TNG Season 5 Episode 23: I Borg

t’s not a person damn it, it’s a Borg! Except it is a person, even though it’s a Borg, it transpires. A single-minded Captain Picard is determined to introduce a virus-like problem into the collective using a teenaged Borg an Enterprise away team has rescued from a crash site as the conduit. Guinan, even being one of the last remnants of a race all but wiped out by the Borg, disagrees and convinces the Captain to actually talk to “Hugh.”
This one is a wonderfully written and executed episode which lays a path for later developments – Borg can indeed become individuals again.

Plot

The crew discover a wrecked Borg scout ship with a single survivor: a young Borg drone. Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) insists on treating the surviving Borg despite the concerns of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). On Picard's orders, the drone is confined and monitored by security forces at all times and is prevented from contacting the Borg Collective. Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) assist Crusher in bringing the Borg back to health. As they come to understand the workings of the Borg, La Forge and Data devise an idea of using the Borg drone as a weapon of mass destruction. By implanting an unsolvable geometric formula into his mind and returning him to the Collective, the formula should rapidly spread (similar to a computer virus) and disable the Borg. Crusher is aghast at this suggestion, considering it equivalent to genocide, while Picard and the other senior crew deliberate on the ethics of this plan.
The Borg drone initially calls himself "Third of Five", but ends up referring to and understanding himself as "Hugh" – the name given to him by La Forge. Hugh discusses how the Borg only wish to learn about other cultures through assimilation, but La Forge counters this argument, discussing aspects of individuality that make them human and unique. In further debates, La Forge finds himself becoming a friend to Hugh, and begins to doubt his previous idea. This is further complicated when Hugh shows elements of individualism. The crew now debate whether it is appropriate to sacrifice one individual to protect the majority, though Picard is still insistent on destroying the Collective. Crusher and La Forge arrange to have Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who has a similar loathing for the Borg because they destroyed her homeworld, speak to Hugh.
She finds Hugh to be not a mindless drone but a confused young man, and she agrees Hugh is no longer a Borg. Guinan convinces Picard to meet with Hugh, as well, and Picard comes to the same conclusion, in part because Hugh refers to himself as "I" instead of the Borg's collective "we" during their discussion. Picard abandons the proposed plan and instead offers Hugh asylum within the Federation. Hugh expresses enthusiasm at the prospect of remaining with La Forge but ultimately refuses, recognizing that the Borg will still come looking for him. He offers to be returned to the crash site, where he will be found and re-assimilated by the Borg. Picard hopes that, once Hugh is reconnected, the sense of individualism Hugh has learned will spread throughout the Collective. La Forge accompanies Hugh to the crash site and, from a safe distance, watches the Borg recover him. Just as the Borg transport out, Hugh turns to give La Forge a parting glance.