Star Trek Picard: 5 Ups & 5 Downs From Episode 2 'Maps And Legends'

Ups...

5. That Intense Opening Sequence

The episode opens with a flashback to 14 years prior, showing the beginnings of the synth uprising at Utopia Planitia Shipyards, which took place on First Contact Day no less.

The brief but efficient sequence quickly underlines the awkward disconnect between synths and humans, before synth F8 appears to be hacked into, and consequently lowers the shipyards' deflector shields, allowing the other corrupted synths to lay waste to the facility.

Though the sequence doesn't linger on the destruction which claimed 92,143 lives, we do get to see F8 ruthlessly slaughter a room full of the humans we were just introduced to, before F8 then shoots itself in the head.

While Hanelle Culpepper's direction was relatively sloppy throughout the episode, she certainly did a great job making this sequence as brutally unforgiving as it needed to be.