star trek picard s2 e7 cast

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Star trek: picard season 2 cast guide: all new & returning characters.

Star Trek: Picard season 2 reunites Patrick Stewart with his season 1 cast. Here's who else from TNG is part of Jean-Luc's new time travel adventure.

The cast of Star Trek: Picard is back for season 2 and they're joined by some familiar faces from Star Trek: The Next Generation . In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Jean-Luc Picard faces an alternate reality created by his old nemesis, Q (John de Lancie) . Jean-Luc and his friends must time travel back to set the timeline right while Picard himself faces "the road not taken" and is forced to confront the choices he's made in his life.

Star Trek: Picard season 1 introduced many new characters who comprised Jean-Luc's new "motley crew." Although familiar faces from TNG like Data (Brent Spiner), Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), and Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) appeared in season 1, Star Trek: Picard 's focus was on the eclectic new cast who joined with the retired Admiral Picard in this late stage of his life. Further, Star Trek: Picard was also a Trekkers' dream crossover because Star Trek: Voyager 's Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) also joined the cast, and she remains a major part of Star Trek: Picard season 2. Together, Picard and his new friends saved the galaxy from Romulans and synthetic beings from beyond the galaxy.

Related: Discovery Reveals What Happened To Q In Star Trek's 32nd Century

Going into season 2, which is set a year and a half after season 1, the characters of Star Trek: Picard are now in new and better places in their lives. However, Picard's contentment is disrupted by the return of Q, which sets off this bold new adventure. Here's who's back and who's joining Star Trek: Picard season 2.

Star Trek: Picard Season 2's Returning Characters

Patrick stewart as jean-luc picard.

Admiral Jean-Luc Picard goes on an inner journey in season 2 where the Starfleet legend faces key questions he has avoided all of his life. Meanwhile, Picard and his friends must save the timeline after it was changed by Q, whose meddling created a new reality where the United Federation of Planets is a fascist regime. Sir Patrick Stewart is best known for starring in Star Trek: The Next Generation and for playing Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies.

Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine (real name Annika Hansen) remains a member of the Fenris Rangers and still protects the galaxy, but she faces a stark new reality after Q changes the timeline. Seven and Raffi Musiker also have to work out their romantic relationship. Jeri Ryan played Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager and she's also known for starring in Boston Public .

Alison Pill as Dr. Agnes Jurati

Dr. Agnes Jurai is one of the Federation's foremost experts on synthetic lifeforms. In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Agnes has been cleared of the murder of her ex-lover, Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales) and she's now pursuing a rocky romance with Captain Cristobal Rios. Alison Pill is best known for her starring roles in The Pillars of the Earth , The Newsroom , and Devs .

Related: Picard Season 2 Can Rewrite A Star Trek: The Next Generation Relationship

Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker

Back in Starfleet, Commander Raffi Musiker is stationed on the USS Excelsior and she is watching over Starfleet Cadet Elnor in Star Trek: Picard season 2. Raffi remains one of Jean-Luc Picard's most trusted friends and she wishes she and Seven of Nine could sort out their romantic relationship. Michelle Hurd starred in Ash vs. Evil Dead , Daredevil , and Blindspot .

Santiago Cabrera as Cristobal Rios

Cristobal Rios has given up his starship, La Sirena, and returned to Starfleet where he was promoted as the new Captain of the USS Stargazer . Rios is carrying on Captain Picard's legacy while also dealing with his on-again, off-again romance with Dr. Agnes Jurati. Santiago Cabrera starred in Heroes , Merlin , and The Musketeers .

Isa Briones as Soji

Soji discovered she was the android daughter of the late Commander Data (Brent Spiner) in Star Trek: Picard season 1. Now a free citizen of the Federation, Soji travels the galaxy as an ambassador for her synthetic race. Prior to starring in Star Trek: Picard , Isa Briones was the youngest member of the first touring company of Hamilton .

Evan Evagora as Elnor

Elnor is now a Starfleet Academy Cadet in Star Trek: Picard season 2, although his new mentor Raffi worries that the Romulan Qowat Milat 's "absolute candor" will get him into trouble. Evan Evagora has starred in Secret City and Fantasy Island .

Related: Why Star Trek: Discovery Is Doing Romulan Warrior Nuns Better Than Picard

Orla Brady as Laris

Laris remains at Chateau Picard and helps Jean-Luc oversee his family's vineyard. However, Laris and Picard have grown closer, which creates new complications in their relationship. Orla Brady is known for starring in Doctor Who , Collateral , and American Horror Story: 1984 .

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 New Characters

John de lancie as q.

Q has been a thorn in Jean-Luc Picard's side since the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation . The omnipotent member of the Q Continuum suddenly returns to torment Jean-Luc in Star Trek: Picard season 2, but Q has also changed and is hiding his own secrets. John de Lancie is famed for his roles in Breaking Bad , Stargate SG-1 , and Torchwood.

Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan

In Star Trek: Picard season 2, Guinan has set up a new establishment on Earth but the eternally wise El-Aurian bartender remains one of Jean-Luc Picard's dearest friends. Guinan is back to dispense sage advice to Picard, whether he wants to hear it or not. Academy Award-winner Whoopi Goldberg is the host of The View and had lauded starring roles in The Color Purple, Sister Act, and Ghost.

Annie Wersching as The Borg Queen

The ruler of the Borg, the Federation's greatest enemies, the Borg Queen returns to torment Jean-Luc Picard and the Federation but her ultimate victory is marred by Q's interference in changing the timeline. Taking over the role from Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson, Annie Wersching is best known for starring in 24 and Marvel's Runaways .

Related: Star Trek's Original Borg Queen Returns (& Why There's A New One)

Brent Spiner as ??? Soong -  After saying goodbye to his iconic character, Data, Brent Spiner returns as a mystery character in Star Trek: Picard season 2, who is likely yet another member of the Soong family. Spiner previously played Altan Inigo Soong in Star Trek: Picard season 1 and he's also known for starring in Independence Day , The Blacklist , and Ray Donovan .

Jon Jon Briones as The Magistrate -  A new character in Star Trek: Picard season 2, the Magistrate is a powerful figure in the alternate reality created by Q. Jon Jon Briones has appeared in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse , and he's the father of Isa Briones, who plays Soji on Star Trek: Picard .

Next: What To Expect From Star Trek: Picard Season 2

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 7, "Monsters," Recap & Spoilers

Star Trek: Picard dives into the dark side of Jean-Luc's psyche in an episode that's mostly inside his mind. Here's a spoiler-filled recap.

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 7, "Monsters" streaming now on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 takes the opportunity to delve into the mind of its stoic protagonist , exploring the unresolved trauma and repressed memories that Jean-Luc has held ever since he was a child. The latest episode isn't just a scenic stroll down memory lane --- the mental expedition undertaken by the Gary Seven-esque Watcher Tallinn is to help Picard emerge from a coma after he was struck by a car driven by Q's conniving accomplice Adam Soong . And while Picard's friends are preoccupied with rescuing their admiral, Agnes Jurati is steadily being assimilated by the Borg Queen lurking in her psyche .

