CBS All Access has released new photos from the first part of the two-part finale of Star Trek: Picard Season One. The photos offer new looks at Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Isa Briones as Soji, and reunites Evan Evagora as Elnor with the rest of the group. In Star Trek: Picard Episode Nine, "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1," "Following an unconventional and dangerous transit, Picard and the crew finally arrive at Soji's home world, Coppelius. However, with Romulan warbirds on their tail, their arrival brings only greater danger as the crew discovers more than expected about the planet's inhabitants."
The first part of the season finale is directed by Akiva Goldsman and written by Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman from a story by Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman & Akiva Goldsman.
The finale shares a title with a famous painting by Italian Baroque artist GIvannia Francesco Barbieri. Thought the painting is sometimes referred to in English as "The Arcadian Shepherds," the title translates to "I too was in Arcadia." The "I" is death. Arcadia was a pastoral, rural region of Greece during Antiquity. To many Greeks living the city life, the region would have been thought of as a paradise. But still, death exists in paradise.
What do we gather from this title in relation to Star Trek: Picard? We can only speculate, but the utopian society of the United Federation of Planets has often been thought of as a paradise. Benjamin Sisko made the comparison in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in a scathing monologue chasting the Federation for its handling of the Maquis ("It's easy to be a saint in paradise"). The title seems to suggest death is coming to the Federation.
On a less literal level, this can be seen as the theme of the entire first season of the series. Picard thus far has dealt with the citizens of the Federation who have, in one way or another, fallen from grace while living in paradise. Sometimes it's by their own volition and in other cases its due to circumstances beyond their control. In Picard's case, it's stepping away from Starfleet while there was work left undone. For Raffi and Rios, it was their own poor partings from Starfleet.
What do you think of these photos from the first part of Star Trek: Picard's season finale? New Star Trek: Picard episodes become available to stream Thursdays on CBS All Access.
Isa Briones as Soji; Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard
