If the premiere of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 left you with any questions about who Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) is to Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) you’ll be pleased to know that Episode 2 doesn’t beat around the bush. With the upbeat tune of Baby’s “Starchild” blaring in the background, the episode opens on a flashback to two weeks ago when Jack got into a spot of trouble for violating an airspace quarantine zone. The rock n’ roll of it all very quickly, and brilliantly, showcases the contrast between Jack and Picard, who is very much a character constructed to the tune of classical music.
The flashback also provides a little much-needed exposition and reveals a few key elements about Jack’s personality and what he and his mother (Gates McFadden) have been doing since Beverly’s last appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis. When the Fenris Rangers board their ship, Jack explains that they’re trying to deliver medical supplies to a planet that is suffering from a deadly fever—one that he hints may be part of an engineered pandemic that warlords are using to clear out refugees. The Rangers are skeptical and force him to show them the cargo aboard the vessel, which is largely medical supplies. Even the Romulan ale they have stowed away is used for medicinal purposes. But they also have weapons aboard the ship, which Jack explains they use for bartering, and those weapons also work on bribing the Rangers to let them help the refugees on the surface. Unfortunately, what Jack doesn’t realize is that the Rangers are on a reconnaissance mission of their own, and the flashback ends with them reporting back to a mysterious someone that they have found Jack.
This is exactly how they wound up in the situation that they’re in, in the present, at least in part. Jack explains to Picard and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) that he and his mother have been hunted for weeks by different groups of entirely unconnected people—including the Rangers and Romulans, and pretty much everyone in between. This is why Beverly told Picard to “trust no one,” because even Starfleet seemed to be after their pound of flesh. Jack is eager to get off the ship and get his mother to safety since the Med Pod she’s inside is running low on power. While Picard is still trying to wrap his head around the idea of Beverly having a son, Riker is quick to point out that there’s something “familiar” about Jack.
Aboard the U.S.S. Titan, Seven (Jeri Ryan) and Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick) butt heads about whether they should offer assistance to Picard and Riker. Even after another vessel appears and blows up the shuttle that Picard and Riker stole, Shaw digs in his heels and makes it clear that he isn’t interested in sacrificing his crew for a couple of “relics.” Seven attempts to convince Shaw to offer them aid, considering the enemy ship is targeting an unarmed vessel, but all Shaw cares about is the fact that Seven helped Picard. Realizing that she isn’t going to get through to Shaw, Seven tries one last time to appeal to whatever honor code he might live by, by pointing out that he can either be a hero and rescue them or become the man who let two legends die. It’s a risky move, considering Shaw is completely disenchanted by the myth and legend angle.
On Crusher’s ship, it quickly becomes apparent that their enemy isn’t interested in Beverly Crusher—they’re after her son. Picard thwarts their attempt to transport Jack off the ship by swiftly installing transport inhibitors, however, this doesn’t keep their mysterious enemies from boarding the vessel or capturing them in a tractor beam. One way or another, they’re bound and determined to capture Jack alive. After weeks of being tracked down and hunted across the galaxy, the ship isn’t just low on power, it’s low on everything. Their repulser capabilities are entirely shot and any chance they have of fighting their way out of their clutches is gone.
Luckily for them, Seven’s final plea to Shaw apparently worked. At the eleventh hour, the Titan shows up to disrupt the tractor beam and buy Picard and Riker enough time to evacuate the vessel. Shaw begrudgingly rescues the four life signs they discover aboard the ship all the while making a snide comment about how the Titan has become “basically a hotel now.”
Once they are all safely aboard the Titan, Shaw decides he doesn’t want to just leave—he wants to engage and find out who they’re dealing with. Vadic (Amanda Plummer) hails the Titan and reveals they’re bounty hunters who are after Jack, who has a sizable bounty on his head for breaking a myriad of different laws across the galaxy. As expected, Shaw points out that Starfleet doesn’t negotiate with bounty hunters, but Vadic is quick to remind him that they’re outside of Federation space, so their rules don’t apply. She drops her shields, giving the crew enough time to scan her ship—which reveals that they are absolutely loaded with weapons, leaving the Titan largely outnumbered and outgunned. In a show of power, Vadic gives Shaw one hour to turn Jack over and uses their tractor beam to literally slingshot Crusher’s ship at the Titan. Which isn’t a move that’s ever been seen before by anyone among the crew.
Picard and Jack have a quick heart-to-heart about needing to know everything that he knows about Vadic and the predicament they find themselves in, but Jack claims he knows nothing. Before they can get much further with their conversation, Shaw decides to throw Jack in the brig after discovering that Vadic’s claims about him being a conman are actually true. But Shaw isn’t done laying down the law just yet, in addition to taking Jack into custody, he also relieves Seven of her duties for insubordination—which felt like a long time coming after last week’s episode. Riker, who has a vested interest in the wellbeing of the Titan’s crew, is quick to criticize Shaw for giving into the demands of bounty hunters and points out that Jack deserves a fair trial, not an execution by bounty hunters. Shaw isn’t willing to budge, however.
While Picard is reluctant to believe that Jack Crusher might be his son, especially with the new information about him being a conman with a dozen different aliases, Riker is completely convinced that he’s Picard’s kid. Even though they’re trying to sow seeds of doubt, everything about Jack feels like the perfect combination of Beverly Crusher and Jean-Luc Picard, right down to the British accent and the devil-may-care attitude.
