Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Finale Packed a Year of Hell Into 22 Minutes

Star Trek loves itself an explosive storyline or six, season finale or in any other case, trendy Trek or traditional. Lower Decks is no exception to this, but when its first season finale stageed a type of risk unexpected at that level in the present, its second season goes even larger right into a full-on catastrophe film epic—but it surely by no means loses sight of the issues that matter to the present most.

“First First Contact,” because the title implies, kicks issues off in suitably Lower Decks vogue, even when the stakes are somewhat increased than standard already. In gentle of her intensive work making an attempt to quell the Federation’s skirmishes with the Pakleds, Captain Freeman has been tasked with immediately attending a first contact mission for as soon as, regardless of the Cerritos’ standard standing as a second contact ship. Tasked with helping the united statesS. Archimedes—captained by none apart from The Next Generation’s former ensign of huge goals, Sonya Gomez (voiced by the returning Lycia Naff, no much less!), from “Q Who”—it seems Carol isn’t simply getting into the large leagues for this mission. As Mariner manages to overhear whereas smuggling some contraband off-Starbase, it may very well be Captain Freeman’s final aboard the Cerritos: not solely is she being promoted, Starfleet isn’t letting her deliver her bridge crew together with her.

At first, this looks like it’s going to turn out to be the large battle of the episode. Mariner, harm that her mom has stored this information a secret from her after all of the bonding they’ve accomplished this season, does what Mariner does finest: throws a match, dropping the information to Shaxs, Billups, and Ransom within the course of, to get them harm and dissatisfied, and frustrate her mom within the course of. Time and time once more, we’ve seen Mariner lash out when she’s personally aggrieved like this, but it surely’s clear this time that as a lot as her mom is harm by her actions right here, deep down it’s Mariner who’s essentially the most distraught about her mom’s upcoming exit from her day-to-day life.

As if this private disaster wasn’t sufficient, it’s from right here that “First First Contact” actually begins pushing our heroes to, and past, their limits. Although tensions are excessive among the many senior workers due to Freeman’s upcoming departure, the whole lot is shipped right into a tailspin when the Archimedes’ mission begins going very improper. When a freak plasma discharge from the Laaperian system’s solar breaks up a planetoid and sends ionized particles slamming into the Archimedes as each it and the Cerritos enter the system, the previous ship is become a disabled, spinning asteroid uncontrollably hammering its method to the Laap system’s solely habited world—and at first nobody on the Cerritos is ready to know what to do. With the planetoid now become a sea of asteroid particles that’s nonetheless ionized, the ship can’t fly by way of to help the Archimedes with out the magnetized particles slamming into its personal hull. Everything smashes collectively: Mariner and Freeman’s battle, the frustrations among the many bridge crew at massive, even our different ensigns (notably Tendi, who having obtained a request from Dr. T’Ana for an impromptu dialog in her workplace, spends a lot of the episode satisfied she’s about to be re-assigned off-ship), and all of a sudden Lower Decks finds itself in a catastrophe epic that it’s by no means accomplished earlier than, ripped proper out of previous Trek epics like Voyager’s “Year of Hell” or Generation’s notorious Enterprise crash.

After “wej Duj” masterfully expanded the world Lower Decks inhabits final week, “First First Contact” appears like one other stage up for the present too. Not solely is it essentially the most explosive the present has been since final season’s finale and the cinematic pastiche of “Crisis Point”—delivering visuals and scale which are a few of the collection’ most luxurious to date—it’s additionally the primary time a risk on the collection has escalated on this method. It begins off with the interpersonal strife by Mariner’s mean-spirited actions, then strikes to the Cerritos itself being in peril, to the lives of a complete different crew—and a complete planet!—being put into their fingers. And whereas it’s nice to see the present swing large with a movie-worthy catastrophe epic within the house of a half-hour animated present (like I stated, Lower Decks has hardly ever appeared this nice, and that’s even past the final bump-up in high quality this season has seen due to Titmouse’s work), what makes “First First Contact” actually, correctly work is that it by no means trades this spectacle for the core that issues most to Lower Decks.

