(fingers snap) (triumphant music)
(clock ticking)
♪ Surrender all your dreams to me tonight ♪
(suspenseful music)
(clock ticking)
- [Narrator] Now that we are getting to the end
of "Star Trek: Picard" Season 2,
we finally have the answers we've been waiting for,
and it's leading to a more complicated
and confusing explanation of events
than previously expected.
- You can't time travel!
- [Narrator] All of those little Borg Queen smirks
and foreshadowing is paying off,
and it looks as if the Borg will finally get a chance
to assimilate pre-warp Earth.
With so many moving parts
and very little time left for explanations
in the current season,
it's obvious we are heading to a cliff hanger
and conclusion to this story in Season 3.
We believe we now understand who the Borg Queen is
in the future
that started this whole time loop mess in the first place.
Or did she end it?
- Creating a temporal vortex.
- Time travel.
- [Narrator] So we have a few questions for you:
Is Tallinn a friend or a foe?
Is Q really trying to help Picard?
This is about to become a timey wimey mess,
and while what we are about to show you is going
to break your brain-
- Damn time travel.
- [Narrator] We promise it will make some semblance
of sense in the end,
and perhaps even answer some questions
that have been driving you nuts,
even if thinking about it might still hurt your head.
So you don't wanna miss this episode.
- I don't wanna talk about time travel.
- [Narrator] But before we break
down three different "Star Trek" timelines,
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(bright music)
If you are totally confused
by "Star Trek: Picard's" time shenanigans,
then don't feel bad.
They are doing something different with time travel
that "Star Trek" doesn't do.
"Star Trek" may have a Mirror Universe,
but it generally operates in one timeline.
And no, "Discovery's" Kelvin writing blunder
in Season 3 doesn't count for another 900 years.
The single time travel timeline is easy for the audience
to understand.
- We're going to attempt time travel.
- [Narrator] Kirk's future needed whales,
so he went back in his timeline and stole a couple.
The Borg went to Earth's past,
the "TNG" crew followed them,
they kicked their butts,
and they came back to their own timeline.
Very simple.
One story, one timeline.
Some of the best time travel stories
like "Back to the Future" and "The Terminator"
also keep it simple.
One timeline, one story, lots of paradoxes,
but hey, that's time travel.
- In this universe, we process time linearly, forward.
- [Narrator] But during "Picard" Season 2,
they've thrown the single timeline right out the window.
They have embraced Marvel's multiple timeline strategy.
Yes, you can tell the story you want
without having pesky time travel rules to follow,
but you also confuse the audience
and leave them feeling unsure
about what path they should be following.
Stories that span multiple timelines are confusing,
illogical, and in our opinion, a crutch for lazy writing.
How does one even time travel to an alternate reality
that shouldn't even exist?
- I'm gonna throw you in my DeLorean, gun it to 88.
- [Narrator] Oh, don't worry; we are about to find out.
"Star Trek Picard" is actually working
in three different timelines.
We start the show in the correct Prime Timeline.
The year is 2401,
and Picard just shot down a pretty hot, older Romulan lady.
After a little soul searching
and some nightmares about his mom,
Picard is summoned to his old ship, the USS Stargazer,
by the voice of the Borg Collective.
Once there, he is confronted
by a Borg vessel no one has ever seen before coming out
of some sort of spatial anomaly with minor tachyon levels
and massive Adler-Lasky temporal radiation.
Say that three times.
- [Crowd] Picard!
- [Narrator] The message is: "Help us, Picard."
Unbelievably, the Borg's goal is to join the Federation,
and they request a private meeting with Picard.
Instead of trusting the Borg,
which is, in general, a good idea,
Rios goes to red alert
and a masked Borg Queen is transported
onto the bridge anyways.
The Queen says, "We want peace,
but first, we require power."
She connects to the bridge controls
and begins assimilating not only the Stargazer,
but the entire Federation fleet to build up power.
The Queen tells them they are "out of time."
