Assimilation (Star Trek: Picard, S2 E3) was recommended by Hauke he/him, who said: While it’s very hard to pull out individual episodes of Picard (especially the first two seasons) on my current rewatch this one stood out to me.
Having narrowly escaped the horrible Confederation of the alternate 2400, the crew travels back to 2024 to correct the timeline. “Let’s see what has been lost in the wake of your fear” Q whispers to Picard again as they jump to the past.
Assimilation sets up the character arcs for the rest of the season.
Raffi is racked with guilt and anger for Elnor’s death early in the episode.
Seven, gets to experience not being met with fear since the timeline hop means she was never assimilated.
Rios immediately gets into some good trouble meeting the charming doctor Teresa.
And Jurati, still racked with guilt over killing Maddox in season one is doing something difficult and dangerous: impressing the Borg Queen (played in this iteration by the magnetic Anne Wershing who sadly passed away in early 2023).
Fear, Hope, guilt, forgiveness. Picard season two is about all these things, deeply personal to both Picard and Stewart, and it doesn’t get enough credit.
“ Move backward to go forward. Shatter to mend. The past is now.”
Assimilation first aired on March 17, 2022, written by Kiley Rossetter & Christopher Monfette, and directed by Lea Thompson
Seven distracts the Magistrate long enough for the group to overpower and kill him and his officers. The ship comes under attack, and the Queen takes advantage of the situation to directly connect herself to the ship's computers. She destroys their pursuers and slingshots the ship around the sun, creating a wormhole to 2024. She tells Picard that they must find "The Watcher" in Los Angeles who knows what Q changed to cause the new timeline. The ship crashes near Chateau Picard in France, and the Queen diverts all power to sustain herself. Elnor dies of his wounds, and Raffi angrily blames Picard before departing with Seven and Rios to start searching for the Watcher. Rios's transporter malfunctions and he is knocked out, waking up in a clinic that secretly treats undocumented immigrants. Before he can leave, immigration officers raid the clinic and arrest both Rios and his physician, Teresa. Rios's communicator is left behind. Despite Picard's warnings, Agnes connects her mind to the Queen and learns the exact location of the Watcher before she can be assimilated, impressing the Queen.
