The Best of Both Words: Part II (⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑)

There is a conventional wisdom—not universally agreed upon, by any means, but certainly subscribed to by many fans—according to which this second half of TNG’s epic two-part Borg extravaganza does not match up in quality to the first. In fact, more broadly, it’s often asserted that this pattern holds for most of TNG’s two-part episodes. I absolutely concur with the general observation, but I’m not as certain that it applies in this particular case. To be sure, BOBW part one was so epic, and left us in such a state of suspense, that sustaining the quality through part two and coming up with a fully satisfying resolution was a virtually impossible task. What’s more, it’s well-known that Michael Piller had no plan for how to resolve the story upon finishing part one—an insane approach to writing a story like this one, of which I do not approve. And yet, part two is still awfully damn good. It may not pack quite the same “wow factor” that part one does in some ways (though that’s subject to debate, I think); it does include less of the engaging character work that distinguished part one; and there’s an argument to be made that the final resolution of the crisis is a little too easy and anticlimactic. At the same time, though, there’s some pretty engaging sci-fi here, a palpable feeling of panic and desperation, and some definite food for thought.

The immediate resolution of the actual cliffhanger ending from part one is actually pretty brilliant: The Enterprise’s desperately improvised, last-ditch, one-shot weapon, on which all hopes of delaying the Borg’s advance toward Earth depend—but which, if effective, may also end Captain Picard—completely fizzles…because, having assimilated Picard, the Borg know exactly what the Enterprise is going to unleash, and have been able to preemptively adapt their defenses to defeat it. So our assimilated hero survives to be rescued, but the Borg remain impervious, with all the ingenuity that the characters were able to muster in part one coming to naught, for a perfectly logical reason.

So the Borg cube proceeds toward Earth, and we get the Battle of Wolf 359—an event that will reverberate through the coming years of Trek continuity. Not for nothing will TNG’s successor series begin by flashing back to this event, and employing it as a key piece of back story for its central character; it’s the closest thing to an honest-to-god world-shaking catastrophe that Trek had ever given us! Consistently with both the style of the show and its Enterprise-centric point of view, as much as with its real-world budget constraints, we don’t actually see the battle (to some fans’ definite chagrin)—but the scene in which the Enterprise, arriving too late to participate, surveys the wreckage of most of the fleet, is unlike anything seen before in any incarnation of Trek, and the moment feels appropriately solemn and bleak. (Not overlooked is the inclusion of the Melbourne—the ship whose command had been offered to Riker—among the drifting wrecks.)

One of the most intriguing scenes here, though, is the one between Guinan and Riker, and what makes it particularly thought-provoking is the ambiguity of its relationship to the rest of the episode. “You have to let go of Picard,” Guinan tells the new captain—and her point is well-taken. The second before she walks into the ready room, Riker has verbally addressed Picard’s empty chair, asking “What would you do?” (Note, here, that it is the ready room chair—not the center seat out on the bridge—that most fully symbolizes the lingering presence of Captain Picard in the minds of RIker, Guinan, and the audience; this feels exactly right.) Moreover, in the previous scene, Riker declared to the rest of the senior officers that “this is not the time for change,” and accordingly made Shelby his first officer so as to keep everyone else in their existing positions, “where Captain Picard always relied on” them. He did this, notice, despite the fact that Picard’s experiences and assumptions are now informing the enemy, as the failure of the deflector dish blast has demonstrated and as Guinan pointedly reminds Riker. He even ended the meeting with the senior staff by expressing the wish that the captain were there to impart whatever words of inspiration he would have had to offer. So, yes—the logic of Guinan pushing Riker to more fully “let go of” his captain is readily apparent. “It’s the only way to beat him,” she insists, and also “the only way to save him.”

So, here’s the question: Does RIker listen to Guinan’s advice, or not? Because, as the episode continues, he conceives and executes a creative strategy that involves explicitly using the expectations that the Borg have gleaned from Picard against them—but the immediate goal toward which this strategy is directed is the rescue of Picard! It’s a goal, of course, whose value the Borg cannot possibly appreciate or understand, and that therefore reaffirms the Federation’s identity and core values in the face of the Borg’s threat of total assimilation, even as it simultaneously calls into question Riker’s priorities: is rescuing Picard merely about personal feelings and Riker’s unwillingness to let go, or are his actions calculated to maximize the Federation’s chances of surviving this unparalleled crisis? Cynically, of course, one could argue that the rescue is necessary so that Picard can remain on the show. But within the reality of the episode, the characters manage to use Locutus as a lever to achieve their last-minute victory, thus validating Riker’s choice to prioritize rescuing him. So did he “let go of Picard,” or did he hold on? Was Guinan’s advice good or bad? The audience is left to decide for ourselves. Then, too, RIker emerges from this episode as the hero who saved Earth and the Federation, and Shelby comments at its end that he will likely have his pick of any number of choice postings as a result—yet, of course, he chooses to remain Picard’s first officer. Did sitting in the captain’s chair prove not to be to his liking? Is he just really happy where he is? Does he truly feel as though his job combines the “best of both worlds”? The resolution of his career-path dilemma from part one perhaps gets short shrift in part two, but for viewers interested in speculating and reading between the lines, there’s plenty to ponder here, I think.