The French song "Non, je ne regrette rien" begins to play.
In English, it means "No, I do not regret anything,"
and when Jean-Luc was a child,
his mother would have the computer play that song
in an attempt to calm her nervous son.
Also plucking one of his mother's lines,
the Borg Queen tells Picard to look up,
and then everything explodes.
(romantic music) (shockwave whooshes)
If you've been watching "Picard" Season 2,
then you know Jurati and the Borg Queen are one.
We believe this faceless Borg Queen
in Episode 1 is the Jurati Borg Queen
almost 400 years later.
Crazy, right?
But hold on to that thought for a second,
and let's look at the facts.
The Borg ship is of a design we have never seen before,
and the rift it is coming through has tachyon levels
and temporal radiation.
So first and foremost,
we know some sort of time travel is occurring.
The Borg Queen tells the bridge they are "out of time,"
not that they have no time left,
but that they are literally not in the correct timeline.
Remember, the Queen originally wanted
to talk to Picard alone,
perhaps to convince him that she once was Jurati
from a different timeline,
but because Rios and Seven didn't trust her,
she did the only thing she could do.
She took control of the Stargazer
while at the same time playing the French music
and telling Picard to look up,
as if to calm Picard and let him know everything was going
to be okay.
The Jurati Borg Queen then uses the power she has generated
to shift Picard into an alternate timeline.
We call this "The Corrupted Timeline."
This is the future Earth
that has become a xenophobic, conquering society,
eerily like the Mirror Universe.
Picard learns from the Borg Queen being held captive
in that timeline that the change in history happens in 2024
and to search out The Watcher.
It's important to note that Picard
and his crew have traveled back in time
along this Corrupted Timeline.
This is why Guinan doesn't know Picard,
because in the Corrupted Timeline,
Picard never goes back in time to meet her.
Once Picard meets Tallinn, the Laris-lookalike Watcher,
he learns she is watching an important person
in the timeline: his ancestor, Renee Picard.
He also learns Q is trying to convince Renee not to go
on the Europa mission,
and Jean-Luc determines this is the point in history
that Q changes.
And this is where we run into a whole bunch of problems.
We will eventually learn that Q did not shift the timeline
and that he is actually trying to help Picard.
But at this point,
Picard is convinced Q is trying to hurt him.
Jean-Luc has no knowledge of his ancestor Renee,
but he does know that the Europa mission was important
in his correct timeline's history.
If that mission was important
for him to know about in history,
why wouldn't he know that his ancestor was on that mission?
It's because she wasn't.
When Picard and Tallinn get back
to the La Sirena and his crew,
Jean-Luc tells them he has no idea who she is,
but he does know that Renee went on the Europa mission
and brought back a microorganism from Io
that she believed was sentient.
The only problem is that
if Picard doesn't know anything about her,
then the only way he could learn about her future
and what happened to her on the Europa mission was
from the La Sirena computers.
And where does the La Sirena come from?
The Corrupted Timeline.
And since we know the Corrupted Timeline is wrong,
that means they have it all wrong about Renee.
She is not supposed to go on that mission
and bring back that sentient life form,
because it is very likely if she does so,
Adam Soong will have exactly what he needs
to complete his project
and become the person that leads us into the future
of the Corrupted Timeline.
Remember when we see Picard in his horrific future,
we hear the voice of Adam Soong.
- [Adam Soong] A safe galaxy is a human galaxy.
- [Narrator] He is revered in the future corrupted Timeline.
Even the shield surrounding the Earth looks
like a larger version of the technology he uses
to protect his daughter from the sun.
So it makes complete sense that Q has been trying
to get Renee not to go on the mission.
He was also going to do it by snapping his fingers,
but then nothing happened,
so he had to resort to becoming her therapist.
And then he had to go straight to the source.
He gave Soong a serum that didn't work
and then used that to get his help to stop Renee.
