Original air date: November 1, 1993
Lwaxana Troi is brought onto the Enterprise to help facilitate diplomatic relations between the Federation and a race of telepathic aliens, as well as to try to play matchmaker for her daughter Deanna. As time passes, however, Lwaxana begins to seem more fatigued, more stressed, and less cheerful. One of the telepathic aliens, Maques, confides in Deanna that there is a part of Lwaxana's psyche that is "dark" and that she keeps a guarded secret. As time passes, Lwaxana becomes more distraught and erratic, which is believed to be related to Lwaxana taxing herself by communicating constantly with the telepathic aliens. While watching the telepathic aliens' children playing in the garden, however, she suddenly loses consciousness after seeing one child, Hedril, fall into a pond.
Crusher's diagnosis is not good; Lwaxana has fallen into a coma, as though her brain had suddenly shut down, save for her Betazoid telepathic node, and with no indication as to a possible cause. Maques, however, has a clue: Her mind has a "dark place." He couldn't put the idea into words, since spoken language is a foreign concept to his race, but tries to communicate the idea to Deanna telepathically. The communicative methods between these aliens and Betazoids, however, makes it difficult to completely understand at first. Deanna, however, eventually comes to gain an understanding; there was something afflicting Lwaxana's metaconscious, a Betazoid psychic defense mechanism against trauma. There is no indication, however, as to the exact nature of what is affecting her metaconscious.
Deanna decides to gain a better understanding of what is happening by communicating with her comatose mother through telepathy. Lwaxana's subconscious cries out to Deanna for help, but nothing else. That evening, Maques enters the sickbay, claiming to attempt to help Lwaxana, explaining via telepathy to Deanna that Lwaxana has retreated into her metaconscious. He had tried to reach out to Lwaxana telepathically, but he couldn't understand the images he saw. Deanna believes Maques can help bridge her and Lwaxana's psyches to attempt to find out what is causing Lwaxana's state; a risky proposal, but one Deanna is willing to attempt.
When the psychic bridge is formed, Deanna finds herself in the corridors of the Enterprise, hearing Lwaxana's pleas for help. Picard approaches her and orders her to sever the connection. Deanna, however, realizes that this is not the real Picard, but her mother's psychic defenses; whatever it is that is afflicting Lwaxana, she doesn't want Deanna seeing it. Another defense mechanism appears in the form of an angry wolf that chases after Deanna, leading to a home on Betazed. She sees her father, who apologizes for abandoning Deanna as a child. Deanna, however, recognizes this as another defense mechanism, and doesn't recognize the home she appears in, or the toys therein. She tearfully says her farewells to her father and returns to the Enterprise corridors.
Deanna's search leads her to one of the telepathic children; Hedril. Lwaxana appears and strides toward Deanna, screaming at her and causing Deanna to snap back to reality.
Deanna asks Hedril if she had any idea as to if Lwaxana was thinking of her. Hedril confides that she believes Lwaxana to be upset with her, but no one knows why. Lwaxana never discussed Hedril, so her connection to her ailment remains unclear, although it is believed she may represent the dark secret she was keeping. Deanna decides to look through Lwaxana's logs and personal effects to get a better idea, but cannot find any clues: the only thing that would seem to give Lwaxana any grief or misery was Deanna's remaining single. She couldn't find any clues from Mister Homm or her friends. When Picard takes a look through Lwaxana's personal logs, however, he finds something odd. There is a seven-year gap in her logs between a year after Lwaxana married Deanna's father to shortly after Deanna's birth. The logs in that time frame had been deleted — by Lwaxana herself!
Deanna re-enters Lwaxana's metaconscious in order to get to the bottom of the mystery of what is killing her mother. Once again, she encounters the wolf and Hedril, although Hedril doesn't seem to recognize that name. Deanna follows the image of Hedril into a memory that resembles the garden on the Enterprise and sees an image of another girl in the pond's reflection. Lwaxana continues to resist Deanna's attempt to help, refusing to answer her questions. Deanna continues to probe Lwaxana, encouraging her and promising to help her.
Finally, Deanna sees the memory that Lwaxana had tried to repress and keep secret from Deanna: Unbeknownst to Deanna until now, she had an older sister named Kestra. One day, the Troi family was having a picnic with the family dog. The dog, anxious to go for a swim, slipped from Kestra's grasp. Kestra gave chase, accidentally falling into a lake and drowning. Lwaxana hadn't noticed until it was too late, and the guilt from having let her daughter die had been weighing her down in the years since. Deanna reassures Lwaxana that Kestra's tragic death was not her fault, and that Lwaxana owed it to Kestra to remember her and to celebrate her life. Deanna suggests Lwaxana talk with the memory of Kestra she had repressed. Lwaxana apologizes to Kestra and holds her in her arms one last time before letting her, and her guilt, go.
