WHY WE LIKE IT: Guinan reading people like a freakin' book.
WHY WE DON'T: The useless X-Files plot.
REVIEW: Of all the complications Picard and crew have suffered to extend this story to 10 episodes, this has to be the easiest to jettison. It's an X-Files riff where a Mulder wanna be called Wells interrogates Picard and Guinan in some FBI basement. Guinan immediately has his number, which is still the best thing about the episode, and calls him out, but he's got Picard transporting on tape, the whole crew trespassing at the gala, and Rios picked up by ICE and leaving a crazy sci-fi confession (and here we thought the officer wouldn't take it down seeing as he didn't think it was serious - even if he filed a report, it's amazing that it's verbatim). In other words, the threat seems real. When the two of them are separated, Q finally answers the summons ON FOOT (his powers may be waning, but he still has all the access he needs, it seems) and has a chat with her. She quickly divines that he's dying and there's some fair poetry about what happens when a immortality comes to an end. He also states the season's big metaphor: Humans are all trapped in the past, which is both literal (2024) and in Picard's case, figurative (his mommy and daddy issues). It's also a clue as to how to deal with Wells, transmitted via some kind of nose-bleeding telepathy that's never been suggested, ever. But I'll buy it. What I won't buy is Wells' story.
When he was a kid, he came upon a couple of Vulcan scientists. They tried to suck his brains out (a failed mindmeld to wipe his memory) before disappearing in a beam of light... just as Picard seems able to do! Wells has his white whale, if only he can use it to prove aliens exist. Now, I can believe Vulcans came to Earth a long time ago to study us pre-First Contact. The Enterprise episode Carbon Street alludes to such missions. What flies in the face of Trek continuity is the beam-out. Enterprise also established that Emory Erickson was the father of the transporter, circa 2124, and indeed, Vulcans had to land on Earth to initiate First Contact. Only this episode ever says Vulcans had that tech as early as the 1970s. Maybe I'm being a nerd here (I know I am), but the only reason this is contradicted is because Wells needs that connection to hunt down Picard. In the end, by telling Wells some of the truth and explaining his story, it convinces him to let them go. Guinan's contention that he needed to be that boy so he could one day be the man to let them go is nonsense, because if he had never been that boy, he would never have caused this complication! If at least he would have been able to use his FBI credentials to help out in later episodes, this detour might have had some value, but he's sacked and does not appear again. Hell, I didn't even believe Picard's notion that the Europa Mission could be scrubbed because this FBI guy exposed them trying to "sabotage" it.
Seven is also living in the past, having vivid flashbacks of her assimilation, remembering the taste of it, etc. Raffi is living in the past, in particular with the guilt of having manipulated Elnor into staying at Starfleet Academy when he was recalled to the Qowat Milat. We learn of this because Seven is so prickly in this episode that she lashes out at Raffi for BEING manipulative. It kind of comes out of nowhere and feels very contrived. When they find the Queen, she's drinking car batteries to fabricate assimilation nanites and almost kills Raffi. The scene is badly constructed because it seems like Seven really doesn't do all she can to stop it, but it's required to show that Agnes is still in there. ALMOST kills her, see? Meanwhile, Rios and Teresa fly in the face of the theme and think of the future, as she makes an intriguing overture by asking him to tell her something he might only reveal in ten years into their relationship. Frustratingly, he doesn't get to finish his sentence, but I bet it was going to be romantic (you've got two episodes to find the last words, writers--I mean, Rios).
And then there's Kore who finds a full cure to her genetic defects and a holographic message from Q. Why does he betray Soong to help her? Kore already found the truth on her own, but this allows her to leave the house and... you would hope join the plot in a meaningful way, but you'd be sorely disappointed. If not for that, Soong would have actually gotten what he wanted, so the reverse question is, why would Q reward him if he hasn't completed his mission? And instead of pushing for him to finally stop Renée/Europa, they have the Borg Queen show up at his doorstep and ask the same by playing on his hubris (and confirming that he's a big hero to the fascist future, and that Renée's mission will make him obsolete). He's also got the raw materials and ex-special forces connections to help her create a small network of pseudo-drones to take La Sirena by force. Now rejoining the main plot already in progress...
LESSON: We're all trapped in the past, the show runners most of all.
REWATCHABILITY - Low: A completely unnecessary pitstop.
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