In the second episode of the fourth season of The Next Generation, Picard heads to Earth to help with his healing while Worf is reunited with his parents. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For talk of PTSD and trauma, and transracial adoption.
This was monumental, and I’m so happy that the writers gave us this episode.
Part III
I don’t think it’s officially considered part of the “Best of Both Worlds” arc, but I’ll consider it as the third part in my own head, particularly since that title defines what we see here. What world do these people belong in? How did the interaction with the Borg change them?
“Family” is a beautifully written episode, but I’d offer up the opinion that it works as well as it does because it’s serialized. That’s especially the case for Worf and Picard; their stories don’t have nearly the same impact if we remove all the references to what came before.
Wesley
Well, that was one of the LEAST OKAY things I’ve ever witnessed.
I love vignettes, and I blame that largely on my longtime love of The House on Mango Street. While Picard and Worf get much larger stories within “Family,” the show decides to quietly give us a glimpse at a family that could have been. It doesn’t follow a traditional story structure either, since we don’t get to see any closure for Wesley either. It’s simply an experience, one that is deeply heartbreaking. Why?
Because whoever wrote Jack Crusher’s monologue (Ronald D. Moore, I’m guessing) is a literal demon on Earth. When Dr. Crusher discovers the old holographic message her husband made before his death, I expected that we’d get some touching message about how excited Jack Crusher was to have a son. However, what we end up getting is a devastating monologue about how Jack is sorry that he’s been absent for so much of Wesley’s life, unaware of how tragically ironic that’s going to become. I just… HOW THE FUCK WAS THAT REAL? It hurt so badly. I’m thankful that Wesley has his mother, but goddamn, I WAS NOT READY.
Worf
I have never seen a science fiction show address this topic before. (Actually, I may have just forgotten, but I’m certain that this was a first.) Worf’s story here is the closest I’ve ever come to seeing transracial adoption addressed head-on outside of the fantastic show The Fosters. I’d forgotten that Worf was raised by humans, and I AM SO UTTERLY SMITTEN WITH HIS PARENTS. Sergey and Helena are the kind of parents who should adopt. From the start, they knew that Worf would face identity issues because he wasn’t from the same culture as him. So what did they do? They learned to cook his food. They let him discover himself and his culture on his own. They allowed him to be Klingon without forcing themselves and their own culture on him.
That doesn’t mean that Worf’s life was easy; the Rozhenkos always knew it would be a challenge for him. And yet, they still loved and supported him anyway. They offer that support to him upon knowing that he did something to earn his discommendation. Do they fully understand what happened? No, but as Sergey said, he doesn’t need to. All they know is that Worf is their son, they’re proud of him, and he deserves their love. There’s such a deep-seeded respect in this family, one that we don’t initially see between Picard and his brother. I loved that each of these three stories showed us what a family could be, for bad or for worse.
But I love this plotline because there’s a part of me that wishes my parents had been more like Worf’s. I was taken out of my culture and specifically raised in a way so that I’d have as little access to it as possible. My brother and I rebelled against that in various ways, but the damage was long done by the time I figured out how to find independence. Did you know that I used to have an accent, but I got it forced out of me through fear and violence? I was raised to speak “white” because my mother believed that this was the only way I could be successful. I wasn’t allowed to eat Mexican food, speak Spanish, or have friends that were “bad influences.” (Read: brown or black.) Transracial adoption is a messy thing by default, but it’s made even more complicated when parents don’t want to understand why it’s such a difficult thing in the first place.
Picard
I’M JUST SO IN LOVE WITH EVERYTHING HERE. A view of Earth in the future! Picard visiting the French countryside! (Where everyone conveniently speaks English? That was weird.) PICARD DEALING WITH THE RAMIFICATIONS OF HIS TORMENT BY THE BORG. PICARD CRYING IN A PILE OF MUD BECAUSE THIS IS ALL TOO MUCH FOR HIM TO HANDLE. I genuinely think this is one of the boldest things they’ve done with a character on this show, and it’s even more impressive when you consider that this is the main character. The episode openly acknowledges that Picard is still coping with his trauma, but it does so by sending him back home to France, where his rocky relationship with his older brother exacerbates the existential crisis that he’s having.
And I love that he gets to have this crisis. I did not question his confusion over his own future, and I appreciate that this episode was written in a way so that the audience would respect the fact that Picard was allowed to have this experience. Picard felt powerless against the Borg, and it broke him. After spending years in control of an entire starship, he had that control yanked from him. So where does he go for rehabilitation, to recoup?
He goes home. But it’s a home riddled with anxiety and conflict, too, a place where Robert Picard rules by rejecting everything the modern world has to offer. It’s easy to see how much Robert resents practically everything Jean-Luc is, and over the course of “Family,” he takes every opportunity to bring Jean-Luc down a peg. It’s frustrating to watch because we know that he came home to heal, not to be berated for hours on end. So why did he agree to listen to Louis? Why even consider the job with the Atlantis project? Was it to find that control? To never risk his life for Starfleet again?
I think there are a number of factors that went into this, and I’m fine with the show not spelling it out to us. In the end, we know that Jean-Luc was still upset over the events in the last two episodes, and this was his way of working through them. It’s an absurd reaction at times, particularly when he and Robert roll through the mud of the vineyards, fighting and literally slinging dirt at one another. But it’s the act that pushes him over the edge and gets him to admit how he really feels about his own guilt.
It’s what he needed the whole time, and his family gave it to him.
The video for “Family” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
Mark Links Stuff
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