Star Trek: Picard Season Finale Review: Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 (Season 1 Episode 10)

Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Episode 10, “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2,” is a stunningly powerful finale to a poignant and deeply needed season of television. The show delivers a beautiful message about the sanctity and value of life as both a gift and a responsibility. It calls upon the better angels of humanity and shows us how to treat our fellow beings in these dark and desperate times. 

This continuation of the Star Trek universe has exceeded my hopes and dreams for the series, expanded the world, and carried on the legacy of these characters and this story in a damn near perfect way. 

Let’s start with Seven of Nine. Her journey on Star Trek: Picard–like most other legacy characters, in particular–has been as heartening as it has been heartbreaking. On the finale, we see a culmination of her fraction of this story that is truly satisfying.  

I’ve been waiting for Seven to destroy Narissa since she returned to the Borg Cube, and this episode does not let me down. Their hand to hand fight is extremely satisfying, and Seven finally pushing her over the edge and taking her life for Hugh’s feels like justice. I will miss Narissa, as she’s easily the show’s best villain, but if she had to go, having Seven take her life like this was the best way to do it. 

Afterward, Seven shares a touching conversation with Rios as the bond over the scars that life has given them both. Life is difficult and triumphant and not always in equal measure, even in the world of Starfleet. The characters of Star Trek: Picard, are real and relatable. They’ve been through hell and back and they still believe in the better parts of society. They believe we can do better and they never stop trying to show us exactly how to do that. 

Humanity will never be perfect, but the best we can do is to keep trying. To keep believing in each other. 

Picard: That’s why we’re here, to save each other. 

In the final moments of this episode, LGBTQ Star Trek fans get a moment that some of them have been waiting for for literal decades. Seven of Nine’s sexuality has been hinted at throughout the first season of Star Trek: Picard and speculated about since her time on Star Trek: Voyager. On “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2,” the show confirms that Seven is indeed canonically queer. That was later re-affirmed by Jeri Ryan on twitter, stating that she views Seven as Pansexual. 

Many queer fans (and other fans I’m sure) noticed the chemistry between Seven and Raffi during Seven’s first episode. It’s extremely satisfying to see the team behind Star Trek: Picard choose to explore that and move forward with that chemistry, after years of having LGBTQ content forced into subtext and speculation by producers of earlier series. 

Queer fans have always been a huge part of the Star Trek fan base and to see a legacy character confirmed as a part of the community feels like such a victory after years of quiet exclusion. Writer and Producer, Michael Chabon has acknowledged how Star Trek: Picard could’ve done better with LGBTQ representation and how they plan to improve in that area during Season 2.

This finale also does a lot for showing us the growth of our new characters from when we first met them to where they are now. The Agnes we met at the beginning of the season was bright and inexperienced and full of timid dreams and big ambitions.

On the finale, she shows unparalleled gumption and passion as she reclaims her body and her actions from what was forced upon her by the Zhat Vash and fights to do what she knows is right: protecting all life and standing by Picard’s side. 

Agnes is a controversial character as she’s done controversial things, but I believe in her as Picard does. She wants to do good and given the opportunity that is her default when she isn’t being manipulated by a Romulan cult. Agnes will likely face the consequences of her actions on Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, but if you put me on that jury I’m voting not guilty. 

La Sirena gang makes an unlikely alliance with Narek as they team up to stop the synths from contacting the horrific synth gods behind the admonition. I’m glad that the content we get from Narek is very much, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and not really a redemption arc in any way. What Narek did to Soji was wrong and he deserves to suffer for it. Chabon confirmed that there was a cut scene from this episode meant to indicate Narek was taken into Federation custody. 

Raffi and Rios continue to have an absolutely delightful friendship as one of the lighter moments of this finale focuses on the two of them sharing banter as they fix the ship and figure out how to navigate into this final battle. 

Even as they fear the potential violence of synthetic life, Raffi and Rios care for Soji and by proxy, the rest of her people. They team up with Narek not to hurt synthetic life, but to fight for all life. 

They try to appeal to Soji and get her to call off the attack, but the only one who can truly speak to her and get her to change her mind is Picard. 

This final battle is climactic in so many ways, as each moment builds upon the last. Picard and Agnes take La Sirena into space on their own against 200+ Romulan Warbirds with little more than a half-baked plan and a whole lot of hope. Using synth technology they pull off the most epic version of the Picard maneuver to date and manage to stall for time until Starfleet arrives as back up. 

After watching Picard hesitate and over over the captain’s chair of La Sirena all season, to see him back in that position is a sweet joy of this finale. Picard will never stop fighting for what he knows is right, he’s been doing it all season and it’s absolutely a natural progression to watch him take the reigns like this in the final battle. 

