Recap / Star Trek: Picard S2E10 "Farewell"

Picard's crew regroup at the Chateau to decide what to do about the Europa Mission. Picard, Rios and Tallinn muse about Queen Jurati's prophecy — two Renée Picards, one who lives and one who dies — and Tallinn gets a "Eureka!" Moment, but declines to share it with anyone. Instead, she beams the Starfleet contingent to Adam Soong's home, where he's preparing to make a play for the mission, and then herself to Mission Control — with Picard hitching a ride at the last second.

Raffi, Rios and Seven arrive at Soong's house. They hear his voice but the man himself is nowhere to be seen — Picard and Tallinn spy him at Mission Control — but he has rigged four drones to attack the rocket itself. Raffi is able to hardwire the 21st-century tech, and Rios uses the fourth drone to destroy the other three (and itself, via a bit of Ramming Always Works).

Picard has realized that Tallinn is about to make a Heroic Sacrifice on Renée's behalf, and refuses to let her do it. Tallinn criticizes his Chronic Hero Syndrome: by trying to save everyone, he is refusing them agency, the right to decide how they want to live their lives. Tallinn has spent her entire life protecting Renée, and she isn't about to stop now. As such, she arranges a meeting with Renée and confesses her role in the latter's life. She asks Renée to trust her. The Answer Cut is Renée emerging and talking to Dr. Soong: there's a woman claiming to be from space, she seems to be crazy. Dr. Soong takes her by the hand and promises to get her to the authorities... and, unbeknownst to her, exposing her to a fatal neurotoxin. He leaves her to die. But it's All According to Plan: the real Renée is aboard the Shango, flying into the future, and the person Soong poisoned was Tallinn in disguise. She staggers back to Picard, her duty complete, and dies in his arms.

Soong returns to his house, smashing things in rage when he realizes that he has been duped. He is then helpless as Kore hacks his system remotely and wipes the records of his life's work. He's left wretched and defeated... gazing upon a manila folder, marked "Confidental" and labeled "Project Khan". Kore, meanwhile, finally free to do whatever she wants... realizes she has no idea what she wants. However, a message beckons her to a park, telling her she can learn what comes next. The sender is a man who was once called Wesley Crusher, now a member of the Travelers, the people who dispatch Watchers and Supervisors (like Tallinn) to maintain the integrity of the timeline. He asks Kore to join them; she accepts, and the two step into the future.

Picard, Seven, Raffi and Rios return to Chateau Picard, where they prepare to live out the rest of their days. Picard takes the opportunity to return the skeleton key, the one that will have allowed his mother out of her room, to its hiding place behind a brick. Q congratulates him on maintaining the Stable Time Loop, pointing out that this is proof Picard has experienced Character Development and been able to forgive himself for the innocent wrong he did so many years ago. He admits that he is dying — and Dying Alone — and has used the last of his power to try and make sure Picard won't suffer the same fate. He gathers the crew and prepares, with what little puissance remains to him, to send them home. He is spared one effort: Rios chooses to stay in the 21st century; with this extra energy, Q promises them a surprise. Picard hugs him, and Q, with his Badass Fingersnap, dies... but not alone.

Picard and Seven are back aboard the Stargazer in the year 2401. The Borg Queen, masked and rampant, controls the bridge. The Self-Destruct Sequence has been engaged... but Picard, realizing the truth, orders it canceled. He then reaches out to his old friend, Dr. Agnes Jurati. Obligingly, the Queen removes her mask, revealing it is indeed Queen Jurati. A Negative Space Wedgie has emerged in the middle of the sector, and the Borg can't stop it alone; she came to Picard because she not only needed someone with authority, but someone who would trust her. There's no Rios, but Picard grants Seven a field commission, and she takes the chair as The Captain, formally ceding control of the fleet to Queen Jurati. Jurati has them link their shields to deflect the energy expulsion of the Negative Space Wedgie; the USS Excelsior has some trouble, but Cadet Elnor, Back from the Dead by Q's machinations, is able to stabilize the ship's shield harmonics. Queen Jurati explains that the explosion of energy marks the birth of a new transwarp conduit, but nobody has any idea what is on the other side; she petitions that her Borg Collective be granted provisional membership in the Federation, allowing them to Hold the Line against whatever may emerge.

