Star Trek: Picard - 8 Ups & 2 Downs From The Impossible Box

Downs...

2. Raffi

I'm trying not to be overly sensitive about his because the show, admittedly, isn't exactly glamorizing the situation, but the use of Raffi in this episode was... not good. Last week we got one of the most striking points of character development in the entire series, and a really three-dimensional look at the damage done to society by the Synth attack. This week, not so much.

What we got instead was simply wheeling her out of her quarters, bottle and pipe in hand, to do everyone else a huge favour (at, quite literally, the cost of her own career and friendships) before being dumped back into bed. This is one of Jean-Luc's closest friends, who has just had her entire world collapse around her after meeting her son, and he's basically exploiting her.

I've said before that one of the show's greatest strengths is its shades of grey - for both Picard and Starfleet itself - but having seemingly the entire crew happy to use someone like this is jarring. Hopefully, redemption is on the way, and Rios at least seems to care, but this week it was a genuine "wait, hang on..." moment.