• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • Star Wars New Hope Mark Hamill Carrie Fisher Harrison Ford Luke Skywalker Princess Leia Han Solo

      Star Wars: 45 Years Later and the four people who made it happen

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 23, 2022
    • Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers Poster

      REVIEW: Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a fever dream of family fun

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 22, 2022
    • Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness: Benedict Cumberbatch, Xochitl Gomez and Rachel McAdams as Steven, America Chavez and Dr. Christine Palmer

      REVIEW: Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is Sam Raimi’s Sam Ramiest movie in ages!

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 7, 2022
    • Full Metal Jacket: Vincent D'Onofrio

      Full Metal Jacket is still awesome thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 5, 2022
    • Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore: Jude Law as Albus

      REVIEW: Fantastic Beasts 3 (The Secrets of Dumbledore) is a gloomy sequel with little pizzaz

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 18, 2022
    • Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Sonic voiced by Ben Schwartz

      REVIEW: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Best video game film yet?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 9, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga's discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
      Music Blogs
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
    • Beatles Usa 1964

      50 years ago the Beatles said “The End”

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 31, 2019
  • TV
    Featured
    • Nancy Drew S03e01: Kennedy McMann as Nancy

      Nancy Drew S03E01 Review: The Warning of the Frozen Heart - Uh-oh!

      By Salome G
      | October 10, 2021
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Riverdale 6 15 3

      Riverdale S06E15 Review: Things That Go Bump in the Night – Unexpected allies

      By Salome G
      | May 23, 2022
    • Doctor Who S10e8 Peter Capaldi

      Why is it that The Doctor can never seem to become ginger?

      By Jason Collins
      | May 23, 2022
    • Big Sky S02e18: Katheryn Winnick and Jensen Ackles as Jenny Hoyt and Beau Arlen

      Big Sky S02E18 Review: Catch a Few Fish – Solid finale

      By Salome G
      | May 22, 2022
    • The Flight Attendant S02e07: Griffin Matthews and Kaley Cuoco as Shane and Cassie

      The Flight Attendant S02E07 Review: No Exit – Huh?

      By Salome G
      | May 22, 2022
    • Star Trek Strange New Worlds S01e02 Celia Rose Gooding and Ethan Peck as Uhura and Spock

      Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Episodes 2-3 review (Good stuff!)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 21, 2022
    • Riverdale S06e14: Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge

      Riverdale S06E14 Review: Venomous – Spider-Woman?

      By Salome G
      | May 16, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
    • Mario Headphones

      The SNES Turns 30: A look at some of the system’s best soundtracks

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 22, 2021
    • Metroid Dread Poster

      REVIEW: Metroid Dread reawakens the old gamer in me

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 11, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • Wwe Payback 2017 Poster 2

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE Payback 2017

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 30, 2017
      WWE Blogs
    Recent
    • Raw 210501: Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

      May 21, 2001 – A (forgotten) date that will live in WWE infamy

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 20, 2022
    • WWE WrestleMania 39 Logo

      Your WAY TOO EARLY predictions for WWE WrestleMania 39!

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 20, 2022
    • WWE WrestleMania 38 Poster

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE WRESTLEMANIA 38!

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 30, 2022
    • Wrestlemania 31 Paige Aj Lee 2

      BOOK REVIEW: The Women of WrestleMania is a balanced take on an under-valued slice of history

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 16, 2022
    • ROH Proving Ground 2009: El Generico aka Sami Zayn

      In buying ROH, AEW has a chance to redo history (the right way)

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 14, 2022
    • Cody Rhodes Tnt Title Belt 220720

      Cody Rhodes is gone from AEW. What does that mean for wrestling?

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Star Wars: 45 Years Later and the four people who made it happen
    • Riverdale S06E15 Review: Things That Go Bump in the Night - Unexpected allies
    • Why is it that The Doctor can never seem to become ginger?
    • Big Sky S02E18 Review: Catch a Few Fish - Solid finale
    • REVIEW: Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a fever dream of family fun
    • The Flight Attendant S02E07 Review: No Exit - Huh?
    • Latest Comments

    Star Trek Picard S02E09 Review: Hide and Seek – DO WE HAVE TIME FOR THIS CONVERSATION?!

    By Ethan J
    | April 29, 2022
    TV Blogs

    Gif - Will And Grace - Karen Drinking

    …..

    For the love of everything that is Trek and ever was Trek, what the literal hell did I just watch?

    Alright, let’s get into it.

    Dr. Soong’s Mystery Army of Plot Convenience (MAPC) travels from wherever Dr. Soong lives to France and starts a Commando-style raid on the place.  Conveniently, it’s either foggy enough or sci-fi enough that the MAPC can be easily identified by their bright green laser sights.  There’s also some nice dramatic thunder and lightning for atmosphere.

    Rios, still on the La Sirena with Dr. Teresa and her kid for reasons, has to suddenly run to safety after Jurborgti and some of her goons beam onboard.  Jurborgti Borgs herself up and then walks away in slow motion.

