What causes the friction between Riker and Picard on Star Trek: Picard?

Captain Will Riker and Admiral Jean-Luc Picard have some upcoming tensions to deal with on season three of Star Trek: Picard.

The post contains spoilers for season 3, episode 3, “Disengage.” 

In the most recent episode of Star Trek: Picard, “Disengage,” Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) discoverd that he not only has a son, but Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) has kept the information from him for at least two decades. So it won’t come as a big shock to learn that he’s going to have an issue relating to Jack (Ed Speleers), according to Terry Matalas’ conversation with Collider.

It’s not that Picard will reject his son, but he’s certainly not going to be making any broad efforts to bridge the gap between them. And that is the beginning of the dissension between him and Captain Riker (Jonathan Frakes). Here Riker and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) have lost a son and would give anything to be able to connect with him again, and Picard has been presented that opportunity and isn’t seeing it for what it is. So look for strong words between the pair beginning in the next episode.

Riker and Picard aren’t the only ones feeling the tension on upcoming episodes of Star Trek: Picard

Riker made it evident in the first episode of the season that Troi wouldn’t exactly miss his presence, and we saw in an upcoming preview that she says something ot him about dropping everything and flying halfway across the galaxy to help Picard. While the might be an irritant, it’s not the underlying factor that has caused issues between the pair.

According to Matalas, the couple haven’t really dealt with the loss of their son.

"“And then when we went deeper, we started to ask ourselves, what does it mean for Deanna and Will? That is the hardest thing any human could go through. It was losing a child… It’s almost impossible for couples to remain together after that. Then we started to ask ourselves, what would that mean for Deanna who could feel everyone’s grief, and how would they try and solve that? We look back at Season 1, and it was almost as if they were overcompensating for their grief. So we wondered if that’s what was going on there.”"

The good news is that Imzadi isn’t going anywhere as Matalas added that they want to get the pair back to how they were when the fans fell in love with them.

"“They’re so wonderful, both Marina [Sirtis] and Jonathan, that we wanted to take a moment, understand who they are, get them back to how we fell in love with them to begin with, and then see them joke in the same way that Marina and Jonathan do, and fall in love with them all over again.”"

So we know basically everyone has some type of conflict in the upcoming episodes—Riker and PIcard, Picard and Dr. Crusher, and Riker and Troi. But we also know these people love one another so there’s little doubt the disagreements will be resolved.