Star Trek Picard Season 2 Episode 9 Hide and Seek

 CONTAINS SPOILERS

Looking back, this series of Picard has had slow patches and fast patches.  The story raced along at the start, slowed down in the tunnels beneath Chateau Picard, raced through a pre-flight gala that was so fast we even started the episode at the end, slowed down while the crew chased the Borg Queen through LA:  to be honest, the variation in pace has left with the plot equivalent of whiplash.

The catch-up ("Previously on Star Trek Picard") at the start of this episode includes Picard and Tallinn discussing Q's intention to get Picard to face his childhood, and Picard's reply, "All of that is irrelevant!"  I only wish it was, because we get a lot more of it in this episode, interrupting the main plot in the most critical moments.  The story races along... it grinds to a halt as we get flashback... it races again... it stops again...  I either need a seatbelt or an airbag.

I could summarise the plot in a few sentences:  the Borg Queen beams her new drones into the field outside Chateau Picard, and then a few more (including herself) into La Sirena.  In a bizarre jump-cut continuity error, Agnes goes from wearing her bright red dress to absolutely nothing in two seconds, before assimilating the Queen's earlier body and going FULL Borg.

Meanwhile, Rios is on board, and he activates the Emergency Combat Hologram in the form of Elnor, the sword-wielding Romulan ninja commando, who holds his own against the Borg (nice touch: Elnor wears a mobile holographic emitter, as the Doctor did in Voyager).  The rest of the crew take on the Borg outside, get chased inside the Chateau (where Picard has his childhood flashbacks), before managing to return to the ship (Seven and Raffi across the ground, Picard and Tallinn through an escape tunnel initially, before the whole thing turns into a dead end and they also return overground, with Rios's assitance).

Agnes and the Borg Queen continue to struggle to take full control; she attacks Raffi and Seven as they return to the Sirena, and as the Borg Queen attempts to deal the fatal blow to Seven, Agnes intervenes. 

They have their own internal dialogue, where Agnes persuades the Queen to stop assimilating the strong, but instead look to connect the weak, vulnerable and injured into a cooperative rather than a collective, which the Queen does - Seven is first.  The Borg Queen/Agnes commandeers the Sirena, and takes off for the Delta Quadrant, to remake the Borg in a new, slightly more charitable form than it was previously.  As she says, "The Federation will have no need for a Borg-slayer - at least not from us."

The Sirena crew realise their mission must be to protect the launch of the Europa mission, as it was all along (the rest, including the extended flashback scenes, are irrelevant) and head off from central France back to the USA (presumably with Tallinn's transporting device).

This could be covered in 20 minutes, maybe 30, but it was stretched - painfully - over 45 minutes as Picard kept having his flashback sequences, and the Borg played hide and seek through the chateau (with the ridiculous plot design that they had to shine their green laser beams wherever they were looking, which immediately gave away their position, direction, and where they were looking).  These Borg were scariest - and they managed it once in the episode - where they leapt into the heroes' path without shining their beams first.

I'm not saying that the flashback scenes weren't poignant, upsetting or lacking emotional impact - they were.  But they were thrown into the episode at such unexpected moments that they lacked the kick of an emotional reveal, because it was hard to keep up with what was happening.  Most of it I'd guessed previously, but it was certainly saddening Jean-Luc's mother's suicide, and to see that Jean-Luc's best efforts to help his mother were what finally made it possible for her to end her life.  But this is all swept away because here come the Borg and their insidious ally, Adam Soong.

And I'm not buying the whole 'Q planned this all so that Picard would have to face his past' nonsense.  Q did not plan for Picard to make his own way back to the 21st century; did not anticipate Picard bring the Borg Queen along, or landing in the grounds of his own castle.  No.  Q may be a lot of things, but he's not capable of predicting the future, or Picard's actions.  Sorry, no, I'm not buying it, especially not in an episode which is so cliche-ridden as to be set during a dark and stormy night.

Instead, it's interesting (worrying?) to note that Picard and the crew have been relegated to passengers or followers of the plot for most of the time since it was put into effect in the first episode.  

1.  The Borg summoned Picard to the spatial anomaly; Picard went running along on the Stargazer, straight into a fleet-destroying battle with the Borg.  

2.  Q whips Picard over to the alternate timeline, Picard has to work out what's happening.

Ok, Picard and crew kidnap the Borg Queen and she agrees to transport them back in time, but since then, they've been doing nothing but chasing along - 

3.  chasing Q and trying to stop him preventing the launch of the Europa (their one success to date); 

4.  chasing Rios when he got hospitalized; arrested and transferred (wild goose chase, almost, since Picard found Renee and Tallinn single-handedly) 

5.  chasing the Borg Queen across LA (total failure);  

6.  attempt to prevent the Borg Queen taking over the Sirena (again, failure)... 

It seems to me that they're on course to fail:  Soong's plan to stop the Europa mission will succeed, and they'll all get trapped in the 21st century.  Their track record in this series has not been good. 

But, and here's the question: if they succeed in getting the Europa to launch, how will they get home?  The Borg Queen has commandeered their spaceship - we see it go to warp off to the Delta Quadrant (again, another nice touch - this is the Borg's home in The Next Generation) - so they are well and truly stuck on Earth, in the past.  I fear I'm going to be very unimpressed by the resolution in the next and final episode, because something's going to have to appear out of thin air; Q has no powers either, and Guinan is only your typical alien.  No, I can't help feel slightly uneasy regarding next week's episode, especially since we're catapulted into it with the Borg Queen's annoyingly cryptic message: "The mission must succeed.  There must be two Renees - one who lives, one who dies."  Ok, parallel universes it is then, folks.  I just wish the Borg had tried to assimilate Q, but that's just me, right?