Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Episode 6 – "The Bounty"Thankfully, the return of Data (Brent Spiner) in Star Trek: Picard season 3 doesn't hurt or invalidate the beloved android's prior deaths. In Picard season 3, episode 6, "The Bounty," Captain Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd), and Captain Worf (Michael Dorn) penetrated Daystrom Station to find a new human-like synthetic Soong android is the black site's A.I. security system. What's more, the Soong android is a hybrid containing aspects of Dr. Altan Soong, Lore, B-4, Lal, and "a great deal of Data."
Commander Data died in Star Trek: Nemesis when he sacrificed himself to save the USS Enterprise-E from Shinzon's (Tom Hardy) destructive thelaron weapon. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) mourned Data for years, but he got the chance to say goodbye to his android friend at the end of Star Trek: Picard season 1. After Jean-Luc himself died but was resurrected in a synthetic body, Picard connected with a remaining aspect of Data's personality. Data gladly faced death as the last and most important stage of his quest to understand humanity, and he and Picard said their goodbyes. Or so it seemed until Star Trek: Picard season 3.
