In Review: Star Trek: Picard (S2 – EP7) Monsters

Synopsis: In Monsters Tallinn ventures inside Picard’s subconscious mind to help wake him from a coma and face both his darkest secrets and deepest fears. Seven and Raffi go in search of Jurati whom they fear has succumbed to the monster inside. Rios struggles to hide the truth of who he really is from Teresa.

The Story

Following up on events from last week’s show. Picard is in a coma but needs some help to regain consciousness as he fights the inner monsters of his mind. To that end. Tallinn uses some Aegis technology to help her link into Picard’s subconscious mind in order to bring him back to consciousness, which is easier said than done. In a series of flashback scenes, we see Picard’s subconscious self-being psych analyzed by a Starfleet Therapist. But there is something somewhat familiar about him. At least there is to Picard, which proves to be a pretty big plot twist later on.

While Tallinn deals with bringing Picard back into the here and now. Raffi and Seven go looking for Jurati. But are surprised to learn that she is being slowly taken over by a new Borg Queen who is looking to be reborn in Jurati’s body. But to do so The Borg queen needs to build up Jurati’s endorphins in order to gain full control.

So if finding and dealing with Q isn’t enough. Picard and his gang now have to prevent the birth of a new Borg Queen and hopefully get Jurati back.

The Acting

James Callis puts in a solid guest-starring performance as Picard’s shrink. The dialogue between Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Callis’s shrink is pretty solid and really earns the eventual reveal of who Callis’s character actually is.

Michelle Hurd and Jeri Ryan get a little more onscreen together as Raffi and Seven enjoy their friendship and on-off again relationship while figuring out what has happened to Jurati.

Orla Brady continued to impress as Tallinn, but still no indication of seeing Gary Seven. But we do learn that Tallinn is a Romulan, which makes sense given that her name was kind of Romulan sounding.

Overall

This was a pretty solid filler episode. In that, it sort of felt like one of those stories that you get toward the end of the season to just fill space and time before moving on to the next big plot reveal. This proves to be correct in how the episode ends with some pretty major reveals. The scenes that take place in Picard’s subconscious were nicely acted. But the visual elements felt a little stronger than the dialogue between the key characters. Particularly the scenes where a young Jean Luc is painting with his mother. The theme of mental illness is touched upon as we learn that the monsters in Picard’s mind belong to his later mother. But also connect to Picard’s troubled relationship with his father.

The episode ends with the revelation that Picard might be able to weaponize some of his emotional baggage to help him in the ongoing trail that he is fighting with Q. But first, he needs to somehow summon Q.

Overall. A solid filler episode with a killer cliffhanger.