Category: TV Shows

Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 9- Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 Recap

Star Trek: Picard S1E9 Soji, Elnor, Picard, Agnes
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Star Trek Picard S1E9 La Sirena Gets Eaten by an Orchid
Attack of the Giant Killer Space Orchid

In episode 9, the La Sirena arrives at the synth homeworld of Coppelius, where it’s met by some old friends and a surprising new enemy. Down on the planet, Soji finds her synth family and Picard discovers another member of the Soong family, Dr Altan Inigo Soong (Brent Spiner), from the lineage of mad scientists responsible for creating Data and other synths with positronic matrices. When news of the Admonition and the imminent arrival of the Zhat Vash fleet is revealed to the synths, they don’t have the reaction Picard was hoping for.

Recap

The episode picks up where episode 8 left off, with La Sirena in the Borg transwarp conduit, speeding toward Soji’s homeworld. It’s a bumpy ride, which Agnes spends in her quarters, under a desk. She really hates to travel. Everyone else is on the bridge, in various stages of enjoying the ride.

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Star Trek: Picard- Beautiful Minds and Beautiful Flower with a Side of Yridian Tea- Two Clues Explained

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Star Trek Picard S1E8 Rios Looks at Drawing

Spoilers through episode 8.

In episode 8 of Star Trek: Picard, Broken Pieces, La Sirena’s emergency holograms complain that their memories have been tampered with. And it’s not just major pieces of information about Rios’ former ship the Ibn Majid that have been removed. Mr Hospitality claims that seemingly trivial bits were deleted by Captain Rios, using the example that now he doesn’t know the proper temperature to serve Yridian tea at. The emergency navigation holo mentions that his knowledge of Medusan astronavigation is gone.

These two bits seem like they might just be comedic throwaway lines, but I think they’re much more. Telepathy links Yridian tea and the Medusans. It’s also an underplayed aspect of Star Trek: Picard.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 8- Broken Pieces Recap

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Star Trek Picard S1E8 Rios, Raffi & Picard

In episode 8, we learn more about the mission of the Zhat Vash, Agnes wakes up from her coma and Picard and Soji return to La Sirena. Rios discovers that he has a connection to Soji, while Seven arrives on the Artifact to help Elnor and the xBs.

In this episode, we also discover that Rios is heavily influenced by the Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard. I read Nietzche to recap Netflix’s Dark. I guess I’ll be exploring Kierkegaard for Picard. If you haven’t seen Dark, go watch it while you’re self-quarantined for the coronavirus and wondering how your life came to this!

Recap

The episode begins with images of the nebula that also appeared in Picard’s dream from the pilot. In this dream, Picard drank tea and played poker with Data while Bing Crosby sang Blue Skies. Data held 5 queens of hearts in his hand. Then Mars exploded. Every one of these things has become important in some way, which I’ll go over later. Now we discover the nebula is the home of the Admonition, the warning about synthetic life which gives the Zhat Vash its mission.

Commodore Oh showed a version of the Admonitiion to Agnes back on Earth in order to recruit her as a spy. In Broken Pieces, Oh brings her Zhat Vash recruits directly to the source so they can experience the undiluted message.

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Roswell, New Mexico Season 2 Episode 1: Stay (I Missed You) Recap

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Roswell, New Mexico S2E1 Ann Evans (Claudia Black) & Isobel Evans (Lily Cowles) at Noah's Funeral
Ann Evans (Claudia Black) & Isobel Evans (Lily Cowles) at Noah’s Funeral

There are alien zombie ghosts running around Roswell, New Mexico in season 2 and it’s glorious. Rosa (Amber Midthunder) is alive and not an alien zombie ghost, though she may develop similarities to one of those things if this show follows its predecessor. She and Isobel are both being haunted by Noah, but apparently for very different reasons.

Welcome to season 2 of the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico, where the alien fun is ramping up to epic proportions.

Recap

Rosa is channeling Max’s memories of Noah and combining them with her own memories of Noah’s possession of Isobel, then turning them into nightmares. A worried Liz sends Rosa to now big brother Kyle to have her head examined. He discovers that Max healed all of Rosa’s afflictions. Her injuries from the accident are gone and she shows no signs of ever having done drugs.

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Star Trek: Picard- Color Theory Explained (Through Episode 8)

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Star Trek Picard S1E1- The Blue and Red Skies of Picard's Dream
Star Trek Picard S1E1- The Blue and Red Skies of Picard’s Dream

From the first moments of Jean Luc Picard’s dream in the pilot, Star Trek: Picard has been using a color scheme as part of its symbolism. Picard’s dream about Data, 5 queens, drinking tea and the attack on Mars is one prescient symbol after another. In this post, let’s examine how the creators of the show are using color.

The most symbolically important colors are red, green and blue. Gold/yellow, orange and white also play a lesser role. When the colors mix, the message is more complex. Fire/flames/explosions and the use of lighting are closely tied to the use of color. Often color will be expressed through lighting, sometimes as a hazy wash of colored light. Gold is particularly used this way on Chateau Picard and in Picard’s holographic study on La Sirena. Green is almost exclusively used in Romulan lighting, except for the greenery on Nepenthe, a few items of green clothing and Soji’s eyes. Red can be in the form of light, but if it is, most often it comes as a form of fire, tied to red’s core meaning of “real”.

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Star Trek: Picard- Is Zhaban a Member of the Zhat Vash?

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Star Trek Picard S1E1 Jamie McShane as Zhaban
Is Zhaban a member of the Zhat Vash?

