Star Trek: Picard Season 2's sixth episode, “Two For One,” takes a nonlinear approach to the unfolding plot, opening on Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) unconscious and bleeding from the mouth as the crew’s panicked voices surround him. He has dreamlike flashbacks to his childhood, which have been prevalent throughout the series, but these feature far more terrifying images. Before we get a full grasp on what’s happening, the episode shifts back 34 minutes—to before whatever happened to Picard.
Rios (Santiago Cabrera), Picard, and Not-Laris (Orla Brady) are waiting outside the event while Agnes (Alison Pill) is trapped in the security room and dealing with her recent assimilation with the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching). With time running out, Agnes lets the Queen “help” so the crew can safely get into the event without compromising the mission. While everyone has cleaned up nicely for the event, Agnes’ transformation feels as though it goes hand-in-hand with the Borg Queen occupying part of her psyche. She’s traded her oversized, dowdy clothes for this scarlet form-fitting dress.
26 minutes before Picard’s incident sees the crew watching Reneé (Penelope Mitchell) from different points within the event, with Picard and Tallinn discussing Reneé’s nervous ticks (a fun callback to their previous conversation about Picard’s own tells). Throughout this, there’s some back and forth about how the Watchers don’t interfere, and how perhaps Q is right about keeping Reneé from going on the mission.
Rios joins Raffi (Michelle Hurd) at the bar, where he marvels about the wonders of 21st-century cigars and matches, but Raffi quickly checks that his sudden cheery disposition and “glow” must be because of the doctor that he met in Los Angeles. He doesn’t even try to deny it, launching straight into how impressed he is with how she built her clinic from the ground up. As this subplot continues to develop, it feels more and more like a callback to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode I talked about previously. Rios is obviously going to have to make a hard decision when it comes time to leave the 21st century. But it has been nice to see him get the opportunity to shed the weight of his life in the 24th century and lean more into his roguish charms.
Across the party, Agnes and the Borg Queen chit-chat about their new predicament, and it’s clear that the Queen is embracing a “girls just wanna have fun” philosophy, now that she has partial control over a new human body. When Rios comes over to check on her, because she hasn’t been answering Picard’s com calls, the Borg Queen takes it upon herself to use Agnes’ body to kiss Rios. Rios is just as surprised as Agnes by the kiss, considering they’ve been on pretty rocky ground since their brief relationship in Season 1. Clearly, the Borg Queen found Rios’ concern just as appealing as the rest of us.
As Picard mills around the party, he runs into Dr. Soong (Brent Spiner) who has bought his way onto the board of the Europa Mission. They exchange words about Q and Picard quickly realizes that while Q may not be present at this event, he has ensured that he has someone there working for him. After the near-death of his daughter (or project), Soong is more determined than ever to help Q stop Reneé Picard from going into space. With security guards following Picard around the event, he calls on the crew to create a diversion to help him get away and figure out where Reneé has wandered off to.
With 14 minutes left on the clock before Picard’s accident, the Borg Queen offers to help Agnes create a distraction, and she reluctantly gives over control of her body. The Borg Queen cuts the power to the lights and strides back into the party with a plan to be the center of attention. With the spotlight turned on Agnes, they sing a soul-stirring song that pulls all the focus to them, giving Picard an opportunity to slip away and find Reneé. Of course, the Borg Queen wasn’t actually trying to help anyone other than herself. With all of those endorphins flowing through Agnes’ system after her performance, the Borg Queen is able to take full control over her body. What’s that oft-quoted line? Resistance is futile? It was only a matter of time before Agnes lost the fight for control over her own body.
Picard tracks Reneé down a secluded hallway where she is fretting about the Europa Mission. Despite wanting to be alone, Reneé listens as Picard offers her the same warm wisdom that has been imparted to him by his mother in the flashbacks that have been sprinkled throughout the season. It begs the question that perhaps Picard’s mother got the “look up” sentiment from her own grandparent, who perhaps got it from Reneé, who got it from Picard. It’s all very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, to borrow from another sci-fi series. Picard has an eleventh-hour victory with Reneé and convinces her to at least go into quarantine for the mission, but his victory is short-lived. As the pair walk back to the event, Dr. Soong attempts a little vehicular manslaughter—but Picard pushes Reneé out of the way, thus foiling Q’s plan to get her out of the picture permanently.
The crew rushes to Picard’s aid and Rios realizes that he knows exactly where they can take Picard, where no one will ask questions or require identification. So much for Raffi’s request that he stay away from the good doctor. However, Teresa (Sol Rodriguez) is not entirely thrilled about seeing Rios again, especially since it’s clear that he’s hiding something from her. She does her best to try to patch Picard up, but her defibrillator blows a fuse when she attempts to use it on him. Maybe it has something to do with all of his transplants? He is, after all, a synthetic human.
Teresa tries to get Rios to tell her the truth, but of course, he can’t. Instead, Rios assures her that they’re “the good guys,” but she makes an apt point that the good guys rarely have to tell you that they’re the good guys. It will be interesting to see where this storyline goes, considering it’s a very star-crossed lovers set-up. Then again, Rios could always go the way of the star-spangled man and track down her great-great-granddaughter when they get back to the 24th century.
At the Soong residence, Dr. Soong’s behavior prompts his daughter Kore (Isa Briones) to start researching her childhood and Dr. Soong’s medical history. She learns that he has been called a “Mad Scientist” in the press for his unethical genetics practices and for dabbling in eugenics. She goes through video logs on his computer and discovers videos of children who look like her, but the clips are from moments that she has no memories of. She soon learns that these clips are from past experimental offspring who had names like Artemis and Persephone. These previous genetic test subjects all died horrible deaths from Dr. Soong’s failed attempts at creating synthetic life and she realizes she was his last attempt, which is why he’s determined to do anything and everything to keep her alive. This is a very unsettling subplot, but it ties in neatly with what we previously knew about Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Season 1 storyline with Soji and Dahj.
Back at the clinic, the doctor goes home for the night and Tallinn runs more scans on Picard. They discover that, while he isn’t in a coma, he is trapped inside his own mind. She offers to travel into his subconsciousness, using the neural pathways she already uses as a Watcher. Raffi is hesitant about the plan, considering it could feasibly cause more issues for Picard, but Rios and Seven seem to think it’s the only way for them to save Picard.
In the final moments of the episode, Raffi remarks that things can’t get worse, which you absolutely never say when things can absolutely get worse.
Rating: A+
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is streaming now on Paramount+.