Star Trek Picard: Every Major Character Ranked
8. Hugh
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Upon learning of the return of Hugh, the audience knew that the Borg were going to play a massive part in Star Trek Picard. To an extent, that's true. While they were very much a sub-plot of the season, it was a surprising highlight of the season to see Hugh and Jean-Luc embrace as old friends. While their relationship had been initially frayed in the Next Generation, seeing this reunion was a genuinely lump-in-the-throat moment.
However, Hugh unfortunately suffered a sad fate. He was a tool to maneuver other characters into place rather than one given his own arc. His death at the hands of Narissa was a waste. While it served to move Elnor into his new relationship with Seven, it felt an unnecessary addition to the plot. Couldn't he have been captured or harmed in some other way? Alas the sad fate of Hugh will have to stick but he brought the struggle of returning from the collective to the front in a way that was different from both Picard and Seven. They found their humanity - Hugh adapted what being in a collective was. His genuine anguish at the deaths of the other Ex-Bs was heart wrenching as these were his new family and his children, guided by his experience, snuffed out in a cold, callous manner. It may not have been the conclusion to his arc that fans of the Next Generation wanted but Jonathan Del Arco delivered in spades on what was offered, cementing Hugh as one of the great Trek guest stars.