In Ten Forward, Guinan — the Whoopi Goldberg one — apologizes for not telling Picard the truth about their meeting in 2024 Los Angeles. She draws Picard's attention to a photograph of some of her former patrons: Cristobal, Teresa and Ricardo Rios. While his parents led a medical foundation called the Mariposas, young Ricardo realized that the microbes Auntie Renée found on Europa could be used to help reverse the environmental damage of the 20th century. Picard then returns home, where he finds Laris preparing to head out to her next adventure. He asks her for another chance.

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Tropes:

• Arc Welding: The Supervisors are revealed to be working for the Travelers, whose ranks now include Wesley Crusher.
• Badass Fingersnap: As one of his defining characteristics since "Encounter at Farpoint" 35 years earlier, it's fitting that Q's final moment and act is him performing the signature snap one more time.
• Back from the Dead: With Rios opting to stay behind, meaning one less person to send back to their proper timeframe with his scant remaining power, Q is able to resurrect Elnor when he sends everyone else back to the 24th century.
• Bookends: As in "All Good Things", Q's final words to Picard are once again, "See you out there."
• The Bus Came Back: Wesley Crusher returns all the way from his last appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis to recruit Kore as a Traveller. Since his lines in that film were deleted, (and the appearance may be non-canon) this is his first time speaking since season 7 of TNG.
• Call-Back: In the season premiere, Picard said "Goddamn Q" in response to Q showing up. Here, Raffi says it after finding out that Q brought Elnor back to life.
  • Again, Q's final words to Jean-Luc are the same as his final words from "All Good Things".
  • As in "Time's Arrow", Guinan has once again known Picard long before his birth and their first official meeting. And like the Devidian crisis, Guinan has been unable to discuss that future knowledge (in this case the ultimate fate of Rios) with her old friend until after events had played out and the time loop had closed.
  • Queen Jurati calling Picard "Mister" references a moment in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2" where Locutus calls Riker "Number One." Here, though, it's heartwarming rather than chilling, proving the change that has taken place in the Borg.
  • In the first season, La Sirena is under attack but rescued by Seven, whose own ship is destroyed. Her first words: "You owe me a ship, Picard."^note *THUD* In this episode, he promotes her to captain of the Stargazer.
• Call-Forward: Adam Soong had a role in, or at the least has access to, the Augment genetic research that unleashed Khan. This sets up his descendant Arik Soong's own Augment experiments over a century later during Star Trek: Enterprise's Augment Trilogy.
• Didn't See That Coming: Q is genuinely surprised when Rios chooses to stay in the past.
• Dying Alone: Q is resigned to this fate, and his entire goal in setting Picard on this season's adventure is to help him to let go of his guilt and pain, to accept himself and be at peace so that he can share the rest of his life with someone else who will accept him too.
• End of an Age: During the third episode he appeared in, Q threw Picard and his crew into first contact with the Borg (quite possibly to warn the Federation and prepare them) and the two forces would be bitter enemies for over thirty years, both in and out of universe. Now, as Q dies (and partly due to his meddling in Picard's life once again) the Borg have developed into something more benevolent and hope to ally with the Federation in order to protect the galaxy from an even greater threat, bringing decades of conflict to an end.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Tallinn quickly puts together what Jurati meant by "one who lives and one who dies"—she is the one who dies and doesn't hesitate to go. Jean Luc realizes it too and goes with her.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • Q. After 35 years as the snarky trickster, in his final moments there's no camp, no smirk, and no condescension. Instead, it's just one last familiar pearl of wisdom to mon capitaine, a smile, and quiet gratitude that Picard is there with him as Q snaps his fingers for the last time.
  • Tallinn. After Soong poisons her, Picard comforts her and she watches the rocket launch with no regrets and dies peacefully.
• Friendship Moment: Why is Q going out of his way to help Picard get over his childhood grief? Is it because Picard is needed for some coming trial of grave import? No! It's because Q wanted to do a favor for Picard, whom he had come over the last thirty years to view as one of his best friends!
  Q: You ask why it matters. It matters to me...You matter to me! Even gods have favorites, Jean-Luc, and you've always been one of mine.
• Foreshadowing: Picard reveals that he was told as a child about how Chateau Picard was shot up while abandoned by the family, and notes that the bullet holes left in the walls by the Borg are the exact same ones he remembers, indicating that they're not creating a Close-Enough Timeline, but the same one they hailed from in the first place. This should allow viewers to guess (if they haven't already) just who it was that beamed on board the Stargazer at the end of the season opener.
