STAR TREK: Picard Episode 3 Breakdown + Ending Explained

Our mission is to boldly go where no one has before and give out thoughts on the new entry as well as what could be happening in the future.

Throughout this, we’ll be discussing the ins and outs of the third episode’s plot, it’s easter eggs and what we thought of it as a whole.

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 3.

Picard Episode 2 Recap

Ok so just a quick recap of Picard Episode 2. After the Death Of Data’s Daughter Dahj, Picard made it his mission to track down her twin sister Soji.

Picard wanted to set out into the stars to locate her, however not only was he diagnosed with Irumodic Syndrome, an Alzheimer’s like disease, he was also declared unfit for space travel and grounded by Star Fleet.

The episode ended with us discovering that there was a Romulan mole within Starfleet and Picard had to call on an old friend to get off the planet.

Episode 3 Recap

Episode 3 The End Is The Beginning is pretty much centered around this notion and Picard exemplifies the statement in many ways. The end of his career with Star Fleet was pretty much the beginning and this is mirrored through many characters throughout the entry.

There’s a real phoenix rising from the ashes motif in episode 3 and though it is pretty much one big info dump and just a case of setting up the key players that will be going forward, I did still enjoy it.

I’ll say right off the bat that it’s probably my least favorite of the three so far because it seems to be dragging its heels but you can tell that going forward everything put in place here will pay off.

The Synth Uprising

We open once more with a flashback to the Synthetic Uprising on Mars. As we learned last week this was carried out on First Contact day and the date was clearly purposely picked to ruin any goodwill that the Federation had towards the holiday.

We did theorize last time that something was uploaded to the droid F-8 aka Fate who started off the attack and in the introduction, we can clearly see code being added into his programming.

I did slow this down to see if there were any hidden messages in it but unfortunately it was just the usual camel case lettering and semi-colons and colons that come with computer-based languages.

So no, there was no execute order from the Romulans…at least that we know about.

I’ll get into my fan theory in just a bit.

Picard’s Resignation

We then jump to Starfleet Headquarters 14 years ago to see Picard and one of the new characters of the episode meeting. This is Raffi who we learn was his former first officer on the USS Verity.

Due to Picard’s resignation over the outlawing of synths Raffi ended up losing her career too and she’s carried a lot of resentment over it for the past decade and a half.

This intro opens up how much the burning of Mars destabilized the galaxy and sort of gave Star Fleet the excuse to not evacuate the Romulans.

Picard Comic Book Prequel

In the new canon prequel comic book Star Trek: Picard: Countdown we learn that before the attack on Mars, that Picard and his new ship the Verity were asked to evacuate 10,000 Romulans.

However, upon arriving there, he and Raffi were taken hostage by the Romulan Government and they discovered that there were actually 5 million inhabitants on the planet that needed to be removed.

They learned that the Romulans only wanted their own people taken off the planet in the wave of the supernova and of course Picard protested this.

The two defeated the evil Romulan leaders and returned to Earth with news of the incoming disaster and this is pretty much what lead to the events in the show.

Star Fleet

Star Fleet on the whole has often been painted as this perfect system but Picard is really dismantling that notion. Patrick Stewart in the run-up to the show did say that he took on the project because he believed it to be tackling the current world we live in in the wake of Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency. This opening definitely hammers that home with the Government being more interested in looking after themselves that being open to helping people who may end up immigrating to earth.

I don’t wanna get too political because I don’t believe that either side has it fully figured out but Star Trek has always tackled ideas like this and obviously Picard would be no different.

We jump to the Vasquez Rocks in the present and see Picard breaking down what’s happened so far in the series.

Raffi And Hugh

Admiral Clancy is mentioned from episode 2 and it’s clear that Raffi had run-ins with her too. Raffi has very much stepped away from the prestige of Star Fleet and now lives in the desert by herself. She still wears an army type cap but there’s very much a feeling of a self-sustained militia to her rather than a government-sanctioned body.

I kinda got flashbacks of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 from her outfit and there’s very much a feeling that she’s exiled herself.

From here we journey back to the Borg Cube and are re-introduced to Hugh.

If you watched The Next Generation you may remember that he was a former Borg Drone that Picard and crew met in the show.

Hugh was critically injured during the episode and taken back to the Enterprise D where he was cut off from the collective. The character never knew what it was to be like this, away from the hive. Through the crew, he learned that humans did not want to be assimilated which contradicted what he’d been told.

He was given his name instead of the previous number 2368 and developed his own individuality.

We learn that he has been working aboard the station and mentoring Soji.

Soji is adept at talking to the nameless and this is due to her machine abilities which she is currently still unaware of.

