“Hide and Seek” is the ninth episode of the second season of the TV show “Star Trek: Picard” and follows “Mercy“. It’s available in the USA on the Paramount+ streaming platform and in many other countries on Amazon Prime Video.
Note. This article contains some spoilers about “Hide and Seek”.
The Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) proceeds with her plans to take over La Sirena and use it to create an invincible collective ahead of time. She uses her new drones to hunt down her enemies but her toughest opponents are not in flesh and blood.
At last, there’s decent progress on some important parts of the plot even if it still suffers from the usual problems that weigh it down. It seems to have become mandatory for TV shows to have protagonists with various personal problems that become central even in moments that are curious, to say the least, such as when they are chased by someone who intends to kill them.
On the bright side, Jean-Luc Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) personal story seems to finally come to a resolution. It’s also clarified why in one of the early episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” he had a vision of his mother that seemed inconsistent with the memories that emerged in this new show. His brother, on the other hand, remained curiously absent, a curious choice considering certain attention to details such as the model of the refit Enterprise NX-01 that Picard owned as a child. On the other hand, thinking of all the references to World War II connected to Chateau Picard, they also missed the opportunity to mention the Maquis.
Among all the other personal stories, even that of 7 of 9 (Jeri Ryan) has roots that make it the strongest. The episode’s ending shows once again how difficult the balance is between her human side and her Borg side. This season’s events also show how much this duality affects her relationships with other people.
The people who haven’t appreciated this season’s narrative choices probably haven’t changed their minds just for a few steps forward in the plot and will be happy only because it’s about to end. The episode’s ending suggests that one of the choices is the most predictable since the start of the season. If that were the case, I don’t think the choice would increase the satisfaction of the discontented.
In “Hide and Seek”, the plot made some good progress but a lot remains to be resolved in the season finale. The alternative is that the second season ends with a cliffhanger, a possible solution considering that the third season was shot back-to-back after the second. In short, the final judgment could be postponed.
