Star Trek: Picard introduced Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker, a former Starfleet officer instrumental in orchestrating the Romulan resettlement program alongside Jean-Luc Picard. The first season of the series also brought back Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, the former Borg drone introduced in Star Trek: Voyager. As a member of the Fenris Rangers, Seven often butted heads with Picard, which made the finale’s reveal of her new romance with Raffi all the more surprising. As such a late reveal, fans have only seen the first hint of Raffi and Seven’s relationship, though it’s explored further in the , starring Hurd and Ryan. Both actors are eager for fans to see where the relationship goes in Picard‘s second season and are grateful for how the show’s writers have crafted it.
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“What I really appreciate about what the creators had decided to tell of our story is that you have these two incredibly stubborn, determined, driven, independent, somewhat sometimes socially awkward women, fully grown women, who are attracted to each other, who see someone, almost like they see the same kind of strength and vulnerability in each other and they’re drawn to each other that way,” Hurd tells ComicBook.com ahead of Picard’s second season. “There’s absolutely love and respect and all of that. But there’s also an understanding that when you are at a certain time in your life, and you have lived some big events in your life and figured out how to navigate them and that you found that safety of yourself sometimes is the most secure, it’s sometimes hard to blend that.”
She continues, “I was really happy that we weren’t gonna do this sort of white picket fence, unicorns and rainbows kind of like ‘La la la I brought you your coffee,’ you know? I don’t know if that’s what these two would be like. Maybe in that little window, but can you imagine? They would get bored, and then that boredom might turn into regret or not looking at each other with kindness anymore. Raffi and Seven absolutely recognize that. Raffi knows that Seven is an amazingly powerful individual and that she has a big journey that she wants to do, she wants to help the right the wrongs of the universe and she doesn’t want to stand in the way. She loves her that much, that she doesn’t want to stand in her way that way. And I really appreciated that in the storytelling and these two women respect each other, and they care about each other incredibly deeply, so much so that they allow each other to do what each other needs to be happy.”
Ryan feels similarly. She also notes that time has passed between Picard‘s first and second seasons and the “honeymoon period” of their relationship along with it.
“There’s a big time jump — it’s about a year-ish — from season one, that you saw the very, very glimmer of the beginnings of this relationship, and then the audio book is the very early stages and takes it from that point,” Ryan says. “Now we’ve jumped ahead and where this is a relationship fully in the trenches of day to day life and how do you make this work when they are so independent and they are so strong willed and stubborn and pig headed in some ways, as Michelle said. These are two mature women who have their fully established lives, so how do you and how much are you willing to you blend and bring someone else in? And that requires a lot of vulnerability that I think will maybe not be so easy, especially for Seven, but for both of these characters in a way.”
She also emphasizes, “I just want to repeat what Michelle said. I think the worst thing that they could have done in writing this relationship is the white picket fence, ‘happy, happy, joy, joy, oh, they’re married, and this is sweet,” because that’s not who they are, either one of them, it’s just not. And so this is such a beautifully realistic way of showing a modern relationship, a real mature relationship with love and respect and space. I have my life fully established. You have your life fully established, and when we can be together, it’s wonderful, and we need our solitude as well and a struggle.”
Star Trek: Picard Season Two debuts on Paramount+ on Thursday, March 3rd. Star Trek: Picard Season One is streaming now.
