Star Trek Picard: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'The End Is The Beginning'

Last week we mentioned that the scene at Raffi's mobile home was shot at Vasquez Rocks, famous for its many appearances as various alien worlds throughout Star Trek's history. Well, according the establishing shot in this week's episode, Raffi actually lives at Vasquez Rocks, in-universe. Apparently this location was spared from the flooding that sank the Los Angeles area during the Hermosa Quake of 2047 as established in Star Trek: Voyager's "Future's End, Part II".

Either way, it's cute nod to Trek's past and definitely the closest the franchise has come to a fourth wall break since Quark and Rom went on the Paramount Studio Tour in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Okay, that one didn't happen.

Another Trek first: Raffi is straight up vaping. Star Trek: Picard's showrunner Michael Chabon told his Instagram followers: "Raffi is using a traditional Orion 'flashpipe' known as a hargl, employed for centuries on that world to sublimate the fleshy tendrils of an intoxicant plant known as the horx, or 'snakeleaf.'” So there you go.

Raffi describes her post-Starfleet career accommodations as a hovel, especially compared to Château Picard's oak beams and heirloom furniture. This raises the question exactly why Raffi lives like this in a post-scarcity, post-currency society like the Federation, but maybe she felt stoner life was appropriate after she lost her security clearance and... whatever else happened to her in the years after Picard left her.

When she's doing her digging on the space internet, Raffi has a bottle of Saurian brandy nearby. The distinctive bottle first appeared in TOS's "The Man Trap" and made appearances in numerous other episodes throughout the franchise, and JJ Abram's 2009 Star Trek film. Her holographic display also features the phrase "Gorn Egg", a callback to that famous episode of TOS "Arena" that was shot at Vasequez Rocks and featured the reptillian Gorn. A string of text also features the letters GNDN, which Star Trek fans will notice was frequently stenciled on pipes aboard the Starship Enterprise, an abbreviation for "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing".