Caution: spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Picard's season 2 finale
Star Trek: Picard season 2 reveals Wesley Crusher resumed his transcendental journey and became a guardian of space and time, dispatching supervisors like Tallinn to protect key events in history.
It's no exaggeration to say Wesley Crusher was the punchline of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Having a cocky young genius aboard Jean-Luc Picard's Enterprise went down like a cup of cold Earl Grey, with Wil Wheaton's character notoriously attracting backlash during Star Trek: The Next Generation's early seasons. Said backlash was unfairly aimed toward Wheaton himself, when the actual issue was how Wesley was being written and presented. Crusher's legacy suffered further after an acrimonious exit stemming from a clash between Wheaton and specific Star Trek: The Next Generation producers.
Following some time away in the aftermath of his Star Trek: The Next Generation departure, Wil Wheaton has more recently gravitated back into the franchise fold, even presenting Star Trek: Picard's post-show, The Ready Room. The closing chapter of Star Trek: Picard season 2 finally bites the bullet and propels Wheaton back into the fictional realm. No single scene can totally erase the errors Star Trek: The Next Generation made with Wesley Crusher, but Wheaton's Star Trek: Picard cameo certainly takes a big step in that direction. Becoming a mysterious, kindhearted timeline watcher helping other lost souls who find themselves lacking meaning and direction (like Kore) not only pays off Wesley's Star Trek: The Next Generation ending, but provides a fitting final note to his overall journey - a tangible outcome to his natural genius and lessons learned in Starfleet.
Wesley Crusher's return effectively retcons Star Trek: Nemesis, which implied the controversial youngster had resumed his Starfleet career. Boomeranging right back to Starfleet service represented a disappointing end compared to walking the lines between reality with The Traveler. By reverting back to Wesley's original ending from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek: Picard fixes that error, restoring Wesley Crusher's mystical significance rather than leaving him as just another Starfleet officer we never heard from again.
Another major Wesley Crusher fix in Star Trek: Picard concerns his improved personality. On the Enterprise-D, Wesley proved incredibly difficult to like, but when he tells Kore about how a misplaced joke once changed a century's worth of history - all while grimacing in awkwardness - that's Wil Wheaton's affable charm poking through. Star Trek: The Next Generation rarely allowed Wesley such moments of brevity, and it's a shame it took transforming into an interdimensional patrolman to coax those qualities out.
When Star Trek closure he deserves.