Since Zhaban/Jamie Mcshane is listed on IMDB as appearing in episode 8, I want to quickly write about a theory I’ve been considering since early in the season. Could Zhaban, who we know is a former member of the Romulan secret police known as the Tal Shiar, also belong to the even more secret Romulan spy agency, the Zhat Vash? It’s possible that he’s been living with Picard for the last 14 years as a deeply embedded spy, watching for a synth to arrive.

I don’t want to believe this of the kindly caretaker and vintner either, but hear me out.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 7: Nepenthe Recap

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Star Trek Picard S1E7 Picard & Soji on Nepenthe

In episode 7, Jean Luc and Soji arrive on the planet Nepenthe seeking refuge with old Next Generation friends Will Riker and Deanna Troi, who now live there with their teen daughter. Elnor, Hugh and the xBs face Narissa’s wrath on the Artifact, while La Sirena is stuck in the cube’s tractor beam. Once the ship gets free, Narek follows them in a small ship. On La Sirena, Agnes tries to cope with the magnitude of her betrayals, with the help of Raffi, Chris and the EMH.

Nepenthe has two meanings: It is referred to in Homer’s Odyssey as a potion which induces forgetfulness of pain and sorrow, such as opium or a medicinal herb like borage. The second meaning is more interesting and just as pertinent to our story.

Nepenthes is a genus of carnivorous plants, the tropical pitcher plants, which act as a literal honey trap, using bright colors, an attractive smell and sugary nectar to lure prey to the edge of their tube shaped trap. The slippery digestive fluids on the lips and inside of the plant then stop the prey from escaping, acting like quicksand so that the harder the prey fights to escape, the further entrapped it becomes.

Both senses of Nepenthe are being used on Star Trek: Picard this season.

Nepenthe(s) as a honey trap is what Narek did to Soji all season and, on a smaller scale, Seven did to Bejayzl in episode 5. In the past, Bejayzl used herself as a honey trap on Seven, so Seven was only returning the favor. Will someone return the favor for Narek?

Nepenthe as a balm for your pain is Counselor Troi and Auntie Raffi’s department, depending on whether you want to go the mellow or intense route. Do you want to try pizza, wine and conversation with old friends or cake, snakeweed and casual sex with people you’ve recently met? Or maybe you’re the type who goes for adrenaline rush-inducing sword fights on an empty stomach with your archenemy. On a Borg cube.

No judgement here. Everybody’s just trying to survive. Not that I condone murder as stress relief, of course.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 6-The Impossible Box Recap

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In episode 6 of Star Trek: Picard the separate storylines finally meet, as the La Sirena reaches the Artifact, Soji figures out her true nature with a little help from her favorite Romulan spy and Jean Luc is reunited with Hugh and a few dozen of his former Borg compatriots. As you might expect, none of this goes smoothly. In fact, the themes of the week are emotional breakdown in the face of trauma, trust vs coercion vs betrayal, family vs fellow hostages, recovery vs repression vs mental illness and the general sense that we don’t control as much of our lives as we wish we did, even our own feelings and actions.

Recap

We begin with a dream instead of a flashback, or maybe a flashback disguised as a dream. The dream belongs to Soji, so it’s her creative brain working to make sense of her world, much as ours do and eventually Data’s did.

In Soji’s dream, there may also be elements of inserted memory that belong to someone else. Narek is counting on it. The Alex Kurtzman version of Star Trek is taking more than a few cues from Blade Runner 2049.

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Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 5- Stardust City Rag Recap

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With episode 5, season 1 of Star Trek: Picard reaches its halfway point and finishes its set up. I love the show so far. The characters and storylines are complex and modern. The cast is excellent and balanced between men and women, humans and aliens, and is diverse in other ways as well. 😉 The show is following the Star Trek model by exploring topical and moral issues, using space and aliens as a metaphor. But it’s putting its own twist on that model, as each series needs to do, by focusing on the characters’ journeys and the effect that certain huge events have had on them.

ST:P is particularly focusing on issues involved with differences such as ageing, illness, addiction, mental illness, failure, loss and disability, which are issues that Star Trek has tended to avoid, since it takes place in a more successful society than ours. These are all issues which are especially relevant in our current world, so they are important for fiction to explore. Jean Luc Picard is a perfect choice as the lead character, since he has faced loss before and has always been an introspective man.

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Reprisal Season 1 Episode 5: The Tiniest Battle Recap

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Reprisal S1Ep5 Katherine, Earl & Percy

Episode 5 of Reprisal is both a character study and a turning point. We learn who all of the main characters are, at their core, and where their true loyalties lie, before Katherine Harlow makes her return to Brawlers territory and sets her revenge in motion by sowing a little chaos. Her tiny battle has the effect she expects and by the end of the episode, Bash has sowed much more chaos and likely incited a war.

Recap

We begin with a flashback to a young, wild-haired Joel as a Phoenix. Johnson is also a laughing, chatty Phoenix. The biggest surprise is that the third Phoenix, who already has her embroidered jacket, is Lyla’s mother, Rita. The 3 River Phoenixes pull up in front of an establishment which belongs to a rival gang, strut in and start a fight for no apparent reason, then come out less than 5 minutes later, with Joel and Johnson injured. Rita tries to stop the bleeding in Joel’s abdomen. He takes the opportunity to tell her he’s in love with her.

As Matty says, fighting breeds loyalty amongst the gang members. But why has Johnson been a Phoenix for so long, while Joel rose to the top of the heap? Johnson never complains, but he never says much of anything, period. The Brawlers give him a purpose and a life, if not exactly a home. It’s a life that largely keeps him and Joel separated, but lends consistency to the Phoenixes. Were they both in love with Rita, or was there some other major falling out between them? Or is Joel doing him a favor by leaving him a Phoenix rather than promoting him?

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