The Star Trek: Picard Season 2 ending brought the thrilling, time-traveling journey of Jean-Luc Picard and friends to a close, though not without consequence. Paramount+ subscribers saw some big things happen in the episode, some of which will have a lasting impact on the Prime Universe.
As Star Trek: Picard fans wait on the final season, it’s important to talk about these major things that happened because they might have an impact on the story. Hell, they might even impact on the other Star Trek shows, so let’s dive in and hash this all out.
Q Is Dying
Star Trek: Picard actually revealed that Q is dying a couple of episodes before the Season 2 finale, but we never really understood his motive for most of what occurred in Season 2. It seemed, at first, like Q might be trying to save his own life, which he once thought was immortal. In the end, it turned out Q’s motive for chaos was the same as it's always been, to send a message to Jean-Luc Picard.
In the Season 2 finale, Q revealed his intentions to Picard after the Admiral replaced the key he’d hidden behind a brick so that his future self can find it. Picard acknowledging that the event was beyond his control and forgiving himself was a major key in Q’s plan, and would ultimately allow Picard to forgive himself and be loved.
And, Picard forgiving himself was important to Q because it let the Admiral to allow himself to be loved. Q is dying, and he’s dying alone, and as he said to Picard, he didn’t want the same thing to happen to his old frenemy. Picard ultimately understood Q’s intentions were good, and the two shared a tender moment before Q sent them back to the future.
Obviously, Q’s whole scheme changed the universe in a number of ways, both big and small. Most everything that happened was a result of him constructing this challenge for Picard and led to much of what happened below. Beyond that, he made love for Picard a reality, so there’s hope we’ll finally see the Admiral settle down in his final season.
The Borg Queen Jurati Joined The Federation
The Borg Queen and Agnes Jurati originally bonded on being lonely, and then they bonded quite literally when Agnes was forced to kill the Borg Queen to protect a policeman. Agnes dealt with the Borg Queen in her subconscious for a short while, but it wasn’t long before the Queen assumed full control and attempted to get the Borg a head start on assimilating the galaxy by a few centuries.
Luckily, Agnes wasn’t completely powerless, and managed to sway the Borg Queen’s thinking before she killed Seven of Nine. The two ultimately left with the ship before the rest of the crew, hoping to find a new way of using the Borg to better improve the galaxy. As many predicted, Agnes ended up being the Borg Queen that invaded the Stargazer in the Season 2 premiere.
Borg Queen Jurati ultimately arrived to help aide Starfleet in defending an incursion that created a transwarp conduit. She then committed to guarding the conduit with her shared collective, though it’s unknown what or who created it. The whole ending raised some interesting questions for the Star Trek universe, which we don’t really know the answers to. Like, did they change all the Borg or just this specific sect? I guess we’ll wait and see!
Wesley Crusher Returned As A Traveler
Perhaps the biggest surprise Star Trek: Picard’s Season 2 finale gave us was the return of a very unexpected character from The Next Generation. Wil Wheaton reprised his role as Wesley Crusher and solidified the character’s role as a Traveler in the Prime universe. Crusher approached Kore Soong, daughter of Adam Soong, to join him as a Traveler, and after a brief deliberation, she accepted, and the two went off to do whatever it is that Travelers do.
It cannot be understated just how much Wesley’s return impacts the Prime universe, especially now that he can feasibly appear across several Star Trek shows. There’s a possibility the franchise uses Wesley as the connective tissue between all its currently airing shows and creates impossible crossovers that wouldn’t be doable otherwise. Of course, they could do nothing else beyond Season 2, and just leave his confirmed canonical fate for expanded materials like novels to play with, so I’m just speculating.
With all of that said, it feels like no coincidence that Wil Wheaton re-entered the Star Trek franchise ahead of Star Trek: Picard Season 3. It feels possible that he’ll make a return, but as of this writing, we just don’t know if that’s happening. Keep in mind that Picard filmed this last cameo without folks finding out, so it’s totally possible they were able to do that with Season 3 as well.
Cristobal Rios Remained In The Past
Star Trek: Picard's Season 2 finale featured the exit of a main cast member, but it wasn’t a bad thing. Cristobal Rios heavily hinted that he enjoyed the past more than his own time. Of course, part of that was inspired by Teresa, the physician he met when he hit his head transporting out of the ship. It took some time, but Rios ultimately stuck with that feeling that he was born in the wrong era and that 2024 felt like his true home.
Guinan gave us a history of Rios’ life from that point, but it’s possible he left some butterflies behind that went unacknowledged. Whether those butterflies are good or bad remains to be seen, but they’re butterflies all the same. Who knows what all changed in the future as a result of Rios’ decision and how it could play into the story of Picard Season 3.