Picard imagines a conversation with a psychologist, with Picard as the subject of an extended psychiatric evaluation. Uncomfortable with the nature of the discussion, Picard is prompted to recall a childhood story and recounts a memory of his mother back at the family vineyard, using a fairytale as an allegory to discuss his own connection to the story. As the young Picard expresses a desire to be more like his mother than his father, it's clear that his childhood is far from an idyllic one.

RELATED: Spock Finally Gets a First Name in Star Trek Canon - and It's One Fans May Recognize

Tallinn finds Picard's mind to be a dark, ominous place resembling a dungeon as Picard's dark thoughts and memories echo through its halls. As Tallinn finds the mental projection of Picard as a child, the sound of a lumbering enemy drives the two into hiding before it attacks Tallinn. After Teresa returns to her clinic and stabilizes Picard's condition, Tallinn and the young Picard encounter his present-day mental projection of himself.

Picard realizes his imagined psychologist is actually a projection of his father, with Picard recalling just how cruel his father was to his mother, breaking her spirit through his abusive treatment of her. Picard's lifelong repressed memory is finally revealed: Picard's mother experienced manic episodes that required her to be locked away during Picard's formative years. The subsequent pain is something that has driven Picard forward ever since, including into his career with Starfleet, which he sees as a way to save others when he couldn't save his mother.

RELATED: Chris Pine Is Right, Star Trek Isn't Marvel - But Then How Can It Survive in Theaters?

As Picard and Tallinn awaken, Tallinn realizes there is more to Picard's unhappy memories but this is interrupted by their restored lucidity. After explaining to Teresa and her son who he really is, Rios takes the two on for a personal tour of La Sirena to convince them both he is telling the truth as he grows closer to her. Tallinn confesses to Picard that she is actually a Romulan and has concealed her true appearance all along, with Picard theorizing she may be Laris' ancestor as he contemplates Q's next move. He realizes that Q's trial is just as personal for Q as it is for him, and seeks out Guinan's help to contact the Q Continuum.

Elsewhere in the episode, Raffi and Seven of Nine return to La Sirena and are shocked to discover its systems have been compromised by the Borg Queen before setting out to locate Jurati. As Seven and Raffi deduce the Borg Queen is attempting to completely assimilate Jurati's body before moving on to building the Borg Collective 21st century Earth, Guinan and Picard are busted by the Los Angeles Police. With Picard's teleportation into the city from La Sirena videotaped by security footage, he and Guinan become persons of extreme interest to the authorities... giving him another problem from the past to deal with.

Created by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Picard releases new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Star Trek: Picard Gets Lost in Its Hero's Head

"monsters" slams the brakes on the already subdued pace of picard season 2's back end, to half-grasp at the character behind picard's heroic persona..

The past few episodes of Star Trek: Picard have been a bit chaotic, but in a largely fun way — a little dash of the absurd to make the strange ideas it was hastily setting up in the background go down smoothly, so you could have a bit of a chuckle when that setup came crashing down in similarly absurd fashion. This week, however, got into a much messier kind of chaos.

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“Monsters” picks up, literally and proverbially, inside Jean-Luc’s head, after his dance with the vehicular devil in the pale moonlight last week saw him go into a Character Mandated Trauma Process Coma (tm, etc.). As Tallinn prepares to take a deep dive into Picard’s brain—sadly not even in a fun “Spock’s Brain” kind of way—it turns out that Jean-Luc’s quite good at doing that himself, conjuring up a faux, weirdly aggressive Starfleet therapist ( Battlestar Galactica ’s James Callis!) to have a very disastrous session with.

It’s here where things rapidly get messy. There’s a metaphor within a metaphor as the Starfleet therapy session dissolves into a fantasized memory world of Chateau Picard conjured by Picard at the behest of his therapist—with the child Jean-Luc and his mother extrapolated into a young prince and queen, escaping a shadowy monster—that we keep swapping between. On top of that, Callis’ therapist becomes a brief window for Picard to revert back to the type it tried in season one of the show: an interrogation of Picard’s image as this idealized leader of men, this Starfleet legend.

Here’s the thing though. Picard season one had an entire season of television to do that, and it still half-assed it to the point of giving up by the end, wholeheartedly embracing that idealized version of its title character. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, either—so far season two has largely been stronger because it just went with that flow, and took its big damn hero off on a big damn adventure . “Monsters” gives itself about half an hour to do a condensed version of all that critique, which largely boils down to Callis’ therapist poking at Picard that he likes to push people away from him, that he’s an uncaring leader, or that he’s brought into his own hype, only for Picard to in turn yell “NUH UH!!!” back. And, much like season one, it doesn’t go anywhere as we meander between the two vision worlds inside Picard’s mind, a mixed metaphor that only gets more mixed when Tallinn gets involved, tasking herself with guiding the younger Picard through processing his trauma and hopefully waking up OK on the other side.

In the end, that’s what he does, and that brief critique of his persona is largely left behind along the way, buried under one thing we already know, alluded to earlier on in the season—Picard is upset at the treatment of his mother by his father—and one thing that we didn’t: that his father (who turns out was indeed Callis’ character, the therapist a stand-in for Jean-Luc’s image of his father as an interrogative, standoffish figure) was struggling to protect his son and his wife from her traumatic mental health issues. And... that’s it? There’s a tiny little moment where Tallinn tells young Picard that one day he’ll use this trauma to help others, but that’s all you get. Picard wakes up the second this information is revealed, and promptly dusts himself off to get on with hunting down Q, deciding he’s spent quite enough time exploring his own interiority—once again, about 30 minutes of TV—and now it’s the turn of the most mysterious man in the Continuum to do so.

It feels very wasted, even if if the set up for a potentially surprisingly emotional “offensive,” as Jean-Luc puts it to Tallinn, is itself interesting. Especially so, considering that the other 15 minutes of “Monsters” after this are largely dedicated to once again splintering team Picard up into disparate groups. With Renée seemingly fine in quarantine—but with the threat of Soong and Q always present—Picard goes off to try and draw the omnipotent being out of hiding by teaming back up with young Guinan (the returning Ito Aghayere). Only, oh no, she’s being raided (?) by the FBI (??) because they have footage of Picard beaming down outside her bar the other day (???) and somehow knew he’d be there (????)!

Only, oh no-er! Seven and Agnes go back to La Sirena and find footage of a Borg-Queen-possessed Jurati assimilating the ship’s security systems, and then spend a few minutes looking at separate security footage outside a bar in LA of her smashing a window, which Seven surmises is the Queen releasing more endorphins to get even more control out of Jurati! Only, oh no- est ! Rios is getting even flirtier with Dr. Teresa and, in the space of about 30 seconds to help stabilize Picard during his coma, he decides to reveal that he’s not of her timeline, promptly ignoring all the warnings about doing so by just beaming Teresa and her kid back to the ship!

Okay maybe “the Borg Queen is trying to start a new empire in 2024 LA” was higher on the oh no list than that one, but it was still very silly, and it’s all the setup we get for these larger arcs that have to be resolved in the next three episodes, because so much of “Monsters” was wasted meandering around a half-hearted “deep” dive into Picard’s psyche to ready us for his Q confrontation. If the past few weeks of Picard were the good kind of chaos that kept you on your toes wondering what was going to happen next, “Monsters” was the inverse—and without the breathing room it previously had as the remaining episode count dwindles, the show doesn’t have nearly as much time as it needs to deal with all its myriad plot threads again. Hopefully with this half-hearted self-reflection out of the way, it can regain a bit of the focus its first half had going forward into the endgame... and a bit of that chaotic fun while it’s at it, too.