    Did Uwe Boll write this episode??

    Jean-Luc Picard, Seven, Raffi, and the capital of Estonia beam …somewhere on the property, and Picard tells the audience what they need to do (defend the ship no matter the cost – which…obviously). Tallinn has brought guns from…somewhere, and then Rios and his crew appear from…somewhere.  It’s sure nice of the MAPC to give our heroes enough time to make a plan.  As soon as they’re done talking about their plan, they’re all lit up by bright green laser sights and dramatic music says “ooooh nooooo everything’s bad now…”

    After the intro credits, Borgati tries to gain control of the ship, only to be thwarted by Jurati, who still has some control.  Somehow, Jurati has managed to make an exact hologram of Elnor?!?!?!?  When did THAT happen????

    Star Trek Picard S02e09 Alison Pill and Annie Wersching as Jurati and Borg Queen

    And here we get the first of many examples of do we have time for this conversation???  Ok, it’s a good conversation, a big philosophical deconstruction of what the Borg do and who they are, the nature of time, and blah blah blah, but time after time in this episode, the characters just stop in the middle of an urgent scene and just take time to process shit.

    And then Jurati tells the Borg Queen where the key is?!

    And then, after the dramatic reveal of holo-Elnor, the goon who’s been conveniently standing there slack-jawed waiting for everyone else to finish up their conversations suddenly leaps into action and is roundly defeated by holo-Elnor.

    Star Trek Picard S02e09: Evan Evagora as Holo Elnor

    Our heroes outside hunker down in a firefight with the MAPC, and a flash-bang leads to Picard having a flashback – of his mother and father. This isn’t a terrible scene, but damn does it not belong here.  Picard processing his mother’s mental health struggles is clearly something key to this whole season, but the way the show has handled it has been…at times brilliant and at times excruciating.  This episode is mostly the latter.

    Back to the firefight, and Rios is injured.  Tallinn beams Rios, Dr. Teresa, and the kid back to Tallinn’s TOS-era decorated office (which is gorgeous, I might add), and then deactivates her fogsporter, so…Rios is out of the action until the plot needs him again.  Points for the cool kitschy retro-futuristic tech stuff in the office.  Not a lot of points.  Not enough to salvage this garbage fire, but points.

    “A Borg with advanced technology in this century, can you imagine the damage she would inflict?”  Yes.  And so can you, Jean-Luc.  There was a whole movie about it. You were in it.

    Our heroes decide to split the party, which always works well, and then things just get really, really dumb.

    So Tallinn lays down suppressing fire, which allows the rest of the episode to happen.

    Dr. Soong and Picard yell at each other across a field.  Dr. Soong has turned from an interesting if flawed character into a full on head-waggler Bond villain, and it just suuucks.  And leads to another damn flashback.  Hide and seek.  Find your mother.  Tell her to tell you not to make this episode.

    We focus on Raffi and Seven, who have made it into the chateau, and Raffi says “we need to get to the ship,” because that apparently needed to be said.  They have to dodge all the convenient bright green laser sights (nice that those are so visible), but then one of the MAPC comes in and melees with them.  It’s a decently choreographed if absurd fight, and it ends with Raffi and Seven working together to push a knife into the MAPC and kill him.  They dodge some more bright green lasers, and then…

    We focus on Picard and Tallinn, who are looking for the secret entrance to the tunnels.  A bright green laser sight appears on Picard’s head, but the shooter conveniently waits just long enough for Tallinn to shoot him, so that’s good.

    Star Trek Picard S02e09: Patrick Stewart and Orla Brady as Jean-Luc and Tallinn

    And another flashback…hide and seek with the mother…yadda yadda back to the tunnels, more clues as to what actually happened, remembering how to get down there by turning a fleur-de-lis on a bookcase. This flashback’s purpose is obviously to get Picard to remember the fleur-de-lis, so he does, and they go down to the basement tunnels with Soong hot on their trail yelling PICAAAARD every few seconds just in case we’ve forgotten he’s there.

    Picard and Tallinn are in the basement, and they apparently have time to process the whole memory of what Tallinn saw in Picard’s mind.  Not that they should be, you know, running away from the MAPC or trying to get to the ship.  No.  The important thing now is to process all the things about Picard’s mother, and do that while staying in one place.  Do we have time for this conversation?!?!

    Star Trek Picard S02e09: Madeline Wise as Yvette

    Back to Raffi and Seven, who watch bright green laser sights coming for them before Seven says “arm up” and they grab…some kitchen supplies.  And then we get to something that makes not a damn lick of sense for Seven’s character or what we know of the United Federation of Planets.  The Federation wouldn’t let Seven join because she had been assimilated by the Borg?!  That’s…that’s just some absolute crap right there.  Gene Roddenberry is spinning so fast in his grave he’s created a wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant in there.

