Star Trek Picard: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'Absolute Candor'
Picard leaves Earth behind and forges some new lore in the process.
The fourth episode of Star Trek: Picard is currently available to stream on CBS All Access, Amazon Prime, or (presumably) fuzzy, 24th century holographic interface. "Absolute Candor" sees Picard and the La Sirena gang run a quick errand to Vashti before their real adventures can begin. And they pick up not one but two additional cast members along the way.
"Absolute Candor" isn't as stuffed with references to past incarnations of Trek as the previous three episodes, but does forge some interesting new canon all its own. And of course the episode ends with the moment we've all been waiting for: A Picard lecture about decapitations. And also Seven of Nine!
Pop in an ocular implant and let's analyze this historic, first ever Star Trek episode to feature not a single Starfleet uniform.
6. Bad Dates
The episode begins with a de-aged Picard beaming down to the planet Vashti in the Beta Quadrant during the evacuation of Romulus, 14 years ago. Admiral Picard's rocking some distinct threads here. Yeah he looks a bit like a character out of an Indiana Jones film, but this is evocative of type of clothes in British colonial history... all he's missing is a pith helmet.
Vashti (named for the Queen of Persia in the Book of Esther, thanks Wikipedia) is an Earth colony on the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone (see TOS: "Balance of Terror") that's being used as a waypoint for the Romulan evacuation.
In these days, the colony is bustling with shuttle traffic – these are the same Starfleet shuttles we've seen throughout Picard so far, again a reuse of the 23rd century-era shuttlecraft model from Star Trek: Discovery. While the colony has a pretty Middle-earth-sih vibe, it's actually "Mexican Street" on the Universal Studios Backlot in Los Angeles.
Picard's greeting to the new Romulan colonists, "jolan tru", is used by Romulan civilians in TNG's "Unification I & II" and means "find peace" according to the non-canon Star Trek novels.
Despite Picard's clear fondness for "sisterboy" Elnor, Sister Zani tells the kid Picard "dislikes displays of emotion" and "is not overly fond of children". This is a reference to Picard's discomfort with youngsters like Wesley Crusher, something Picard explicitly tells Riker about in "Encounter at Farpoint".
Picard gives young Elnor a copy of The Three Musketeers (see TNG: "Hollow Pursuits") and teaches him how to fence, which we've seen Picard practice in the episodes "We'll Always Have Paris" and "I, Borg". But he's called away with news of the Synth attack on Mars; his communicator is apparently bluetooth capable and its alert sounds a lot like the old door chimes aboard the Enterprise-D.