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Star trek: picard season 2 episode 7 review: monsters.

Let's get this straight. Despite the many tips of the hat to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine this season, that. is. not. Bashir.

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Episode 7 gets pretty in-depth and trippy as Tallinn forms a mechanically-assisted mind-meld with Picard in an effort to get him psychologically unstuck. It answers many questions but opens the door to some even trickier ones.

Meanwhile, on the outside, Rios makes a questionable decision around Dr. Teresa that culminate in flapping some ri-DONK-ulous butterfly wings when he takes her and her son on a field trip to La Sirena.

Yeah, so let's talk about that first.

Of the entire 24th century crew, Rios is the most enamored of 2024 Earth, with Seven living footloose and Borg implant-free as a close second.

He's in love with the food, the vibe, and the good doctor, Teresa Ramirez.

Rios: Who do you want me to be? Teresa: A good guy. Rios: I am, and if I wasn't, then I would become one right now. Permalink: I am, and if I wasn't, then I would become one right now.

So maybe 21st-century immigration policies and institutionalized racism take a little of the glamor off, but Rios is, for the most part, digging the old-school energy.

My theory is that his rough initial landing and shock-stick treatment by I.C.E. might've also scrambled his brains a bit.

Things escalate quickly at the clinic.

From borrowing some clothes out of the lost and found to providing her with future tech to stabilize Picard's neural network to transporting them all to La Sirena, it's an exponential increase in potential timeline implosion.

Dr. Ramirez: Are you from outer space? Rios: No, I'm from Chile. I just work in outer space. Permalink: No, I'm from Chile. I just work in outer space.

(Also, someone's going to have to explain to me how he managed a remote transport from Los Angeles to France with no com badge and no one at the controls.)

I'm also puzzled why Rios chose to take them away before knowing for certain if Picard and Tallinn survived their subconscious adventure.

And how did he know that he wasn't going to run into Seven and Raffi? This game of musical locations gets confusing at times.

Meanwhile, Seven and Raffi are looking for Jurati and finding the Borg queen instead.

I'm all for an endorphin rush, but I'm not sure breaking a window would've been my go-to in a seedy bar where music, alcohol, and unseemly company are easily accessible. But I've never been Borg, so what do I know?

I'll hand it to Alison Pill, though. She's getting to play with the full gamut of femme fatales this season. (And Jurati was a femme fatale in Star Trek: Picard Season 1 . Just ask Bruce Maddox. Oh, wait, you can't.)

From the start, her portrayal of the brilliant but neurotic and awkward Jurati has been so consistent and convincing that her transformation into Jurati-controlled-by-the-Borg-queen is remarkable.

Not sure if it's make-up and lighting magic, but I could swear the expression with which she susses out the dive bar is pure Annie Wersching.

(Also, did everyone know that the singer with the band is Sunny Ozell, Patrick Stewart's real-life wife? I sometimes wonder if Stewart and company don't view this series as their version of Clooney et al.'s Ocean's franchise -- an excuse to hang out with friends and get paid.)

And that brings us back to Picard's super-meta psych eval inside his own subconscious.

There's a lot of sci-fi Easter Egg value to having James Callis portray Picard's psychologist initially.

The true sovereign of nature. Giving life. Allowing life. And yet we know will be the thing that one day swallows us all. Therapist Permalink: The true sovereign of nature. Giving life. Allowing life. And yet we know will be the thing...

After all, when he played Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica , he spent a lot of time talking to Caprica Six in his head.

Additionally, his relations with Six, a Cylon (which is essentially BSG's version of a synth), led to the near destruction of humanity, something Picard (now a synth himself) spent last season trying to prevent.

It's also established canon that Baltar had a troubled relationship with his father, so when Picard's psychologist turns out to be his father, it's all a bit on the nose.

You lived longer than I did, but I got to keep my hair. Not exactly a fair trade, is it? Son. Maurice Picard Permalink: You lived longer than I did, but I got to keep my hair. Not exactly a fair trade, is it? Son.

But if we're going to get to the heart of the matter of Picard and his mother, it's only logical that his father must be the guide.

There's a lot to unpack in the scenes we witness in Picard's "story" of the red-haired queen and the boy prince.

The scenes in the conservatory are rich in fantastical detail. It's a style of imagery I can't recall ever seeing in Trek shows before.

The animation of the shadows and creatures in the paintings and the dread they instill reminds me of films like The NeverEnding Story and The Last Unicorn, where the implication of danger is enough to adrenalize a scene.

In a way, she did [know the future]. Like an animal, she could feel danger in her bones before anyone else in the room. Perhaps she was magic. Or that's what happens when you live in a world where monsters are real. Picard Permalink: In a way, she did . Like an animal, she could feel danger in her bones...

Picard's description of the queen, his mother, borders on high fantasy as well. She is larger than life, more than human, drawn from a boy's love for his mother and a man's need to hear his mother's love expressed unequivocally, an emotional comfort blanket that can never grow old or fade.

I want you to understand how deeply I love you. No matter what your life brings, if I know you forever, or if I know you for moments, in every breath, who you are is why I am so proud of you for becoming. Yvette Picard/Red-Haired Queen Permalink: I want you to understand how deeply I love you. No matter what your life brings, if I know...

Tallinn's intrusion brings about the confrontation between Picard and his father, which is the catalyst for the truth.

By helping the boy prince Picard work past his "stuck"ness, she forces him to progress further, into territory that is even more traumatic than being trapped in a dungeon for hours by himself.

Her reassurance and support help him knock down doors he is afraid to open.

Like Picard's therapist/psychologist, Tallinn insists the younger self be honest about himself.

Therapist: Ironic, isn't it? We're all here for you, Picard. Only you can stop it. Say something real. One real thing. Why do you think we're here? Picard: Because I'm stuck. Permalink: Because I'm stuck.

And while she realizes that there's more to Picard's trauma, he deflects and redirects to Q and how they can put Maman Picard's words to work.

In time, they would forget he was ever there, but they would never forget the lesson. There is no better teacher than one's enemy. Yvette Picard/Red-Haired Queen Permalink: In time, they would forget he was ever there, but they would never forget the lesson. There...

Am I the only one surprised by the FBI raiding Guinan's bar? I hope not. It seems incredibly out of left field.

It's interesting to note that Guinan's summoning ritual works about as well as Q's snap. They must be connected.

Also, where's Tallinn? Why didn't Picard take her with him to see Guinan? If Renée is in quarantine, Tallinn's pretty much on vacation until launch.

As a Watcher, you'd think she'd be aware of a team of feds infiltrating the bar. Just saying, it might've been useful bringing her along.

With Picard and Guinan in custody (and his com badge left behind at the bar) and Rios out in France with Teresa and her son, Seven and Raffi are on their own to track down (and subdue?) Borg queen Jurati.

Tall order but nothing like stopping an interdimensional annihilation by an A.I. invasion squad, so no problem, right?

To be fair, they had a Starfleet armada backing them up that last time.

But Jurati's not even a fully-formed queen yet. How much trouble could she cause?

How do you see that showdown going off? Will there be butterfly collateral shrapnel blasting a hole through downtown LA?

