After re-settling into its typical groove within the wake of a status-quo-resetting first few episodes, this season of Star Trek: Lower Decks remains to be making an attempt to grapple with a number of the belief points between its ensign heroes. How effectively do they actually know one another? Why do all of them have the weirdest methods of processing their friendships within the first place? Well, it seems it’s a matter of expectations and an entire lot of attractive Mugato.

Episode 4 of the Paramount+ animated sequence, “Mugato, Gumato,” is called for the furry alien species on the coronary heart of the unique Trek episode “A Private Little War,” and moreover nobody’s capability to say the phrase “Mugato” in that episode the identical manner twice. It appears like a sister episode to final week’s “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris,” in that it rights a uncommon mistaken of Lower Decks’ first season by splitting aside the same old Mariner/Boimler, Tendi/Rutherford pairings to really discover the relationships between these pals. This time, it’s a trio reasonably than a duo—though the episode primarily will get Boimler and Rutherford interacting collectively (Tendi is off searching medical sufferers to scan in her personal subplot), their teamup is framed via the lens of each of their confused relationships with Mariner herself.

Pairing Boimler with Rutherford is attention-grabbing. Last week centered on the distinct contrasts between the varieties of individuals Tendi and Mariner are, and strengthened their pairing by having them come collectively over the few issues they do join on. Boimler and Rutherford, in the meantime, are virtually too related, they’re loveably unassuming nerds who rejoice within the mundane and overthink each little factor… the latter of which places “Mugto, Gumato” into motion. It’s a basic comedy setup of mistaken identification with a Star Trek twist: overhearing a rumor from the Cerritos’ bartender that Mariner may very well be considered one of Starfleet’s infamously not-quite-that-secretive secret black ops brokers, Boimler and Rutherford start to panic that they don’t know their “friend” as a lot as they thought they did. They’re uncertain of whether or not or not Mariner is hanging out with them as a result of she likes them or as a result of they’re helpful idiots for a kickass cowl story.

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This is all compounded when the trio is distributed on an away staff mission with Lieutenant Shaxs to the planet Frylon IV, to crack down on a bunch of Ferengi illegally buying and selling Mugato horns in Federation territory. Even these play into the episode’s bigger theme of assumptions not at all times being what they appear. When the away staff beams all the way down to the planet, it’s not the usually Quark-ian money-hungry businessmen of Ferenginar they encounter—as we might assume, because it’s turn out to be the default characterization of the Ferengi—however as a substitute villainous huntsmen extra according to their unique appearances in The Next Generation (as Mariner ultimately needles them, asking in the event that they’re some type of “Last Outpost” style holdouts). A number of electrified whips and a Mugato containment failure later, the whole lot goes to hell fairly shortly—and Boimler and Rutherford discover themselves reduce off from the remainder of the group. Hunted by Mugato and Ferengi alike, they seemingly glimpse what they thought was Mariner attacking Shaxs, believing her Black Ops programming had kicked in.

Wandering and avoiding having to bear witness to Mugato mating season (and, uh, Mugato voyeur season apparently), Boimler and Rutherford’s worst impulses feed off one another. They proceed to spiral of their assumptions about Mariner being a hardcore elite murderer utilizing their “friendship” as a canopy, and we begin to be taught why pairing them up could not a nice concept. When Mariner breaks out of the Frylon jungle to search out the duo, the episode climaxes with a second of realization: she began the rumor. She needed to maintain weirdoes away, her deep-seated belief points about connecting with folks intimately clashing together with her want to only be a little bit of a lone wolf.

Although she’s harm that Boimler and Rutherford would assume she’s not their good friend anyway, all of it goes to point out that—as we realized with Tendi final week— Lower Decks nonetheless has a strategy to go to point out these folks really rising and creating as pals. Much of final season hinged on the belief that our ensigns have been simply pals for all times, that all of them knew one another fairly effectively, and obtained on of their normal pairings effectively sufficient. But pulling on that thread a bit creates some attention-grabbing battle factors and texture to their bond with one another—and serves as a reminder that the seemingly fast status-quo reversion that kicked this season off isn’t going to be with out some bumps alongside the best way.

Everything, in fact, is solved by folks really speaking to one another as a substitute of creating assumptions. Her friendship with Boimler and Rutherford repaired, Mariner lets the boys step into the highlight and save the day in opposition to the Ferengi, who it seems are far more keen to turn out to be what we usually count on of Ferengi than they first let on. Our heroes have a semblance of understanding between one another again, and Frylon IV now has a Ferengi-operated wildlife reserve/worthwhile present store enterprise. All’s effectively that ends effectively as normal on Lower Decks—however so long as the present retains highlighting the challenges of watching these characters really develop past our first impressions of them, there’ll at all times be extra attention-grabbing conflicts to return. That’s the best way the Gumato horn crumbles, in spite of everything.

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