One of the biggest questions going into this season was what the rest of Picard’s crew has been doing for the last 25 years in canon. The first two seasons of Picard alluded to how he dealt with the Romulans after the destruction of Romulus, the Utopia Planetia synthetic tragedy, and other events. It also showed glimpses of Raffi’s involvement with him. But neither season really told us anything beyond that. Which is not a bad thing, because it leaves that open to books, games, and other media to tell stories within that timeframe, as we’re unlikely at this point to get an official series aside from Lower Decks. I don’t think Mike McMahen will approach any of those subjects with his lighter-fare series.

The third episode opens on a flashback to Picard and Riker sharing a toast to Riker’s firstborn son, Thaddeus. As we already know from the first season Riker and Troi lose him later on to a condition that could have been cured by the advancement of synthetic treatments since banned by the Federation. A little big of de-aging was applied here to make them look at least fifteen years younger, though Riker still has the DS9/VOY-era commbadge on that I think would have been phased out by the LD-era design. Seventeen Seconds was what Riker mused it took for him to get from the bridge to sickbay, not knowing the condition of his son’s birth. This theme will be relevant later in this episode. We come back to the present and the Titan is still engaged with the Shrike, weaving around the nebula trying to lose it long enough to go to warp. Like many similar episodes of Trek involving ships evading in nebulas, it is a sort of Hunt for Red October kind of thing, underpinned by Vadic’s hodgy-podgy way of pecking at them with a purpose.

Meanwhile, Picard and Beverly have a very heated discussion about how she became pregnant with his child after another one of their romantic attempts shortly before she left the Enterprise-E. She then decided to be Médecins Sans Frontières in space along with her son, I guess. I admit that it feels a bit flimsy now than it would have been if we had the previous two seasons to maybe chew into that backstory a bit. This is, again, the major flaw of the Picard series. They had some really solid ideas, poorly executed. I just don’t know if it was the writers, or Patrick Stewart.

Worf’s introduction last week, beheading a bunch of dudes to extract Raffi from her pickle, solidifies this episode with a very major reveal I’ll detail in the spoiler section. As I mused last week, Raffi has been a very inconsistent and middling-written character throughout this series. If any character can kind of save her so to speak, it’s Michael Dorn’s Worf, and shit man, he can still play Worf as good as he did twenty-two years ago on Deep Space Nine. I enjoyed his witty one-liners delivered with that same Worf flair, like he would talking to a zoomer.

Diving a little more into Picard and Beverly, last week I quipped that I wanted to hear a good explanation for why Beverely disappeared for 20+ years, and especially why she’d not tell him about his own kid. Her explanation this week initially came off to me as complete garbage, as if she just assumed everything about the man and how he would react, and just ran off. As I continued to listen and sort of took it all in, I’m back to about even-keel on it, though it’s still pretty fucked up. The relationship between Picard and Crusher in TNG was something that fans kind of shipped for themselves. The showrunners and writers never made any overt attempts to pair them off, and in fact solidified Picard’s position as a man of principle and rank. Even with his family, his father, and as we learn of his mother in last season, Picard’s stoic and complicated demeanor towards relationships and love meant he’s simply plow himself into his duty and obligation whenever possible. This was implied to continue after Nemesis with the events Crusher describes, and why she took Jack and went underground, becoming a medical-for-hire. It also leans into a more darker-Federation subplot suggesting they haven’t been keeping up on their commitments post-Dominion War. As much suffering as the poor woman has to deal with, I still felt like she was kind of shit for not telling him he had a kid, or giving him the opportunity to do something different. His anger was completely justified, and that’s why by the end of the conversation I felt this was precisely what Patrick wanted to do with Picard’s character from the onset of this show.

So the major reveal this episode by both the Titan and Raffi/Worf is that the Changelings are back. Jack encounters one sabotaging the ship, causing the trail the Shrike was able to detect. Raffi and Worf encounter another on M’Talas Prime. Worf did not mention him by name, but implied that Odo informed him of a sect of Changelings who broke away from The Great Link after they lost the war to come up with a new scheme to get back at The Federation. I admit, I did not think that the Changelings would be involved with this series, but there were some hints. It got me thinking a lot about the Typhon Pact book series that delved into a lot of politics and intrigue around the Federation after the events involving the Borg in the Destiny book series. Both reference the Dominion War and how the Federation was ill-equipped to help member planets after those incidents. Having a sort of overarching plot around a rogue faction of Changelings subverting targets and channeling them through other villains, such as bounty hunters like Vadic, or presumably Lore upcoming, makes for interesting stories. However it also doesn’t really play into our TNG cast. There has never been any canon appearances of the Enterprise-E in the war, and no direct mention of any of these characters except Worf having any direct contact with The Founders. So having to weave where they were then with relation to how they react to this threat now makes it interesting. Worf makes an excellent conduit for this plot because he has dealt with The Dominion and hopefully will link up with the rest of the crew. I just feel like if the Changelings are involved, it would have been neat to get a couple more DS9 cast involved. Unfortunately Rene Auberjonois passed away, or else Odo would be prime for this story.

One final bit, Riker ejecting Picard from the bridge at the end, or in fact, their whole dynamic this episode. It felt a little bit off. Both of them went into this mission willing to risk the Titan and its crew, but then diverged midway into this episode. Picard wanted to go last action hero on Vadic while Riker just wanted to get the Titan out. It’d be a curious disposition except that after Crusher’s teardown of him, Riker was very much justified in his ejection of the Admiral and rejection of that plan, especially after getting a live demonstration of the portal tech used by the Shrike. A few of us joked how ineffective Picard has been for his limited series romp, mostly just sitting in chairs, old-man yelling, and frowning a lot. But it seems like this is an affirmation that Action Picard is no longer wanted, both in the show, and out of the show. It also just completely validates everything Shaw said in the first episode. Which is what got them here.

Random Observations and Easter Eggs:

• If you’re wondering why some of the screenshots are brighter, it’s because I ran them through some post-processing prior to post. The show’s continued use of darkness is really rather annoying. Some shmuck on Twitter tried to point out the differences between older film types and digital, and I felt like I was being mansplained. It’s too dark because ever since GoT, everyone wants to make everything dark. Stop. Turn some fucking lights on. It’s not going to kill your budget.
• Worf’s mention of “a man of honor” is no doubt paid homage to Constable Odo, played by the late Rene Auberjonois. It’s a shame we can’t see him in this show, because even though he was clumsy at love, he still did it better with Major Kira than Picard has with Crusher.
• Shaw’s authorization code, 12-11-Bravo-Delta, itself, doesn’t seem to be anything interesting, but the formatting was in reverse of what was typically seen throughout 90’s Trek. The military phonetics would usually come first, followed by single-digit numbers. It’s not really a nitpick moreso as a fun observation, as codes and clearance levels were seldom standardized throughout the show and often ambiguous.
• Beverly stating she “lost” Weasley is a bit harsh considering he became a Traveler. He’s still out there, as we saw last season with the recruitment of Soong’s alt-universe daughter. I don’t know if Wil Wheaton makes an appearance on this final run, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did somehow. I would also want to know why he wasn’t keeping tabs on her the last twenty years or helping her with this mess.