In Review: Star Trek: Picard (S2 – EP3) Assimilation

Synopsis: In Assimilation Picard and the crew travel back to 2024 Los Angeles in search of the “Watcher,” who can help them identify the point at which time diverged. Seven, Raffi and Rios venture out into an unfamiliar world 400 years in their past, while Picard and Jurati attempt to gather information from an unlikely, and dangerous, ally.

The Story

Picking up from events in last week’s episode. Picard, Raffi, and the crew narrowly escape capture by The Confederation and The First Magistrate. As they prepare to make the slingshot maneuver in order to escape to the 21st Century. The Borg Queen Assimulates Rios’s ship and takes time jumps them to 2024, but it completely drains all her resources as well as the ship’s power. Also, the jump costs them the life of Elnor who dies from his wound due to the fact that all power was lost in sickbay. 

Having arrived in 2024 a pissed-off Raffi heads up the team to go look for The Watcher. While Picard and Jurati attempt an unorthodox plan to try and revive the Borg Queen.

The Acting

Michelle Hurd puts in a strong performance this week as Raffi, who really takes issue with Picard’s plan in light of the recent death of Elnor who she felt close to. The scene where she blames Picard for Elnor’s death before storming out on her part of the mission is very strong. We also get a good scene later in the episode where Seven (Jeri Ryan) tries to get Raffi to talk about her feelings.

We also get strong performances from Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, and Annie Wersching as Picard, Jurati, and The Borg Queen. I loved the debate that Jurati has with Picard when she comes up with the plan to allow the Borg Queen to partially assimilate her so that she can get the information that they need. The scene where Picard was guiding Jurati through the process and talking to her subconscious was also solid.

Overall

Assimilation was a solid episode. If not a little bit predictable in parts. The scenes involving Jurati and Picard working on The Borg Queen were really good, but we also got some fun moments of Raffi, Seven, and Rios in 21st Century Los Angeles. I loved the moment where Seven sweet-talks the security guard into letting her and Raffi go to the top of the tower so they can allegedly take photos.

I also quite enjoyed Rios trying to get his combadge back off of the Doctor’s son at the clinic.

Overall. It’s not quite got the fun that we saw in Star Trek: Voyager’s visit to 1996 or even Kirk’s visit to 1986 in Star Trek IV. But it’s still early days.