Recap / Star Trek: Picard S3E08 "Surrender"

In the end, there can be only one.

Vadic, from the bridge, has her mooks slaughter much of the Titan crew and announces that she'll have a member of the bridge crew executed every ten minutes until Jack surrenders himself. While Shaw criticizes Seven for not blowing up the turbolift, killing him (Shaw) but also their assailants, Jack talks to his parents in Sickbay. He admits that he has those telepathic abilities and might be able to use them to take back the ship: by warging into a member of the bridge crew, he almost succeeds at using Picard's override code to restore Starfleet control. Alas, Vadic catches him... and tips her hand that she knows the extent of Jack's powers, even more than he does.

Aboard the Shrike, Will and Deanna discuss their marital issues. It turns out Deanna has been using her empathic powers to reduce Will's grief over Thad's death, but with the unintentional result that Will has not been allowed to work through that grief properly. They also admit that they're tired of living on Nepenthe, but have stayed out of inertia, out of fear over what comes next. They are interrupted by a Changeling mook... which Worf stabs In the Back. While he rescues the Rikers (and pours his heart out to Deanna), Raffi has been analyzing what the Changelings did with Picard's corpse: they have very special interest in his parietal lobe, where Irumodic Syndrome happens. However, their investigation is cut short by an alarm: the Changelings have discovered the Rikers' absence. The four Starfleet officers return to Worf's cloaked shuttle.

Sidney confirms that there is no way to hack the Titan's systems without a very, very advanced computer— say, a positronic android created by a Soong. As such, Picard, the Crushers, and Sidney head down to Engineering, where La Forge is still trying to figure out what to do with Daystrom Android M-5-10, whom he unplugged as soon as he could. La Forge explains that Altan Soong deliberately left a partition up between the Data and Lore personalities, and their only option is to lower that wall and let the two personalities duke it out. This is going to be a problem, of course, because Data is The Fettered and Lore... isn't. Indeed, at the Battle At The Center Of The Mind, Data admits he is overpowered and surrenders. He hands over his memories — a deerstalker hat and meerschaum pipe, a hologram of Tasha Yar, a deck of playing cards, and finally Spot — allowing Lore to absorb them. But since memories are what make Data who he is, Lore has become Data— an Assimilation Plot from the inside out.

Up on the bridge, Vadic has what she wants: after leaving Mom and Dad with Commodore La Forge, Jack headed up to surrender himself. That said, he's holding a thermal detonator. While Vadic has the remaining bridge crew shoved into the ready room — save Seven, who remains on the bridge to face "the consequences of my actions" — Jack stalls, begging Vadic to explain his powers to him. Vadic's answers are cryptic, but she knows about the red door. But the Circle Of Extinction is interrupted by the results of the android fight down in Engineering. The personality that emerges is mostly Data, but with some distinct alterations: not only emotions, but the ability to use contractions... and be a Deadpan Snarker.

Data: Greetings, U.S.S. Titan. This is your friendly positronic pissed-off security system back on line. Unwanted guests and monologuing protoplasms, I am initiating an immediate shift change.

Hearing his cue, Jack deploys his "grenade"— actually an airtight force field that he and Seven duck into. Data reboots the ship and then opens the emergency evacuation hatch on the bridge... sucking Vadic and her one remaining mook out into the vacuum of space.

Vadic: Fucking Solids...

Vadic's flash-frozen body crumbles on impact with the Shrike, and the Titan finishes the ship off with photon torpedoes before heading back towards Federation space. (And while this is going on, Worf and Raffi beam aboard and finish off the rest of the Changelings.) One major threat has been dealt with, but there are still bunches of Changelings within Starfleet's ranks, Frontier Day is mere hours away, the Titan is desperately understaffed and still believed to have gone rogue, and nobody knows what the Changelings plan to do (the research thqt Raffi brought in from the Shrike has yet to be evaluated). Still, with the core crew of the NCC-1701-D/E — Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker, Data, Beverly Crusher, Geordi La Forge, Worf, and Deanna Troi — assembled again for the first time in 20 years, Starfleet has a fighting chance.

