“Nepenthe” is an episode split between a gentle, reassuring
reunion story and an absolutely brutal thriller. On the one hand, the
bulk of the focus is on Picard's reunion with Riker and Troi, on what
seems to be an idyllic planet, although even this has some darkness
beneath the surface story. It's a chance for the characters to take
stock and process the events of the preceding episode, and for Picard
and Soji in particular to actually get to know each other after very
forcefully being thrown together. On the other side, there are the
events on the Artefact, including the vicious, and arguably
unnecessary, murder of Hugh, and the strained relation on La
Sirena, culminating in Jurati's act of near-suicide. It's equal
parts assuasive and unsettling.
As a fan, the return of characters of previous iterations of Star
Trek is naturally a highlight of Picard, but there's
always a risk this will slide into fanwank and cease working as its
own story. Catching up with a middle-aged, retired Riker could easily
go this way, but the script utilises him well, providing Picard with
the comfort of a friend and a much-needed ally, but also someone
who'll confront him on his shit. Troi (or Mrs Troi-Riker, rather)
gets to use her counselling skills properly, giving Soji someone to
talk through her issues with, although it's her daughter who really
gets through to the troubled android.
Lulu Wilson absolutely steals this episode as young Kestra
Troi-Riker, which is no mean feat given that she's up against the
long-awaited reunion of three of The Next Generation's
principle characters. Kestra is a cool, fun, adventurous kid, who has
clearly thrown herself into the more back-to-basics life that her
parents have taken to on the planet Nepenthe. Their stated reason for
settling on the planet is the life-restoring properties of the soil,
which they had hoped to use to cure their late son of a degenerative
disease. In an unexpected link to the overall series arc, it turns
out that a positronic net is part of a treatment that would have
cured him, but these were blanket banned after the attack on Mars.
There's more to it, though. The late Thaddeus is revealed to have
been something of a prodigy, creating entire languages and worlds in
his head as part of his desire to belong somewhere after growing up
on a starship. While Kestra is clearly just as brilliant, she has a
much more grounded lifestyle, which has to be a conscious decision by
her parents. It's not like there isn't a more technology-based
lifestyle available on the planet, as we hear of a spaceport numerous
times. The Troi-Rikers clearly wanted to move back to nature.
Lulu Wilson also shares excellent chemistry with Isa Briones, who
gets to give Soji some real character at last. I guess this makes
sense, since before much of her character is explicitly maufactured,
and at last she is learning who she really is. Understandably she's
in a hell of a place, having had her identity thrown into question,
and then minutes later her boyfriend try to kill her, and then escape
from a Borg cube through a super-teleporter. As helpful as her time
on Nepenthe is in settling her character, she has a lot more to go
through before she'll really know who she is and what her place is.
The details of Soji's biology are interesting. “Data didn't have
mucus,” points out Kestra, and it does seem strange to put so much
work into creating an artificial being that seems so human seems
almost counterproductive. Yes, she's super-strong and
super-intelligent, but she's also extremely biological with all the
weaknesses that entails. She almost choked on poison gas last
episode. Why build a human? We can already make humans. Nonetheless,
her pedigree as a Soong-type android is so clear that all it takes is
a characteristic head tilt and Riker and Troi both recognise her as
Data's child.
I'm not sure the events on the Artefact really add anything much to
the episode, other than to show how ruthlessly evil Rizzo is. It's
not like this is ever in question. The villainous characters,
particularly the female ones (ie everyone except Narek) have
been pretty one-dimensionally evil in this series, in spite of the
more complex moral concepts it's going for. Rizzo leaps at the chance
to start murdering XB's to show just how much contempt she holds them
in, then kills Hugh for good measure. Rather like the murder of Icheb
earlier in the series, it seems pretty cynical. On the plus side,
Evan Evagora (Elnor) and Jonathan Del Arco (Hugh) work really nicely
together. It's a pity we won't see more of them.
The La Sirena crew work nicely in Picard's absence, with the
understandable tension already there racking up constantly. Jurati
finally snaps under the strain of what she's done, trying to disable
the tracker in her blood. Whether she was deliberately suicidal or
her near-death was a side-effect is open to interpretation. Allison
Pill is excellent in this episode, which sells her character's torn
motivations far better than the pretty unbelievable backstory of her
mind meld with Commodore Oh. It isn't clear whether Oh is controlling
her mentally, or if what she showed her was enough to turn Jurati
against all her principles, but either way it doesn't really
convince.
Overall, the events on the eponymous planet make “Nepenthe” a
memorable episode, while the other developments, although moving the
plot forward more, are far less effective. Still a solid instalment
in the series, although the sense that we're running out of time is
becoming unavoidable.
Thoughts and
Observations:
“Nepenthe” is the name of a liquor from Greek myth that took away
painful memories. Today it's used to mean “sweet forgetfulness”
but can be translated as “amnesia” or “oblivion.” There's a
theme developing here.
Kestra is named after Troi's deceased sister, whose story was
explored in TNG: “Dark Page,” while Thaddeus is named for Riker's
Civil War era ancestor, mentioned in VOY: “Death Wish.”
Are they softening us up for Picard's death? He's in his nineties,
and in this episode they remind us that he has an artificial heart
and a neurological condition.
The planet Nepenthe has jackalopes! They make good eating, and Riker
puts bunnicorn sausage on his pizzas.
The
Kzinti are causing trouble in the space near Nepenthe, the first time
we've heard the name on Trek
since the Animated Series. (Some people have heard “Xindi,” which
would also be cool, but the subtitles confirm it's Kzinti.) Larry
Niven gave the writers the nod that it was fine for them to drop the
reference. This makes the Kzinti's existence in the Trek
universe inarguably
canonical.
Riker
and Troi rack up a fourth Trek
series, having appeared
on The Next Generation,
Voyager and Enterprise
previously, although they did not appear together on Voyager.
Frakes also appeared as Thomas Riker on Deep
Space Nine, who is still
technically Riker, so maybe that puts him at five.
Riker completely fails to climb over a chair in this episode, and I
find this extremely disappointing.
I've
mentioned the possible link to Control from Discovery
before, but I hope the
reuse of shots from that series isn't setting this link up and is
just recycling. While it could potentially tie in, reusing the
villain at this stage seems lazy.
There's a cock-up in the battle scene on the Artefact, as Hugh
appears with Rizzo's knife in his neck before she throws it at him.
The Romulan snakeheads are pretty cool, but they're no Birds-of-Prey.
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