Prodigy’s Shocking Ending Connects (Nearly) All of Modern Star Trek Canon
Let’s dig into the memory banks.
The biggest Star Trek binge in franchise history has arrived. Netflix dropped all 20 episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 on July 1, which led to a shocking and surprisingly open-ended finale. In addition to a time travel plot and a guest character who connects Prodigy to several other eras of Star Trek, the last episode, “Ouroboros Part II,” also syncs up with several major plot points from Star Trek: Picard. In fact, Prodigy’s finale helps make various aspects of Picard more explicable in the tapestry of modern Trek.
Here’s what the final moments of Prodigy mean for the Star Trek timeline, and how the show is set up for a hypothetical Season 3. Spoilers ahead.
Prodigy Season 2’s ending sets up Picard Season 1
The new crew of yet another new starship.
After defeating the Loom and Asencia, Gwyn, Rok, Dal, Jankom, Zero, Ma’jel, and Murf all find themselves back at Starfleet Academy. Finally, it looks like Star Trek’s Boxcar Children will get their happy ending, but no. It’s First Contact Day 2385, and as everyone in Starfleet celebrates, longtime fans know what’s coming. In Picard Season 1, April 5, 2385, is when Synths go rogue and attack the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars. We saw this from a few different points of view in Picard, but the focus was on how it impacted Jean-Luc Picard. Here we see it from the perspective of the Protostar crew, various young people at Starfleet Academy, and the inner circle of Starfleet Command itself.
This leads to a few interesting and revealing references. Because of the Synth Attack, Admiral Jellico (Ronny Cox) makes it clear that “Starfleet Command has been asked to scale back and cease all exploration and focus on protecting our own planetary citizens.” This means the Romulan Evacuation has been canceled. As established in Picard, Jean-Luc was spearheading the Evacuation and resigned from Starfleet when it shut down. Now we know that the person who told Picard to quit was Jellico. In the Prodigy finale, Jellico says, “I have already informed Admiral Picard. He didn’t take it well, to say the least.”
This revelation is ironic. In The Next Generation's two-parter, “Chain of Command,” it was Jellico who took command of the Enterprise-D while Picard was on a secret mission. While Jellico isn’t technically a bad officer, the fact that he accepted Picard’s resignation in 2385 only adds to how furious Jean-Luc must have been.
Starfleet uniforms, combadges, and more
The uniform style seen in Picard Season 1 has been retroactively explained in the Prodigy Season 2 finale.
The impending Romulan Supernova doesn't originate with Picard Season 1 but the first J.J. Abrams reboot movie, where Spock was trying to help the Romulans avert the catastrophe and ultimately traveled back into an alternate timeline. In Prodigy, as Janeway, Jellico, and other Starfleet admirals discuss the future, there’s a mix of different uniform styles on display. Janeway is wearing the 2385-style uniform that Picard and Raffi wore in Picard Season 1’s flashbacks, while other characters wear a style closer to what we’ve seen throughout Prodigy. Jellico even lampshades the conflicting styles in this era, saying, “We don’t even have enough combadges to upgrade half the fleet.” These are small details, but this scene does a lot of work to tie Prodigy, Picard, and the Abrams films together.
The Crusher brothers meet
Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) and his father, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), in Picard Season 3.
Before everything goes sideways on Mars, we see Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) visit his mom, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), on Earth, where Beverly introduces Wesley to his then-new brother, Jack Crusher. There, in 2385, Jack is a toddler, but by 2401, he’ll be in his twenties and become an essential part of Picard Season 3.
“We wanted Wesley to meet Jack,” co-showrunner Kevin Hageman told Inverse before Prodigy Season 2’s launch. “At the time, the [Picard producers] were curious what we were doing with Wesley.”
Will there be a Star Trek: Prodigy Season 3?
The USS Prodigy has arrived.
The final moments of Prodigy Season 2 reveal that the crew of the destroyed Protostar is being given another ship of the same class dubbed the USS Prodigy. This is notable because while the series is called Prodigy, the Season 2 finale is the first time the word references a starship.
Janeway gives everyone “field commissions,” making them all defacto Starfleet officers, and sends the crew on a mission of exploration despite Starfleet’s concerns. She explains: “As the Federation’s borders are receding, it's of the utmost importance that you are a beacon of light to those beyond our reach.”
There’s also an unexpected switch in commanding officer. Since Season 1, Dal (Brett Gray) has acted as captain, but he willingly hands command over to Gwyn (Ella Purnell). So as Prodigy Season 2 ends, it’s Gwyn who bodly leads the crew to where no one has gone before.
There are currently no concrete plans for Prodigy Season 3. In conversation with Inverse, the Hageman brothers emphasized that there’s “a lot of dreaming,” though it seems possible the Prodigy’s adventures could continue in another iteration of Trek beyond this series. But as of right now, the crew has been given a massive reset button and the chance to adventure across the Final Frontier.