Lwaxana recovers from her coma, holding hands with Deanna from their sickbay beds. Mister Homm had kept all of her pictures of Kestra safe, in case she wanted to remember. Both mother and daughter become closer together over the loss of the older sister Deanna now knew of, and the celebration of her life.
This episode provides examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: This whole episode focuses on Deanna and her family. More specifically, it focuses on Deanna's deceased older sister and how her death has impacted Lwaxana.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Lwaxana goes husband hunting on her daughter's behalf (again!). Deanna is not amused.
- Continuity Nod: To the last episode, in fact. Data mentions his recent studies of dreams and their imagery, referring to the events of "Phantasms".
- Dark Secret: Lwaxana is revealed to have been hiding the existence of a deceased firstborn for nearly Deanna's entire life, having repressed the memory of Kestra's untimely death for quite some time.
- Heroic BSoD: Lwaxanna goes through this after the death of her first daughter, to the point of deleting all evidence of her existence, including the seven years of her own diaries during that point in her life. In fact, Lwaxanna never truly got over the death, instead just burying it deeply into her metaconscious (basically the Betazed subconscious) mind.
- Homage: Kestra's death and its effects on her parents mirrors Johnny Keefer's demise in The Marrying Kind.
- Identical Stranger: The little girl that Lwaxana encounters bears an uncanny resemblance to her hitherto unrevealed first daughter, Kestra. This is what triggers Lwaxana's coma.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Most of the episode is centered on a telepathic voyage into Lwaxana's mind.
- Meaningful Name: The telepathic race which triggers Lwaxana's repressed memories of her deceased and forever mourned daughter is called the Cairn—as in, a shrine or monument raised in honor of the dead.
- Motor Mouth: At the beginning of the episode, Lwaxana is animatedly talking to Picard about the Cairn, and Picard is clearly looking for an exit. This might seem strange because, for once, Lwaxana is talking about something you'd expect Picard to be interested in. But when Lwaxana says that the Cairn would have finished their conversation "minutes ago," and Picard gives a wistful reaction, it becomes clear that she's has been jabbering on for ages.
- My Beloved Smother: Deconstructed. Lwaxana's entire character is re-contextualized and reveals her grief over Kestra's death and refusal to face that trauma is why she's like this towards Deanna.
- My Brain Is Big: The telepathic Cairn have enlarged lobes sticking out the sides of their heads.
- The Oner: Troi's first entry into her mother's mind. Filmed with a fisheye lens, no less.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Kestra, Lwaxana's first child, met a tragically early demise just after Deanna was born.
- Poor Communication Kills: Maques catches on to Lwaxana's Repressed Memories pretty quickly, but his explanation of what he saw in her mind is so vague that Troi believes he's referring to her shielding certain thoughts for privacy's sake (this isn't helped by the language barriers; he's not used to conveying things through words in general). After she falls into a coma, he uses his race's brand of telepathy to convey his meaning and she gains a better understanding of the issue.
- Posthumous Character: Ian Andrew Troi and Kestra Troi have been dead long before Lwaxana's first onscreen appearance, let alone the show's beginning.
- Put on a Bus: Lwaxana, or at least in the context of the Next Generation corner of the 24th Century. This episode is Lwaxana's final appearance on TNG (as she wouldn't appear in the films). However, Lwaxana will ultimately make three more crossover appearances on Deep Space Nine before her character is ultimately retired.
- Repressed Memories: The ultimate cause of Lwaxana's coma and slow brush toward death. It's not caused by abuse, but by a painful event nonetheless.
- Retcon: Though never actually stated on the show, for most of its run the
Word of God explanation for why Troi has a different accent than her mother was that it was her father's. That theory is killed when he shows up here sounding just as American as his wife. - Shout-Out: The effect of a child drowning in a lake with their oblivious parents nearby was taken from The Marrying Kind.
- Stepford Smiler: Lwaxana in this episode, and by inference, all the other Lwaxana episodes prior. Turns out Deanna's flighty and flamboyant mother has been masking some serious trauma.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Early on, after Lwaxana's latest ham-fisted attempt to set Deanna up with a man leads to yet another argument between them, the two board a turbolift together, which is already occupied by a crewman. While everyone's eyes are avoiding everyone else's, Lwaxana telepathically snarks that Deanna will no doubt do what she wants as always, which prompts Deanna to snap at her (out loud). The turbolift's other occupant is clearly as disconcerted by this as he is baffled.
- Un-person: Lwaxana had removed everything that could remind her of Kestra because she didn't want to relive the pain of her loss ever again. It's forever unclear exactly how Mr. Troi felt about this, although obviously he went along with it.note