• Good All Along: The Borg Queen from "The Star Gazer", who turns out to be Jurati, and has come to help Starfleet avert a catastrophe. This explains why she pointedly avoided killing anybody when the crew fired on her.
• Go Out with a Smile:
  • A variation. According to 25th Century Guinan, Rios died the way he lived: Puffing on one of his beloved cigars.
  • Tallinn's last moments were speaking of Renée and that she was so glad they finally met.
  • Q during his final moments smiles before snapping his fingers one last time.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The mysterious creator(s) of the Transwarp Gateway in the 25th Century. Whoever's behind it is powerful enough to have spooked the Borg (something that hasn't happened to them in-universe since the Species 8472 crisis).
• Happily Married: While it's not explicitly confirmed if they ever tied the knot, 25th Century Guinan reveals to Picard that Rios and Teresa had a long, happy life together.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Tallinn impersonates Renée to keep her safe from Soong and lets him poison her. She's completely at peace with it and dies in Jean Luc's arms.
  • Q uses the last of his power to return Picard, Seven and Raffi back to the 25th century and to resurrect Elnor.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: 25th Century Guinan reveals that a 21st Century photo of Rios and Teresa has been hanging on the walls of Ten-Forward this entire time. Guinan cheekily lampshades she thought Picard would notice it and that it was gonna be 'a bit of a spoiler'. But she ultimately worried about nothing because, as Guinan teases, Picard's always been more clever than observant.
• I Choose to Stay: Rios chooses to stay in the past with Teresa.
• Idiot Ball:
  • On launch day there should have been absolutely no way anyone from outside the organization would be allowed to break the quarantine to see the astronauts face to face, no matter how much they donated or how severely they berated a manager.
  • For that matter, with all the cameras that get focused on a launching spacecraft, there is no way that Soong could have expected the quartet of Attack Drones that he sent to attack the Shango to stay hidden from the outside world, making them very likely to get tracked back to him.
• Irony: It's heavily implied that Adam Soong is responsible for a second Eugenics Wars (per Memory Alpha) and all the misery that will befall Earth; whereas his descendant, Noonien Soong, ends up creating Data, who continuously saved the galaxy and from whom leads a whole new species of artificial intelligence.
• Karma Houdini: Other than losing all his data on Kore and her sisters and not getting the legacy he wanted, Adam doesn't face any legal action for his attempted murder of Renée, the attempted sabotage of the Europa mission or his murdering Tallinn.^note Sadly, this is an enforced trope because punishing Adam would break the Stable Time Loop.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Q, which ends a 35 year tenure for John de Lancie and closes the door on the franchise's very first Q. For now.
  • Rios also dies off-screen in the Past.
• Man Hug: Picard hugs Q before they part ways for the final time.
• Negative Space Wedgie: Jurati takes control of the fleet to neutralize an anomaly which will expel a devastating burst of energy. Once it's finished, a transwarp conduit is left behind.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: An inversion with Rios staying behind in the 21st Century. Rather than backfire on him and everyone, it instead leaves Q enough surplus energy to not only send Picard and his team back to the future, but to also resurrect Elnor.
• Noodle Incident: According to Wesley, a joke he once told while on a Traveler mission somehow inadvertently ended up changing a century's worth of history.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • The Borg, for so long the absolute enemy not just of the Federation but of all species in the galaxy, not only ally with the Federation but request to join it — because they have detected an even greater threat from the transwarp conduit.
  • While the Federation will have at least one more contact with the Q Continuum in the coming centuries, the Q that Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Freeman have all encountered on their voyages — the Q who's been the face of the Continuum in-universe and for the franchise as a whole for 35 years — is now dead and gone.
• Older and Wiser: The time that Wesley has spent as a Traveler has helped him understand the responsibilities that he's taken on.
  Wesley: My colleagues and I, we dispatch those we call supervisors to help ensure the proper flow of time. So the universe is essentially a grand tapestry. It is flawless. It is fragile. It is exquisite. Yet it is somehow always a thread's pull away from total annihilation. A star is born, but a ship is lost. A new species thrives, but a civilization collapses. Knowing when to step in— that's the tricky part. And so my colleagues and I, we watch. We protect everything.
