So!
For those who haven’t been following along, I have a book titled Nora and the Werewolf Wedding that is due to hit bookshelves on August 9th. Nora Grayson’s character was born of a desire to see someone like Deanna Troi from the Star Trek universe stand center stage rather than as a background character. Because I love her. Because she was strong and gentle and complex and she challenged me to pay attention to the emotions around me.
I have been doing a re-watch of all of the Star Trek Next Generation movies, but Season 3 of Picard came out and to my delight, Deanna Troi had a lot of screentime in it.
I don’t want to give spoilers, so I am going to steer away from the main plotline and look at the Riker/Deanna marriage for a moment. Without giving too much detail here, they are having a rough time of things. Tragedy hit their family and they all had to deal with it. Deanna and Riker still love one another – which, let’s be frank, is refreshing to see in a world where relationships get treated like winter coats – but they are deeply hurt and not communicating.
There is a point in the storyline where Deanna and Riker are able to talk about this and it is lovely. Granted, they are also in a lot of danger and the talk is only able to last a minute, but Deanna makes a valid and wonderful point in that you cannot skip to the healing part. Grief has its place. We cannot ignore it, no matter how much we want to.
It’s become cliche to have a “strong” character shove their grief aside as though they will deal with it later so that they can “get the job done” on the screen or page. I know I have at least two characters in my own fiction that do exactly this – Trenna and Jorry, if you’re wondering – but there is always a reckoning for this behavior. And to be frank, Picard as a character is precisely this cliche. He has just had Deanna nudging him from the corner since Season One of Next Generation.
Grief comes to everyone. We all learn to carry it until one day we look back and realize we have a scar instead of an open wound.
I suppose this doesn’t seem like much of a Review for the show, so I had better make some quick notes.
#1 – I loved it.
My mother raised me on Star Trek. So I must say that I am 100% pleased with how they handled this final chapter of Picard’s journey. They treated the characters with respect. They gave us a grown up conversation about grief and parenthood and what it means to have true human connection. (Again, I don’t want to give spoilers this soon, so maybe I will dissect that last statement in full after a year has gone by.)
#2 – I am sad to say goodbye.
But the ending was lovely and they are in a good place. I want them to stay in that good place.
#3 – I do hope a particular Crusher gets a spinoff because he was fantastic.
Nope. No details there. Go watch the show.