Deanna recognizes that there is "a darkness" lingering around Jack— not in him, but running through him. She speaks with him, and gets straight to the question of the red door. Jack is scared of what's on the other side, but Deanna offers to open it with him, jumping into his Pensieve Flashback or wherever that door lives. Jack reaches out and grasps the doorknob.

---

Tropes:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Riker and Deanna's quiet marital discussion amidst the Titan takeover and hostage situation.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Geordi can't help laughing when he realizes that Data was puckishly trolling him about not using contractions despite having clearly done so.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Having seized the bridge at the end of last week's episode, Vadic consolidates control over the Titan by locking the characters out of key systems.
• Amicable Exes: Worf and Deanna during their reunion, though Riker snarks about it being torture when it carries on for a while.
• Ancient Evil: Troi describes an ancient darkness swirling around Jack, and leads him in opening the red door to confront it.
• Artistic License – Space:
  • Continuous Decompression: Even with a near-instantaneous evacuation of the Bridge atmosphere from the viewscreen being opened, Vadic and that one Mook should've never been sucked out that violently. This is par for the course with other instances of Starfleet ships of the era suffering decompression however, including Star Trek: Nemesis.
  • Space Is Cold: Vadic freezes solid in mere seconds once exposed to the vacuum of space. This is a common trope in science fiction, but in reality, it would take quite a long time for an object at room temperature to freeze in a vacuum, as there is no matter in space to absorb the thermal energy from an object, meaning it would take hours or even days to drop below freezing temperatures. Though it does provide a hint of Death by Irony, since she is frozen solid.
• Assimilation Backfire: Lore's assimilation of Data's memories causes Lore to be consumed by the essence of Data himself, completing their merger by wiping out Lore's malevolent personality forever, leaving mostly Data with a bit of Lore humor thrown in.
• Avengers Assemble: After 8 episodes of build-up — and 20+ years after Nemesis — the heroes of the Enterprise-D/E are finally reunited, re-assembled, and ready to save the Federation one more time.
• Batman Gambit: Lore could not resist "taking" Data's memories as trophies of his victory in their Battle in the Center of the Mind. Data, realizing this, willingly handed them over, as those memories would effectively transform Lore into Data.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Data and Lore fight to control their synth body. Knowing that he can't overpower Lore, Data surrenders his memories to Lore, allowing him to take control from within Lore.
• Battle Trophy: Lore regards Data's memories as trophies of his final victory over his brother during the merger. This proves to be his fatal mistake, as Data realizes this and weaponizes the trope as part of his Cooperation Gambit to beat Lore once and for all.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Worf kills one of Vadic's mooks to save Riker and Troi.
  • Data coming to the rescue of the Titan-A after defeating Lore definitely counts.
    Picard: Data, we need your help. The ship is in troub—
    Data: Say no more.
• Bittersweet Ending: Vadic is killed (as is her entire crew and the Shrike itself is finally destroyed). Data has successfully merged with Lore, ending the android's threat for good and achieving a resurrection and more human-like incarnation. The Enterprise-D/E alums are also finally reunited and re-assembled for the first time since the Shinzon crisis over 20 years earlier — and ready to save the Federation one more time. But T'Veen and much of the Titan skeleton crew were killed during Vadic's takeover. Vadic herself may be dead, but the rest of the renegade Changelings are still out there inside the still-compromised Starfleet (and the Titan is still officially a renegade vessel with no allies). Frontier Day is also now mere hours away — and Picard and company still don't know why they needed his organic body so badly, or how it and Jack's new abilities play into their endgame.
• Blatant Lies: Lore's claims that he's deleting Data's memories as his final victory over his brother. In actuality, he's hoarding them as trophies to celebrate that victory and covet what Data's always possessed. Unfortunately for Lore, Data sees through the deception and tailors his Batman Gambit accordingly.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • The experiments done to the Changelings have made them exponentially better shapeshifters and infiltrators, but it's also made them much more vulnerable to the usual methods of killing Solids. Blades would never have threatened a normal Changeling, but these ones are seriously hurt by them because their mimicry is down to the organs and they feel it when they're impaled. While it can't kill them, it leaves them helpless for a Coup de Grâce with a phaser set on "vaporize".
