Star Trek's Gates McFadden Understands The Mixed Reaction To Keeping Jack A Secret From Picard

In the span between "Star Trek: Nemesis" in 2002 and the most recent season of "Star Trek: Picard," several dramatic events took place. It seems that Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) finally took a chance on their will-they-won't-they flirtation that was never fully explored during their seven seasons together on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." About 20 years before the events of "Picard," the couple took a chance and had a single night of wild passion. Immediately afterward, however, they both decided that it had always been a bad idea. A love affair, a marriage, or any kind of relationship likely wouldn't work. Perhaps predictably, the night of passion begat a child. 

Jean-Luc, however, had such a busy and dangerous job — captaining a starship constantly puts one's life at risk and takes up every waking hour — that Dr. Crusher chose to never tell him about their child. She gave birth to her son away from Jean-Luc, named him Jack after her late first husband, and the two of them began a new life together. By the events of "Picard," Jack (Ed Speleers) has been living with Dr. Crusher aboard a very tiny ship called the Elios, secretly smuggling medical supplies to non-Federation worlds desperately in need of them. They had both become proficient in sweet-talking criminals and would offer them weapons in exchange for access to areas where people may be sick or injured. 

Jack was in his early 20s at this point, and Picard never knew about him. Did Beverly make the right choice?

In a recent interview with Variety, McFadden talked about Dr. Crusher's motivations for keeping Jack a secret, and said she understood how either choice could be supported or rejected.

One of Dr. Crusher's most notable features on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was her unflappable ethics. She lived by a very strict moral code, and wouldn't deviate even in extreme situations. In the episode "The High Ground" (January 29, 1990), Dr. Crusher was kidnapped by terrorists who insisted she treat their internal injuries sustained from using contraband transporters. She cures them, naturally, but yells repeatedly that what her kidnappers are doing is wholly wrong. She begins to sympathize with them by the end, but only to understand their grievances. She still objects entirely to their means, as well as to Starfleet's combat-forward solutions. 

Following her own path has always been of paramount importance to the character. When McFadden was asked about Dr. Crusher's resolve and individuality, particularly as it pertains to Jack and her decision to keep his existence away from Picard, she said the following: 

"It's interesting because she didn't choose to have an abortion. She really wanted to be a mother. And if you've just been recently listening to Picard's deepest thoughts — 'no, I would never want a baby, absolutely no, no, no' — I think you have to base it on what she knew then. And I think she hopes that later the child would reunite with Picard, and it's a shock when her son doesn't want to. And perhaps she had an instinct, when the child was crying all the time at night, that this child needed protection, and was perhaps a little different."

Whether or not a viewer agrees is, of course, a different matter.

The trick to playing a morally resolute character is that one has to wholly understand and support their decisions, even if you disagree with them. McFadden seems to have encountered critics who felt that Dr. Crusher's decision to keep Jack hidden from his biological father was a bad one. Surely Jean-Luc Picard should be given the opportunity to address his fatherhood on his own terms. McFadden, of course, had to see things from Dr. Crusher's perspective. She acknowledged the clash, saying: 

"Obviously, there's going to be people who disagree with [her decision]; I understand that. I just feel also people should then try to focus on maybe the good of why that happened." 

Given the wild world of "Star Trek," and the various extreme situations that Jean-Luc Picard often found himself embroiled in, Dr. Crusher's decision makes perfect sense. As a parent, she was able to bond with Jack on her own terms and didn't have to concern herself with the stress of her child's father being in constant danger. Additionally, Picard was typically very aloof. As seen in "Star Trek: Picard," a romantic relationship between Jean-Luc and Beverly was always destined to fall apart, so one can see quite easily why she made the decisions she did. 

McFadden has said she would like to continue playing the version of Dr. Crusher that the showrunners of "Picard" had invented. Given her own exciting life and resolve "Star Trek: Blazin' Bev" would certainly be a sight to behold.