The Big Goodbye (S1 ep 12)

My step-father was a complicated man. And I can't really separate my introduction to TNG without him constantly being in my thoughts. He was around when I found this show, and it was while I was living in the same house as he was that I fell in love what was, clearly, a shit-awful show.

But, to paint a picture of life with this man, I want to flash back a bit to one night, a few years before this episode aired for the first time. We had this dinner at the house. I guess I was 13 or 14 at the time. My step-father invited his brother, his brother's girlfriend, and his brother's kids to come over.

Now, I needn't remind you that my step-father was a pretty heavy drinker, but I may not have mentioned that he was a pretty mean one too. His brother was an even heavier drinker, but oddly enough, was a much more jovial one.

He liked to play penny poker in the small corner of the kitchen where that served as our dining room. The adults would sit huddled around that table with 4 or 5 dollars in pennies scattered in piles all over that table. The men would drink and smoke, and someone would walk away with a big jackpot at the end of the evening. That night went, more or less, as usual. Things started well, me and the kids goofed off in my room, at this time that rinky-dink little trailer I've mentioned before, and the adults played their game in the kitchen.  

My mother, she was one of the sweetest women to ever live. She still is. She believed that she could get along with anyone, make any relationship work. She was a peacemaker and soft-spoken and crushingly shy. She didn't know that to a man like my step-father, that just meant she was someone he could bully endlessly. 

And he did bully her. He tended to berate her on a somewhat regular basis. He spent that particular evening making fun of her and trying to embarrass her in front of his brother and brother's girlfriend. My mother didn't drink, so as he and his brother continued to get more and more intoxicated he got more and more aggressive in his mockery of her.

It got to the point where my mother told him to shut up. I heard her say those words. I'd never heard her tell anyone to shut up before, not me, not my sister (who by this time had run away from home and was living elsewhere), not even our dog.

So, yeah, he didn't like being told to shut up, least of all by a woman. And double least of all by a woman that was his wife, someone that was supposed to be under his thumb.

From my room, only a couple of dozen feet from where they were, with it's faux wood paneling the only thing there to block the sound, I could hear every fart, sneeze, cough or conversation in the whole place. Well, I could hear it from everyone except my mom. But this time, she said it so loud I could hear it. The kids that were in my room could hear it.

They laughed. They thought it was funny. It scared me. I knew he wouldn't let something like that go. I glanced over at my baseball bat in the corner, all wood, with Louisville Slugger burned into the sweet spot of the bat. It was chewed up from endless hours of me hitting gravels from our driveway into the woods that surrounding our house. I'd often wondering if I could take him if I had that bat.

Because I was a kid, and a small one at that. Eighty, maybe Eighty-five pounds. He wasn't a particularly large man, but he was freakishly strong. I remember he used to laugh and beg me to hit him as hard as I could. Kick him even. I didn't like the thought of really hitting someone, but he was just so much bigger than me. I did sorta doubt I could really do him any harm. I remember on one such occasion, him standing there, his hands on his hips in his best Superman pose, and me running as hard as I could, and kicking him square in the chest with everything I had. A blow that I just knew would send him spinning off into the air, just like the people did in those Chuck Norris movies.

Except when I did my worst, he didn't so much as budge. He just looked at me like I was a failure for not making him even flinch. So, yeah, I often thought about it. Could I take him with my bat? I mean, I might have been small, but I had a mean swing. 

Things in the kitchen descended into chaos.  I heard dishes shattering, one after the other, like someone was picking them up and just slamming them against the counter, or floor, or whatever. I would have guessed it was mother, despite the fact that I'd never seen her do anything remotely like that in my life.

Except, of course, the only voice I could hear was her. Asking him, calmly, to please stop. Memories can be fuzzy things, but for me, in my mind, he broke more dishes that night than we could have possibly owned. It was a moment that stretched out into an eternity.

