Star Trek: Picard Teases Perfect Seven Of Nine Villain Twist
Will Seven of Nine become a villain (again) in Star Trek: Picard season 2? Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine debuted in Star Trek: Voyager as a drone of the Borg Collective - a cold and ruthless cyborg intent on assimilating all biological life. Thanks to the efforts of Kathryn Janeway and her crew, Seven was liberated from Borg control and became a valued member of the Voyager's crew. By the time Star Trek: Picard begins, Seven has gained even more of her pre-assimilation humanity, but certain Borg implants remain visible, including the apparatus above her left eye.
Star Trek: Picard season 2 throws Seven's life (and the lives of everyone else in the galaxy) into turmoil when Q changes history, rewriting the Prime timeline so Jean-Luc Picard's Federation is replaced by a xenophobic authoritarian regime known as the Confederation, which has spent the past few centuries dominating one alien species after another, from Romulans to Borg and back again. To undo Q's hellscape, Picard travels back to 2024 - the point of temporal divergence - alongside Seven, Raffi, Rios, Jurati, Elnor, and a Borg Queen they picked up along the way.
Their mission is to figure out how Q changed history and put things right... but a new problem is rapidly emerging. Star Trek: Picard season 2's "Assimilation" drops a few hints suggesting Seven's agenda is beginning to deviate from the group's true mission. In Q's new timeline, Seven was never assimilated by the Borg, and remains 100% the human known as Annika Hansen. Though Seven is less-than-thrilled about the Confederation's fascism, her altered history means no Borg implants covering her face - and she's enjoying this perk more and more in 2024.
Shortly before departing La Sirena, Seven fondly touches her un-mechanized skin in the mirror, a small smile creeping across her face. Rendezvousing with Raffi (who knows Seven intimately after their romantic relationship) shortly after, Seven's ex notes, "Why do you look so relaxed... You're never relaxed." This line comes shortly after Seven has just encountered a child who thought she was a superhero, but Raffi's remark is quickly brushed off without explanation. Finally, a shocked Seven utters, "Strangers don't usually like me..." after a pleasant interaction with a security guard. In Star Trek: Picard's natural timeline, Seven's Borg implants mean she's feared, ostracized, and insulted with alarming regularity - just like we saw during the gunfight in season 2's premiere. As awful as Q's remade reality is, Seven is treated like a normal human there. Young girls look up to her, adults find her charming, and she can glance in the mirror without regret.
Is Seven just enjoying these perks while they last? Or will she soon begin having second thoughts about hitting the reset button on a reality where her life wasn't ruined by the Borg? The more Seven stays in this reality, the more she's sure to find her real mission difficult to carry out. The only way Seven can avoid losing these current feelings of relaxation and happiness is by stopping Picard and the others correcting history, and that positions her as a villain in Star Trek: Picard season 2. A tragic, sympathetic villain - but a villain nonetheless.
Putting Seven at odds with Picard's mission to correct history would represent the perfect twist in her post-Voyager tale. It shows how deeply the scars of her assimilation run, and the emotional impact of being subjected to constant prejudice even after regaining her humanity. Seven fighting to stop Picard, but eventually learning to accept Borg implants are part of her story, also continues to blur the line between biological and synthetic life forms - something we've seen throughout Star Trek: Picard season 2 thus far.
Star Trek: Picard continues Thursdays on Paramount+.