One thing we don’t know yet is whether or not Cristobal Rios will play any part in Star Trek: Picard Season 3. Allison Pill revealed to Movieweb that she’s not coming back as Borg Jurati, as did Evan Evagora as Elnor (via Instagram). It seems like Santiago Cabrera’s character might stay in the past to clear as much of the main cast as possible for the incoming crew of The Next Generation, but we’ll have to wait and see for sure.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is finished, but anyone can watch the entire thing on Paramount+. Now is a good time to be a subscriber, especially with all the new Trek shows coming to the platform in 2022 and beyond.
The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 10, "Farewell," which premiered Thursday, May 5 on Paramount+.
From the first minutes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Jean-Luc Picard has been plagued by the cosmic entity known as Q. It was no surprise to fans when John de Lancie reprised his role as Q opposite Patrick Stewart's Picard to renew their rivalry with a season-long arc in Star Trek: Picard. With Season 2 having concluded, fans can now look back on Q's master plan to literally change space and time.
The second season of Picard has been difficult for fans to followbecause of the time-travel scenarios therein. Some time-travel shows (such as 12 Monkeys, the series co-created by current Picard showrunner Terry Matalas that included an Impractical Jokers cameo) have very strict rules. They take great pains to explain how and why certain things work and don’t work. In Picard, the rules remain vague. How or even why Q changed the past to create the nightmarish future the crew of La Sirena fled is elusive, even after the finale. Q's seemingly magical behavior is at odds with the science of Star Trek.
Season 2 eventually reveals that Q is dying. It seems like it’s just de Lancie's Q, but then it may be the entire Q Continuum facing its mortality. This wraps up a possible future plot hole for Star Trek: Discovery or any other post-Picard series. The Q have only been active in the known galaxy for about 30 years. To an eternal, omnipotent being, 30 years is a short distraction at the end of the line. As the Q “move on,” as the character puts it in the finale, it will explain why there are no Q in the future. An increasingly unstable Q simply messed with Picard and Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager a few times because they interested him.
After showcasing cruel fates for many familiar faces, Q reveals that his main goal was to get Picard to accept himself. Q has always been that kind of adversary that is as much friend as he is foe. Yet when Picard puts the skeleton key behind that loose rock in the past for him to find in the future, it’s a big moment. Picard Season 2, Episode 9, "Hide and Seek" reveals that key was used to free his mother from a locked room -- before she took her own her life. Picard blamed himself for that, and much of his story during the season focused on him forgiving himself.
Naturally, Picard asks Q the questions that fans ask every time he shows up: why is he doing what he’s doing, and what is so special about Jean-Luc Picard? The answer to both is simply that he “matters’ to Q. “Even gods have favorites,” he says, “and you’ve always been one of mine.” He wanted to give Picard the chance to free himself from a lifetime of grief and regret over his mother’s death. In hiding the key for his younger self to find in the future, Picard accepted his fate and freed himself from that blame. To Q, this is an important step that Picard needs to take to move forward.
“You chose the Jean-Luc you are….and because you choose him, perhaps he will now be worthy of someone else to choose,” Q tells him. Q doesn’t want to die alone; he also doesn’t want that for Picard who throughout canon has mostly avoided the kind of romantic entanglements other Enterprise captains sought with vigor. “Maybe you will give [yourself] the chance to be loved,” Q says. Season 2 seems like a lot to go through just to get Picard to forgive himself. Tallinn and Elnor -- who both died on this mission -- may think so. But Q has an answer for that, too.
Picard explains that Tallinn “dies in every timeline,” but the one that just unfolded in Season 2 is the only one in which she meets the woman she protected for decades. Elnor? Well, since Rios decided to stay in the past when Q sent them all home, he had some spare energy with his dying gesture to revive him. The moment Rios returns them to is the one viewers left in Picard Season 2, Episode 1, "The Star Gazer." The Borg have arrived, and Picard is about to blow up the USS Stargazer to prevent them from taking the ship.
One difference this time is that Q's dealings with Dr. Soong freed Kore from him and gave her a life of her own. In their conversation, Picard asks Q if there is a matter of galactic import he’s needed for in the future. Q chastises him, asking if one life is not “enough” to justify saving it. But there is a bigger development at hand -- a trans-warp tube opens in the center of the galaxy. It’s much larger than any the Borg have ever used, and it's about to expend a massive amount of energy throughout the galaxy, killing trillions.
The Borq Queen is revealed to be not the original Queen but the object of her obsession Agnes Jurati, now fully integrated into the Collective but still herself. Jurati's Queen has a plan to “harmonize” the shield of the Starfleet and Borg ships in the area to absorb the energy from this trans-warp tube. Her plan works and also ends with the Borg -- the most hated and evil villains in the Star Trek franchise -- being given provisional Federation membership to help stand guard against this new, mysterious threat.
Q is the closest thing that Star Trek had to a god, and Star Trek: Picard Season 2 made it seem as if he was finally going to conquer time and space. However, the latter half of the season revealed the truth. He was helping Picard move forward in his life while also preparing him and his allies to save the galaxy. Not a bad last run for the mischievous antagonist -- something fans might even call heroic.
Star Trek: Picard Season 2 is now streaming on Paramount+.