Season 1, Episode 6: ‘The Impossible Box’

In this week’s “Star Trek: Picard,” the puzzle pieces, scattered in the first half of the season, finally start coming together. Picard reunites with Hugh on the captured Borg cube and finally connects with Soji. But not before Narek finally makes his intentions clear and tries to murder Soji, who at this point discovers who she really is: an android.

Soji is a character constantly in search of secrets in a world hiding them from her. She knows Narek is hiding something and probes him for answers, to which she gets none — not even his real name. She suspects that there is more to her identity, but he doesn’t quite know what. Narek has to thread the needle here: Soji needs to know just enough to find the location of other synthetics, but not so much that she gets activated.

He almost gets away with it too. First, he places her in what appears to be a Romulan sauna and probes her dreams for clues about the whereabouts of the other synthetics. Then he locks her in and tries to poison her. Not a great date if you ask me!

This was a marvelous bit of directing by Maja Vrvilo: “Picard” has already shown its willingness to kill off a seemingly main character with Soji’s sister, Dahj. So killing off Soji didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for the show. The way the scene is shot is full of tension as a result. But Soji gets activated regardless, and her superhuman strength — I should say, her android muscle — gets her out of the situation.