Refresh your memory before you warp to Season 3.
The first animated Star Trek series since Star Trek: The Animated Series, and the franchise’s first comedy, Star Trek: Lower Decks follows the lower-ranking officers aboard a starship rather than its main bridge crew. The show’s combination of humor, sci-fi action, and drama makes Star Trek: Lower Decks a noteworthy addition to the Trek universe – and these qualities only grow throughout Season 2. Since Season 3 is coming out on August 25, it’s the perfect time to look back on some of the biggest developments from the last 10 episodes.
Season 2 begins in the emotional fallout of the Season 1 finale. Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is still upset about Boimler’s (Jack Quaid) transfer to the more prestigious U.S.S. Titan commanded by William Riker (Jonathan Frakes). She and Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) are working together ostensibly as an unstoppable mother/daughter team, but Commander Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) feels sidelined and wants them to admit they hate working together. Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) has changed in certain ways after getting a new implant, and Tendi (Noël Wells) worries he will no longer want to be her friend. She decides he has a brain degeneration disease and that she must cure him. While on a mission, Ransom gains godlike powers that the bridge crew and the rest of the away team must contend with. Tendi confesses her insecurity, and Rutherford promises he will always want to be her friend. Mariner and the captain decide they work better apart. On the Titan, a terrified Boimler encounters one intergalactic battle after another.
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Boimler’s former bunk and shift duties are assigned to Jet Manhaver (Marcus Henderson), whom Mariner decides to dislike. During a dangerous mission, Mariner and Jet realize that competing for the group’s leadership is only putting them in more danger – in the end, asking Tendi and Rutherford for their opinions is actually what saves them. Boimler’s time on the Titan turns out to be short-lived. He saves his away team when they’ve been cornered by Pakleds on mining planet Karzill IV by using a mining drill to successfully compensate for the disruption field that was preventing the Titan from beaming them up. However, the disruption field’s engagement with the Titan’s transporter created a transporter clone of Boimler. Riker is happy they’re ok, but says only one of them can remain aboard the Titan. Boimler volunteers to return to the Cerritos. He's distraught when his clone offers no opposition, but when Boimler returns, Mariner is thrilled to see him, and Jet is effectively – to his annoyance – shifted out of the group.
The show continues to explore different dynamics among the friend group when Dr. T’Ana (Gillian Vigman) sends Tendi on a mission to collect a family heirloom, and Mariner goes along. They’re excited for a girls’ trip until they break the heirloom. The more they try to fix the problem, the more they realize they know nothing about each other. However, the mission ends up bringing them closer together, and in the end it was the box the heirloom came in and not the heirloom itself that the doctor wanted. This episode also features a cameo from Tom Paris (Robert Duncan) of Voyager fame, whom Boimler is desperate to meet. Rutherford is shocked to see that Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore), who sacrificed his life at the end of season 1 to save him and the Cerritos, is somehow back from the dead. He can’t stop wondering how this happened; however, when Shax finally tells him, the truth (which the audience never learns) scars him forever.
In, 'Mugato, Gumato,' the Cerritos tangles with a Ferengi poaching operation threatening a population of Mugatos. Boimler and Rutherford hear a rumor that Mariner is special ops, and she needs to assure them she started the rumor to make them stop being afraid of her. When the Ferengi capture the whole landing party except Boimler and Rutherford, the two ensigns rescue everyone by showing the Ferengi that they’d get more profit by running a Mugato nature reserve instead. The following episode finds the Cerritos crew unable to attend a party on a nearby starbase because the Doopler (Tom Kenny) aboard their ship starts duplicating and won’t stop. Mariner and Boimler try to crash the party independently with Boimler posing as his clone. Mariner, who can’t get in because she’s not on the list, finally admits how hurt she was that Boimler accepted promotion to the Titan. They go to a bar where it turns out Kirk and Spock once drank. Tendi and Rutherford struggle to complete a model ship, and Rutherford worries that he’s not as smart as he was before he lost his memories. Tendi assures him that in the past they never finished the ship either. When the bridge crew finally tries to attend the party, they’re not admitted because the Cerritos is only a “California class” ship. They end up at the same bar as Mariner and Boimler.
The season’s main conflict surrounds the Pakleds. In Episode 6, Captain Freeman visits Pakled Planet to negotiate a peace treaty. A Pakled named Rumdar (Rich Fulcher) boards the ship and requests asylum; however, he’s obviously a spy. Since it’s “anomaly consolidation day,” the lower deck crew is collecting and cataloging unwanted artifacts aboard the ship. A group of ensigns with command ambitions recruits Boimler; however, when one of the artifacts turns Tendi into a giant scorpion, Boimler realizes there’s a difference between pretense toward leadership and actually leading. The Pakleds reveal that they had no intention of negotiating peace, that Rumdar is a spy, and that they plan to bomb earth using materials from Karzill IV, where they almost killed Boimler while he was serving on the Titan. The Pakleds, thinking themselves victorious, release the crew of the Cerritos, and Freeman tells Starfleet about the Pakled plans.
