The plot of the third season of “Star Trek: Picard” is a little twisty. An evil villain named Vadic (Amanda Plummer) is trying to apprehend Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers), the secret love child of Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden). Vadic is a Changeling, a shape-shifting species last seen on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” and she is in league with a mysterious boss whose identity isn’t revealed until late in the series.
Ro appears halfway through the season to investigate a shadowy conspiracy, and reveals that something horrible is afoot. She eventually sacrifices herself to disable a potentially compromised pursuit vessel so that Picard’s ship, the Titan-A, can flee with Jack on board.
There is a lot of paranoia and mystery for the first part of the third “Picard” season, and Matalas wanted a surprise cameo to up the stakes … and also, likely, to push a few nostalgic buttons. He figured the return of Ro was perfect, as she was one of the few characters who left Picard on a sour note. Matalas said:
“This story was always … the pitch that I had for it was, ‘How great would it be to do a paranoia thriller with someone that you have all this baggage with?’ The only way to be sure you’re sitting across from the person that you hope you’re sitting across from is to get through your trauma with them. I thought that if we could pull that off, we’d have a really interesting episode of television. But that required us getting Michelle Forbes and convincing the studio and the network it was the right idea, and educating a lot of people on who Ro Laren [was].”
Luckily, they both agreed.