Star Trek Confirms a Major Change to Picard

SPOILERS: The Star Trek: Picard Season 1 finale has concluded with “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2”, as Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his crew of allies try to stop a major battle, and advert the annihilation of all organic life, all at once. However, the biggest twist in the Star Trek: Picard Finale came from the season-long subplot about Jean-Luc Picard’s impending death, due to a brain illness. As many Star Trek fans guessed (some pretty early on), Picard’s dueling story about Jean-Luc dying, and the discovery of an entire new generation of synthetic beings, were leading to one convergence point: the introduction of Android Picard!

The previous episode revealed that android creator Dr. Soong’s son, Altan (Brent Spiner) was one of the pioneers between the community of next gen synths hiding out on planet Coppelius. It was also revealed that Soong had pioneered the next leap in artificial life: a “Golem,” i.e., a synthetic body set up for an organic mind to be transferred into it. With Picard having a mind that can no longer work in his body, the solution seemed clear, and indeed it was.

Jean-Luc Picard ends his organic life by heroically piloting a sole ship against the entire Romulan Zhat Vash fleet, which arrives at Coppelius to eradicate the synths, before the synths can call upon an advanced artificial race that will eradicate all organic life. Through some visual trickery with holograms, Picard managed to hold out long enough to get help from a fleet of Starfleet ships, led by none other than Will Riker. But while Riker manages to save Picard and the synthetic community on Coppelius, the heroic act can’t stop the brain disease from finally claiming Jean-Luc.

Patrick Stewart gets to give a masterclass on dramatic death scene acting, as Picard says goodbye to his new family of rag-tag misfits, and drifts away into death. However, Jean-Luc finds himself not in the afterlife, but rather a simulation where his mind is being housed – alongside an old friend (Data). After giving Data a much better send-off than Star Trek: Insurrection did, Picard wakes up in a new synthetic body.

It’s arguably something of cop-out how the showrunners set it up: Picard now inhabits a cutting-edge new synthetic body, but is aged to his current age ‘for comfort and familiarity,’ and is artificially given a shut down date that’s equal to his real human lifespan. Basically, it’s Android Picard without any of the logical questions or hangups to keep Patrick Stewart for returning as the character. Works for us.

Star Trek: Picard is now streaming for free on CBS Access (for limited time).