Season 2, Episode 9: ‘Hide and Seek’
The most interesting revelation in this week’s “Picard” comes in a line from Seven, where she tells Raffi that she tried to join Starfleet after Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant. That Captain Janeway — or possibly Admiral, depending on the timing of her promotion that we saw in “Star Trek: Nemesis” — got to work for her. Starfleet said no, because of her Borg background.
This is the first concrete hint about Seven’s immediate post-Voyager ambitions. It was a remarkable decision by Starfleet, as Seven has accomplished more on Voyager than many Starfleet officers have ever done. She saved lives – starfleet alive, but it wasn’t good enough to be seen as anything more than a former Borg drone. It shows that bigotry is still very much alive within the Federation. It also established why Seven became a Fenris Ranger. (Compare this to Picard and the way the crew interacts with Hugh, the former Borg drone, to whom we are reintroduced in the final season of “Picard”.)
It also went against previous Starfleet policy: remember that Picard himself was once a Borg drone. The Enterprise crew rescued him and Picard got his command back the next day. (And why was Icheb – who was also part of the Voyager crew – allowed to join Starfleet then?)
Other than that, this episode was – to put it mildly – incoherent.
If there’s been a consistent trend in how the “Trek” universe has treated the Borg, it’s that their pursuit of perfection is consistently undermined by their incompetence—something Jurati brings out in the episode’s bizarre climax. The episode opens with an army of Borg drones, led by the Borg Queen, trying to take over La Sirena. Should be simple: after all, the Borg Queen alone can take over an entire computer system.
But it’s not easy, as it seems that the Queen has assimilated stormtroopers who can’t shoot straight, instead of professional mercenaries. And The Watcher buys highly futuristic weapons to aid the crew in their battle.
With every deus ex machina, an angel grows its wings – and many wings come out of “Picard”. How did The Watcher get those weapons? From what? Why have they never come up before? Wasn’t her whole thing to stay too? from of events? Suddenly the Watcher can blast Rios away after being shot? And later Rios can beam back because he has a screwdriver? And if Soong tries to use Rios’ gun, is there a DNA lock on it? And it explodes if held too long?
It’s probably best not to think too deeply about the above and just keep going.
So when the Borg Queen finally almost takes over the ship’s computer – something that shouldn’t be hard for her to do – Jurati tries to moralize her.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Jurati asks the Queen, a question every audience member has asked by now. In the meantime, Jurati places something called a “fractal lock” on the computer. How? When? Without the queen noticing? oh nevermind. And wait, Jurati didn’t remember the key? And she left it with a holographic Elnor?
Like the queen, we’re all confused by what’s going on. (I’ve enjoyed several of the Queen’s drones trying to shoot a gun at a hologram because IT IS A HOLOGRAM.) Later, when Raffi reunites with Hologram Elnor, he says he shared Real Elnor’s final thoughts.
“I share the memory of Elnor’s last breath – enough to know that his last thoughts of you were not fault, but love,” the hologram says. Why would Hologram Elnor know that? It was presumably created before Real Elnor died.
Seven’s comes up with the brilliant plan to blast the drones off-board and into a wall at Chateau Picard. Given The Watcher’s shining power, how was this not the first thing they thought of? I feel like I’m asking a lot of questions.
The climax of the episode comes when the Queen stabs Seven, and then her life is saved as Jurati berates the Queen by saying that the Borg consistently stink at achieving their goals across different timelines. Good point. In one of the most mind-boggling plot points in “Trek” history — and I’m pretty sure I wrote this about previous “Picard” plotlines — Jurati says the better way for them to do things is by to ask the permission of species to be assimilated.
‘What if we take this ship and build a better Borg? A real collective based not on assimilation but on salvation?” Jurati says to the queen.
Is salvation different from assimilation? and there is new reason for the Queen to accept this proposal. She has all the power! The Borg’s brand is that resistance is futile. and they cannot be negotiated. Now they change everything they are through one conversation with Jurati?
Odds and Ends
Rios decides to give Teresa and Ricardo a glimpse of the future – when they didn’t need to – and then leaves them behind in the 21st century. It will certainly have a future effect on the timeline for the two to have so much knowledge about futuristic technology.
The action scenes were a lot of fun in this episode. They were made less effective by the distracting plotting.
The revelation about Picard’s mother was remarkable, but felt cheap because it was mainly used as a means to help Picard and The Watcher escape a murderous Soong.