History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E10ChainOfCommand

* SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfDistance: Apparently, Picard, Crusher, and Worf brought enough rope to rappel ''half a kilometer''.

* PreAssKickingOneLiner: Of a sort.
-->'''Madred:''' ''*turns on lights*'' How many lights do you see?
-->'''Picard:''' ''*sneering*'' What lights?

* EatThat: Gul Madred serves Picard a raw Taspar egg as an attempt at degrading him. Although clearly disgusted, Picard, starving after days of torture, eats it.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Jellico arrives on the ship having memorized the ship's layout and senior staff. He doesn't let Riker finish a sentence (not even to introduce himself), but briskly rattles off a series of sweeping changes that he expects in place in a matter of hours, then boards the turbo lift before Riker can even react. His commanding style is exemplified in one scene.

Meanwhile, the Cardassians inform the Enterprise crew that Picard has been captured. Jellico refuses to acknowledge that Picard was on a Starfleet mission, an admission necessary for Picard to receive the rights of a prisoner of war rather than being subjected to torture as a terrorist; this leads to a heated argument between Jellico and Riker upon which Jellico relieves Riker of duty. The crew observes signs of residue from a nearby nebula on the hull of a Cardassian ship, and Jellico suspects a Cardassian fleet may attempt to use the cover of the nebula to launch an attack on Minos Korva. Jellico determines their best course of action is to place mines across the nebula using a shuttlecraft. However, Riker is the most qualified pilot for the mission. Riker candidly criticizes Jellico's command style and only accepts the assignment once Jellico personally asks him to pilot the shuttle instead of ordering him to do so. Riker successfully lays the minefield, and Jellico uses the threat of the minefield to force the Cardassians to disarm and retreat, also demanding Picard's return.

* EnRouteSumUp: Picard explains the mission to Worf and Crusher after they've left the ''Enterprise''. It's {{Justified}} as a security precaution.

* TheChessmaster: The Covert Mission that Picard, Worf, and Crusher are sent on turns out to be this. Picard is only one of three people with experience in theta-band emissions, with the other two people no longer in Starfleet. By making the Federation believe that the Cardassians are developing metagenic weapons, they order Picard to lead the expedition to Celtris III, not being aware that Picard is being LuredIntoATrap.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Picard is disturbed that Madred's daughter casually visits him while Madred tortures Picard. Madred defends the practice, saying that Cardassian children are raised to believe that the enemies of the state deserve whatever fate befalls them, which curtails into a lot of justifications and cultural posturing on Madred's part.
--> '''Picard''': I am surprised that... you let her come in here.\\
'''Madred''': Why?\\
'''Picard''': To expose a child to... this... to someone who is suffering, to see that it... it is ''you'' who inflict that suffering...\\
'''Madred''': From the time Jil Orra could crawl, she's been taught about the enemies of the Cardassians, and that enemies deserve their fates.\\
'''Picard''': When children learn to devalue others, they can devalue anyone. Including their parents.\\
'''Madred''': What a blind, narrow view you have. What an arrogant man you are.

--> '''Jellico:''' It's an elephant...''[rotates it 90 degrees]'' I think.\\

* ShownTheirWork: With the exception of the pain-inducing implant, all the torture practices Madred uses on Picard, including feigning a shared interest and threatening one of his friends, are taken directly from Amnesty International archives. Creator/PatrickStewart, who is a strong supporter of Amnesty International, was pleased by this, as he studied psychological profiles for torture victims.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Gul Madred grew up on the streets, once badly beaten up when he found some aforementioned Taspar eggs. Picard, however, calls him out on it because of how he became a torture technician.

* GoodCopBadCop: A diplomatic variant -- while negotiating with Lemec, Riker and Troi are the good cops while Jellico is the bad cop.

** Jacobo Timerman reported that in between torturing him, the Argentine military men who tortured him sometimes would speak to their wives and children over the phone.

* EatThis: Gul Madred serves Picard a raw Taspar egg as an attempt at degrading him. Although clearly disgusted, Picard, starving after days of torture, eats it.

* AlienLunch: Invoked by Gul Madred. He serves Picard a raw Taspar egg as an attempt at degrading him. Although clearly disgusted, Picard, starving after days of torture, eats it.

--->'''Jellico:''' Let's drop the ranks for a moment. I don't like you. I think you're insubordinate, arrogant, willful, and I don't think you're a particularly good First Officer.
--->'''Riker:''' Well, now that the ranks are dropped, Captain, I don't like you, either. You ''are'' arrogant and closed-minded. You need to control everything and everyone. You don't provide an atmosphere of trust, and you don't inspire these people to go out of their way for you. You've got everyone wound up so tight, there's no joy in anything. I don't think you're a particularly good Captain.[[note]]Subverted in that not only does Jellico's plan work ''perfectly'', faced against a superior Cardassian fleet, but he even gets Picard back. (Though Jellico was able to win because he needed Riker to plant mines on the hulls of the Cardassian ships, not because the Enterprise crew was able to man their battle stations several seconds faster and/or handle battle damage/repel boarders better after Jellico's intense preparation to get the crew ready with battle drills and sudden changes to job assignments)[[/note]]

* SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfDistance: Apparently, Picard, Crusher, and Worf brought enough rope to rappel ''half a kilometer''.

* CommandRoster: Riker's blatant insubordination gets him removed from TheChainOfCommand entirely by Jellico, who promotes Data to NumberTwo in Riker's place. Data also changes his uniform from the standard Ops yellow to the Command red, before it all reverts back to normal when Picard returns at the end of the episode, with the exception of Troi wearing a standard medical blue uniform.