• One Last Smoke: According to Guinan, Rios' last breath was into a cigar after he was mortally wounded in a bar fight in Morocco over a medical supply shipment.
  Guinan: So he died like he lived.
• Pet the Dog: When Picard calls out Q for his meddling causing Tallinn's death, Q points out that, by nature of this being 400 years in the past, Tallinn would die anyway in every timeline — this was the only one in which she finally got to speak to Renée.
• The Reveal:
  • Q is dying alone and this whole journey has been about him sparing Picard that same fate. His goal was to free him of the pain of his past and move forward.
  • The new Borg Queen is Jurati, having become the head of a new Collective over 400 years.
  • Jurati takes control of the fleet in order to create a large shield to deflect massive amounts of energy from a formation of a new transwarp conduit from killing billions of lives.
  • The request for Federation membership is indeed genuine as the Collective has detected a new threat from said conduit and needs to stay and monitor it. She specifically requested Picard knowing that they not only needed someone of authority but a friend.
  • On the Project Khan's folder tab is Soong's company logo—meaning that Soong is responsible for creating Khan and the Eugenics Wars.
• Riddle for the Ages: Exactly why Q is dying is not revealed.
• Rule of Symbolism: Wesley Crusher being the one to approach and recruit Kore. Like her, Wesley too was once a child raised by a single parent and who broke free from what was expected of him (in his case, a career and destiny in Starfleet) in search of something more.
• Sequel Hook: Someone created the transwarp gateway. The Borg intend to find out who.
• The Slow Path:
  • Jurati, kept alive by Borg tech, lived 400 years to the present.
  • As with "Time's Arrow", Guinan once again has to wait centuries before re-encountering Picard in the 24th Century (and once more being unable to discuss any of this with her old friend until the events of the time loop had played out).
• So Proud of You:
  • Q commends Picard for creating the Stable Time Loop that will cause the death of his mother, as it means accepting himself for who he is- rather than trying to avert that pain.
    Q: Bravo. Destiny. Left for the little boy you will be in the future to find.
  • Picard and the others are proud of the person Jurati has become and what she and the Borg has just accomplished.
    Picard: You just saved billions of lives.
    Queen Jurati: That was the idea, mister.
• Something Only They Would Say: Queen Jurati calling Picard "Mister", confirming that she is still Jurati.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • Picard hides the skeleton key that his younger self will eventually use to let his mother out of her room.
  • The new Borg Queen is actually Jurati from an alternate timeline, a timeline only created because Picard's first reaction to the Borg Queen hijacking the fleet was to activate the self-destruct, a mistake he only knew to rectify after making it.
• Trust Password: Picard recognizes the song playing in the background as one from his childhood that his mother played to calm him down. He had confided to his friend about it: Jurati.
• Villainous Breakdown: Soong trashes his lab and drinks away his sorrows when he realizes that he'd been tricked. Kore then finishes it off by remotely wiping his computer system of all his data pertaining to her and her sisters. But he then pulls out a folder from his desk drawer titled "Project Khan".
• Wham Shot:
  • The folder bearing the line "Project Khan".
  • Wesley Crusher approaching Kore.
• What Is One Man's Life In Comparison?: This is the gist of Picard's question to Q as to why he helped him to let go of his pain. Picard naturally thinks that Q must be helping him to fulfill some grand purpose that will save the galaxy in the future, yet Q tells him that Picard's life matters just as much because it matters to him.
  Picard: But... why does all this matter? Is something going to happen, for which I will be required?
  Q: Must it always have galactic importance? Universal stakes? Celestial upheaval? Isn't one life enough? You ask me why it matters. It matters to me. You matter. To me. Even gods have favorites, Jean-Luc. And you've always been one of mine.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Guinan is able to tell Picard what happened to Rios, Teresa, and Ricardo once he returns to his present. Chris and Teresa founded a medical service charity that helped people around the world, presumably through and beyond World War III. Auntie Renée would go on to travel the Solar System, and made discoveries on Europa that Ricardo would use to help heal Earth's ecosystem. Teresa died of old age, and Chris pre-deceased her a little bit, dying in a fight in Morocco over medical supplies.
• You Already Changed the Past: Picard notes that the damage to Chatau Picard caused by Soong's Borg existed in his present, setting up that Rios remaining is part of the "correct" timeline, and that the Borg Queen in the first episode always was Jurati.
• You Are in Command Now: With Rios no longer in 2401 and Seven knowing more about the Borg than anyone in Starfleet, Picard gives her a field commission to command Stargazer.

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