In the seventh episode of Star Trek: Picard, the characters split up as Elnor remains on
the Borg Artifact, Picard and Soji go visit old friends, and the rest of the La Sirena
crew heads after him.
Here are all the Easter eggs and references you might have missed in "Nepenthe."
When Picard and Soji are confronted in the woods of Nepenthe by Will Riker and Deanna
Troi's daughter, Kestra, she points her bow and arrow at Picard's heart but he tells her
she may want to aim at his head instead, since his heart is made of solid duritanium.
Picard's artificial heart was first established as canon in the second season episode, "Samaritan
Snare," in which Picard has to undergo an operation to replace the deteriorating mechanical
organ.
Picard says his original heart replacement occurred after being stabbed through the back
by a group of Naussicans when he was younger, which he tells Wesley was a curious sensation.
"Not much pain.
Shock, certainly, at the sight of the serrated metal sticking through my chest."
Later, in the sixth season episode "Tapestry," we actually see this confrontation play out
thanks to some time meddling from Q.
When Picard visits Will Riker and Deanna Troi, we learn that the couple has had two children
in the time that has passed since Star Trek: Nemesis.
Their first, a boy named Thad, would've been eighteen in 2399, but tragically passed away
several years earlier.
At the time of "Nepenthe," they only have one surviving child, a precocious young teen
with a vivid imagination named Kestra.
Both of the Troi-Riker children were actually named for members of their parents' families.
As revealed in the Voyager episode "Death Wish," Thaddeus Riker was a soldier in the
Union Army during the American Civil War whose life was saved by a Q named Quinn.
"That is Colonel Thadeius Riker after he was wounded at Pine Mountain.
They used to call him 'Old Iron Boots.'"
But while Thad Troi-Riker was named for a distant ancestor of his father, Kestra got
her name from a much closer relation to her mother.
As revealed in the Next Generation episode, "Dark Page," Kestra Troi was Deanna's older
sister, who died as a child in a tragic accident.
Deanna didn't know about Kestra until she was an adult, when she helped her mother finally
work through her decades-old grief and guilt over Kestra's death.
In Riker's first scene in Picard, he's working in the kitchen, preparing ingredients for
homemade pizza while listening to jazz.
Both of these pastimes are things Picard's erstwhile Number One often enjoyed in between
shifts on the Enterprise.
In the Next Generation season 2 episode "Time Squared," Riker makes scrambled eggs from
scratch for his fellow crewmates, using Owan eggs he picked up on their last stop at Starbase
73.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Owan eggs aren't appetizing to humans, and most of Riker's
guests can't manage more than a mouthful.
In his defense, Riker says,
"A cook is only as good as his ingredients."
In "Nepenthe," Riker seems to have learned his lesson, using tomatoes and basil from
his own garden in his pizza.
Meanwhile, Will Riker's love for jazz was first shown in the Next Generation season
1 episode, "11001001."
In that episode, an alien species called the Bynars distracts Riker by keeping him on the
holodeck, where he plays trombone with a 1958 New Orleans jazz combo.
After learning that Soji is a synthetic modeled after Commander Data, Kestra begins quizzing
her new acquaintance on her interests and abilities.
"Can you play the violin?"
No."
"Do you like Sherlock Holmes?"
"I guess."
Data first picked up the violin in order to get into character as Sherlock Holmes in the
Next Generation season 2 episode, "Elementary, Dear Data."
In the episode, Data and Geordi are confronted with a hologram of Holmes' arch-nemesis, Moriarty,
who begins to gain sentience.
The themes of "Elementary, Dear Data," about artificial intelligence which becomes self-aware,
are very similar to those of Picard.
Kestra also asks whether Soji has any enhanced physical abilities, like bending metal with
her bare hands.
On The Next Generation, this was one of the demonstrations that Riker himself uses to
argue against Data's humanity in the episode, "The Measure of a Man."
Fortunately, despite Riker presenting a strong case on behalf of Bruce Maddox, the judge
rules in Data and Picard's favor.
"It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose."
Riker later apologizes to Data for arguing that he wasn't a person, but Data immediately
absolves him, telling him that if he hadn't done it, Data never would've been given the
opportunity to defend himself in the first place.
After quizzing Soji on whether she inherited any of her interests and abilities from her
"father," Data, Kestra moves on to her biological functions, wondering if her synthetic body
produces things like saliva and mucus.
When Soji confirms that it does, Kestra muses that it would make sense that Data's synthetic
offspring would have so many of these biological traits, since he was always trying to be more
human.
She goes on to explain that despite all of Data's impressive android abilities, all he
ever really wanted to do were things like have dreams, tell jokes, and learn how to
ballroom dance.
Data was featured doing all three of these activities during various episodes of Star
Trek: The Next Generation.
Data first started experiencing dreams in the sixth season episode, "Birthright, Part
I."
After that episode, he said that he planned to incorporate dreaming into his regular routine.
He also repeatedly tried to tell jokes throughout The Next Generation's run, and even received
lessons in humor from a holographic standup comedian in the season 2 episode, "The Outrageous
Okona."
"I come from a town so small, we had a fraction for a zip code."
And he hilariously asks for dancing lessons from Dr. Crusher in the season 4 episode "Data's
Day," which also features the return of Bruce Maddox.
Due to a miscommunication, Crusher teaches Data to tap dance, when what he really needed
to learn was ballroom dancing for an upcoming wedding.
While attempting to persuade Rios and Raffi to abandon Picard and return to Earth, Agnes
says she'd hoped to be the fun crew member who says things like,
"'Let's hide in that comet' and it turns out to be a giant gormagander or something"
Gormaganders resemble giant space whales and were first seen in the Star Trek: Discovery
episode, "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad," in which a character hid inside an injured
gormagander in an attempt to smuggle himself on board the Discovery and take over the ship.
But of course, hiding in a comet that turns out to be a giant organic lifeform is also
a clear reference to that other hugely popular space saga.
In The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo hides from the Imperial Navy by piloting the Millenium
Falcon into a cave in an asteroid, which turns out to actually be the mouth of a giant space
slug.
When trying to convince the adults around the dinner table that her friend Captain Crandall
would be the ideal candidate to transport Picard and Soji off-world on his ship, Kestra
brags about Crandall's travels, saying,
"He's been everywhere from Qo'noS to Tyken's Rift."
Qo'noS has been mentioned many times throughout Star Trek history as the home of the Klingon
Empire, and Picard and his crew have even visited it a few times.
Meanwhile, Tyken's Rift isn't a planet, but rather a type of spatial anomaly that absorbs
all the surrounding energy.
The Enterprise became trapped in a Tyken's Rift in the Next Generation season 4 episode,
"Night Terrors."
In that episode, Counselor Troi was the one who worked out the solution so that the Enterprise
could finally break free of the Rift.
Years later, we see that Picard is still seeking advice from Troi to get himself out of seemingly
impossible situations, and that she is still more than willing to give it.
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