As we careen towards the season's end, our team is geographically separated and targetting three different mission goals. How do you see this dove-tailing for the finale?

Can Jurati come back from assimilation? Will she stress hormone the queen into submission?

Will Raffi and Seven get to trip those young 'uns with their canes?

Raffi: Look, if that whole thing starts up again, I quit the gang. No, seriously, I don't think I have it in me. Seven: [scoffs] Raffi: You and me? Now, see we're totally different. Our pain is beautiful and tragic and everyone loves hearing about it. Permalink: You and me? Now, see we're totally different. Our pain is beautiful and tragic and everyone...

Does Rios get a happily-ever-after?

Hit our comments with your best thoughts and theories!

Monsters Review

Diana Keng was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X .

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Episode 7 Quotes

Picard: The man who hates enclosed spaces spends his life in the infinite cosmos. It's almost too obvious. Therapist: Isn't it. Picard: But then, the man chooses a life on a vessel where his only access to the outside is holographic. Now the man becomes more interesting. Therapist: Does that concern you at all? Does that bother you in any way? You're not very interesting. Picard: It's not my job to be interesting. Permalink: It's not my job to be interesting. Added: April 12, 2022

The true sovereign of nature. Giving life. Allowing life. And yet we know will be the thing that one day swallows us all. Therapist Permalink: The true sovereign of nature. Giving life. Allowing life. And yet we know will be the thing... Added: April 12, 2022

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Episode 7 Photos

4/14/22 Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Episode 7 Monsters

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'Star Trek: Picard' Season 2 episode 7 is a massive metaphoric trip down Memory Lane

The drama is unevenly distributed through the episode and an awful lot is crammed into the third act

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Star Trek: Picard" season 2, episode 7

With just two more episodes after this until the end of Season 2, it's hard to imagine quite where the story will take us. However, since we know the third and final season has completed principal photography, this will be the only new "Star Trek" series to be written with a two-season story arc in mind, which itself is interesting and worth keeping in mind as the plot continues to jump around quite a lot.  if you've not been watching along and want to get caught up before reading this review, check out our guide on how to stream Star Trek: Picard .

Simply entitled "Monsters," the seventh installment of the second season is a massive metaphoric trip down Memory Lane for Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) as he subconsciously explores some previously unknown father issues. This is of course precisely why he had to be injured somehow last week, so we could take a deep dive into his suppressed memories and add new layers to his personality.

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We mentioned last week about how, by physically hurting Jean-Luc, it does somewhat shine a light on the whole he's-a-synthetic thing, but this is clearly something the showrunner is choosing to acknowledge when it suits them and also ignore when it suits them, which is…er, fair enough. It's his show now, his command. He's in charge, the boss, the head man, top dog, big cheese, head honcho, numero uno...

Before we're barely 30 seconds into this episode, we see Jean-Luc sitting, with his arms folded, still wearing his tuxedo from last week talking to…someone. Then we hear an unmistakable voice…and lo and behold it's James Callis, best known to sci-fi fans for playing the deliciously twisted Dr. Gaius Baltar in Ronald D. Moore's epic adaptation of "Battlestar Galactica" and occasionally popping up in the "12 Monkeys" TV series.

( Nerd Note: Callis is wearing a never-before-seen Starfleet uniform variation that features the combadge style introduced in 2371 ("Generations") and the same colors introduced in 2373 ("First Contact") however, the quilting on the shoulder yoke is missing and the seams and material are noticeably different. It's entirely possible this is meant to represent a blurred mix of memories from Picard's past.)

Related: 'Picard' Season 3 cast announcement includes many familiar names

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This psychological set piece takes up the first two acts of the episode as we dive further into Picard's subconscious and Tallinn (Orla Brady) tries to place herself inside his mind, sadly though not by using an old AR western simulation . The battle of wits continues between Picard and The Psychiatrist and the performances from these two heavyweights is an absolute delight to watch, even if you're not 100 percent sure exactly what it is that they're talking about.

Tallinn (Orla Brady) successfully implants herself and finds Picard — who is still laid out at the hospital that Dr. Ramirez (Sol Rodriguez) runs — as a young boy struggling, both figuratively and literally with a demon, deep within the bowels of Château Picard, in the tunnels under the main building that were fortunately mentioned in advance just a few weeks ago in " The Watcher " (S02, E04).

The whole monster-in-the-mind set piece is little bit clichéd, but it's handled well by seasoned TV director Joe Menendez and the sheer ability of the acting talent involved carries it safely through to the end. You could argue that the almost "Buffy" style of the scene is a deliberate decision to once again reflect how these would be created in Jean-Luc's mind…but that's for fans to argue about endlessly in the future.

Related: 'Star Trek: Picard' Season 2 episode 6 will probably polarize fans

Dr. Ramirez eventually returns to the hospital while this is all going on and Rios (Santiago Cabrera) — the burly, bearded beefcake that he is — must use his magnificent, manly charm to convince the good doctor that everything is on the level. Meanwhile Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Michelle Hurd (Raffi) have noticed Borg code has been introduced into La Sirena's computer system and they begin to worry about Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) who has gone full Tyler Durden with the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching).

It's interesting at this stage that speculation is now rife that Jurati is somehow the masked Borg Queen that attacks and infiltrates the USS Stargazer in the second season premiere episode . (There's even a more extraordinary theory that it might turn out to be Jean-Luc's mother.) And while that is becoming ever more likely, one must also begin to wonder if Rios is going to remain in the 21st century. At first he tries not to interfere with the timeline but then about 10 minutes later just goes ahead and brings the good doctor and her son, Ricardo (Steve Gutierrez) aboard La Sirena.

Images of James Callis appearing in this episode were released before it aired, which spoilt the surprise a little bit, but thankfully what wasn't revealed is his character, the Psychiatrist, in this dream-of-sorts turns out to be Jean-Luc's father, Maurice Picard . It seems Jean-Luc's resentment for his Maurice's treatment of Jean-Luc's mother, Maurice's wife Yvette Picard was a result of simply not understanding the full truth that Yvette had a mental condition.

( Nerd Note: Jean-Luc's mother appeared briefly in "The Next Generation" episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" (S01, E06) while in a distant section of the universe where thoughts become reality and was played by Herta Ware. Jean-Luc's father appeared briefly in the outstanding "The Next Generation" episode "Tapestry" (S06, E15) and was played by Clive Church. In addition, both have been referred to in a few more episodes.)

Tallinn manages to pull Jean-Luc out of his coma and reveals that she IS Romulan, which in all honesty, is cringeworthy. "You could be an ancestor," he laughs, unaware of quite how lame this link is. She also reveals that once her helix -concealing cloaking device is deactivated, it can't be reactivated for eight hours.

Jurati, still in her evening wear, has long since left the astronaut gala and is wandering the streets of Los Angeles when she enters a bar — where Patrick Stewart's wife, singer and songwriter Sunny Ozell is belting out a song from her latest album — and for no immediately obvious reason, smashes the front window. We learn later that it's apparently to increase the speed of endorphin production, which in turn will increase the rate of…internal assimilation of Agnes Jurati by the Borg Queen. Either way, it's hard to imagine that the team of writers couldn't come up with something better than that. ( Nerd Note: The bar is at 267 S Main St, Los Angeles.)

But Raffi and Seven have deduced that now humankind, everyone and everything on Earth and in fact the whole Alpha Quadrant face an even bigger threat than a totalitarian future – assimilation by the Borg.

Picard determines that Q wanted Picard to know about himself; according to Jean-Luc's logic, this isn't about him, it's about Q. So off he heads, back to 10 Forward and Guinan (Ito Aghayere), which is both unexpected and great to see. She attempts to summon at least someone from the Q Continuum, but instead of an alien entity…they get arrested by "Federal law enforcement." Fade to black.

This episode is a lot like last week's with regards to its structure. The primary set piece takes up ¾ of the run time and then the final act is stuffed full of other bits of the story. Last week's episode, the cleverly titled "Two of One" felt very much like a set piece extended to fill an entire — albeit short — episode. And that's how this second half of the season feels, so far at least: Like a tenuously linked series of set pieces.

The "Picard" that began seven weeks ago is now a distant memory as the plot has wandered off into a seemingly unrelated direction and the quality of story writing has begun to slip. At this stage, it's beginning to feel like the second season is just treading water until Season 3 arrives. While it is enjoyable to spend time with the characters in non-life-threatening situations, does any of this really matter? While being stuck in 2024 Los Angeles is doing little more than homogenizing this season.

Rating: 6½ /10

The first seven episodes of "Star Trek: Picard" are now available to watch on Paramount Plus and the premiere season of "Strange New Worlds" begins on May 5, 2022. Season 4 of "Star Trek: Discovery" is available to watch now on Paramount+ in the US and CTV Sci-Fi or Crave TV in Canada. Countries outside of North America can watch on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel.

Follow Scott Snowden on Twitter . Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . 

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When Scott's application to the NASA astronaut training program was turned down, he was naturally upset...as any 6-year-old boy would be. He chose instead to write as much as he possibly could about science, technology and space exploration. He graduated from The University of Coventry and received his training on Fleet Street in London. He still hopes to be the first journalist in space.

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Star Trek: Picard season 2 episode 7 review: "Could derail an otherwise brilliant season"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

If Renée’s space mission is the make-or-break event set to define the future, this episode could fulfill a similar role for Picard season 2. There’s still plenty to be excited about, but if a few of the dramatic choices made here go the wrong way, they could derail an otherwise brilliant season.

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Warning: This Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 7 review contains major spoilers – many of them set to stun. Boldly go further at your own risk…

It had to happen sooner or later. Few shows manage to make it through an entire run without a blip and, while Picard’s second season has been consistently entertaining up to now, ‘Monsters’ is the episode that brings the story down to earth – if not quite with a crash, then definitely an unplanned landing. 

After last week’s installment built up to a double-whammy of potentially season-defining moments – Renée Picard’s decision to stick with the Europa Mission, and the Borg Queen/Agnes Jurati hybrid at large in LA – this is something of an unnecessary diversion, redirecting the show’s arc in directions we didn’t really want, or need, to go. 

Aside from being a narrative cul-de-sac, taking a trip inside the mind of Jean-Luc Picard feels like a massive tonal shift from the rest of the season. Journeys into inner consciousnesses are always tricky things to get right – how do you visualize the inner workings of something as nebulous as the human mind? – and here the quasi-fantasy tale that unfolds in Jean-Luc’s cerebellum is a clichéd and unimaginative way to dig into past trauma. Whatever happened to the good old days of mind-melds and flashbacks?

At least Picard’s guide through his memories is a welcome addition to the cast. James Callis made Dr. Gaius Baltar one of the standout characters in the brilliant Battlestar Galactica, and this episode relies on his long-established ability to keep the characters he plays ambiguous. When he first appears as a psychologist in a Deep Space Nine-era jumpsuit, it’s hard to tell whether he’s there to help or hinder Picard’s journey of self-discovery – though you can’t help wishing he stuck with asking questions, rather than ordering his patient to tell him a story. There’s no question that watching a couple of quality actors shooting the breeze would be preferable to the more esoteric approach the episode ultimately takes.

Because, while you can understand the showrunners wanting to bring a sense of otherworldliness to an Earthbound show, imagining Picard’s inner psyche as a gothic fairytale castle filled with monsters jars with everything we know about the man of science that is Jean-Luc Picard. Sure, the snatches of dialogue from his past keep things anchored to the Next Generation era, but reimagining his mother as a queen with fiery red hair diminishes the emotional power and tragedy of her mental illness and loss. The big reveal – that the mysterious figure played by Callis is actually Jean-Luc’s dad – also feels rather anticlimactic. Considering how much time is devoted to the sequence, we learn surprisingly little about how Picard’s formative years were responsible for his well-documented connection issues later in life – even now, key pieces of the puzzle are missing, because something big from his past is still hidden behind that metaphorical locked door.

And yet, for all the fantastical adventures, Picard’s brain is among the least weird aspects of ‘Monsters’. Indeed, it’s downright bizarre that the Borg Queen/Agnes hybrid – undoubtedly the most exciting, most watchable character(s) in the show – has been reduced to minimal screentime. That said, if anyone ever started a joke with “an all-powerful cybernetic organism walked into a bar,” not many people would come up with the punchline “she smashed a window in order to generate endorphins that will aid the Queen’s assimilation of her human host.” With Seven concerned that they may be witnessing the birth of a new Borg Queen with the power to assimilate a woefully unprepared planet Earth, it looks like Raffi may have rather more to worry about than Agnes and Rios getting back together.

Not that Rios has eyes for anyone but Dr. Ramirez these days – to the extent that his infatuation is causing him to make decisions you’d never find in the Starfleet captain’s handbook. Yes, she’s seen Tallinn’s eyes whited out during her mind-link with Picard, and yes, she’s seen futuristic medical equipment beamed in from the ether. But surely Rios could have come up with an excuse that didn’t involve him beaming the doctor – and her young son – onto La Sirena for a tour of a 25th-century spacecraft. In a season that’s already expressed concern about timeline altering “butterflies”, this seems like an implausibly questionable decision. (Even so, Rios’s remark that “I’m from Chile. I just work in outer space” is a lovely nod to Star Trek: The Voyage Home, where Kirk said similar about growing up in Iowa.)

The episode saves its most leftfield twist for the end, however. Spurred on by new BFF Tallinn – who’s now revealed the Romulan ears of her true self – Picard has realized that plugging the gaps in his family history could be the key to saving the future. “There is no better teacher than one’s enemy,” he recalls, before reasoning that gaining an audience with Q may be the only way to get the answers he needs.

Guinan’s subsequent trick for summoning a Q resembles the long-established method for getting a genie out of a lamp – are we about to discover that the Q Continuum were the inspiration for the Aladdin fairytale? – but the outcome is surprisingly devoid of omnipotent tricksters.

When a man walks into this particular bar, his love of sci-fi is just a cover for an FBI raid that winds up with Picard and Guinan in custody. Is the surprisingly genre-literate Fed working for Q? Or is he an additional human complication in a season with a rapidly increasing number of moving parts? Where Picard goes next is anybody’s guess…

New episodes of Star Trek: Picard season 2 beam onto Paramount Plus (US) and Crave (Canada) on Thursdays. Viewers elsewhere can watch the show on Amazon Prime Video on Fridays. For more Trek action, check out our reviews of Star Trek: Discovery season 4 .

