WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard Season 2, Episode 4, "Watcher," streaming now on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Picard features the long-awaited return of Guinan, Jean-Luc Picard's old friend and the proprietor of Ten Forward, the lounge on the USS Enterprise-D. Following Picard leaving active duty from Starfleet years later, Guinan has since opened up her own bar in Los Angeles, resurfacing in the Picard Season 2 premiere to reconnect with the venerable Starfleet admiral. However, as the season continues and takes its story to the past, a plot hole of sorts surrounding Guinan has taken shape when Picard reunites with her at an earlier point in the timeline.
After Q completely alters the course of galactic history by tampering with an event in 2024 to set off a cataclysmic chain reaction, Picard leads his friends to restore the timeline by traveling back to the point of the temporal divergence. Learning that there is an enigmatic figure known as the Watcher active on Earth capable of helping them stop Q, Picard follows a set coordinates presumably pinpointing the Watcher's location. Instead, the admiral finds the 2024 iteration of Ten Forward in Los Angeles, still run by a younger Guinan. Complications ensue when Guinan does not recognize Picard at all and mistakes him for a potential looter.
This is a bit of a discrepancy as Picard and Guinan had met earlier in her life on Earth during a time travel adventure in the two-part Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow." Picard and the Enterprise traveled back to San Francisco in the late 19th century when an archaeological excavation discovered Data's head buried underneath the city, dating centuries back in the past. Upon investigating what exactly occurred to their android crew mate, the Enterprise found Guinan living among the humans at that time and having struck up a friendship with Mark Twain.
This incident marked Guinan's first meeting with many of her friends on the Enterprise, privately admitting to Picard that she had been aware of this introduction throughout her time on the starship centuries later. Guinan's keen memory of the event led her to provide cryptic advice to Picard in ensuring their activities in the 19th century did not further alter the events of history. Once the resulting mission was successful and mystery about Data's head was solved, Guinan was able to come clean with her friends about her side of the story.
In the 2024 Guinan's defense, she is both undergoing an immense amount of stress and finds herself at an existential crossroads. Faced with humanity's prejudices and inability to fend for itself in the face of mounting societal and environmental pressures, Picard finds Guinan seemingly giving up on Earth for good and closing up Ten Forward to head for a more harmonious and healthy location elsewhere. Picard not only interrupts this but is significantly older than when the two met in the 19th century, further throwing off Guinan from recognizing him.
2024 marks the second occasion that Picard and Guinan have crossed paths long before they formally struck up their friendship on the Enterprise during the TNG era. Given Q's tampering with history, it is unclear if their 19th century meeting remains intact, with Guinan's confusion potentially signaling additional temporal impact than initially believed. And with the world beginning to slide into totalitarian-fueled division and strife, it's up to Picard to remind his old friend that humanity is capable of positive growth and change before the idyllic utopia of the Federation takes shape.
Created by Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer and Alex Kurtzman, Star Trek: Picard releases new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.