The beloved bald captain of the USS Enterprise, Jean-Luc Picard hated retirement in The Next Generation’s finale, All Good Things. However, Paramount’s recent series Star Trek: Picard shows that retirement is so nice, Jean-Luc can do it twice!
Jean-Luc Picard retires from Starfleet again
Between the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Picard, the lovable captain retired from Starfleet to work on his vineyard. However, as is the woe of the protagonist, the old, bald man was forced to return to the spacebound military.
Since that season, the captain has remained a member of Starfleet, at least on screen. But it seems that he has handed in his retirement notice yet again in a new canon comic book set after the events of Season 2.
Published by IDW, the new comic Stargazer shows Jean-Luc returning to his Château after the death of Q. Despite being an Admiral, he explains that he’s an “old relic wheeled around to bless starships and bore cadets to death with tired stories."
The character’s first retirement was attributed to Starfleet’s change in morals, a side effect of modern Trek’s edgy nature. However, the character’s latest retirement is due to him wanting to explore the stars again.
This is a very standard trope for Star Trek. For example, the very first movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture saw Admiral Kirk making any attempt possible to get back in the chair of The Enterprise.
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A fresh new start for Season 3?
The news of Picard’s second retirement is more set up for season 3 of Star Trek: Picard. With the new season aiming to tell a different, more Trek-style story, it’s necessary to make some distance from the last two seasons.
Picard’s retirement does this quite nicely. It takes the character away from the ballooning cast of the last two seasons and resets the field for an all-new story. Hopefully, everything works out quite well.
The first trailer for Season 3 certainly seems to be benefiting from this new direction. We just hope that Picard will act more like himself and less like plain-old Patrick Stewart in the new season.