Tensions are mounting aboard the U.S.S. Titan as Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and the Shrike pursue the starship deeper into a dangerous nebula, which prevents them from jumping to warp. But tension isn’t the only thing mounting, emotions are too. On the heels of last week’s revelation, Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Jack (Ed Speleers) are both forced to come to terms with their newfound connection in Episode 3 of Star Trek: Picard Season 3.
Picard is convinced that Vadic will continue to pursue them, no matter where they go until they surrender, and Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick) isn’t looking to surrender his ship—at any cost. Without any other options, he orders the crew to take the ship deeper into the nebula, in hopes that they might be able to shake the Shrike loose. With the clear and present danger that the crew of the Titan is in, they are quick to glare at Jack and blame him for the attack, especially without knowing why Picard has pushed for Shaw to protect him. Beverly (Gates McFadden) cautions Jack that it’s not worth getting mad about because the crew is going to need them because of their medical experience.
Before the opening credits roll, the episode flashes back to a window of time shortly after the birth of Riker’s (Jonathan Frakes) son, when he and Picard have reunited to celebrate Thad’s birth. This scene sets the stage for a pivotal moment that arrives towards the end of the episode, with Riker telling Picard how touch-and-go Thad’s birth was, and that—on board the Titan—the turbolift takes approximately seventeen seconds to go from the bridge to the sick bay. It is a very poignant moment for a number of reasons. For one, because Riker’s son does ultimately die, and his worst fears do become a reality, and secondly because he so clearly wishes that Picard could experience fatherhood too. Riker also tells Picard that once you have a child, “You’ll burn the whole world to save them.” This harkens back to the song that both Picard and Beverly were listening to in the premiere.
Picard and Riker pay a visit to Beverly and Jack while they are tending to patients in the sick bay, looking for answers about their current predicament. Riker attempts to lure Jack away, but Jack is quick to protest, insisting that anything Picard could need to say to his mother could be said in front of him. However, Beverly encourages him to leave with Riker, and for good reason, because there are definitely aspects of their conversation that would’ve been difficult to discuss in front of him. While the silence of Episode 2’s revelation made for profound and compelling storytelling, there are a lot of questions that Picard deserves the answers to—starting with why.
Beverly explains that before she left the Enterprise, she was convinced that they both understood that they were finally at the end of their on-again-off-again relationship. They tried to enjoy their shore leave, but he was called back early, which was how it always worked out. At that point, they ended their relationship for the fifth time, but Picard didn’t realize that ending their romance meant ending their friendship too, or that he would be left wondering what he did wrong since he never saw her again. Picard can’t wrap his head around why Beverly didn’t tell him that she was pregnant, and she insists that it was because his life was too dangerous—there was always someone trying to kill him or he was dashing off into a dangerous scenario. She doubted that he would walk away from Starfleet, especially knowing that he never wanted to have a family because he was too afraid of becoming his own father.
Understandably, this upsets Picard, because it feels like Beverly is throwing his father in his face—and he has every right to be upset. Season 2 focused so much on the trauma that Picard still carried from his father, which allows him to tell Beverly that he now knows that he would’ve never become his father, but he points out that he could’ve learned that twenty years ago, by becoming a father. They reach a bit of a stalemate, with Picard pointing out that Beverly robbed him of the choice to decide for himself, while Beverly is certain she made the right decision. As she ominously points out, being the son of Jean-Luc Picard means living with a target on your back.
Elsewhere on the Titan, Jack and Riker are having an equally tense conversation—though theirs is a little more humorous, and it perhaps gives a glimpse into what life could’ve been like if Riker had been an uncle-like figure for Jack. Jack tells Riker to stop looking at him like a science experiment, but Riker pushes back that Jack is actually a bit of a science experiment because he spent years with Picard and Beverly watching Jack get cooked up. Which is exactly what every kid wants to hear about their parents. Jack makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with referring to Picard as his “dad” and Riker attempts to talk some sense into him by pointing out that everyone is faulty, and he can’t really hold their situation against Picard. Jack relents a little and reveals that his mother was always so excited to tell him stories about her time aboard the Enterprise, but that her happiness often gave way to sadness. He asks Riker if he has a family and Riker reveals that he has a wife, a daughter, and he had a son. It’s a subtle moment, but you see a shift in Jack as he realizes why Riker is so keen to build a bridge between him and Picard.