  • Likewise, Vadic and her crew can no longer survive in the vacuum of space like a regular Changeling can, which proves to be her undoing, along with a mook that got vented out with her.
• Blofeld Ploy: Vadic has two officers kneel as she decides whom she'll kill first. Then, to make a point about demonstrating power, arbitrarily executes Lieutenant T'Veen without warning.
• Bond One-Liner: Seven to Vadic, from behind Jack's force field, right before Data vented the Bridge and sucked Vadic out with it:
  Seven: Get off my Bridge.
• Brick Joke:
  • Like Worf and Riker, Geordi also isn't a fan of Chateau Picard's wine catalog from recent years. Picard isn't amused.
  • Worf's personal space and his former shipmates' proclivity to "violate" it is brought up again.
  • Worf continues to critique Raffi's fighting skills even in battle.
• Call-Back:
  • By using her empathic abilities to help Riker suppress his grief over Thad's death, Deanna has essentially done the exact same thing her mother did when Kestra Troi died decades ago.
  • The scene with Vadic floating in space and colliding with the Shrike is reminiscent of the christening of the Enterprise-B. However, while the latter is a celebration of the launch of a brand new ship, the former is the death of a ruthless villain.
  • This isn't the first time that a bridge's evacuation hatch was intentionally opened to space. However, in that particular instance, it was done for the mystery of serious drama.
• Canon Immigrant: Just as back in "The Bounty", additional elements of David Mack's Star Trek: Cold Equations (part of the now non-canon Star Trek: The Next Generation Relaunch) are formally canonized with Data's resurrection. As with in the novel, B-4's copy of Data's memories merge with another member of the Soong "family" to become a completely new, different life-form (albeit Lore here rather than Noonien Soong in the book's case).
• Casting Gag: This is not the first time a member of the Plummer family had some famous last words.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Data's memories include Spot, his weekly Poker games with the Enterprise-D senior officers, his and Geordi's Sherlock Holmes Holodeck adventures, and his memorial hologram of Tasha Yar.
  • When Worf rescues Riker and Troi he takes a moment to express his fondness for Troi and how she was an inspiration for his new Zen Warrior mantra, which Riker is clearly annoyed over. This is a reminder that Worf and Troi did date, and married in Alternate Timelines, in the seventh season.
• Cool Chair: Vadic quickly becomes fond of the Titan command chair. She even snarks she's keeping it.
• Cooperation Gambit: Data knows he can't overpower Lore, so he does the opposite, gladly summoning up his memories for Lore to take. Lore, by his nature, holds onto them like trophies, not realizing that they are the essence of Data himself. Lore in effect becomes Data.
• Coup de Grâce: Worf and Raffi deliver a vaporizing phaser blast each time they use a blade to take down a Changeling Mook. Ruthless, but justified given that they would eventually fully heal and become a threat again otherwise.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Data dishes out a massively one-sided one on Vadic and her forces once he resolves his conflict with Lore, plugging into the systems of the Titan and — within minutes — taking back control and leading her entire sect of Changelings to their deaths by turning every subroutine of the ship against them in coordination with the Titan's remaining crew, before defenestrating Vadic herself into the cold vacuum of space to her demise.
• Death by Irony: Vadic dies in the form of the very thing she hates more than anything else in the galaxy: a Solid.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Data is at a disadvantage in the conflict against Lore because Lore is so domineering, but appears to willfully submit to Lore who proceeds to "delete" his memories. But Data was planning on Lore being Lore, and he was instead taking each memory as a trophy of his conquests. By assimilating all of Data's memories he effectively becomes Data, and the Fusion Dance is completed.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Vadic ultimately becomes this with her death, leaving the rest of the Changeling conspiracy as the final antagonist of the closing two episodes (with the Face remaining the Greater-Scope Villain).
