Nepenthe, written by Sam Humphrey and Micheal Chabon, is arguably the best episode of the inaugural season of Star Trek: Picard. It first debuted on 5 March, 2020.

While Elnor (Evan Evagora) struggles to survive on the Borg Cube, hunted by Rizzo (Peyton List), and costing Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) his life and triggering a Fenris Ranger SOS, and Rios (Santiago Cabrera), Raffi (Michelle Hurd) and Jurati (Alison Pill) seek to elude Narek (Harry Treadway), Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Soji (Isa Briones) gets a moment to breath on the planet of Nepenthe.

Nepenthe is home to the Troi-Rikers, Will (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna (Marina Sirtis) have made a home on this remote world with their daughter, Kestra (Lulu Wilson), and where they’ve stayed since the death of their son, Thad.

There are some wonderful moments as Picard is reunited with members of his former crew, and watching all the episodes like this back to back, it definitely has more of an emotional punch to it. I had tears.

Jurati begins to realize she is the reason why Narek is able to find them, thanks to the tracking device Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita) gave her in addition to the vision she shared of a universe where synths could exist. She co-opted Jurati into the Romulan plan. She injects herself to kill the tracking device, but it plunges her into a coma.

When La Sirena arrives at Nepenthe, Soji and Picard return to the ship set on travelling to Soji’s homeworld, to discover the truth about her and the synths that may exist there.

Broken Pieces, the penultimate episode before the two-part season finale, was written by Michael Chabon and originally aired on 12 March, 2020. It feels like taking a quiet deep breath before the final plunge.

As the crew of La Sirena are reunited, except for Seven (Jeri Ryan) and Elnor who remain on the Borg cube, they work on figuring out the whole plan, how they’ve been maneuvered by the Romulans, and the warning of the lost civilizations who previously created the synthetic life that evolved and brought about destruction.

We learn that Rios’ own trauma comes from the loss of his own Starfleet captain after he encountered a synth that bore an uncanny resemblance to Soji.

Picard and the rest discover that the Mars attack was organized by the Zhat Vash, knowing that Starfleet would react in fear and ban synths.

Soji asks Rios to take her home, they’ve discovered where her homeworld is, and the crew unites behind her.

Meanwhile, Seven and Elnor have reclaimed the cube from the Romulans tracking La Sirena, and it seems that everyone will be converging on Soji’s home.

Watching the whole series as a whole makes it really enjoyable, and makes the arcs more impactful. You can check out Star Trek: Picard in season sets, a series set, or in the gorgeous Star Trek: The Picard Legacy Collection, a limited edition boxed set available from Paramount Canada.

Boldly go!