Jack’s attempt to look cool and collected about his situation is betrayed by his trembling hands when Picard makes his way down to the brig to get more information out of him. Before Picard can probe him for information about their unfortunate situation, Jack’s first line of questioning is about his mother’s condition—which completely blows a hole in Shaw’s later assumption that he is just a conman who hitched his wagon to an unconscious lady. Picard questions him about all of his charges, which are legit, though Jack prefers to call himself a “freedom fighter” and a thief who provides medical aid, in addition to being someone who happens to be a bit of a scourge to fathers of daughters around the galaxy.
Jack reveals that everything he learned about rendering medical aid around the galaxy, he learned from his mother, including everything that earned him a rap sheet. Picard doesn’t buy it, because the Beverly Crusher he once knew would never be getting into trouble. Jack is quick to point out that Picard and Beverly haven’t seen each other in over twenty years, so how could Picard even begin to know who Beverly is now? This forces Picard to finally ask the million-dollar question. Who is Jack Crusher’s father? It’s an emotionally charged question that reveals exactly how Picard feels about the potential answer. Even though Jack’s answer isn’t straightforward, because he never had a father who was in the picture, Picard knows the answer—and so does the audience.
Rather than deal with the fallout of this halfway revelation, Jack offers to turn himself over to Vadic, if it means his mother will be safe. With less than eighteen minutes left to decide Jack’s fate, Picard leaves him in the brig to mull over their options. But Jack has already made his mind up. In a very swashbuckler move, he convinces the officer that is guarding the brig to reveal the voltage of the force field keeping him inside his cell, which allows him to essentially hot-wire his way out of the brig. Armed with a blaster and the tenacity he inherited from both of his parents, Jack makes his way to the transporter bay to turn himself over to Vadic, since it’s clear they aren’t going to stop hunting him until he’s caught.
Fueled by Shaw’s belief that Jack was lying about Beverly being his mother, Riker headed to the sick bay to wake Beverly up, and they return to the bridge at the absolute perfect moment. Right as Shaw is ordering his officers to allow Jack to transport himself off the Titan, Beverly arrives on the bridge to confirm Picard’s theories about Jack. It’s a beautiful moment and completely silent moment, save for the soul-stirring orchestration playing beneath it. Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden deliver a myriad of emotions—regret, shame, pain, heartbreak—simply through their expressions. As the moment passes, Picard gives the order to disregard Shaw’s orders, barring Jack from turning himself over to Vadic. Shaw questions him about who the boy is and, without missing a beat, Picard answers: “He’s my son.”
While all of this family drama is playing out aboard the U.S.S. Titan, Raffi (Michelle Hurd) is aboard La Sirena dealing with the guilt she feels about not stopping the terrorist attack. Her mysterious handler informs her that Starfleet is terminating the investigation because they believe that a Romulan by the name of Lurak T’Luco was behind the attack. Raffi refuses to believe that someone who is far from being a most wanted criminal could be behind it—especially after what she witnessed. After she learns that T’Luco likely retrieved the weapon from a Ferengi named Sneed, she decides she’s going to continue her investigation, much to the chagrin of her handler. This is also where the episode’s title is borrowed from, as her handler orders her to “Disengage,” but we all know that Raffi will not let this one go.
Raffi’s investigation takes her to another hotbed of criminal activity, and someone from her past. Back in Season 1, Picard revealed that Raffi had been previously married to a man by the name of Jae, who she had a son with named Gabe. While there have only been brief mentions of them in the series and its ancillary material, Raffi is estranged from both Jae and Gabe, as well as Gabe’s young daughter—who Raffi was looking at pictures of in the premiere of Season 3. In “Disengage” she goes to Jae in hopes of using him and his bar as a lead to finding Sneed, though Jae thinks Raffi is meeting with him to help mend the broken relationship between her and their son. Once Jae realizes what Raffi is up to, he delivers a cruel ultimatum. He can either help her reconnect with Gabe or he can help her find Sneed. He won’t do both. Of course, driven by duty, Raffi chooses her mission, which is probably why her relationship with Gabe fell apart in the first place.
Near the end of the episode, Raffi does track down Sneed, and she attempts to get information out of him about where he got the deadly weapon and who his supplier is. She pretends to be T’Luco’s handler, who is enraged that he’s being pinned for the attack, but that bluff quickly goes awry when Sneed reveals that he killed and beheaded T’Luco. Sneed accuses Raffi of being part of the super-secret Section 31 organization and forces her to take a hallucinogenic drug called Splinter to prove she isn’t working for Starfleet. Things go sideways fast as the drug takes its effect on her, but luckily her handler shows up to save the day. Star Trek: Picard doesn’t waste any time with revealing that Raffi’s handler is none other than Worf (Michael Dorn), who is just as magnificent as he was in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
The stakes were already high, but Episode 2 of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 ups the ante by confirming, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jack Crusher is Beverly Crusher and Jean-Luc Picard’s son. With so much of the first two seasons focused on Picard’s past, the exploration of the tangible legacy he will eventually leave behind—the one that is more than just legend and acclaim—is a story that has not yet been explored for Picard. Now we just have to wait and see how Picard reacts to learning that he has had a son out there among the stars for all of these years, and how that will parallel Riker’s own exploration of grief after losing his own son, which was set up in the premiere.
Rating: A
The first two episodes of the final season of Star Trek: Picard are streaming now on Paramount+.