A few minutes later the brother's girlfriend came into the room and got the kids. "Get in the car," she whispered.

The kids snuck out the backdoor as noise from the kitchen went on in the background.

It was a normal Saturday, quite honestly. At least until that point. Most family gatherings of any type would end badly. But this continued to escalate. It was he and my mother. She kept asking him to stop it, that he was destroying everything, but things kept shattering. I was in my room, listening, so I couldn't see his face. But I can close my eyes and envision him grinning at her, answering her each time she asked him to stop with another shattered glass or plate. He didn't use words to communicate, he let his actions do that. I saw him in my mind's eye getting more and more amused the more upset she became. 

The shattering dishes stopped, and thumps became the sound that carried through the trailer. Not sure what the source of them were, but it wasn't very long before his brother interrupted. And said he'd seen enough, and that he couldn't just stand there and watch this happen. He said he'd never allow a man to hit a woman in his presence. 

Had he been hitting my mother? Was her tiny frame the source of the bangs I'd been hearing? I'd never seen her with a bruise, or heard her cry out in pain. To this day I swear I don't know if I was just a kid, oblivious to the reality of what life was like for her during that time, or if he'd managed to keep himself from striking her. My mom still won't talk about her time with him, and I won't push. She's happy now. I'm not going to mess with that.

Regardless, that's what his brother said. After he said that I didn't hear anything for a bit. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but it felt like hours. Eventually he spoke again, my step-father did, or, rather, he shouted, "This is my house. And I can do what I damn well please!"

And then there was a gun shot. Then another. A thud. Then silence.

Ah shit, I thought, did he just kill my mom? I picked up my bat, just in case. 

Whatever. I'm going on way too long about this. I'll pick up on that episode of my life in my next post. What I saw in this episode of Star Trek made me think of what he did that night. Nothing obvious, aside from the fact that there was someone who very much did get shot in this episode.

And in an unprecedented move. I have to say I liked this episode. No qualifications. It was actually very watchable.

You see (so begins my episode recap), the Holodeck had a recent upgrade and so Picard, tired from having to remember how to say 'hello' in an alien language, was told he really needed to take a break. So it's off to the Holodeck.

Picard decides to experience the world of one of his favorite noir detectives, Dixon Hill, so the Holodeck kindly sets up the appropriate experience of 1941 era San Francisco. While in there, Picard freaks out about how awesome the whole thing is. He hits pause, runs up to his senior officers and brags about how awesome the Holodeck is, and then asks Dr Crusher to come too, oh, and a random 20th century historian that they happen to have on board. Data, realizing how much he wants to be a part of the game, kindly invites himself to join in the fun. 

So, the trio go to the Holodeck and resume the game. They're so excited about it that they barely notice that there is a narrative that's playing itself out. They're too busy noting the reality of the programming, and trying to pinpoint exactly when this story takes place. 

Meanwhile, the alien species that Picard had been stressing himself out over trying to learn how to say hello to decided to scan the Enterprise. Doing so breaks the Holodeck.

Back inside the simulation, Picard and the gang don't realize that things are going south with the software, so when they dismiss a guy holding a gun on them as a nuisance, he shoots one of them. 

Much to everyone's surprise, the simulation doesn't shoot Picard or Dr Crusher, but chose instead to shoot the historian, whom we've never seen or heard of before. 

Whoa, I'm convinced - this situation is serious. 

So, Picard and Crusher and Data are forced to play the game, because they're stuck in the Holodeck with the game turning deadly, and do it all while the historian, Whalen, is dying of a gunshot wound. 

Stakes people, they've been raised.

While in the game, Picard and Data and Crusher meet the big boss, whose name I forget (Cyrus Redblock - I looked it up), but I love, and then they finally confess, admittedly, bizarrely, that they're (Picard and the gang) are real and the mobsters are really computer simulations.

All things considered, the Holodeck characters take things in stride, and start asking some rather interesting philosophical questions about their place in the wider universe. The mob boss decides to go take over the ship, and once Wesley (Goddammit, Wesley) fixes everything and the door opens, the mobsters run outside and turn into nothing. 

Picard says goodbye to his 'in game' friend, who asks if the family he loves is going to be there waiting for him after Picard leaves, or if everything will shut down. Picard looks sad, but leaves and turns off the Holodeck. He then says hello to the aliens and all is well.

Some thoughts

• Troi seems like an expert in speaking Harata (the alien language Picard is learning. Where did that come from?)
• So, Picard wants to run the Dixon Hill file, but before that he has to tell the computer to make it 1941 San Francisco... does that mean he could have run the Dixon Hill program in Mongol ruled east Asia or something? That just seems weird. 
• This episode was brilliantly funny. Picard is understood to be dressed like a bellhop when he's wearing his Starfleet uniform within the Holodeck simulation. He lost a bet, everyone figures.
• Picard acts like he's never heard of Halloween before. What? Look, I get it that it's in the future, but this casual ignorance of Halloween is weird. I mean, I know what dancing around the Maypole is, and it isn't like that's exactly popular nowadays, I expect a Starfleet Captain to be a bit better educated. I mean, the man can quote Shakespeare all day, a little knowledge of a holiday that was practiced for more than a thousand years isn't too much to ask.
• Picard's really excited about how awesome the Holodeck is. I'm seriously happy he liked it so much. His exuberance is hilarious - oh, and that was supposed to be a staff meeting.
• Speaking of which, Picard didn't know what a 'city block' is. What the hell? Don't they have those in the future?
• Also, you can see Data's nipples through his uniform.
• When Picard goes back into the program with Whalen and Dr Crusher, the fx shot looks like it's a bit off. The perspective of the camera looking at a San Fran street corner, then into the corridors of the Enterprise is just wrong. 
• When Picard restarted the program it jumped ahead to the next night. I guess it's playing out like a novel would. Except most noir novels take place over 24 hours or so, so it seems weird to me. I'm clearly overthinking this.
• Picard is arrested for murder because they found his business card on the corpse. Sheesh. They aren't really into gathering evidence in those Dixon Hill books, are they? That's lazy detective work. If they find my slain body I hope they don't go after Kroger's. I do have a customer loyalty card in my wallet there. Unless Kroger's did it. Then please avenge me.
• I wasted about half an hour trying to figure out if the foil wrapper on the gum that the beat cop offered Dr Crusher when he was hitting on her was period accurate or not. Best I could come up with is, yes, yes it was. I've really been overthinking this.
• Wesley seems to have fallen in love with that rainbow sweater of his. I hope he at least washes it sometimes. Because once he put it on for the first time in the show, he's yet to be seen without it.
• Picard smokes. First Data, now Picard. At least he had the courtesy to cough. 
• The sexual tension between Data and Dr Crusher is thick. 
• The scene with Data trying to bring light over to Dr Crusher is amazing. He finds a lamp, walks across the room with it, and when the power cord is pulled free of the wall, he stops and studies the lamp, trying to figure out why the light went out. Picard quietly picks up the cord and plugs it into a socket closer to to Dr Crusher, Data sees the light come back on and decides that's one mystery he's content to never understand... all done in complete silence. Seriously, that was amazing.
• Data begins to explain he isn't from earth (we'll learn very soon where he's from) and Picard cuts him off so as to not blow their cover. Data remembers that his cover story is that he's from South America. So he says that. Then Picard's next sentence is to tell them that they aren't from earth. It was so weird.
• Wesley mentions that if the Holodeck shuts off while people are inside then they all die. WTF? Who designed that piece of shit software? Do they never anticipate the possibility of things ever going wrong? Stupid.

So, in conclusion, this was a genuinely good episode, it was funny, the characters briefly seemed real, this is so much better than anything else from the season so far it seems like a different show altogether.

My rating?

3 out of 5