• Dissonant Serenity: Vadic's mood during the slaughter of the remaining Titan-A crew is giddy.
• Dramatic Irony: Altan Soong's fears that Lore would overwrite Data if the Golem's memory partition was dropped come to pass. But by taking in his brother's memories and hoarding them like trophies, Lore unwittingly reveals this was the key all along to resolving the conflict between the personalities and completing the merger.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": During the argument between them regarding her not detonating the turbolift with him it, she finally responds to Shaw calling her Hansen with "My name is Seven of Nine."
• Dual Wielding: Raffi uses two blades when she fights the Changelings.
• Establishing Character Moment: Post-merger Data's Pre-Asskicking One-Liner to Vadic, which instantly establishes how the new Data now differs from Data or Lore individually.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Lore actually comes close to figuring out Data's plan before it succeeds. He's rightly suspicious about why Data is willfully surrendering his memories. However, he doesn't understand Data's compassion and empathy for his brother and all he was denied, so it doesn't occur to him to stop.
• Evil Gloating: Lampshaded by Data when he refers to Vadic as a "monologuing protoplasm".
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • For all his flaws, Lore does not resist once Data's gambit succeeds, and appears almost relieved as he dissolves.
  • Similarly, when Data realises Lore is likely to overwrite him, he responds with calm compassion rather than fear, giving Lore all of his most precious memories.
• Fatal Flaw: Lore's envy of his brother and his desire to covet everything he possesses. Data exploits this to trick Lore into destroying himself.
• Faux Affably Evil: Vadic asks "Jack Crusher to the bridge, would you, please?"
• Feeling Their Age: Upon emerging from his Battle in the Center of the Mind, Data soon notes an odd sensation in his neck which is likely a consequence of his new body being deliberately created with the appearance of old age.
• Foreshadowing:
  • It's subtle, but Vadic executing T'Veen as part of her Blofeld Ploy. Vadic specifically selects and kills someone who's not a Senior Officer (Seven and Shaw) or a junior crew member (Esmar or Mura). She chooses someone in-between — someone of mid-level rank and, more importantly, age. Why she does this will become clearer after the next episode.
    • Similarly, Vadic almost tips her hand when Seven remains behind after the Bridge hostages are relocated to the Observation Lounge. She remarks that it's fitting that Seven's personally here to witness the revelation of Jack's abilities. Her cryptic gloating will likewise make more sense after the next episode.
  • Data surrendering his memories of playing poker with the Enterprise colleagues to Lore. During TNG, Data learned the art of bluffing your opponent from Riker during their poker games. So, it's a subtle clue that Data is doing the same with Lore now.
• Forgot About His Powers: Vadic and her underling Changeling could have averted being Thrown Out the Airlock if they shapeshifted to a form that would cling to the bridge deck, or escaped into the bulkheads or conduits as was previously done by other Changelings aboard the Titan-A. Instead, they just stand there and are promptly sucked out ("correction, that is 'blown out'") to their doom.
• Fusion Dance: Data manages to trick Lore into assimilating his memories, which is the sum of his whole life and personality, and is able to take primary control of the M5-10 Golem. While he accepts the name Data he is fundamentally a different creation altogether, more worldly and a smarter sense of humor, and like Lore he can now use contractions.
• Gilligan Cut: A rather dark example when the imprisoned Riker tells Troi that he is certain that Picard has Vadic and her crew on the ropes just before cutting to Vadic — clearly in complete control — holding numerous captives on the bridge of the Titan.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: On the terminal screen besides Android M-5-10's inert body, the android's positronic brain is represented by a series of nodes, evenly split between blue and red while the partition between Data and Lore remains in place, mirrored by their respective backgrounds depicted in their Battle in the Center of the Mind. As the partition is lifted and Lore begins taking over, more and more nodes start to shift from blue to red. Once Data's mental avatar seemingly disappears entirely, the final node turns red as Geordi lets out a despairing "He's gone..." ... before Lore's mental avatar starts glitching out and the entire network of red nodes shifts all at once back to a bluish purple, revealing Data's Assimilation Backfire gambit and signifying the final culmination of the decades-long struggle between the sons of Soong, as the minds of Data and Lore combine into one being.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking:
  • Vadic lights another joint to celebrate her "good fortune" in taking the Titan-A and slaughtering the Solids.
  • Parodied by Lore, who mockingly puffs from Data's Sherlock Holmes pipe upon seizing his brother's memories and trinkets.
• He's Back!: Following the merger with Lore, Data is back for good.
• Heroic BSoD: Geordi enters it when it initially looks like Lore has triumphed and overwritten Data. Picard, who now has had to watch Data die for a third time, is not far behind him.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Data and Geordi joyfully reaffirm their close friendship following the merger and Data's final resurrection.
  Geordi: Well... I hope that you can sense, as fully as any human has ever felt anything, how happy I am to have my friend back.
  Data: And it would be negligent of me not to say, despite my many changes, the one thing that will remain forever constant is my gratitude for your friendship.
• Hope Spot: Villainous example for Lore after he absorbs Data's memories. His hated twin is gone, he's got trophies to entertain him for years to come, and he'll gladly slaughter Data's friends once he comes back online. And then Data's memories start taking control ...
• Hostage Situation: Vadic gives Jack an ultimatum: surrender in the next ten minutes, or she'll start executing members of the Titan-A's bridge crew until he does. Lieutenant T'Veen is her first victim, and Jack surrenders before any more die.
• Impostor-Exposing Test: Geordi quizzes Picard when Picard and company arrive at the computer core, asking what gift he gave him six years ago. Picard says it was a bottle of wine and criticizes Geordi's tastes, which confirms he's the genuine article.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Played with between Worf and Troi, right and front of Riker. While they were not talking about Riker as if he were not there, it still makes Riker just as uncomfortable.
• Internal Reveal: Jack reveals his new powers to Beverly and Picard.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • T'Veen when Vadic executes her.
  • Vadic herself when Data vents the Bridge. The Shrike itself is also destroyed.
  • Lore, or at least the Lore that's threatened Data and company since the early days of TNG, also "dies" for good when he merges with Data's program. Likewise, the pre-Nemesis copy of Data as we knew him also "dies" upon merging with Lore and the other personalities, even if Data comes out dominant in the end.
• Leitmotif:
  • The "Klingon Theme" once again plays during Worf's Big Damn Heroes rescue of Riker and Troi.
  • Following Data's merger with Lore and the retaking of the ship, his reunion with Picard, Crusher, and Geordi fittingly features an excerpt of Jerry Goldsmith's "Welcome Aboard" from First Contact.
  • Jerry Goldsmith's Data theme from Nemesis plays when the merged Data reunites with the entire TNG crew and assures Picard he hasn't betrayed his Season One copy's final wishes.
  • The TNG theme begins playing once the entire TNG crew reunites and sits at the conference table.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Vadic is vented into space, freezes solid, then shatters against the hull of the Shrike. Seven then has the Shrike blown up for good measure.
• Loophole Abuse: Data's ethical subroutines prevent him from taking a life, which leaves him handicapped when fighting for his life against Lore when the partition's dropped. However, merging with Lore isn't the same as killing him.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: While the Titan crew are screaming over comms, Vadic moves her arms and hands as if she were conducting a symphony.
• Make Sure He's Dead: Both Worf and Raffi fight the Changelings with blades, then vaporize them with their phasers while they're recovering from being stabbed.
• Mauve Shirt: The Titan crew has gotten some screentime, especially Sidney LaForge, but the last four episodes in particular has given small but notable screentime to a handful of recognizable bridge crew. Once Vadic has captured the bridge most of them are lined up with a sadistic roulette of who will be killed next. This ends up being Lt. T'Veen.
• Morton's Fork: This is the grim dilemma to Picard's proposal to use Data to retake control of the Titan systems. If they do nothing, Vadic will kill the Titan survivors and get Jack. But if they do re-activate the Data Golem, Lore's personality will inevitability try to come out and retake the wheel from Data's personality — and if he does, it'll only make things even worse than they already are.