In the sick bay, emotions have tempered between Picard and Beverly as he questions her about the Shrike. Beverly says that she doesn’t know who Vadic is, and explains that the Shrike is just another in a long line of people trying to hunt them down. Everywhere they have turned over the past few weeks, has resulted in someone always turning on them and trying to take Jack from her. While she doesn’t know who is pursuing them or why, she is convinced that it has nothing to do with Jack, and everything to do with Picard. With this revelation, the conversation shifts back to their son, with Beverly telling Picard that Jack picked up his accent while studying in London, and that she had actually given him the option to meet his father. She explains that, when Jack was old enough, she told him everything he needed to know about Picard and gave him the option to find him and meet him, but ultimately Jack decided that he didn’t want to find him.
After their respective conversations, Riker and Picard regroup and Picard is extremely standoffish. Riker tries to pry and find out how the conversation with Beverly went, but Picard calls it all “immaterial” even though it is decidedly not immaterial. Riker encourages him to talk to Jack, and even uses his own personal tragedy as an example of why Picard should try to cherish the time he has with Jack, but Picard isn’t very interested in listening to reason. Especially not when the Titan is in peril. When they arrive at the bridge, the Shrike reemerges from the nebula, firing at the starship and plunging them into chaos. Captain Shaw is severely injured, which prompts him to begrudgingly transfer command of the Titan to Riker—who he hopes can lead the ship to safety. Riker takes the Captain’s seat and as Picard takes the seat beside him, he wryly remarks: “Will, I think it may be time you call me Number One.”
Beverly and Jack are once again helping the injured crew members in sickbay when Shaw is brought down in pretty dire condition. Since Beverly recovered from her own injuries, she has been butting heads with the Titan’s doctor who seems very reluctant to utilize “old-fashioned” medical practices or relinquish any control to another medical professional. They butt heads once again when Shaw is brought in and Beverly realizes that he has internal bleeding that the doctor’s imaging failed to catch. While Shaw is struggling to catch his breath, he summons up just enough strength to get his hands on Jack and question him about how Vaidc keeps finding them. Jack initially seems like he has no idea, at least until he looks down at the floor and sees the trail of Shaw’s blood.
On the bridge, Riker is trying to come up with a way to avoid being caught by the Shrike again, and orders the crew to “keep them squirrely” as they travel through the nebula. Picard, on the other hand, is convinced that they need to fight the Shrike—an option that Riker seems reluctant to explore. Riker ultimately decides that their best course of action would be to leave the nebula, since they can’t warp, but before they can get out, the Shrike is on top of them once again. Utilizing the same weapon which decimated the celebration in Episode 1, the Shrike utilizes the portal weapon to drive the Titan right into their clutches. It puts the starship into a dire situation that leaves them with only a few options for escape.
Earlier in the episode, Alandra La Forge (Mica Burton) paid Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) a visit, after she was confined to her quarters for insubordination in the previous episode. When she arrived, Seven was listening to super moody music while she's sulking about her situation, and Alandra attempted to extend a hand of understanding by comparing their situations. Alandra revealed that she has always had a hard time fitting in and making friends, especially because most people just think of her as Geordi La Forge’s daughter. Alandra isn’t the only person who pays Seven a visit in the episode. After Jack is denied access to the bridge to tell Riker and Picard his theory, he goes straight to Seven’s quarters. Knowing that she used to be a Fenris Ranger, he questions her about the “blood in the water” tactic, and they realize that the Titan must be leaving some sort of trail, which is allowing the Shrike to track them.
Seven and Jack set out to figure out where the leak is coming from, but first, they have to get around the officer that is guarding Seven’s door. Jack plays coy about the situation before knocking the officer out without even flinching. With a little hint of admiration, Seven tells Jack “You’re insane.” all the while kicking the unconscious officer out of her way as they head to engineering.
When they arrive in engineering, they discover that there is some sort of gas leak, which requires them to use gas masks. They also find the evidence that they need to prove that they’ve been sabotaged and Seven reports to the bridge that there is a saboteur on board. Over the course of the first three episodes, there has been one specific ensign (Chad Lindberg) who has been acting very shady, and it all comes to a head while Jack is trying to investigate in engineering. Ensign Foster attacks Jack, ripping his gas mask off and exposing him to the deadly gas, in an effort to stop them from repairing the sabotaged equipment.
