Alison Pill is an excellent actress, making memorable appearances in everything from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to Milk, including her incredible lead roles in the two Goon films and the shows The Newsroom and In Treatment. So it was a delight to see the formidable actor starring alongside the inimitable Patrick Stewart in the highly-buzzed original Paramount+ show (formerly CBS All Access) Star Trek: Picard.
Pill played Agnes Jurati, a cyberneticist who approaches Captain Picard about joining his mission on the ship La Sirena. She's been a reliable character and, despite her occasional low self-esteem, a good feminist role model; besides Stewart, Pill has been the only actor to appear in every episode of Picard. That will all change now, as Pill will no longer be appearing in the series. Promoting her emotionally devastating film All My Puny Sorrows, a powerful look at depression and suicide in a broken family, Pill stated:
I know that season three will be the end. I wasn't a part of season three, so I don't have much to say about it in terms of spoilers. I will get to watch along with everybody else.
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The show's second season finale airs May 5th, and it's been a wild ride leading up to that point. The crew of Picard's La Sirena has time-traveled, and Jurati has come face-to-face with a new incarnation of the Borg Queen, who was assimilated into Jurati. While the Borg Queen has been one of the most devious and best Star Trek characters, it seems as if Jurati inspired a change of heart in the leader, who will develop a new Borg union around cooperation rather than dominance and total assimilation.
The Borg Queen left La Sirena in the penultimate episode of Picard's second season, heading to the Delta Quadrant, and it seems that Pill's character Jurati will be leaving as well. Pill has only fond memories of the show, especially in a second season that featured her talents so prominently, from mentally interfacing with the Borg Queen to performing covers of Pat Benatar songs at karaoke. Speaking about the instantly iconic latter scene, Pill told Inverse:
I think the choice of song is so wonderfully weird. It was such a thrill to do and to explore this very rock song in the midst of a big band sound. I think it struck the right tone for this kind of newer, vibe for Star Trek that was just like, ‘No we’re a little weirder.’ We can get funky with this.
The second season finale airs the same day as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which follows the adventures of Captain Pike on the USS Enterprise before Kirk took over; Pike was actually going to be the captain in the original Star Trek series of the '60s but was later replaced by Captain Kirk. Ironically, there's a deleted scene of Star Trek: Picard which featured Pike (played by Anson Mount) singing a hymn to an archaic society.
Pill will be watching the season finale with everyone else on May 5th, telling us "it's been a real ride for Dr. Jurati this season. I'm looking forward to seeing the finale and seeing it all kind of come together."