The ninth episode of "Star Trek: Picard's" second season boldly goes where no Trek show
has been before, bringing us a rarely-seen version of the "Enterprise," and a shockingly
dark past for a character we thought we knew.
During flashbacks to the childhood of Jean-Luc Picard, we see the future captain of the Enterprise
sitting at the table in his family home.
On the table near him is a toy sure to make Trekkies' eyes widen: a model of the NX-01
Refit.
The NX-01 is easily identifiable as the titular starship featured in the four-season series
"Star Trek: Enterprise," which premiered in 2001 and starred Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan
Archer.
But the "refit" aspect is what makes this model especially unique, because this version
of the NX-01 Enterprise was never seen on screen.
It has only been the subject of conjecture, developed by designers and model makers for
a future the series never saw.
The design was originally planned to be introduced in a fifth season for "Enterprise" that never
happened, thanks to an abrupt cancellation in 2005.
It has only ever been seen off-screen.
Artwork of the NX-01 Refit was seen in the 2014 release of the "Star Trek: Ships Of The
Line" calendar series, while Polar Lights produced a model kit of the variant starship
as well.
In fact, the version we see in this episode appears to be a model produced by Eaglemoss
as part of their Hero Collector series of "Star Trek" starships.
Hide and seek
In Episode 9, titled "Hide and Seek," we finally learn the truth behind Picard and his mother's
games of hide and seek, a reference to a moment in the ninth "Star Trek" film, "Star Trek:
Insurrection."
In that movie, Commander Data is malfunctioning and on the run, leaving it up to Picard and
Worf to track him down.
While in a shuttlecraft, Captain Picard notes that as a boy, he and his mother used to play
games of hide and seek, which we've seen firsthand this season.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are…"
However, we now learn there was far more to those games than we ever imagined.
Here, we discover that a fateful game of hide and seek led to a terrible incident in Picard's
youth.
It started innocently enough with a game in the chateau, but after a short time, Picard's
mother asks him to continue the game in the tunnels beneath the estate.
Picard remarks that the tunnels are forbidden, but she manages to coax him down in the hopes
of leaving the chateau entirely.
His mother takes him through the dark tunnel, attempting to run from her husband, but Jean-Luc
gets stuck in a wooden floorboard.
His mother leaves without him, and young Picard must be rescued by his father.
Later that evening, his mother suffers a severe mental breakdown and takes her own life, adding
dark new context to a seemingly innocent moment in "Star Trek: Insurrection."
Seven's fate
Ever since Season 1 of "Star Trek: Picard," fans have wondered what the deal is with this
new, improved Seven of Nine.
What happened on her adventures following "Star Trek: Voyager" that caused her to turn
to vigilantism and the Fenris Rangers rather than Starfleet.
Well, thanks to Episode 9 of Picard season 2, we finally know why she turned out the
way she did.
The answer it hearkens back to several episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager."
While running from the newly-minted Borg soldiers in the tunnels beneath the Picard Chateau,
Seven of Nine and Raffi have another heart-to-heart.
As they arm up and prepare to take on the squad of soldiers chasing them, Raffi comments
that Seven -- who is taking command of the situation -- sounds a lot like a starship
captain.
She says that Seven should have joined Starfleet, and it's then that we learn why she never
did, finally giving fans a deeper glimpse into what happened to Seven after returning
to the Alpha Quadrant in the "Star Trek: Voyager" finale.
According to Seven, she did attempt to join Starfleet but was turned away because of her
time as a Borg drone.
Apparently, her former captain Janeway went to bat for her, even threatening to resign,
but Seven opted to abandon her Academy aspirations and become a Fenris Ranger.
This chain of events mirrors concerns that Seven of Nine expressed more than once in
"Star Trek: Voyager" when she considered staying behind in the Delta Quadrant because she feared
that she would not be accepted on Earth.
It seems that her beliefs were well-founded.
One of the many unresolved questions fans had about "Star Trek: Voyager" is what became
of the Doctor's autonomous holographic emitter, a piece of 29th-century technology picked
up during the crew's time travel adventure in "Future's End."
The device allows the Doctor to leave the confines of not just the sickbay but the ship
entirely, and it gives him a freedom of movement that makes him more like a human than ever
before.
But how would Starfleet feel about using such an advanced piece of tech, seemingly in violation
of the Temporal Prime Directive?
Here we find out, and it seems that the Doctor's mobile emitter has become a piece of invaluable
technology found aboard the La Sirena.
As she struggles with the Borg Queen while on board the ship, Jurati is able to power
up the vessel's ECH.
However, this is not the Emergency Command Hologram first seen in the "Star Trek: Voyager"
episode "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy," but an Emergency Combat Hologram.
"Turns out the ship can make a hologram from anyone who's ever been on board, including
an Emergency Combat Hologram."
This hologram, which is in the image of the crew's deadly Romulan cohort Elnor, sports
what appears to be an updated version of the mobile emitter, which is used to keep Borg
forces and the Jurati Queen at bay.
Though we learn little about the device, holographic Elnor points out that he exists separate from
the ship's systems, to keep the lock-out codes out of the Queen's reach.
Elnor also suggests that not only has the 29th-century device lived on, but may now
be in regular use throughout Starfleet.
Since the beginning of the season, Picard's mother Yvette has played a major role in the
story.
Yvette is seen only once in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" when she appears during a
hallucination that the captain experiences while traveling through an unusual region
of space in the season one episode "Where No One Has Gone Before."
In that distant part of the galaxy, thoughts become reality, and Picard finds himself face
to face with his mother.
In his hallucinatory vision, Yvette Picard asks her son to sit with her for a cup of
tea and a chat.
"This can't be.
You've been–"
"Dead?
But I'm always with you.
You know that."
In this episode of "Picard," we learn the exact nature of that tragic death.
At first, this seems like an irreconcilable retcon, with Yvette dying as a young woman
rather than the elderly version we saw on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Even as a hallucination, how could Picard remember her as an old woman if she never
was one?
But apparently, the writers thought about this.
Picard says that long after her death he often imagined her having grown older and inviting
him for a cup of tea and a chat as an old woman.
It's a clever Easter egg for longtime fans that helps resolve a potential plot hole in
a satisfying way.
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