Just when it seems like Picard and Agnes are out of options the most beautiful hail mary comes through in the form of Captain Will Riker and a full fleet of Federation starships. 

Riker’s return to Star Trek: Picard earlier this season was possibly the most beautiful episode of the season, which only makes this moment even more triumphant. He will always have Picard’s back and the good people in Starfleet who still have uncorrupted moral compasses won’t hesitate to join a good fight for the sanctity of life. 

Picard appeals to Soji’s better nature as he offers to lay down his life for her and her people. His love for Data and his cause to continually fight for the rights of every living creature are palpable throughout this entire episode. 

Picard: I have something I want to give you and your people and I hope it will change your mind.

Soji: And what’s that?

Picard: My life. Picard out.

Star Trek: Picard shows us that these synthetic lifeforms, much like Data himself, very much have a soul and a moral compass, as Soji chooses to be the person that Picard trusts and believes in as she calls off the attack from the synth gods. Every living creature has both good and bad in them and at the end of the day, all that matters is what we choose to act upon. 

Riker faces off against the powerful Commodore/General Oh in this final battle and to some it might play like fanservice, but as a fan, I don’t mind that at all. Oh did excellent work as this season’s big bad, working as a double agent and commanding an entire army of Romulans in a single-minded destructive purpose. 

Seeing Riker in the captain’s chair is a long time coming and it’s beautiful that it comes at such a time as this when he is able to save Picard after so many years of serving under his command. The two share what Picard believes is to be their final goodbye on this episode. It’s a beautiful moment, and one that I personally hope is not the last that they share. 

Picard: Thank you will for always having my back.

Riker: I learned from the best.

Picard is true to his word and he lays down his life for Soji and all of Data’s other synthetic children. If you’re going to kill an icon like Jean Luc Picard you better to it right and Star Trek: Picard absolutely does it right. Picard passes away in the arms of people he loves, surrounded by friends, after completing a heroic feat protecting the lives of a people who matter to him.

In the afterlife, Picard meets Data in a sort of purgatory and the two are afforded a conversation that has been 20 years in the making. This conversation provides closure for Picard as well as for the audience as the two speak about how precious it is to be mortal and to give your life for something that matters. 

Data: Captain do you regret sacrificing your life for Soji and her people?

Picard: Not for an instant.

Data: Then why would you imagine I regret sacrificing mine for yours?

Data’s life was precious and this conversation heals many of the wounds left by Star Trek: Nemesis. Data knew that Picard loved him. He understood the value of human life and he understood the meaning of mortality. He felt feelings, he loved his crewmates, and now he is ready to pass into the great beyond. 

Data may have been an android, but his love for humanity and his desire to be a part of that is absolutely his defining trait. Data understands the human experience perhaps better than any of us. 

Picard: It says a great deal about the mind of Commander Data that looking at the human race with all its violence, corruption and willful ignorance, he could still see kindness, immense curiosity, and greatness of spirit. And he wanted more than anything else to be part of that. To be a part of the human family.

Picard gets his closure with Data and is sent back out into the world of the living. Data asks Picard to end his life once and for all in a way that allows Data to truly be part of the human experience–his main desire throughout his life–and Picard gives him just that as he wakes up to his second chance.

As Picard wishes farewell to Data in one of the most beautiful and poignant moments in Star Trek history, we can call understand the value of this life we are given. See the good in humanity, strive to be that good. 

Starfleet Communique: 

• Having Isa Briones sing blue skies over Data’s final death is truly such a breathtaking choice. It’s so poetically beautiful to have her voice intermixed with Patrick Stewart quoting Shakespear as we say goodbye to such a beloved character. I cannot name a more perfect farewell. 
• Rios said “I know that sound” and then ran out to see Narek throwing rocks at his ship. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE THROWN ROCKS AT HIS SHIP?
• Picard can now expect to live as long as he would’ve without his brain abnormality. It’s really a perfect fix to the end of Star Trek: TNG without undercutting the value of mortality. 
• Data gave his life for Picard and now Picard lives on as a synth in Data’s honor. I can’t stop crying. If you’re not crying I have questions. To quote Star Trek: Voyager‘s Tom Paris, I don’t trust people who don’t cry. 
• Shout out to the whole cast of Star Trek: Picard, the performances this season were truly out of this world and I would follow each of these characters boldly into the unknown. 
• I cannot express enough gratitude for the variety of complex women on this season of Star Trek: Picard. Women have always made up such a significant portion of the Star Trek fan base that you can thank them for it still being on the air today, and to see such a variety of complicated, passionate, invigorating, relatable women on this show is extremely gratifying.  

What did you think of this episode of Star Trek: Picard? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Star Trek: Picard will return for Season 2 in 2021.

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