‘Star Trek: Picard’ Breaks Time – and Reveals Q – in New Season 2 Trailer

In honor of Captain Picard Day, a holiday we all know, understand and celebrate, Parmount+ has revealed an all-new trailer for Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. And with it comes not just our first look at the “new” version of returning villain Q (John de Lancie), but a twist so big involving Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) I literally said “oh s**t” out loud watching the trailer.

I am a professional journalist.

In the brief look, Picard (Patrick Stewart), confused, wanders around his empty villa calling for Laris (Orla Brady), his housekeeper/former Romulan spy operative. She’s not there, but there is another old friend of Picard’s waiting for him: Q.

“What the hell is happening here?” says a black-clad Picard.

“Excellent question, Jean-Luc,” says the familiar voice of Q. “Oh dear. You’re a bit older than I imagined. Mon capitane, how I’ve missed you.”

Granted, Q is also a little older than the last time we saw de Lancie play the character on Star Trek: Voyager in 2001 (and briefly in animated form last year on Star Trek: Lower Decks), but we won’t split gray hairs. It’s also immediately clear that the nearly all-powerful being is messing with a lot more than his favorite Starfleet captain this time out, as he teases, “welcome, my friend, to the very end of the road not taken,” over scenes of the other cast members of Picard in very new, and often very alarming situations.

We see Raffi (Michelle Hurd) on the run, Dahj Asha (Isa Briones) — or is it her twin android Soji? — dressed in a stately manner with a strange look on her face, perennial Starfleet hater Rios (Santiago Cabrera) wearing a Starfleet badge, and Agnes (Allison Pill) clearly in some trouble of her own.

But the biggest reveal is saved for last, as Seven of Nine wakes up in bed. She explores her surroundings, discovers a badge that is decidedly not Starfleet (as far as I can tell), and then shocked, catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her Borg implants are gone, and in this alternate reality? She’s human.

As we’re told in the teaser, “time is broken,” and Picard swears that they’ll “save the future,” so it’s clear that just how Season 1 dealt with two classic Star Trek plots involving Picard — the Borg, and androids — Season 2 will deal with another two: time travel, and Q.

The biggest question right now though is, what does Q want? Other than his appearances on other shows, his conflict with Picard met a pretty much perfect resolution on the conclusion of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So why, other than “they wanted to get Q back,” is the character returning to test Jean-Luc, once again? I guess we’ll have to find out when the new season premieres in 2022.

Check out a new teaser poster for the season, below, the trailer, above, and speculate wildly as to whether they’re going to change the name of the franchise to Road Trek.

Where to watch Star Trek: Picard