek: Insurrection. And then, to finish off, Shaw reads them to filth for that time Picard nearly undoes the entire universe by creating an anti-time spatial anomaly in the Devron system–which is from the TNG finale “All Good Things…”
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Questions, Queries, Quibbles
One assumes that Worf and Raffi meet up with the Titan in the next episode, right? Their side quest is officially out of steam. Also, are we really buying a Vulcan who thinks crime is logical? I guess Vulcans really can lie–if the person they’re lying to is themselves! Also, we all saw that same image from the Daystrom station, right? Where it looked like there was a person-shaped alcove? Maybe that’s where Lore used to be and the changelings stole him?
Obviously, most of the questions are still about Jack, though. Are his eyes actually turning red or is that part of the vision? And is Jack secretly a changeling but he forgot? Kinda seems like it, right? Or maybe he’s also an android? jack does get “activated’ in that fight scene much in the way Daj and Soji did in Star Trek: Picard season one.
And what gives with the changelings? Suddenly they’re all flesh and blood? I’ll tell you what I think–I think that’s darn suspicious! Must be some kind of conspiracy. Or, and stick with me for this one, maybe this is going to circle all the way back to the weird bug aliens from the ‘TNG’ season one episode “Conspiracy”!
Balls are in the air. Most of them are even interesting! Let’s call this a win.
5/5 stars
