10 Utterly Devastating Star Trek Endings That Came Out Of Nowhere
2. Imposters
This one hurt and it hurt a lot. Thirty years after Ro Laren and Jean-Luc Picard last saw each other, the former Maquis returned to Star Trek, having been reinstated in Starfleet, rising to the rank of Commander - much to Picard and Riker's surprise.
The scene on the holodeck was everything that fans had been waiting for. Ro and Picard express not just their frustrations with each other, but the heartbreak that each felt about the other's betrayal. Picard saw her defection as betrayal, whereas she felt he was wrong to close the book on her so definitely.
While no body, no death rules are in firm place here, the fact is that the ending of the episode was almost too much to bear. The Changeling infiltrators force Ro into an act of self-destruction, piloting her shuttle into the nacelle of the Intrepid, thus ensuring the Titan-A's escape.
It's horrific. It's quick. It's simply not enough time with this monumental Star Trek character. But, with the dust settled, it is a perfectly bittersweet ending to a story arc - Ro and Picard finally see each other for who they truly are, and it is a beautiful moment wrapped in the pain of the situation they're in.
It very much fits with the rest of this article: no one saw this one coming.