As for the way in which the Enterprise actually ends up defeating the Borg: Regardless of whether one finds it satisfying or anticlimactic, plausible or unrealistic…there’s no denying that it’s pure TNG, through and through. Personally, I will allow that it strains plausibility but will otherwise defend it as a fitting and very logical resolution. Both halves of the episode—as well as the whole of “Q Who” before it—had definitively established that the Enterprise, and the Federation in general, are not remotely on the level of the Borg, technologically. There was no way to beat them via brute force, period, and if the conclusion had contradicted this, it would have been an inexcusable cheat. If the Enterprise was going to defeat the Borg, they had to come up with some sort of conceptual way of doing it—something that emerged from what the Borg are, and what made them a unique, compelling, and singularly unconquerable foe. As such, the idea that if “one of them jumps off a cliff, they all jump off” works. The thing about the Borg is that there’s no one in charge (later nonsense about a queen notwithstanding). One senses that their fundamental goals and objectives are on a sort of autopilot, being unreflectively carried forward as a consequence of a sequence of prior decisions stretching back into whatever fascinating origin story one chooses to imagine for them. Each individual Borg merely carries out whatever instructions disseminate through the collective; it is, among other things, almost a metaphor for the unconscious mind, or at least for the human body’s autonomic responses. If your brain says “kick,” your foot doesn’t second-guess this decision. So, if the decision-making mechanism could be hacked…the parts of the whole might well carry out a wildly illogical directive such as going into a dormant, regenerative mode in the middle of combat. On top of all this, interfacing with and influencing the collective via an individual member of it takes advantage of the Borg’s failure to assign value to a single individual, and again underlines (as with the decision to rescue Picard in the first place) the thematic point of the contrast between the Borg and the Federation. And finally, the essential non-violence of defusing the Borg threat by putting them “to sleep” resonates with the core values of the show and the ethos of Starfleet as primarily dedicated to “seeking out new life,” and functioning in a military capacity only secondarily and as a last resort—even in the face of an enemy like the Borg, who by their nature can’t be reasoned or negotiated with. In so many ways, then, the solution really is perfect. I do balk somewhat at both the implausible convenience and the thematic wrong note of the Borg cube for some reason self-destructing after being put “to sleep”—but apart from that caveat, the resolution is, in my view, pretty great.

On another level, too, the details of the characters’ arrival at the solution are just so utterly, lovably in character for the show. How do they go about attempting to interface with the Borg collective? Why, the same way they managed to communicate with the evolved nanites in the previous season’s premier, of course: by having Data plug himself in! “As long as these Borg implants are functioning, there’s no way I can separate the man from the machine,” says Crusher. “Then perhaps there is a way I can access the machine, Doctor,” replies Data. Click. The writers know the characters well enough, by now, that this kind of dialogue comes across as though it has written itself. And so, even as RIker and Shelby and Worf and Wesley, on the bridge, are carrying out their last desperate measures to hold off the Borg, with Earth itself spinning below them…the crisis is actually solved by Data, Crusher, Troi, and O’Brien, doing cool sci-fi stuff in a lab. The moment when Data accesses the collective and seems to be momentarily overloaded with data, reverting to what sounds like pre-programmed computer-speak from some layer of his brain beneath the ordinary, conscious, sapient one (“Processing. Processing. Stand by.”) is alarmingly attention-grabbing—and the subsequent moment when he interprets Picard’s grunted-out “Sleep, Data,” is pure Data, and is indelibly etched in my memory. “If I may make a supposition: I do not believe his message was intended to express fatigue, but to suggest a course of action.” This uttered with Brent Spiner’s by now signature, pitch-perfect delivery: even-keel, correct, precise, even comically polite, yet with total focus and the light of realization in his eyes…an android processing data, yet expressing himself in emulation of a human. Absolutely perfect.

The other big significant thing about this episode, of course, is the lasting impact that his assimilation by the Borg will have on Picard as a character. Within the show, it will be referenced on several future occasions, even if the episodic structure will work against it’s having anywhere near as profound an apparent effect on him as it presumably would in real life (or even on a more modern, serialized show). Beyond the show, it will come to be seen as a defining moment, central to the mythos of Jean-Luc Pcard in pop culture generally, and will be picked up on and further examined in future movies and spinoffs (even if not usually in ways that I will find satisfying). But despite limitations and failings, good drama will be wrung from Picard’s experience of having his individuality and his agency so brutally stripped away like this. The show was giving itself weighty material to build on as it moved forward. In that vein, I can’t end this review without mentioning the episode’s subtle, chilling, wonderful final moment, in which Picard, implants removed but scars still visible, is apparently settling back into his ordinary routine—but suddenly arrests himself in the motion of raising his cup of Earl Grey to his lips. What Patrick Stewart does here is so subtle, I can scarcely even put my finger on it. Somehow he conveys that Picard is traumatized, haunted, beneath a facade of normalcy so instinctive that it’s as though he’s catching himself pretending to be fine, even when he’s alone. He puts down the tea, stares ahead almost vacantly for a few seconds, and then wanders over to gaze out his window into the void, as if to blissfullly forget himself for a moment. We then see him through the window from the outside—a rare point of view, underscored by a gorgeous musical cue, to close out an episode that has been anything but ordinary. It’s a moment that tells the audience that the show is not done with what happened to its lead character here, hinting that our captain will never quite be the same again.