‘Star Trek: Picard’ Cast & EP on Season 2 Relationships & Reunions

What does having a second chance at life mean for Jean-Luc (Patrick Stewart) when Star Trek: Picard Season 2 begins on March 3?

Picard, thanks to that synthetic twist at the end of Season 1, still has the years to live he was meant to have. As a result, in Season 2, “he’s looking inward,” executive producer Akiva Goldsman tells TV Insider. “He may not want to do that, but bookended by two of his intimates, Q [John de Lancie] and Guinan [Whoopi Goldberg], he’s not gonna have much choice.”

When it comes to bringing back characters from past series (like The Original Series and The Next Generation), “We wanted to be very careful starting with Season 1 that the story invited back the reprisals,” the EP explains. In the case of Q and Guinan in Season 2, “We wanted to show Picard himself. In order to do that, we wanted the two people who would know him most deeply and also be uniquely capable of creating for us a kind of environment where we could see the past, because we’re not gonna be doing 10 hours of therapy sessions.”

For de Lancie, it wasn’t hard for him to step back into Q’s shoes after 20 years. “Playing annoying and endlessly aggressive and all those type of things are not terribly difficult, I dare say, for me, but it was fun. It kind of just naturally sort of happened,” he says.

This time, however, “not only am I cajoling him and insisting that [Picard] look at a particular issue that is important that he look at, there’s also a part of me needs for him to do it,” he adds of Q. “Before it was mostly, ‘You need to look at yourself.’ This time, it’s ‘You need to look at yourself because it’s also really important for me that you look at yourself.’ There’s a connection there. I have something at stake. That gives more weight to what Picard does and the fact that he needs to take me seriously.”

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Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) also gets a somewhat different look at herself — because in the alternate reality that has been created due to a change in time, she’s fully human. She handles that “with varying degrees of grace,” Ryan says. “Everyone is in shock because they’ve been thrown into this alternate reality, but the fact that she’s finally getting to experience what it’s like to just be human and people’s first reaction to you is not fear and suspicion and dread because the first thing they see is a born implant is the biggest part for Seven to adjust to this season.”

Seven’s relationship with Raffi (Michelle Hurd) is “very complicated,” Goldsman says. “You meet somebody, you like them, you get together, but then there’s life, and in their case, Starfleet or not Starfleet, and relationships are hard to manage.”

The actors portraying the two agree with that “complicated” label. “It’s about as complicated as you can get when you have two very strong, determined, stubborn, driven creatures,” Hurd points out, with Ryan adding, “And these very independent and busy and driven women are also trying to save the world at the same time.”

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Not only do some of the characters seem more settled in who they are heading into Season 2, but, as Santiago Cabrera (who plays Cristóbal Rios) points out, the audience is as well. “The story gets going really quickly and you’re with them straight away because, you know these people. I found myself enjoying everyone so much because I knew them already and knew who they were, and then we get to explore them more and go deeper into who they are and see a new facet of them.” A new facet of Rios is a “very interesting relationship” with a doctor and her son after he meets her “by a complete accident.”

While Elnor is in Starfleet Academy in Season 2, “He’s just gone from being a fish out of water to another fish out of water to another fish out of water,” Evan Evagora says. “He’s experiencing all of this new stuff, just like I did when I first came to L.A., coming to a country I’ve never been before, always dreamed about doing. I feel like he’s just living his best life, just like me.”

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Patrick Stewart on 'Star Trek: Picard's Season 2 Reunions

Also living a good life in Season 2 is Soji. “It makes me happy that she finally gets to not be hunted and not be in this life or death situation all the time that we found her in for most of Season 1 and you finally get to see her doing what she can,” Isa Briones says. “Now she’s back to doing her job in showing the rest of the Federation what synthetics are like, why they are not to be feared, and why they are to be accepted and what that world could look like if we were just a little more open and open-minded toward people we don’t know.”

Star Trek: Picard, Season 2 Premiere, Thursday, March 3, Paramount+