Richard is a freelancer journalist and editor, and was once a physicist. Rich is the former editor of SFX Magazine, but has since gone freelance, writing for websites and publications including GamesRadar+, SFX, Total Film, and more. He also co-hosts the podcast, Robby the Robot's Waiting, which is focused on sci-fi and fantasy. 

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‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 2 Episode 7 Delves into the Dungeons of the Mind | Review

Picard unpacks his daddy issues in "Monsters."

With a Season 2 episode entitled “Monsters,” it’s safe to assume that Star Trek: Picard is going to be a wild ride, especially with Tallinn ( Orla Brady ) venturing into the neural pathways of Picard’s ( Patrick Stewart ) brain. Across the first and second seasons of the series, Picard has reflected on his childhood—especially in regard to his mother. Now, with the guidance of an unexpected visitor in a Starfleet uniform ( James Callis ) he is being forced to examine what happened to his mother, through the lens of a fantastical and terrifying fairytale-inspired story.

Tallinn makes her way into Picard’s mind and finds herself in a dark, dank dungeon where a scared little boy is hiding. But he’s not just hiding, he’s waiting for his mother to return and, despite the threat of monsters attacking, he doesn’t think he can leave without her. The boy identifies the monster as a “him” which gives the first clue that the monster might be someone close to home.

Picard is yet again forced to examine how “untethered” he is to having deep, meaningful relationships with people. This has been a theme that has been explored pretty consistently throughout Picard , both with his hermit-like existence on the vineyard, and how uncertain he is about attempting an intimate relationship with Laris. It seems like this series has been designed to strip away Picard’s layers, lay them all bare, and attempt to make sense of his past and present. It’s all very cerebral stuff, and strikes right at the heart of what makes Star Trek ’s approach to the human condition so fascinating.

RELATED: ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3 Announces Return of LeVar Burton, Jonathan Frakes and More ‘TNG’ Cast in Teaser Video

Once Picard discovers Tallinn in the tunnels of his mind, he realizes that the “monster” he was afraid of was his father and that the man in the Starfleet uniform (Callis) is the man he feared as a child, but never truly understood. He had believed that his father was cruel for locking up his mother, but now he realizes that the real monster was whatever mental illness she had been afflicted with. With this revelation, Picard cuts short his introspection, leading audiences to believe that this might be only the beginning of a deeper look at Picard’s own psyche and emotional baggage.

Back at the clinic, Raffi ( Michelle Hurd ) and Seven ( Jeri Ryan ) decide to go back to La Sirena to try to track down Agnes who has gone missing. Before they depart, Rios ( Santiago Cabrera ) reveals that Agnes had kissed him at the event the night before and Raffi is decidedly against that duo rekindling their Season 1 fling. I have to say, I completely agree with her. Especially when Picard is setting up Rios for some sweet, sweet time traveler’s heartbreak.

When Teresa ( Sol Rodriguez ) arrives in the morning, Rios attempts to keep her out of Picard’s room. But she is undeterred and quickly cuts him down to size for trying to lock her out of her own clinic. Nothing could have prepared her for walking into the room and seeing Tallinn’s eyes rolled back as she wanders through the dungeons of Picard’s mind or having to use alien technology to stabilize her patient. It’s all very overwhelming, but she doesn’t let it shake her. Especially not when she has to worry about who these strangers are that she’s let around her son.

Once she gets Picard stable, Teresa turns her attention to this new revelation about Rios. “Are you from outer space?” Of course, Rios throws on the charm, “No, I’m from Chile. I just… work in outer space.” It’s a very important distinction, after all. Their dynamic has been a really unexpected element this season and Teresa is such a great addition to the series. Not just because of her flirtation with Rios, but because her banter with him brings a different brand of levity to this very stressful situation. She’s so concerned about Rios being a “good guy” and trusting her own instincts. She has some of the best lines in the episode from calling Rios out for being creepy to her flirty little moment with him where he claims he’d become a “good guy” just for her.

Rios, who is no stranger to breaking rules, breaks some pretty serious time traveling rules in this episode. Despite everyone talking about not creating butterflies, he throws caution to the wind and brings Teresa and her son aboard La Sirena . Given the far more pressing situation that Raffi and Seven have discovered, perhaps his butterflies aren’t the worst thing that could happen in 2024. A new Borg Queen is far more concerning.

When Picard finally escapes the constructs of his own mind, Tallinn reveals that she is in fact a Romulan, which means she could be Laris’ ancestor or she could be Laris. I’m still not convinced that there isn’t a larger story at play with Picard and Laris. I don’t think she’s bad, and I hope that she isn’t, especially when so much of this storyline is about Picard learning to let people in, but she’s definitely not telling him everything.

In the final scene of the episode, Picard goes to find Guinan ( Ito Aghayere ) at 10 Forward, in hopes that she can summon Q—or any Q—to get more answers. Her attempt to summon a Q fails… or does it? As she and Picard discuss their predicament, a man enters the bar, insisting that he wants to get a drink even though Guinan tells him they’re closed. There’s something about him, from his quippy interjections about science fiction to his all-too-knowing demeanor that should have raised the red flag. Evidently, he isn’t a Q, but he is an FBI agent who has come to arrest Picard.

“Monsters” presents a lot of fascinating themes, particularly about fathers—both with Picard exploring his own paternal issues and Rios discussing how he views Picard as a father figure. Additionally, trust is an ever-present component of this episode, with Picard learning to trust himself and Tallinn and Teresa figuring out if she wants to trust Rios. With three episodes left, Picard has a lot to tackle before the finale, and it seems like they’ll be up against not just Q meddling with the future, but a Borg Queen vying for ultimate power.

Rating : A+

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is streaming now on Paramount+.

Den of Geek

Picard Season 2 Episode 7: The Biggest Star Trek Easter Eggs

From familiar sci-fi faces to obscure TNG quotes to a classic James Kirk one-liner, this episode was stacked with Trekkie references.

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This Star Trek: Picard article contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Picard Season 2 Episode 7

Continuing a kind of mash-up between 12 Monkeys and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard has entered into its final batch of episodes. At this point, the show has a lot going on: from a rogue Soong (Brent Spiner) to a new hybrid Borg Queen (Alison Pill AND Annie Wersching), and of course, the still unexplained mystery of Q’s vanishing powers. But, for the most part, in Episode 7, “Monsters,” the show slows down. Here, we’re in Jean-Luc’s mind for about half the episode, which could have triggered a clip-show episode a la TNG ’s “Shades of Gray” but thankfully didn’t.

Instead, Picard brought a batch of deep cuts and easter eggs from the entire Star Trek franchise, and a few other sci-fi franchises along the way, too.

Picard Enterprise-E Ready Room? 

While Picard speaks to the mysterious faux-Starfleet shrink, later revealed to be his father, Maurice Picard (James Callis), we’re actually sitting in his “ready room.” We know this for sure because later Picard mentions that his father was never really in “my ready room.” But which ready room is this? The easy answer is that it’s the USS Enterprise-E , sometime after the events of Nemesis .

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It’s also possible that this is Jean-Luc’s ready room on the USS Veritas , a starship he commanded during the evacuation of the Romulan Empire, and on which he served with Raffi, as outlined in the events of the comic book miniseries, Star Trek Picard: Countdown , by Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson.

