Part two of Unification kinda blows it, which is too bad ’cause Spock is around and we get to see him interact with Picard and Data. The silly plotting that was passable in the last episode becomes unwieldy and nonsensical in this one, and the Riker/Enterprise side of the story has some dumb scenes. In the end, though, we still get some quality Spock + Picard + Data stuff so it coulda been worse.
Picard: “Nice to meet you, your dad is dead.”Spock has been working with an underground movement on Romulus to reunite with Vulcan.Riker stumbles into a low rent Star Wars cantina and meets with an alien keyboardist who plays really futuristic music.Riker needs information but can’t offer her money, so he offers to play a song for her. For some reason this works.Not only can this guy make this face, it’s the only face he makes.But then he sees Sela and they have a smile-meeting.The Romulan underground are happy to have the politician on their side, but Picard thinks its a trap. Spock thinks its probably a trap too, but is willing to play it out even if there’s a slight chance it will work because he doesn’t have a lot to do these days anyway.Spock talks with Data. The conversations between Spock, Data and Picard are absolutely the highlights of the episode.Worf meets with the keyboard lady too, and its somehow even worse than when Riker pretended to play space piano with her.But then Riker ruins a Ferengi’s lunch!A child shows Spock his D&D dice.more SelaSela wants Spock to read a speech saying everything’s cool, there’s no incoming Romulan attack. I don’t know if she’s thought this plan through.Sela also tells them her whole scheme. I guess she hasn’t been getting enough positive feedback from her peers, so she has to fish for it where she can.Spock doesn’t want to give Sela’s crummy speech, so she reveals a holo-Spock that can do it. In the 2nd half of this episode, there are a lot of weird reveals of the 2 parties outwitting each other through an explanation of their plans. Sela probably should’ve just locked them up, and used the holo-Spock from the start.Then all the Romulans leave them alone in this high ranking politician’s office…?So they take advantage of the holo-program to experiment with different hairstyles on Riker. The hairstyle is *just enough* to distract the Romulans.Sela says its too late, and that she already sent out the message, so Spock sends out a better message, warning about the Romulans. There’s about 200% more message-sending and/or threats-of-message-sending in this episode than I would’ve liked. Sela, just stop telling them things. All of your plans could have worked.The Romulans blow up their own invasion force rather than be captured!Picard shares Sarek’s thoughts with Spock. Data watches.