• Motive Misidentification: This is the mistake Altan Soong made with the Data Golem's partition. He thought Lore hated Data and would consume and his program if the partition was dropped. He wasn't wrong, but Altan also misunderstood Lore's obsession with Data. Lore's fixation's always been driven less by hate and more by envy of his baby brother. Coveting what Data's always had is ironically the key to ending Lore once and for all.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Shortly after coming aboard the Titan, Deanna senses a powerful darkness, which she then localizes to Jack.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Assuming it's not a straight-up Series Continuity Error or a Retcon, Data refers to Spot as male, when the cat had kittens (thus being female) in later seasons of TNG, after having originally been a male Somali cat when first introduced. Maybe the "gender revolving door" is intentional.
  • The taunting over the comms and eventual execution of a hostage plays out very similar to David's death and Saavik's report to Kirk in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, except here Lt. T'Veen is killed and Seven reports it to Picard.
• The Needs of the Many: Shaw argues this to Seven, pointing out that, as a Starfleet officer, she has a duty to see the bigger picture and can't always save everyone.
• Not Enough to Bury: Vadic outright vaporizes Lt. T'Veen when she picks someone to execute on the bridge.
• Oh, Crap!: Lore when he realizes his assimilation of Data's memories is backfiring.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: As part of the Fusion Dance, Data can finally use contractions now. And while he thankfully didn't pick up Lore's Misanthrope Supreme tendencies, his first Badass Boast after waking up and asserting the Titan's security systems against the boarders definitely had some of Lore's Jerkass peeking through.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Enforced between Will and Deanna, as Deanna using her empathic power to keep Will's grief in check instead of talking through it with him only harmed their relationship. Deanna even admits it after admitting that's what she was doing:
    Deanna: But I forgot the one thing that all counselors should remember: You can't skip to the end of healing.
  • Of course, this becomes Played for Laughs after they reconcile, as they both admitted they hated living on Nepenthe. They originally went there for Thaddeus, and it's implied that each only stayed because it's what they thought the other wanted. As it turns out, both wanted to return to a more-civilized, less-idyllic setting.
• Powers via Possession: This is implied to be the case with Jack, who reads as perfectly human when scanned but has telepathic abilities courtesy of whatever force has latched onto him.
• Properly Paranoid: Lore eventually and rightly starts getting suspicious about why Data's willfully surrendering his memories rather than trying to put up a token resistance, however futile. However, Lore's ego and complete misunderstanding of his brother means he brushes off his suspicions. It ends up costing him his digital life.
• Prophecy Twist: As Altan Soong feared, lowering the partition does indeed allow Lore's program to subsume Data's, overwrite his personality, and take over the golem. However, in doing so, Lore ironically and unwittingly becomes Data and ensures the Fusion Dance does succeed.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The post-merger Data's boast to Vadic when he retakes control of the Titan.
  Data: Greetings, U.S.S. Titan. This is your friendly positronic pissed-off security system back on-line. Unwanted guests and monologuing protoplasms, I am initiating an immediate shift change.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Seven venomously growls out "Get off my bridge!" moments before Vadic and the Changelings are vented. Judging from her tone and inflection, she seems to be channeling Janeway.
• Profane Last Words: Vadic's last words before being Thrown Out the Airlock:
  Vadic: Fucking Solids.
• Rank Up: Each of the Enterprise-D officers that sported rank pips had their latest rank displayed, which were higher than when they were last together in Nemesis. Picard as Admiral, La Forge as Commodore, Riker and Worf as Captain. The female officers' hair covered their lapels where their rank pips would be so it is unknown what rank they carried - if any. Data did not wear any rank pips.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: As Data and Lore vie for control of the M-5-10 android body, a monitor represents a map of the positronic mind with red for Lore and blue for Data. Once they merge, the whole map becomes purple.
