Star Trek's Patrick Stewart opens up about that "intense" goodbye in Picard finale

Star Trek: Picard spoilers for season one finale episode 'Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2'follow.

Star Trek: Picard's season one finale brought any number of shocks and twists when it debuted on Thursday (March 26) – but it was a very emotional moment with a key character from The Next Generation that delivered one of the episode's stand-out scenes.

In the episode, Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) helped defend the homeworld of an advanced race of androids from the Romulan armada, but later died after succumbing to his neurological illness.

Later, his consciousness ended up in a quantum, sort-of after-life, and presented Picard with the opportunity to have a poignant heart-to-heart with his old friend Data (Brent Spiner).

Related: Picard isn't the best thing about Star Trek: Picard

While we've already seen Brent Spiner return once in Picard, playing a human relation of his iconic character Data in last week's episode, the finale re-introduced us to Data himself, after he sacrificed his life to save Picard's in 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis and allowed Picard to relinquish his guilt and confess his love for his friend.

Talking about the scene with The Hollywood Reporter, Stewart said it was "the highlight of the season" for him and added that filming it was a "very, very intense experience".

"I remember the writers worked on that up to the evening before we shot it. And I suggested one or two little tweaks to the script. And [the writers] got it so right," Stewart explained.

"I was looking forward to shooting it so very much, because I adore working with Brent. But the content of this scene was so serious, and so important to the characters — and the affection and mutual respect — was so clear and so strong."

Related:Star Trek: Picard season 2 – everything you need to know

"Picard knew that this would probably be the last time that he was ever with [Data] and we — we had to address that," he continued.

"The guilt Picard felt over Data's loss at the beginning of the season, that the two characters never had a proper goodbye, or resolution, in [Nemesis]... We took almost the entire day, not quite, as I recall, [to shoot the scene], but it was a very, very intense experience."

After his post-consciousness meeting with Data, Picard was then resurrected and woke up in a new "golem" body that Data's 'brother' Dr Altan Soong (Spiner) had been working on, setting the scene for an already-confirmed season 2.

But while the finer details of what's in store for the new episodes are being kept secret for now, Stewart did confirm that work has begun on the new season already.

"I am having a big meeting — an all-day meeting — with all of the writing team and I might have some feeling about the way things are going to go," he teased.

Star Trek: Picard airs on CBS All Access in the US and Amazon Prime internationally, including the UK.

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