Picard 2.3 - "Assimilation"

[lizbee]

• This is the first episode of the season that's not mostly self-contained, and RELATED is the first episode where I'm neutral-tending-hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
• They are clearly trying to reproduce the racial dynamic of "Past Tense" with the different treatment of white and brown characters in 2024, but this is ALSO a script where Picard describes a grieving Black woman as "too emotional" so I have my doubts as to whether they can pull it off (especially when I already think that "Past Tense"'s success in this sense is overrated)
• I do respect that the threat in 2024 is not the stuff that DS9 made up but the institutions like ICE which exist today
• I have gone from being wholly indifferent to Rios to kind of loving him? It's weird!
• Also I would watch a whole prestige medical drama about Teresa and her clinic
• CONTROVERSIAL OPINION TIME: I am not shipping Seven/Raffi. The show has skipped aaaaaaall the foundational stuff in favour of cutting straight to the point where the relationship is on the rocks, and then it asks me to be invested in its success. They just seem mostly bored and irritated by each other! The shipping is entirely founded on Ryan and Hurd's micro-expressions, and that's not enough! Chemistry has to come from the writing as well as the acting!
• By comparison, Rios gets a meet-cute with a nice 2024 doctor and the writing is FULL of chemistry and gives the actors a lot to play with
• Intentional homophobia or just laziness? From the show that brought you more on-screen incest than queerness? I am SHOCKED
• On the other hand I am probably not meant to be shipping Agnes/the Borg Queen as much as I am AND YET
• The Borg Queen is breasting SO boobily, you guys, it's very distracting
• You'd think push-up bras would be irrelevant
• Everything with Agnes's assimilation was highly predictable yet I enjoyed the ride
• I suspect I will like this better overall next week, when we know more about where the story is going
• BUT where are Laris and Soji? (We were promised more Laris this season -- and so far she's had a fraction of the time she had last season. AND SOJI WAS THE FEMALE LEAD.)
• Beverly, Laris and Soji: the holy trinity of Picard's forgotten women
• Oh yeah, I don't believe Elnor's gonna stay dead. If you die in 2024, do you die in real life?
• There were no masks in 2024 Los Angeles, but I can't tell if that's because the pandemic is over, or because it's America

Comments

[fahrbotdrusilla]

There were no masks in 2024 Los Angeles, but I can't tell if that's because the pandemic is over, or because it's America

I assumed they were just ignoring it, if it still existed wouldn’t it have been mentioned, even if just a brief “oh, do you think we’ll be around when sars-cov- 2 took over the planet?”

“It’s ok, I think they’ve stopped masking, but your vaccine chip includes the spike protein vaccine” I mean they did mention the vaccine chip. Maybe in their “2021” people actually were responsible enough to get vaccinated as soon as it was available 🤷🏻‍♀️