    Raffi and Seven do a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid across a field past the MAPC, which should be nearly impossible to survive, but is actually super easy, barely an inconvenience. (Ryan George, you ever do episodes of Trek?)

    Back on the ship, the BQ is looking for holo-Elnor, who is making a lot of noise looking for weapons and discarding all of them except for his trusty sword, which is there.

    Rios and Teresa have a conversation that doesn’t matter about Rios trying to get back and help with the fight, and Dr. Teresa is amazed by a retrofuturistic tricorder, but somehow Rios thinks she’ll know how to use it to fix his bullet wound.  Which I guess she does?

    Soong finds the secret entrance to the basement because of some convenient dust on the floor, and he figures all that out and goes down there.  Meanwhile, Picard (haunted by his younger self) and Tallinn try to find a way out of the basement, although Picard’s a little busy having all these flashbacks.

    Look, I’m not going to be as snarky about the scenes involving the mother’s mental health problems, her pain, her depression.  Those scenes hit hard, and they’re good.  They just needed to be somewhere else in the show.  The fact that they’re all mixed up in the madcap incoherent lunacy of the rest of this episode makes them lose some of their power, the impact of the final reveal.

    Star Trek Picard S02e09: Madeline Wise as Yvette

    Back to reality, whoops there goes gravity…sorry, I was remembering something better than this episode, and I’m not a fan of Eminem.

    So I opened the door.  

    At which point, Soong finds them, and they have to flee.  Jean-Luc finds a WW2-era gun, and fires it, and it works, which is nice, and the two of them run away from Soong and the MAPC.

    Raffi and Seven make it onto the ship, which is nice.  Seven has a kind of clever idea but needs holo-Elnor to release control of the ship, so he does, and she beams the MAPC (or just the ones on the ship?? it’s unclear) into the walls of the basement of the chateau.  Brutal and effective, and clever, but narratively nonsensical.

    Then the show has time for Raffi and holo-Elnor to have a nice moment of closure , and it’s really lovely that the MAPC and anything else in the episode stops mattering long enough for this moment to happen.  Do we have time for this conversation??

    Ok.  That’s enough recap.  You get the idea.  The rest of the episode doesn’t get much smarter.  The reveal that Picard’s mother killed herself, and his callback to the TNG episode where he sees his mother as an old woman offering him tea, is powerful but again, completely loses any impact in the maelstrom of suck that is everything else going on.  The conversation between the BQ and Jurati where they contemplate a kinder, gentler Borg is nice, but again…blargh.  The shock of the BQ stabbing Seven in the gut, and then doing a Bond villain monologue, isn’t terrible, but it’s more of the same.

    Star Trek Picard S02e09: Alison Pill as Borg Jurati

    And now it’s daytime again.

    Have any of our characters slept in the last few days?  You know, there was an episode of TNG about the consequences of going without REM sleep for a prolonged period.

    In the end, there’s some kind of a deal made, and the BQ flies off with the ship.  I still don’t really understand what the heck happened, but next week’s episode…

    I don’t even really want to watch next week’s episode.  But I will.  For you, my invisible and unknowable readers.

    2/10.  I’m only giving it a 2/10 because my husband insisted I give it two points.  Next week better be good.

    Star Trek Picard S02e09: Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    Star TrekStar Trek Picard

    You might also like

    • Star Trek Picard S02E08 Review: Mercy – Q and A

      By Ethan J
      | April 22, 2022
    • Star Trek Picard S02E07 Review: Monsters – The little prince

      By Ethan J
      | April 15, 2022
    • Star Trek Picard S02E06 Review: Two of One – Robots in disguise

      By Ethan J
      | April 8, 2022

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    TV Topics

    Recommended for you

    • Riverdale S06E15 Review: Things That Go Bump in the Night – Unexpected allies

      By Salome G
      | May 23, 2022
    • Why is it that The Doctor can never seem to become ginger?

      By Jason Collins
      | May 23, 2022
    • Big Sky S02E18 Review: Catch a Few Fish – Solid finale

      By Salome G
      | May 22, 2022
    • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Episodes 2-3 review (Good stuff!)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 21, 2022
    • The Flight Attendant S02E07 Review: No Exit – Huh?

      By Salome G
      | May 22, 2022
    • Star Trek Picard Season 2 (not a review but a rant)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 10, 2022
    • Star Trek Picard S02E10 Review: Farewell – Future perfect?

      By Ethan J
      | May 7, 2022
    • Meditating on Moon Knight (Season One Review)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 5, 2022
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Every episode ranked! (Part 4/5)

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 24, 2022
    • Why “The Body” from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ remains one of TV’s greatest explorations of the five stages of grief

      By Jason Collins
      | March 27, 2022
    • On a scale of 1 to really messed up, how well does The Boys translate to the small screen?

      By Jason Collins
      | March 15, 2022
    • Who’s Who? We have some ideas about the new Doctor Who

      By Oliver Johnston
      | September 13, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter