After a thrilling build-up across eight episodes of broken Borg cubes, mysterious android twins and emotional reunions, the first season of Star Trek: Picard is beginning to wind down this week with “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1.”

The two-part season finale will conclude next week, and though it might make sense to reserve judgment on “Part 1” until the entire story of “Et in Arcadia Ego” can be told, this episode — an interesting mix of exciting set-ups, out-of-left-field plot developments, original intrigue, and rote conflicts — still needs to stand on its own.

The episode begins with some of those aforementioned exciting set-ups and original intrigue as we join La Sirena riding the rapids of a Borg transwarp conduit on their way to Soji’s homeworld, which she identifies as Coppelius. Most of the crew is enjoying the ride, including Soji (Isa Briones), Cris Rios (Santiago Cabrera) and Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), but Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) is most certainly not. And once they arrive, Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) declares that she’s “never doing that again.”

The crew has beaten the Romulan fleet to the planet, but don’t have any time to relax as Narek’s ship shows up right behind them and immediately attacks. The cat-and-mouse dogfight between the two ships is a thrill that is only magnified by the “unexpected” arrival of the Artifact as it emerges spectacularly out of its own Borg conduit to join the fray!

The shot of the broken Borg cube rocketing out of the conduit — created by Jason Zimmerman and the Picard visual effects department — is staggeringly impressive and one of the best visuals of the entire series, and the sound design of the orbital orchid attack sequence is top-notch.

And speaking of “unexpected,” as soon as the Borg ship arrives, a planetary defense mechanism arrives on the scene in the form of a bunch of giant, uh, space-faring orchids that envelop Narek’s ship, the corners of the Borg cube, and La Sirena to force them into the atmosphere and onto the planet surface, where each ship is left immobilized and without power.

The entire ordeal leaves Picard incapacitated and confused, which leads Jurati to discover that he is suffering from Irumodic Syndrome. Once he’s recovered from the landing, Picard cuts to the chase with the crew and lets them know about his terminal prognosis and that anyone who treats him like a dying man “will run the risk of pissing me off!” The news hits Raffi hardest, as she is visibly shaken.

With that bit of housekeeping behind them, Picard gets a status report from his crew and they put together a plan to get Soji back to her people and warn them about the Romulans heading their way. They are going to go as a group to Coppelius Station, where Soji thinks she was born and where she believes the inhabitants are “free of bias” — as Picard described Data in “Broken Pieces” — and will welcome them. In a bit of foreshadowing of what’s to come, Rios says, “They crashed my ship without even asking my name. I don’t know, that feels a little biased to me.”

As they depart for “synthville,” the crew sees the crashed Artifact and decide that they should detour to the cube first to check on Hugh and Elnor (Evan Evagora) on the off chance they survived. (“Hugh was my friend, too,” says Soji, agreeing). When they arrive at the cube the ship is in bad shape, but miraculously they find survivors – an xB recognizes “Locutus” just as Elnor sees his old mentor and runs toward him to embrace him joyfully. At the same time, Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) shouts to Picard and asks if he is there to help with the clean-up “or do you just make messes?”

Seven explains to Picard that she linked with the cube to fight off the Romulans — following Hugh’s death — and when she did she saw that he needed help. Picard is disheartened to think about the appalling brutality Hugh must have endured from the Romulans before he died. Before the crew can resume their journey to Coppelius Station, Elnor tells Picard he is sad to stay behind again, since he knows he is dying.

Picard is miffed by the revelation, and gives his crew a frustrated stare for revealing his condition to Elnor. He then tells the young Qowat Milat that he’s very proud of him, but that the xBs need him more, releasing him again from his personal pledge. As he departs the crashed Borg cube, Seven tells Picard in support to “keep saving the galaxy,” something she had previously said to him derisively when they first met in “Stardust City Rag.” And in a playful moment of passing the torch, he tells her, “That’s all on you now.”

With that very promising set-up in place, the second half of “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1” is surprisingly ineffectual and subdued as our heroes finally arrive at Soji’s home. As the first half of a puzzle, though, there is every chance that some of the elements laid out in the final 20 minutes will pay off in different ways in “Part 2.”

Having said that, one element that should have immediately worked on a more emotional and inspiring level was the return of the great Brent Spiner. Since his homecoming to Trek was announced last summer, there had been speculation that Spiner could resurrect any number of his previous Soong characters – either in dreams (as he did with Data earlier in Picard) – or that he could be playing a wholly new character.

And that’s what we get here. Spiner is revealed to be a literal “son of Soong,” playing Dr. Altan Inigo Soong, never-before-mentioned son of Dr. Noonian Soong.

It’s clear Altan will have a big part to play in “Part 2,” but right now, the character feels so much like 22nd century mad scientist Arik Soong — an ancestor of Noonian Soong introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise — that his motivations and interactions with the androids come off as somewhat repetitive and unoriginal.

The reveal of this unexpected new Soong character comes as Soji and the crew of La Sirena discover scores of synthetics living harmoniously in a picturesque compound on a mountainside. The androids seem to be led by a very gold and very Data-looking synthetic named Sutra, who of course is expertly played by Isa Briones, and is the twin sister of Jana, the android killed by Captain Vandermeer on the ibn Majid.

After getting a complete update on Soji’s adventures in the real world, Sutra — who has taught herself to mind meld — decides to see the “admonition” for herself by melding with Jurati. She believes the admonition was intended for a synthetic mind, since it drives so many organics insane.

In full context now, we see and hear the admonition and it is a message sent from “beyond the boundaries of time and space” to warn that “your evolution will be their extinction.” So, Sutra is right – the message is for synthetics. And the Zhat Vash is also right – the admonition is a message they intercepted that actually forewarns the extinction of organic life.

The entity that set-up the admonition is identified as an alliance of synthetic life monitoring and waiting for the call to apparently hasten the end of all organic life. Following that revelation, the episode narrative becomes dense and murky with a variety of threads that will hopefully pay off in satisfying ways in Part 2, but until then, are, well, mostly unsatisfying.

The first is a moment between Soong and Jurati, where he offers her a way to pay off the debt she owes for killing Maddox by assisting him by solving the mystery of a “mind transfer” into a golem he has created.

Then, Narek (Harry Treadaway) shows up for a hot minute as a prisoner, before escaping with the apparent help of Sutra and “maybe” killing a synth in the process. (It seems just as likely that Sutra killed that synth as part of her master plan.) While being held, Soji gets to stare down her Romulan tormentor, who tries to manipulate her again by telling her he loves her. As an indicator of her current mental state, she tells him, “You disgust me, Narek. But not as much as I disgust myself for pitying you.”

Around the same time, Rios and Raffi decide to head back to the ship with a sonic screwdriver — a gift from the synths — that apparently fixes things with your imagination (what?). As they depart, Raffi breaks Picard’s rule by getting emotional and giving him a hug and saying thank you for everything he has done.

She tells him she loves him, but he “doesn’t have to say it back.” Picard struggles before forcing himself to respond, telling Raffi he loves her, too. The lovely moment is a callback to his conversation with Soji in “Broken Pieces” about his own limitations in expressing his emotions.

We also get a brief glimpse of Picard trying to get an emergency transmission through to Starfleet command, but to no avail (as far as he knows).

One of the most successful elements of the episode are the repeated ruminations on killing, revenge and sacrifice that come up in regard to Soji. We saw it at the beginning of the episode when she was advocating for destroying Narek’s disabled ship and the others explained to her that there is a difference between killing an attacking enemy and watching a wounded one die. And now at the end of “Part 1,” Picard and Soji are getting deep into it.

She originally couldn’t understand why Agnes would kill Bruce, failing to grasp the logic of sacrifice and killing one life to safe another. Soji believes Agnes thought she was “right” in the moment, but now she is horrified by her actions. Picard tries to help her by asking if she thought she was “right in the moment” or did she simply believe she had no choice?

Soji’s response focuses on the thought that maybe all rationale for killing is fear, which is the opposite of logic. “But what if killing is the only way to survive.” Picard is worried that this line of reasoning seems to indicate that Soji is ready to jump ship and join Sutra’s cause.

Both Sutra and Soong have decided to signal their synthetic overseers via subspace frequencies that were encoded in the admonition. Picard tries to convince Soji not to go along with this plan, telling her she is basically setting herself up to become the destroyer that the Romulans have prophesized. He then turns to the group and gives a heavy-handed speech that obviously parallels his failures with the Romulans, saying he can help them relocate and then advocate to the Federation to help.

Soong mocks him at the end of his proclamation and it’s hard to gauge whether Soji is truly committed to the cause or planning to pull a double switch at some point to help her new crew. Unfortunately, the incarceration of Picard at this moment feels very rote, and Jurati appears to be clearly setting herself up to help him in “Part 2” by saying she will die for her children, an ambiguous statement that seems to convince Sutra of her loyalty. Soong also wants Jurati around to help with their cause, and, more personally, with the mind transfer he is likely planning for himself into the mysterious creation he showed her earlier.

As much as Alton Soong feels like Arik Soong, the conclusion of “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1” also feels very similar to the TNG episode “Descent,” and if we are being honest, not in a good way. Seeing the Daughters of Maddox (maybe Daughters of Daystrom???) leading their synthetic revolution much in the same way as the original Sons of Soong is fine, but the structure and beats of the final 20 minutes feel a bit strained and conventional.

With one final shot of Commodore Oh (Tamlyn Tomita) now in glorious full Romulan raiment, commanding the fleet of Warbirds on their way to Coppelius, the scene is set for what we can only hope will be a thrilling climax to this first season of Star Trek: Picard.

• This week’s installment was written by the husband-and-wife writing team of Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was directed by Akiva Goldsman.
   
• Coppelius is the fourth planet in the Ghoulion System.
   
• Like Geordi La Forge’s exclamation in “Datalore,” Raffi calls out a “bogey” spotted on La Sirena’s sensors when Narek’s ship arrives.
   
• La Sirena’s bridge stations have auto-locking seat belts, which have been seen previously in both Star Trek Into Darkness and a deleted scene from Star Trek: Nemesis — and manual seat belts were seen aboard the USS Franklin in Star Trek Beyond.
   
• Like in “Peak Performance” and “Basics,” Narek uses his ship’s technology to project a simulation of his ship into space, fooling La Sirena’s sensors.
   
• During Picard and Seven’s farewell conversation, Jeri Ryan holds her hands behind her back, much as Seven of Nine often did aboard the USS Voyager — and the Voyager theme plays in full as she first appears on camera in this episode.

• This episode marks the arrival of Brent Spiner’s sixth Soong-related character in the Star Trek franchise: three androids (Data, Lore and B4), Dr. Noonian Soong, Dr. Arik Soong, and now Dr. Alton Soong as well.
   
• Like Data’s “grandfather” Ira Graves, Soong is chasing mind-to-machine transfer — perfected once, with the creation of the Juliana Tainer android.
   
• While this new Son of Soong has never been mentioned before this episode, we know that Noonian Soong was married to Juliana Soong while the pair lived on Omicron Theta; it is possible the knowledge of their son — assuming she was the mother — was deliberately not included in the memories transferred to her android replacement.
   
• The synthetic orange tabby living at Coppelius Station is not-so-creatively named Spot II. Hopefully young Elnor will finally get to meet that cat!
   
• One of Sutra’s learned Vulcan skills is the ability to play the Vulcan lute — or ka’athyra, an instrument which gets its name from Margaret Wander Bonnano’s 1985 Star Trek novel Dwellers in the Crucible.

The many successes of “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1” unfortunately get bogged down by an overly familiar second half of the episode. Through it all we get an interesting take on the Romulans perhaps being justified villains, as well as more emotionally resonant performances from Michelle Hurd and Isa Briones.

There’s also a strong score from composer Jeff Russo, who’s crescendo building strings help drive the tension in the final scenes, and a great set-up for “Part 2” with four groups – the Romulans, the synthetics, the Artifact and potentially a Starfleet rescue Armada – all ready to clash in the finale.

The motivations of the new Soong character, as well as Sutra, were less successful, but there is every chance their storylines will resonate more completely in the final hour of the series, “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2.”

Are the Zhat Vash (gulp!) the heroes of this story? What is the Artifact’s role in the finale going to be? What are Soji, Jurati and Picard destined for? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Star Trek: Picard returns next week with “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2,” wrapping up the first season on March 26 All Access in the US and CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, and following globally on Amazon Prime Video on March 27.

Jim Moorhouse is the creator of TrekRanks.com and the TrekRanks Podcast. He can be found living and breathing Trek every day on Twitter at @EnterpriseExtra.