We learn that they have been assimilating Romulans and it is possible that she has been brought in to learn about their past and hidden mythology.

Sorry, they hate that word.

The Romulan Plan

Through knowing that Romulans had a false door traditionally in their homes she is sort of able to gain entry by bypassing the false front that the mystic character is putting on.

We learn that they are trying to create sort of shared religion to unite everyone and I’ll get into this later in the recap.

Back on Earth Picard confirms one of Raffi’s conspiracy theories that the Tal Shiar and Star Fleet must be working together in order for the former to operate.

It’s also here that we get confirmation of the theory that the Romulan’s sabotaged their own rescue and allowed the attack on Mars to go ahead in order to create a false flag attack. We still don’t know why this was carried out however it is possible that we were told this last week by Clancy.

If you cast your mind back Clancy did tell Picard that there were 14 systems thinking of leaving the Federation over the Refugee crisis due to the effort they would have to put into it.

However, the Synth uprising gave them the perfect excuse not to help the Romulans and thus they remained. We didn’t hear anything extra after this conversation about the systems leaving so it’s a safe bet to assume that they stayed.

We do know that The Romulans hate synthetics and perhaps they hacked them in order to make the rest of the galaxy join them in banning the androids.

The fact that their planet was on the brink of destruction during this would give them the perfect alibi and personally I believe that’s what happened.

Captain Rios

Picard finally has a ship and he meets Captain Rios who seems a bit messed up. Rios has a hologram that is sort of the voice in his head and I dunno why he doesn’t just have him out there getting stabbed instead. maybe he can’t leave the ship or something.

Picard sees that Rios is reading The Tragic Sense Of Life. This is a philosophical book that has gained a lot of prominence over the years and is seen as one of the knowledgebases of civilization due to its importance. The book states that if one were to live an eternal life then life itself would become meaning, thus death gives us purpose.

This could be mirrored in Picard who as we know is living on borrowed time.

Similar to Picard, Rios has been cast aside by Star Fleet and forgotten about, however, old habits die hard and Rios clearly has had difficulty leaving it behind and still keeps everything in order.

Rios clearly admired the Captain but after the death of his own, several years prior, he doesn’t want to potentially lead to another one going off into the great beyond.

Picard gives a really touching monologue on Chateau Picard and realises that he never belonged there, it’s amongst the Cosmos that is his home.

The Assassination Attempt

The Zschack Vash show up though looking to assassinate Picard. Luckily for him they’re no match for a guy pushing 80 and his mates. Dr. Agnes too shows up out of the blue to save them and it is possible that she was aware of this attack and put in as a plant by the Federation. We do see the Commadore Oh from last time talking to her at one point in the episode so this is definitely possible.

Though she divulges all of this to Picard it could be a double bluff to win his trust and though I do think she would switch sides eventually to join him should it come down to it, that’s my theory on the character’s arc.

The Romulan Mystic remembers Soji from Tomorrow and that they have met before. We learn that she was on the last ship ever assimilated by the cube but something went wrong. Now it could be possible that Rhomda did not meet Soji but rather Dahj.

The episode ends with us learning that Dahj and Soji have been labeled as destroyers and the Zscack Vash disintegrates upon saying this. It is possible that due to Soji being the meld between synthetics and organics that she is seen as the destruction of pure life in the Galaxy.

Obviously the Romulans hate Synthetics so they would see this as being a destroyer of their way of life.

Soji

Soji speaks to her mother who is clearly a Romulan hologram and she tells her that Dahj is ok. Through this, they likely tracked Dahj in episode one after speaking to her, knew she was with Picard and used this information to kill her.

The Romulans have clearly manipulated this whole thing and we see the bad boy sister and brother team meet up at the end.

Also is it just me that finds it funny you can sneak into Star Fleet by trimming your eyebrows and changing your ears.

Anyway, it’s clear the easy way is wearing thin and that they will be more forceful soon so and hopefully we will get their endgame before too long.

The episode ends with Picard and the group heading to Freecloud to trap down Bruce Maddox. Raffi has discovered this and it is possible that this could be where the nest of synthetics is. We did hear last episode that there was a secret location of synths and with Maddox heading out into the Galaxy to create a new Data it is possible that this is the location.

The episode ends with Picard saying Engage and The Next Generation Theme playing and yeah…I did get a bit teary-eyed and Goosebumps.

Clearly they are recruiting new members of the team next time and though I did feel like this episode was a bit slower…I am fully still onboard with it.

I’m surprised Picard is getting as much hate as it is because I’m massively enjoying it and hey, hopefully, you’re liking the recaps too!