In the next episode, Mariner and Boimler are stranded on a deserted planet while transporting an evil, sentient computer, putting their friendship to the test as the computer pits them against each other. The Queen of Hesperia (June Diane Raphael) (a Ren-Faire type planet), mother of Chief Engineer Billups (Paul Sheer), pays a visit to the Cerritos, asking that Billups repair her ship. Billups renounced his claim to the throne to be in Starfleet. After he repairs his mother’s ship, part of it appears to explode, and the Hysperians tell him his mother is dead – meaning he must now resign from Starfleet and perform the Royal Copulation (as members of the royal house ascend the throne once they lose their virginity). However, it turns out that the queen is alive, and that she faked her death so that he would resign starfleet, perform the Royal Copulation, and have no choice but to ascend the throne. Luckily, however, Billups escapes the episode with his virginity intact, and Boimler tricks the supercomputer into helping him and Mariner escape the planet.
Another unexpected twist arrives in I, Excretus. Consultant Shari yn Yem (Lennon Parham) arrives on the Cerritos to run holopod drills in which the bridge crew and the lower deckers swap duties. While everyone else fails their simulations, Boimler becomes increasingly adept at a drill about overcoming the Borg. Yem reveals that the drills’ only purpose was to preserve her job; other starship crews passed them easily, so she rigged the drills and targeted the ship she thought most likely to fail. However, she can’t submit the failed scores while Boimler is still in the holopod. Freeman orders him to stay in the drill, then takes Yem to the bridge and flies the starship into dangerous anomalies so that Yem can see how adept the crew is. The following peril horrifies Yem, and she finally agrees not to submit the scores if it means they will let her leave. In the simulation, the Borg absorbs Boimler and he becomes Excretus of Borg. He’s soon rescued from the holopod and returns to his normal self.
The Pakleds return for 'Wej Duj,' arguably the best episode of the season. The episode follows the lower decks crew aboard three ships (or, in Klingon, Wej Duj), The Cerritos, as it enjoys a period of R&R, the Kingon ship Che’ta’, and the Vulcan cruiser Sh’Vhal. On the Che’ta’, lower decker Ma’ah (Jon Curry) is excited to serve on the bridge – he arrives to find Captain Dorg (Colton Dunn) killing Commander Togg (Robin Atkin Downes) for undermining him. On the Sh’Vhal, vulcan T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) discovers a possible nearby anomaly, though her crewmembers object to her acting on instinct rather than logic. Ma’ah impresses Dorg by agreeing with sentiments that the Kingon empire has fallen into dishonor. A Pakled message is broadcast to the ship; Dorg appoints Ma’ah his second in command and explains that he has given the Pakleds Kingon weapons to destabilize the quadrant. The Cerritos receives a notification about anomalous energy nearby. It turns out the anomaly picked up by T’Lyn and the Cerritos was a Varuvian bomb the Pakleds used on an asteroid. The Pakled and Kingon ship ban together and turn against the Cerritos. Ma’ah is disturbed by Dorg’s desire to destroy the Federation through the Pakleds. Just as things are looking hopeless for the Cerritos, the Sh’Val arrives; however, the Pakled’s Kingon weaponry threatens their shields. T’Lyn suggests that the captain use her other project: an untested regenerative shield. Though skeptical, the Captain implements her program, and the shields rise to over 100%. Ma’ah and Dorg fight, and Ma’ah impales Dorg. Now captain, Ma’ah commands the ship to return to the Kingon homeworld. The Che’ta’ retreats, and the Cerritos and Sh’Vhal force the Pakled vessel to flee. On the Sh’Vhal, the Captain acknowledges T’Lyn’s contribution, but says he’s sending her to enlist in Starfleet, where he thinks her hotheadedness will make her fit in better.
In the final episode, Freeman is offered a promotion, putting the crew on edge. They are assigned to support the Archimedes on a first contact mission to the Laap system; however, a plasma wave hits the Archimedes and sends it adrift on a collision course with the Laaperian homeworld. An asteroid belt separates the two ships, and radiolytic isotopes in the belts would disable the Cerritos if they touched its shields. Rutherford proposes removing the ship’s outer hull, which engineering corroborates would work. This results in a giant spacewalk; however, one panel still remains when the ship enters the debris. With the help of two beluga whales, Boimler swims to the end of a hydrotube deep within the ship to remove the hull panel from inside. Mariner almost drifts out into space, but is rescued at the last minute by her rival Jen. The Cerritos grabs the Archimedes in its tractor beam right as it’s entering the atmosphere of the Laaperian homeworld. Captain Freeman decides that, even if the Cerritos is only a California class ship, she loves it too much to leave, and that she will refuse the promotion. T'Ana tells Tendi that she's moving her to senior science officer training. A team from Starfleet Command then requests to come aboard. Freeman thinks this is about her promotion, and when they beam onto the ship, she tells them she has no intention of leaving the Cerritos. However, the Starfleet officers inform her that they’re actually there to arrest her for the destruction of Pakled Planet. To everyone’s astonishment, they lead her away in handcuffs.
Season 3 will likely pick up right after this cliffhanger. What was mostly an episodic series now displays signs of a cross-season story arc involving an intergalactic conflict not just with the Pakleds, but also with the Klingons. Since the Kingons are a classic Star Trek enemy, it would be exciting to see them in a more villainous role again. However, only Season 3 can tell for certain where or not this will be the case.
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