This total season from the get-go has been concerning the thought of belief—not simply in trusting your self, as Mariner realized throughout season one specifically—however the confidence that is available in placing that belief within the folks round you, {that a} battle shared is a battle overcome. That runs all through the very coronary heart of this finale, too. After one other explosive argument as the 2 attempt to discover a method for one or the opposite to heroically sacrifice themselves to avoid wasting the Archimedes, Freeman begs Mariner to let different folks get near her, saying that she will be able to’t clear up the issues of the day by pretending to have Kirk-ian machismo when the reality is that she simply doesn’t have the boldness of that type of Trek hero whereas she retains pushing different folks away. That realization is the catalyst that brings the crew all collectively to avoid wasting the Archimedes solely by leaning on one another: it takes the entire crew to enact Rutherford’s dangerous plan to provide the Cerritos a path by way of the asteroid area by stripping its personal main hull away, making it extraordinarily susceptible within the course of. Mariner has to work with huffy Andorian Jen—who she’s joked off-and-on about hating all season—to assist Ransom manually information the susceptible ship by way of hazard. Even within the lighthearted enjoyable of the collection lastly paying off on its long-running gag concerning the existence of Cetacean Ops on Starfleet vessels (right here actually run by two pleasant dolphins in uniform), there’s this theme of teamwork and communal belief being valued over the actions of the person, when Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford principally scream “Go talk to your Mom, dammit!” at Mariner when she tries to be the one to heroically and dangerously danger her life to swim by way of the Ops’ waterworks and unlock the ultimate hull plate.

All our characters have realized this season about pushing one another, trusting in one another to get the job accomplished, and, crucially, letting one another know all of them have one another’s backs and don’t have to shoulder battle, professionally or personally, alone, is dropped at the fore in some extremely dazzling vogue, as ensign and bridge crew alike come collectively to maintain the Cerritos in (largely) one piece, and save the Archimedes earlier than sure doom. They solely accomplish that as a result of they stand collectively as an alternative of, as Mariner tried to on the episode’s opening, pushing folks amethod, and everyone seems to be rewarded for that act of compassion. Mariner’s friendships together with her closest allies and her mom are re-emboldened just by her acknowledging her vulnerability to them (and in flip permitting her to open herself as much as Jen after pushing her away all season). Tendi decides, at Rutherford’s behest, to belief in her capability and face Dr. T’Ana head on, solely to seek out that she’s really being promoted to a science officer observe. Rutherford in flip trusts her, letting go of his doubts of re-losing his reminiscences after the tip of season one (even when he does uncover a snippet of a a lot bigger thriller within the course of), and even Boimler, who arguably will get the least to do that episode, remains to be the one which will get to step up and be the heroic Starfleet officer he’s all the time been able to being.

And but, regardless of this excessive thematic catharsis and a job nicely accomplished by our heroes, what makes “First First Contact” even stronger is that, whereas it takes time to relaxation some laurels upon our heroes, it acknowledges in that coming into a better set of stakes, issues can’t simply magically be solved with a single act of unity. With the Archimedes saved and the Laaperians efficiently contacted, aboard the Cerritos we discover that Starfleet is under no circumstances pleased with Captain Freeman—now, as an alternative of being promoted off the Cerritos, she’s arrested and escorted off it, accused of being the instigator of a terror assault on the Pakled homeworld alongside the Klingon extremists we met final week… leaving us on the present’s first large step into one other Trek staple: the “To Be Continued” season finale cliffhanger!

Now that Lower Decks has realized this lesson nonetheless, in some methods there’s no going again for the collection. Now that our heroes have realized to face collectively, they should put that lesson into follow in a world a lot larger, and far more harmful, than the sorts of threats they’ve already been coping with. That goes double when considered one of their very own is threatened by the hands of the animus of a Starfleet that doesn’t actually fairly perceive what it has in a crew as hardy and now as united because the Cerritos workforce.

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