STAR TREK: Picard Episode 10 Breakdown + Ending Explained

We’re at the final frontier of Picard with Season One now officially coming to an end. There’s a lot to unpack from the latest entry and throughout this, we’re going to be breaking down everything that happens in the latest episode and what it’s ending means.

A couple of theories came true a couple didn’t and there’s a lot to discuss.

We will be ENGAGING with heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to catch the show yet and don’t want to know what happens then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

With that out the way let’s get into our breakdown of Picard Episode 10.

Picard Episode 10 Recap

The episode opens with Narek fleeing to the Borg Cube, after he escaped or was rather, let free by Sutra last week he’s pretty much become a wildcard that could bring her revolution crashing down.

As he sneaks in we see Elnor and 7 of 9 discussing their kinship and how neither really have a home. Elnor is of course from Romulus which was destroyed during the supernova and it’s nice to see them at least paying lip service to their similarities.

Narissa has been hiding on the cube but I’m sure we saw get beamed out of there when the Bord ambushed her. There was definitely a glow and then we watched the ships leave the area but my mistake if I took that the wrong way. I think this was pretty poorly handled as she was getting swamped and then all of a sudden has been hiding out. A lot of the characters have just shown up when they needed to so it feels a bit, I dunno meh.

The two end up splitting up and as predicted Narek ends up changing sides during the entry. He’s had a strong connection with Soji.

Picard And Soji

Anyways, Picard is on house arrest and Soji visits them where they talk about whether they should continue building the beacon to summon the higher level synths that can wipe out all life potentially. I love the line where Picard states that thinking they have no choice is a lack of imagination and overall Sir Patrick Stewart does a great job of arguing his point throughout the entry. You can see him slowly start to win Soji round.

Also hats of to Iso Briones who has played Soji, Dahj, and Sutra throughout the season. Each character has felt different from the other and she’s probably had the toughest job out of all of the actors and has handled it really well.

Raffi and Rios reactivate the ship and Narek reaches out to them, trying to save the universe for once. He’s had a real change of heart since spending time with Soji and I really do like the change-up.

Gamadam

He tells the story of Gamadam, an ancient myth similar to Ragnarok that tells the story of two demon sisters that come at the end of time and unleash a great number of monsters through blowing a horn. It, of course, is laced throughout the episode and rather than being a prophecy, Narek believes that it’s history which will repeat itself.

Agnes talks with Soong about activating the synthetic body that will enable him to do a mind transfer. Now definitely check out our partner channel Bamalam that dropped the fan theory that Soong was Lore. It didn’t turn out to be true but he argues some great points and is just a channel you should be checking out in general.

Sutra And Lore Theory

His theories definitely got me thinking more about Sutra and what she represents. Similar to Lore, Sutra and Jannah was created first, before Soji and Dahj. Lore was made too perfect in some ways this had effects on his personality in which he became a narcissist that believed himself superior to humans.

This motif is seen in Sutra who too was created to be almost too perfect. She is pretty much seen as the leader of the synths and has likely ruled over the colony, even placing herself above Soong in many ways. She has supplanted her creator and thus she is the perfect person or rather android to fit the role of the destroyer. She hasn’t seen first-hand organic life and has only really heard stories about their prejudices.

Juxtaposing this, Soji actually has and she realizes throughout the episode that people are just acting out of fear in their hate for the androids.

It really speaks volumes to first-hand experience versus second-hand knowledge and how being judgemental towards people that we haven’t really seen up close can lead to unfounded hate and distrust. Gamadam has clearly inspired a lot of hate in the Romulans and to me, it echoes how things can become engrained in societies that lead to people hating other groups of people.

The crew of La Sirena take Narek to the compound as a prisoner, Agnes breaks Picard out and Soong recovers the memories from the murdered droid and discovers Sutra was behind it.

The Final Battle

With the Romulan fleet approaching Picard decides that he cannot abandon the children of Soong and he wishes to give them an example of how human life really is. Soong confronts Sutra and knocks her out whilst the crew disable the beacon. 7 of 9 and Narissa go head to head on the Borg cube and it really ramps up towards a big battle.

I also go to hear the term Half Meat which I’ll be using to call my mate with a prosthetic arm from now on so thank you for that Narissa. Narissa really gets some great dialogue when going against her and I think it’s one of the best battles in the series thus far.

Saying all that though I do think that they did rush to this point. I was expecting Sutra to be a much bigger foe for the finale but she’s pretty much relegated to playing second or even third fiddle with all that is going on.

You’ve got the space battle, the 7 vs Narissa fight and the one at the beacon so it doesn’t feel like the ideas that were building up last week do get dropped.

