Star Trek: Picard Episode 5, “Stardust City Rag” Recap With Spoilers

The fifth episode of Star Trek: Picard, “Stardust City Rage, opens with a flashback, as the previous four did. In this flashback, we see Seven of Nine, now a Fenris Ranger, infiltrating a facility where someone is stripping her ex-Borg ward, Icheb, for parts. Seven has no mercy and kills everyone there, including giving Icheb a merciful death.

In the present day, Picard and Seven have a tense first meeting. Picard thinks of the Fenris Rangers as vigilantes, but Seven sees Picard as someone who gave up and left. Seven is happy to go her own way once they find a place to stop but she agrees to help them on Freecloud since it means helping someone else in trouble.

While all of this is happening Rios and Raffi discuss Seven’s legend, as well as one thing she and Picard have in common: they’re both ex-borg. Meanwhile, Jurati watches old videos in her quarters that reveal she had a romantic relationship with Bruce Maddox.

Maddox is the clutches of someone named Bajazel. Seven knows Bajazel as she deals in Borg parts stripped from ex-Borg. Bajazel plans to trade Maddox to the Tal Shiar. Raffi sets up Rios and Picard with disguises — Rios as a “facer” and Picard as a bounty hunter — who will offer Seven of Nine, a prime ex-Borg sample, to Bajazel in exchange for Maddox.

Raffi has her own business. She has a son who is on Freecloud. Her son and his father left Raffi after she got kicked out of Starfleet. Her substance abuse and obsession with the conspiracy behind the attack on Mars created distance between Raffi and her family. Her son is having a child with a Romulan woman, and he wants nothing to do with Raffi. She returns to the La Sirena and hides out in her quarters.

Seven didn’t tell the others that she had a personal relationship with Bajazel. Bajazel posed as a Fenris Ranger and then used the information she gathered to ambush ex-Borg, including capturing Icheb. Seven wants revenge, but Picard and Rios manage to talk her out of it. Instead, they return to the La Sirena with Maddox.

Or so it seems. Picard and Seven have a heart to heart in which they seem to agree that, despite losing a piece of their humanity during their assimilations, they’re both striving to regain their full humanity every day. Seven tells Picard she’s returning to Freecoud to meet her Fenris Rangers pickup. Instead, she takes two phasers and returns to Bajazel’s lair, killing Bajazel and everyone else who gets in her way as she shoots her way out.

Maddox is taken to La Sirena‘s sickbay. He tells Picard that Soji is the Artifact and that he sent them both out to find the truth about the synthetic ban. Maddox and Jurati are left alone. Rather than having a touching reunion, Jurati kills Maddox, implying that Commodore Oh showed her something about Dahj and Soji and what they’ll do that left her no choice but to do the Zhat Vash’s bidding.

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