• Redshirt Army: The Titan-A's skeleton crew are slowly slaughtered as Vadic isolates them to flush out Jack and force his surrender. The Critical Staffing Shortage continues as the ship now has no chief science officer, as Lt. T'Veen gets the Mauve Shirt treatment from Vadic. By this point, given how many were transferred off to the Intrepid a couple of episodes prior or lost their lives in repeated battles with Vadic and the Shrike, the Titan-A is lucky to have a crew left at all beyond the main characters.
• The Reveal:
  • Deanna has been using her long-established telepathic bond with Will to tamp down his grief over Thad's death (and her own given her empathic abilities meant she gets to feel her entire family's emotions). But this realistically was only ever a stopgap solution and now the cracks are showing. This neatly explains in-universe why Will and Deanna are only now having martial problems when they had previously been shown to be still grieving, but overall in decent shape back during "Nepenthe".
  • Building on last episode's revelations, the Changelings specifically stole Picard's corpse to dissect his brain, removing the bits of his parietal lobe that were infected with Irumodic Syndrome. Why though is still unrevealed.
• Rewatch Bonus: Vadic's choice to execute T'Veen becomes clearer after it is revealed that all the younger crew members were assimilated by the Borg in the next episode.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Data is now in a human-passing android body much like Picard, though with a few touches from his original form like yellow eyes. He does note there are some things to get used to, as the body was designed to be older and he can now feel joint pain.
• Running Gag: Like Worf and Riker back in "The Bounty", Geordi also had issues with the current offerings from Chateau Picard's wine catalog a few years back. An annoyed Picard is really getting tired of his old command crew and friends from the Enterprise dissing his family's booze.
• Series Continuity Error: Minor one with Data's memory of Tasha. While her Memorial Hologram's emitter's the same design as it was on TNG, Tasha's hologram itself is a different image (with her hands on her hips rather than clasped at her front).
• Shout-Out:
  • Jack walks onto the bridge holding what looks like a thermal detonator from Return of the Jedi.
  • Seven of Nine telling Vadic to "Get off my bridge" has the same inflection that Harrison Ford had saying "Get off my plane!"
• Something Only They Would Say: Picard is still salty about people criticizing his family wine. This confirms to Geordi that he's really Picard.
  Geordi: Six years ago, you brought a gift to my anniversary dinner on Rigel.
  Picard: A Chateau Picard Bordeaux, which you said was too dry because your taste in wine is pedestrian at best.
  Geordi: (to Alandra) Definitely Picard.
• Split-Personality Merge: Downplayed, as Data is ultimately the emergent personality in the new android body, but he has taken on some of Lore's humor and showmanship.
• Spanner in the Works: Happens again with Data v. Lore's battle for control of the Golem. Last episode, Lore wound up the winner and it blew up in Team Picard's faces by derailng their entire trap for Vadic. This time, it gets inverted as Data emerges victorious — and then completely and utterly wrecks Vadic's hostile takeover in mere minutes.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Lore's personality manages to completely subsume Data. However, because he gleefully took all of Data's memories as conquest trophies, Lore essentially becomes Data.
• Spot the Imposter: Deanna reveals she could tell right away the "Riker and Picard" who came to her home were imposters but went with them to keep those around her safe. Unlike past Changelings, she could "read" these better.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Jack threatens to blow himself up if Vadic doesn't release the Bridge crew, convincing Vadic to lock them in the conference room. Subverted when the "bomb" turns out to be a portable forcefield generator, protecting Jack and Seven when Data vents the Bridge.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Seizing the Bridge of an enemy vessel does not automatically grant you control of it. Vadic swiftly moves to take over key systems and lock out the Titan characters before they can do the same to her.
  • The moment Data is able to resolve his memory partition conflict with Lore via a Fusion Dance... Vadic's whole plan falls apart instantly because, while Changelings are powerful beings that can be nigh-unstoppable once pushed to the point of conflict, Data is essentially a super-computer on legs that thinks light years faster than any organic being, solid or not, could ever hope to achieve on their own and once he's able to plug himself into the Titan's systems proper, it turns into a hilariously one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle as he turns every subsystem of the ship against her forces before venting her out into space.