Locutus, “Tapestry,” and Various TNG Quotes

Although it’s very difficult to make out the exact quotes being spoken when Tallinn (Orla Brady) enters Picard’s mind, we hear various quotes from him, many of which seem to be from T he Next Generation era, although some seem to be composites. 

We clearly hear Jean-Luc say, “I am Locutus of Borg…” from TNG’s “The Best of Both Worlds,” But some of the other quotes are much harder to figure out because they appear to be overlapped with other quotes. For example, one quote is easy: “I’d rather die the man I was…” which is from the TNG episode “Tapestry” in which he tells Q, “I’d rather die the man I was than live the life I just saw.” 

But again, it’s a jumble of Picard-isms in there, and it seems what we’re hearing is intentionally obscure. 

Eternal Sunshine of Picard’s Mind…?

This is probably not an intentional easter egg, and perhaps not even a conscious reference. However, the entire notion of Tallinn entering a childhood memory, and revising that memory to help Jean-Luc feel less alone, is very similar to a classic moment in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . In that film, Clementine (Kate Winslet) enters a bad childhood memory of Joel’s (Jim Carrey) and manages to protect him from trauma, too. 

I Only Work in Outer Space…

The entire relationship between Theresa (Sol Rodriquez) and Rios (Santiago Cabrera) is very reminiscent of Kirk and Gillian in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . And in one scene in this episode, Rios outright borrows a joke from Kirk. When Theresa asks him, “Are you from outer space?” Rios replies, “No, I’m from Chile. I just…I work in outer space.” 

This echoes a similar scene in The Voyage Home , in which Gillian says, “Don’t tell me, you’re from outer space,” and Kirk says, “No, I’m from Iowa, I only work in outer space.”

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Patrick Stewart’s Wife, Sunny Ozell

When Jurati enters the bar, we see a band playing briefly. The singer is none other than Patrick Stewart’s IRL wife Sunny Ozell. On his Instagram, Stewart revealed that “she performs a song from her marvelous album ‘Overnight Lows.’” She’s joined on stage by musicians Mark Stepro, Philip Krohnengold, Mason Stoops, and Jonathan Flaugher. If you’re curious about which song this is, it’s the final track on Overnight Lows called “Take You Down.”

Guinan Does the Thing with Her Hands!

After Guinan (Ito Aghayere) attempts to summon Q, nothing happens. However, as she hears footsteps coming down the stairs into her bar, she briefly puts up her hands in a defensive posture, sort of like she’s getting ready for a wizard fight. We haven’t seen Guinan do this since the TNG episode “Q Who,” in which it was revealed that Q and Guinan knew each other. For the first time in S tar Trek canon, it’s also explained that the Q and the El-Aurians were in a “long cold war” before settling into a truce.

FBI Agent…Jay Karnes! (And Don’t Forget James Callis!)

At the very end of the episode, Guinan and Picard are taken in by the FBI for questioning by an agent played by Jay Karnes. Though probably most famous for his role as Dutch in The Shield , Karnes is no stranger to time travel or Star Trek . In the 1999 Voyager episode “Relativity,” Karnes played a temporal agent from the 29th century named Ducane. He was one of the members of a future version of Starfleet who recruited Seven of Nine, briefly, as a time travel agent. So, if Seven runs into this new FBI agent in Picard , she might recognize his face! ( Wikipedia lists his character name in Picard also as “Ducane,” but that’s likely a mistake.)

But, for 12 Monkeys fans, the fact that Jay Karnes is in an episode of Picard with James Callis is pretty huge. Obviously, James Callis is famous for playing Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica , but he also played Athan Cole, the time-traveling son of Cassie and James, in the Syfy Channel 12 Monkeys reboot. And, in that same show, Jay Karnes played a recurring character named Robert Gale, who worked as an FBI Agent from the 1940s to the 1960s. In 12 Monkeys that specific FBI Agent was obsessed with tracking down any evidence of time travel. So, is the same true for Karnes’ newest agent in Picard ? Is he a descendant of Gale from 12 Monkeys , or an ancestor of Ducane from Voyager ? Of all the wibbly-wobbly, timey wimey mysteries of Picard Season 2, this might be one that never gets solved.

Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Den of Geek! He is also the author of three non-fiction books: the Star Trek pop history book PHASERS…

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‘Monsters’ Traps Picard in the Uncanny Valley Between Star Trek and Prestige TV

This discussion and review contains some spoilers for Star Trek: Picard season 2, episode 7, “Monsters.”

“Monsters” is a structural mess, an episode of Star Trek: Picard that botches the execution of what should be a series of seismic revelations about the early life of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart).

Modern Star Trek often seems trapped in an uncanny valley between prestige television and something much more banal. The modern iterations of the franchise long for the trappings of prestige television, with their moral ambiguity and character-driven storytelling, while yearning for the familiar comforts of the traditional procedural. “Monsters” is an episode that runs aground of this approach, lost in the gulf between these two irreconcilable approaches to storytelling.

The central hook of Picard is the idea of doing The Lion in Winter with one of the two best actors ever to grace the Star Trek franchise, to reflect on the legacy and the impact of a hugely influential piece of pop culture in a radically changed landscape. In its best moments, Picard seems to offer genuinely challenging and provocative questions of its central figure. What happened to the future that Jean-Luc Picard promised? What does the old man see when he looks back over his life?

The second season of Picard teased earth-shattering revelations about its central character, promising to get under the skin of a character defined by stoicism and restraint. “He’s wrestling with — or better yet, ignoring — the puzzle pieces of his past that are stopping him from embracing his future,” said showrunner Terry Matalas in pre-season interviews . “Of course, the re-appearance of Q is going to force him to look inward and get to the bottom of some of these issues.”

Patrick Stewart boasted that the season would offer a window into “ more of the romantic and emotional life of Picard .” This is an exciting hook. Part of the appeal of Star Trek: The Next Generation was the way that Stewart gave Picard a rich and vivid inner light, but his ability to really dig into the character was confined by the rigid episodic structure of a syndicated 1990s television show. There was never room, for example, to unpack the consequences of “ The Inner Light .”

In the years since The Next Generation wrapped up, television has become a more character-centric medium. Modern shows are willing to spend more time exploring the psychology and motivations of complex leading men. Brett Martin’s history of the revolution in cable television that led to shows like The Sopranos , Mad Men , The Wire , and Breaking Bad was even titled Difficult Men . The USA Network even adopted the promise “ Characters Welcome ” as its tagline in 2005.

Part of what is frustrating about Star Trek: Picard is the show’s half-hearted effort to have it both ways, to awkwardly strive towards the sort of nuance and interiority of those more sophisticated dramas while always retreating back into the comforts of nostalgia for fear of over-complicating a beloved character. This has been a problem with the show from the outset, most obvious in how the first season bungled its themes of generational failure for fear of alienating nostalgic fans .

“Monsters” snaps under these competing pressures. The episode is built around the idea of giving Picard a central personal trauma rooted in childhood that could be used to explain decades of characterization. Even before delving into the botched execution of all this, there is something reductive in that premise, in the idea that Picard’s emotional stoicism and restraint is something that needs to be “explained” by some formative event.