As Jack is succumbing to the noxious gas, he begins to hallucinate an eerie red-hued room and a red door. While this is unlikely to be an allusion to Jane Eyre—which famously employs the literary allusion of “The Red Room”—it does appear to go deeper for Jack than just being poisoned. Seven returns just in the knick of time, hauling Jack out of the gas-filled room. When they arrive in sick bay, he is already fading and Beverly realizes just how dire her son’s situation is. Once Picard is made aware of the situation, he steps onto the turbolift and endures the same seventeen-second journey that Riker once told him about.
This part of the episode is incredibly well-constructed, with it inter-cutting between Picard’s agonizingly long journey while Beverly is desperately trying to revive Jack. It’s this situation that finally forces Picard to break through his own self-constructed walls. He can’t deny that he’s a father now, even if it is just in name only. Even before he knew that he was, in fact, Jack’s father, Picard had carefully constructed a wall between them. Now, as he stands beside Jack’s bedside—watching as his vital signs go flat, as Beverly works to bring him back to life—something finally shifts in Picard’s expression. Like Riker’s story about Thad, Picard is seeing a life flash before his eyes, but it isn’t his: it’s his son’s life he sees.
On the other side of the galaxy, Raffi’s (Michelle Hurd) investigation into the deadly attack continues. After her unfortunate encounter with Sneed’s Splinter drug in the previous episode, Raffi groggily awakens on La Sirena––only, she isn’t alone. She hears music playing somewhere aboard the ship, so she goes to investigate and discovers Worf (Michael Dorn) training. She knows exactly who he is and calls him a legend—a title which is being consistently tacked onto each of The Next Generation cast members in the series, with different degrees of veneration and indifference. Worf reveals what the audience already learned last week, which is that he’s her handler, and he explains that he’s a sort of contractor for Starfleet now. He explains that he told her to disengage from the mission because he was worried she would get herself killed, a concern that she almost made a reality by going after Sneed. After a little back and forth, Worf shares that he located an individual named Titus Rikka who he believes paid Sneed to lie about the weapon. With this revelation, they set off together to track him down.
Their mission takes them to the seedy underbelly of M’talas Prime, where they locate Titus and haul him back to La Sirena for interrogation. He appears to be strung out, which Raffi recognizes from her own experience, and she uses it to her advantage to try to pry information out of him. Despite their attempt at playing good cop-bad cop, Raffi and Worf don’t get a lot of information out of Titus, but what they do get out of him seems to hint at a much larger plot unfolding. Titus reveals that the individuals behind the attack are “enemies of the federation” and that it was never about the portal weapon—it was about keeping Starfleet distracted.
Raffi and Worf slowly piece together that something far more valuable has been stolen from Daystrom, but all of this is undercut by the revelation that Titus is a Changeling. This connects back to what’s happening aboard the Titan, where Jack has regained consciousness and revealed that he was attacked by a Changeling. While Worf tells Raffi about the contentious relationship between Changelings and Starfleet, we see Ensign Foster installing a bomb on the Titan.
On the bridge of the Titan, Picard and Riker have a fight about Riker’s “fear of loss,” which is a cruel thing to throw in Riker’s face, after Picard just experienced a fraction of what Riker felt when he lost his son. Riker tells Picard to sit down and essentially shut up, which is an order he reluctantly complies with. Riker attempts to prepare the ship for warping out of the nebula, but before they can the bomb goes off, causing them to lose an engine.
Throughout the episode, Picard has been goading Riker into attacking the Shrike and now, without a means of escape, Riker gives in to Picard’s pleas. They turn the ship around and unload their entire arsenal of weapons against the Shrike, which ends up leading to disaster. Despite knowing that the Shrike possesses a portal weapon, neither Picard nor Riker anticipated that Vadic would utilize the weapon to cause the Titan to essentially attack themselves. In the final moments of “Seventeen Seconds” Riker orders Picard to remove himself from the bridge because his fool-hardy plan of attack caused fatal damage to the Titan and, as Riker says to Picard, “You’ve just killed us all.”
Episode 3 of Picard increases the stakes in unimaginable ways by positioning the crew of the Titan in a no-win situation. They are dead in the water, trapped in a dangerous nebula, with a powerful enemy on their tail. With the personal stakes at play, this scenario makes Kobayashi Maru look like child’s play.
Rating: A-
The first three episodes of the final season of Star Trek: Picard are currently streaming on Paramount+.