• Synchronization: Not only can Jack see through the eyes of the crew, he can feel when one of them is killed.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: Discussed philosophically with regards to Data and his new form. Once the partition between him and Lore is dropped, Lore immediately begins snagging his memories while deriding them as meaningless trinkets while saying his own memories are more of a Battle Trophy. Data responds in his humble, analytical way that his memories are the summation of everything that he is, and recognizing Lore has the motivation he allows him to take his memories. This was actually a Batman Gambit as Lore's selfishness ensured that he would retain all of Data's memories, not discard them, and Data would in all respect be "reborn" within Lore. Once this new Data takes control of the golem body, it's clear he has become something else in the process. The crew ask Data if this goes against the wishes of the Data who requested to be deleted at the end of Season One, and his response was that they each have their own journey to undertake.
• Time to Step Up, Commander: Showing no ill feelings for the earlier incident, and proving to be a harbinger for the events of the next episode, Capt. Shaw gives Seven the honor of destroying the Shrike once Titan-A is back under their control and Vadic is dead.
  Shaw: Commander... you take this one.
  Seven: Lt. Mura, target the Shrike.
  Mura: With pleasure, Commander.
• Title Drop: Picard believed Data was doing this when the partition between him and Lore was dropped.
  Picard: Geordi, I'm no expert, but this looks like surrender.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: When Data takes control of the ship once more, he opens the bridge viewscreen window, venting Vadic and another Changeling into space.
• True Companions: The entire TNG crew reunited, each of them expressing in their own way how glad they are to be back together again for the first time since the Shinzon Crisis over 20 years earlier.
  Picard: All that matters is that we are together once more, because I need you, all of you.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Beyond Data taking back control of the ship's computers and Jack's plan to "surrender" to buy time, we know nothing of their (and Picard's) plan to take back the Titan-A by venting Vadic out into space until it happens. Even Seven of Nine knows nothing of it until happened.
• Uncanny Valley: A Meta variation, if not outright inversion, with the Data's Golem. Costume Designer Michael Crow and makeup artist James MacKinnon have stated Brent Spiner's makeup design was intended to evoke this. The Golem is intentionally designed to evoke Data, but also be a little "off".
• Unwanted Revival: Discussed but ultimately averted: while Picard expresses concern about betraying Data's wish to experience death at the end of the show's first season, Data regards his season 1 counterpart as a separate being whose wish was fulfilled and states that he personally would rather be nowhere else but with his friends.
• Wham Episode: Vadic is killed and the Shrike is destroyed. Data and Lore also die — or at least they merge to become a completely new life form. Finally, after 8 episodes of buildup, the entire command crew of the Enterprise-D/E is finally reunited and reassembled for the first time since Nemesis.
• Wham Line: Vadic revealing she's knows about the Red Door.
• Wham Shot: Downplayed, but Data sitting down at the Titan-A conference table. For the very first time since Nemesis twenty years earlier, the entire TNG crew is reunited. Riker even notes it.^note If you really wanna get technical and heartwarming, one of the trophies Data shows off is that of his memory of Tasha Yar, making her first appearance in a Star Trek series since "All Good Things", meaning the entire Season One bridge crew was on screen at one point or another this episode.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Shaw calls out Seven for not blowing the turbolift when he was captured, thus allowing Vadic to seize the Bridge.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: A digital variation with Lore. Rather than simply overwrite Data and erase him immediately, Lore instead takes his time and chooses to assimilate Data's memories as trophies of his victory. This is his fatal mistake, as it gives Data his opening to merge with Lore from the inside and defeat him for good.
• You Were Trying Too Hard: A variation with Altan Soong's memory partition. His attempts to shield Data's personality from Lore is ironically revealed to be why the Fusion Dance was failing. While his intentions were good, Altan completely misunderstood Lore and his envy for Data. Altan didn't understand or realize that Lore would rather assimilate and steal Data's memories than simply just erase his brother — and that in doing so, it would allow Data to take control from the inside and realize the merger.

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