I wasn’t disappointed with any of the action, it just felt like they were so desperate to get to this that they dropped the plot threads that had built towards it at the first opportunity.

7 kills Narissa as the battle outside of the planet rages on. Agnes talks about the maneuver that the Stargazer pulled off and this ties back to the first episode in which the ship made an appearance as a model. The two enact this strategy on a grander scale to make it look like they have an entire fleet and it isn’t too long before they’re joined by a real one.

Riker Returns

Now watching Riker arrive back in the chair is a standout for the entire season, though I loved the ending he got with his family I must admit seeing him return this way gave me goosebumps and it feels like a big-money shot that the show has been building up to.

The Irumodic syndrome that Picard has been suffering from starts to go critical and he pleads with Soji to dismantle the beacon and prove them wrong. He trusts her to make the right choice and it’s a really heartfelt moment. After she turns off the transponder the Romulans return and Riker retreats after giving a respectful goodbye to Jean Luc.

Picard collapses and Soji beams him back to the planet where he…he…I’m not crying you’re crying.

Picards Death And Rebirth

Now CBS did greenlight a second season and set up that there was a duplicate body so I did know that this wasn’t going to be permanent though it did pull at the heartstrings. They drag the death and the grief that follows it out for as long as possible, hell they even do a sort of Forest Gump ending with a butterfly and it does feel a lot more impactful than if they had just instantly turned round and resurrected him.

We learn that in his dying moments, Doctor Soong and co were able to scan a complete neural image and download the character’s brain and consciousness.

Through a quantum simulation, the show constructs a sort of afterlife for both Picard and Data to have an exchange in using the program. Picard never got the chance to tell Data that he loved him but through Data’s memories we learn that he always knew that he did.

It’s through this conversation that Data tells Picard that his consciousness still exists as he downloaded it before death. He states he wishes to die to learn what it truly means to be human.

This ties back to the book that Rios was reading earlier in the season which was The Tragic Sense Of Life. This states that in order for life to have true meaning it must be finite. It’s only with the knowledge of death that we give anything a true value and I did like how the conversation eluded to Data’s wish for death in order to gain purpose.

They say their goodbyes and Picard returns to the land of the living through the host body that Soong was creating last week.

It has no augmentations or powers and it’s pretty much the same crappy old body that he had last time but he no longer has the brain abnormality.

Either way, it sort of resets things to the status quo and Picard appreciates that his days are still numbered.

Picard Season One Ending Explained

Picard shuts down the matrix that Data’s consciousness now lives in and we watch as he ages and dies. It’s a spellbinding exit for the character and I have to say that this coupled with the other aforementioned elements in the episode made it the best entry thus far.

On the ship everyone pretty much gets a happy ending, Raffi and 7 get their moment that the ‘get woke go broke’ crowd are gonna go wild over. Agnes and Rios show that the leaks weren’t true and Soji and Picard realize that they have found a home in one another.

The ban on synthetics is now lifted and the group head out into the stars on their way to season two.

I have no idea what happened to Narek though.

Picard Season One Review

Anyway as a whole I’ve really enjoyed Picard. There have been a couple of moments here and there that I think failed but overall I was quite surprised to see a lot of backlash towards the series. I guess no one hates Star Trek more than Star Trek fans but bar some consistency problems with the original continuity I have felt like it’s been an interesting progression for the character.

I saw a lot of comments as I was doing the recap which stated that Star Trek had suddenly become woke but growing up to me it always kinda was. This was a show that had the first interracial kiss on mainstream tv, often explored ideas of immigration and what it means to be human and Season One sort of felt like a continuation of that.

Bar the pronunciation of a couple of people’s names changing every 13 seconds and a couple of cgi moments, it’s hard to really fault the production and for a first entry in a new chapter it felt like a great way to start.

I found the new characters all interesting and I loved the subversion that they did with the Borg. I know for sure that I’m nowhere near as close to the property as some of the people crying out that it sucks but as a casual fan it got me way more interested in Star Trek than I ever was before.

So yeah, in my eyes that’s not a bad thing but due to some big diversions from The Next Generation I can see why some are disliking the show even if I don’t agree with them.

Overall though I had a lot of fun with it and I am really interested to see where the season goes in the future. The finale was the best of the run and it had so many amazing moments that I’m really excited to see more.

I felt like they explored some interesting ideas, took Jean Luc on a journey that really evolved the character and also put some pieces in place that will lead to new adventures down the line.

For me Picard Season One was a fun ride and overall I’d score it as a…