Now I have thought about the boy and the dad issue for a few days and my money is on the boy being a product of Picard and Beverly relationship. It only makes sense to do so with the Main Character Picard and not with the supporting star Riker. And another thing is that it also happens in the real life. You make love and part at next day, then long time after it is revealed that sometime after the unexpected came out from it and the lady in question said nothing.
In a man point-of-view, it means that the lady in question didn't count you as dad material. You simply failed or then something weird happened, the lady simply wanted to have a child but not the relationship.
Would you stay twenty years in the deep space, hiding the fact? I don't know. I wouldn't.
Regardless, let's see how this episode unfolds.
So, two weeks before Picard and Riker finds the boy and mum in hiding, Jack was delivering weapons, liquor and medical supplies to Sarnia Prime. In my eyes, it makes him a free trader or a privateer. And he even claimed that neither him or the rangers were "saints." All he wanted to do was a make some profit.
The bribe worked, everyone was happy but Jack forgot that already corrupted aren't really the saints, so the ranger sold the boy's location to "a Marked Woman." Who is she? The owner of the alien vessels that's five times larger than Jack's Medical Vessel - Eleos XII.
Problem that she presented was a total destruction. Picard wanted to open the com-channels as per protocol. Jack wanted to escape with mum. The solution pack cryotube in the shuttle and hope that the enemy doesn't target them during the escape.
The interesting detail is that Riker claimed that Titan had left them, even though USS Titan was still in same orbit, not having moved anywhere, but still being unable to detect vessels in the nebula despite their advanced sensors. Only problem, Cpt Shaw wasn't willing to put his vessel in the fight, because they were "an exploratory vessel."
The interesting twist was that Eleos was able to take 3 hits from the photon torpedoes and still stay relatively intact, when the enemy opened fire and destroyed the shuttle.
La Sirena at M'tlas Prime. The newscast explained that the building was a StarFleet recruitment centre and not a HQ. And they blamed the act on Romulan rebels. The biggest surprise is that only 117 souls were lost, despite the destruction hit two locations.
Raffi wasn't happy on her position or the fact that the handler canned the operation, claiming that the StarFleet had identified the perpetrator. "They are pawning this on a Romulan triggerman who's never made it to anyone's most wanted list," she shouted at the com-screen. "Goes through heisting an ultra-secure off-site Daystrom facility?"
It smells, girl, to high heaven. Raffi continued, "Even if he did it, he purchased the weapon on the black market. There's a redacted statement from a lowlife black marketeer, a ferengi named Sneed. He said he brokered the sale..."
I am so happy that they finally brought the Ferengi's back. Raffi was livid. She wanted answers, even if she was going to get hurt.
Speaking of angry women, Seven told Cpt Shaw, "Sir, you could be the hero who saved heroes or you could be remembered for being the captain that let two legends die! It's your call, sir," before she walked out from his ready room.
In the meanwhile, Picard figured out that the enemy wanted the boy by introducing transport inhibitors in the Eleos bridge. Rebelling a boarding attempt, the enemy used a tractor beam, which USS Titan broke by hyperdriving in between them and the beam emiter. A super risky move that somehow worked. Thanks to an angry woman.
Not that it really changed anything as Shaw continued being an a-hole, just because he can. And because of it, he almost ignored the enemy hail as he was 'righteously' explaining to the legends on how much trouble they are in as if he was a school master and Picard&Riker naughty boys.
On the other side of the view screen, a third angry woman, and even though she looks like she's smiling, she was sheeting in anger. Captain Vadic knew everything, even the fact that Picard was appearing in a synthetic flesh.
She only wanted "Jack Crusher for violating a number of laws and protocols in and out the Federation Space." And she packed up her demands by lowering her shields and allowing Titan to scan her vast arsenal that included "an unknown technology loaded in the primary bay." To make her intentions clear, she slingshotted Eleos on Titan.
Shaw didn't want scratches on his ship and he got them anyway. Karma is a bitch, and he could have played his hand differently. StarFleet intel produced a half dozen alias on Jack and a rapsheet marking him as an interstellar fugitive. Shaw wasn't happy. He was willing to give up the boy and run everything after in a tribunal.
So the old man went to speak to the boy. The claimed to be a thief, while the admiral was willing to accept him as a freedom fighter. Although the narrative painted him a war profiteer. A black marketeer and a thief. The thing is the boy claimed that Beverly was the brains behind the operation and that she had thought the boy everything he knew.
The boy didn't knew who his father was, so Picard had to go to talk to Beverly. Or rather, Riker did, while the admiral negotiated with the angry woman and Cpt Shaw. Vadic revealed that her vessel is called the Shrike.
A minute left on the clock it was revealed that Jack was Picard's son. So it was a fight. In the nebula.
So she played the only card she had and contacted her ex-hubby for an introduction. Hubby presented her a choice, son or the mark, and Raffi chose the job over her life. Such is a life of a field agent.
Thanks to it, we got a scene with a Ferengi that loves retro Earth technology. And money. Smart as they are, he played Raffi's weakness of chemicals against her. The woman didn't yield. She didn't give out her handler. Instead, she stabbed Sneed's hand reaching to crap the money, and then passed out just before Worf decapitated the b*stard.
What a scene, but where was the blood? Surely there's a lot of blood going towards those big ears and that Ferengi brain.
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What an episode. I'm going to give it 9/10.