It is part of a larger pop culture trend, reducing characters to sets of simple “if… then…” inputs and outputs. This logic demands Cruella de Vil be given an origin story to explain her feelings about dalmatians and why she has such a comically evil name . It isn’t just pulp media that suffers from this — prestige television also falls into this trap. Mad Men over-elaborated on Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) history in such absurd convoluted detail that it becomes “ the backstory of a serial killer .”

“Monsters” focuses on conversations inside Picard’s head, in which the character confronts a therapist (James Callis) digging into his psyche. The therapist opines that Picard has “built such walls around (his) wounds that even a Betazoid can’t get a read.” He demands, “Why do you find it so difficult to be open, Jean-Luc?” He presses, “There’s a version of yourself you’re hiding.” He challenges, “What is it? What is it you define yourself by?” It is all trite and simplistic.

“Monsters” aspires to be a mature and sophisticated piece of character work. The scenes with the therapist evoke the structural framework of The Sopranos . The emphasis on repressed childhood trauma suggests Mad Men . There’s a seriousness to all this, right down to the casting of James Callis from Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica , one of the rare recent science fiction television shows to make a clear effort to break out of “ the ghetto ” to which such shows are often confined.

However, Picard simply isn’t capable of committing to what it is doing. “Monsters” initially suggests that Jean-Luc grew up in an abusive home, that his mother Yvette (Madeline Wise) was victimized by his father Maurice (also Callis), and that young Jean-Luc had internalized that horror. It is a very cynical approach to characterization — reducing trauma to a plot hook — but it might explain why Jean-Luc Picard grew up to be so wary of familial attachment and his own relationship to children.

Indeed, there are interesting implications bubbling beneath the surface in all this. Picard’s description of Yvette as “the Queen” with “fiery red hair” has decidedly Oedipal connotations given his complicated psycho-sexual relationships with both the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) in First Contact and redhead Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) on The Next Generation . The fact that Crusher was herself a mother, and any relationship would make Picard a father, adds interesting shading.

However, “Monsters” isn’t willing to actually delve into any of this. Instead, the episode quickly reveals that Picard’s memory of events, which was literally only just revealed to the audience, was wrong. In fact, Yvette dealt with mental illness. Maurice tried to protect both Yvette and Jean-Luc as best he could. Ignoring the cynicism of reducing Picard’s entire character to a simple game of cause and effect, there are the bones of interesting ideas here.

On paper, Yvette’s mental illness adds a sense of tragedy to her son’s diagnosis with the degenerative Irumodic Syndrome in “ All Good Things… ,” as growing up with that kind of condition within a family inevitably leaves scars. It also fits neatly with the recurring suggestion that Picard has become a reluctant surrogate father figure who “feels like a dad” to Rios (Santiago Cabrera) and who Jurati (Alison Pill) wished was her father in “ Assimilation .”

Unfortunately, “Monsters” isn’t actually interested in exploring these ideas in anything more than a superficial way. Instead, it reduces these revelations to mere plot points. They feel more like the summary of a Wikipedia (or Memory Alpha) article than an actual engaging narrative. The episode plays like a series of index cards arranged on a whiteboard, rather than a story that has been carefully constructed and articulated.

In “Monsters,” the audience learns an earth-shattering revelation about its central character, only to quickly discover that this was just a red herring and so immediately learns another completely different earth-shattering revelation. Even in terms of basic structure, these revelations would make more sense scattered across a whole season — establishing the fractured marriage in the season premiere and then developing it across the season, adding nuance and shading in an organic manner.

To be fair, this is a common problem with a lot of modern genre fiction, particularly those rooted in existing intellectual property. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has exactly the same problem. The film pauses right before the climax for a 10-minute explanation of the backstory of Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), only to immediately pause again and explain that the previous explanation was wrong and deliver another corrective 10-minute explanation of his real backstory.

The result of this approach is that none of this feels real or tangible. It just feels disposable. Ironically, despite gesturing at the tropes of prestige television, “Monsters” feels like a nostalgic throwback. This makes sense given how hard the second season of Picard has leaned into a “play the hits” approach to Star Trek . “Monsters” feels like the sort of one-and-done disposable tragic backstory episodes that older Star Trek shows would churn out and forget about.

These episodes were often terrible, built around hackneyed revelations like the death of Deanna Troi’s (Marina Sirtis) sister Kestra (Kirsten Dunst) in “ Dark Page ,” how Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) intentionally academically self-sabotaged in “ Distant Voices ,” or how Worf (Michael Dorn) straight-up killed a kid one time in “ Let He Who Is Without Sin… ” There were exceptions — great episodes like “ Doctor Bashir, I Presume ” or “ Gravity ” — but they largely existed to prove the rule.

There’s something exhausting in all this. “Monsters” essentially ends with a retread of the cliffhanger from “Assimilation,” albeit without any of the contemporary resonance. At the end of “Assimilation,” Rios was abducted by I.C.E. as an illegal immigrant, a striking and daring choice. In contrast, “Monsters” ends with Picard and Guinan (Ito Aghayere) taken into FBI custody, in what feels like just another ( understandable ) excuse to limit Sir Patrick Stewart’s potential exposure to COVID.

“Monsters” finds Picard caught between aspiring to be prestige television and formulaic Star Trek , and it does neither particularly well.

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Star Trek: Picard

Follow-up series to Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) that centers on Jean-Luc Picard in the next chapter of his life. Follow-up series to Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) that centers on Jean-Luc Picard in the next chapter of his life. Follow-up series to Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) that centers on Jean-Luc Picard in the next chapter of his life.

• Kirsten Beyer
• Michael Chabon
• Akiva Goldsman
• Patrick Stewart
• Michelle Hurd
• 2.8K User reviews
• 78 Critic reviews
• 14 wins & 54 nominations total

Episodes 30

• Jean-Luc Picard

• Raffi Musiker

• Seven of Nine

• Dr. Agnes Jurati

• Cristóbal Rios …

• Adam Soong …

• La Sirena Computer

• Jack Crusher

• Doctor Beverly Crusher

• Captain Liam Shaw

• Ensign Sidney La Forge

• Ensign Esmar

• Titan Computer …
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The Chateau Picard vineyard first appeared in Family (1990) . It was run by Jean-Luc Picard's brother Robert and his wife Marie, and their son René. Jean-Luc would learn in Star Trek: Generations (1994) that Robert and René had both burned to death in a fire, leaving Jean-Luc as the last in the Picard line.
• Goofs Commodore Oh often wears sunglasses. Star Trek lore establishes that Vulcans have an inner eyelid to protect against harsh sunlight on their desert planet. Oh's shades are a fashion statement, not a protective measure.
• The first season features a Borg cube and the planet Romulus.
• The second season features a Borg ship, a wormhole and hourglass, and the Borg Queen's silhouette.
• The third season does not have an opening titles sequence.
• Connections Featured in Half in the Bag: Comic Con 2019, The Picard Trailer, Streaming Services, and Midsommar (2019)

User reviews 2.8K

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• Mar 9, 2023

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• January 23, 2020 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Star Trek: Captain Picard
• The Sunstone Villa and Vineyard, Santa Ynes, California, USA (Château Picard)
• CBS Television Studios
• Roddenberry Entertainment
• Secret Hideout
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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