When that didn't work,
Q showed Soong's daughter the truth about him
and gave her a serum that worked so she could leave
and he wouldn't have access to his experiment any further.
Q knows that he needs to shut down both Renee and Soong.
But let's not forget Tallinn.
Something isn't right with her.
A Romulan supervisor watching over humanity?
We got the awesome callback to Gary Seven
in the "TOS" episode "Assignment Earth."
Gary was a human whose ancestors had been abducted
from Earth around 4,000 BC
and was taken to another planet 1,000 light years away
to be trained by advanced beings
and eventually to be sent back to help Earth.
In 1968, Gary sabotaged the launch
of an orbital missile platform to prevent nuclear war.
So why would the mission change for the Supervisors?
If Gary can sabotage a launch to avoid World War III,
why can't Tallinn guide Renee to the Europa mission
to do the same thing?
Don't forget, World War III takes place in only two years
from the time these events are happening.
The future of the Corrupted Timeline is one
in which humanity finds a way to avoid World War III
and also become much stronger.
Isn't this what the advanced beings wanted?
For the Supervisors to guide Earth and make it stronger?
So the question remains:
Is Tallinn one of the good guys?
Here is a good question for you.
Why is a 21st century Romulan serving
as a Supervisor on Earth?
She did say, "Sometimes it happens,"
but is she telling the truth?
Is it just poor writing to connect Laris to Tallinn,
or are we about to see a twist?
The Romulan Star Empire wouldn't even exist
for another 128 years at the time Tallinn is on Earth
as a Watcher.
The Romulans likely don't even have warp drive capabilities
yet.
Hopefully, the writers have something exciting
in store for us with Tallinn,
or it will be a disappointment.
- Let me explain something. - [Narrator] And now
with the Jurati Borg Queen assimilating soldiers,
we are seeing the birth of the third timeline,
which we are calling "The Borg Queen Timeline."
In this timeline,
the future of the Corrupted Timeline should cease to exist
as the Jurati Borg Queen
slowly assimilates 21st century Earth.
Jurati is mostly helpless
as the Borg Queen dominates her body eating car batteries.
Yeah, we aren't gonna go there.
- I wish it was better, you know?
But it is so stupid.
- [Narrator] But what we believe is
that almost 400 years from now,
Jurati will wrestle control of the Collective
from the Borg Queen,
and using the massive power the Collective has created,
punch a hole from the Jurati Borg Queen Timeline
to the correct Prime Timeline
and try to connect with Picard,
ultimately shifting him to the Corrupted Timeline
and starting the loop all over again.
Does your brain hurt as much as ours?
- It's either a bootstrap paradox,
or a grandfather paradox, or a reversed bootstrap paradox.
- Enough!
My head hurts.
- [Narrator] How Jurati Borg Queen is able to punch
through a timeline into another timeline that doesn't exist
and shift Picard into a third timeline
that really shouldn't exist is anyone's guess.
Hopefully, "Picard" showrunner Terry Matalas will break
all this down for us,
whatever time travel shenanigans are still to come.
- A time machine for time travel.
- [Narrator] The one thing we know for sure is
that Picard will have more help
from some old friends very soon.
Perhaps Q's last act for Picard before he dies will be
to give him a little help from his old friends.
What do you think?
Do you think Jurati is the future Borg Queen?
Is Tallinn telling the truth,
or are the Romulans somehow secretly behind this?
Is "Star Trek" making a mistake using so many timelines,
or does this make the story better?
Let's talk about it in the comments below.
- Here's the deal, boys.
- [Narrator] And if you haven't already subscribed
to our channel, please do so now,
and give us a thumbs up if you want more news
about your favorite shows.
Also, click the notification bell to never miss an episode.
- Enough! (Picard grunts)
- [Narrator] And visit our merch store to see
how to get this awesome "Star Trek" inspired graphic design.
Get 20% off your purchase by using coupon code "THEPOPCAST."
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(fingers snapping)
(uplifting music)