‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Recap – ‘wej Duj’

Written by Shae Rufe

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 209 of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’.
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Have you ever wondered what happens with the Lower Deckers on other ships? Weirdly enough, I never thought about it until this episode. Like I just assumed everything was the same and yet I couldn’t be more wrong. The Cerritos isn’t the only ship in the universe, but it is my second favorite. The entire crew of the ship has the next twelve hours off as they enter an extended warp. So, what are they going to do? Well, Tendi and Dr. T’Ana are going to rock climb in the holodeck, while Rutherford and Shaxs do pottery, and Mariner is off to spend mother/daughter time with Captain Freeman. And Boimler? Well, he doesn’t seem to have a command buddy, which means he needs to try and find one. And by try and find one a command buddy, he’s going to try and share a command buddy with everyone else.
 
He slips into the holodeck with T’Ana and Tendi, while they’re rock climbing. Of course, it’s Boims, so he flies in with rocket boots that promptly fail. We’re the safety settings on? Maybe? Maybe not. When that fails, he tries with Rutherford and Shaxs… and then mentions something he shouldn’t, sending Shaxs into a PTSD spiral of violence. Rutherford is able to hold Shaxs off while Boimler leaves the room. Maybe things would be better with Mariner and her mom, right? Wrong! Turns out they’re fighting it out… literally. Boimler leaves as quick as he can, only to run into Ransom and some other command crew members. Boimler has a choice, in this turbolift. He could just not say anything, but he chose to lie. Ransom and his group of friends are all from Hawaii… and so Boimler says he is too, just to be accepted. It does get him an invite to surfing in a holodeck though, so maybe it’s worth it.

What about other ships? Klingons don’t have to deal with horrible days on the ship, right? Even their Lower Decks have more fun! Oh, if only that were true. Turns out that their days can be just as terrible. On a Klingon Bird of Prey, one of the Lower Decks crew gets the chance to be up on the bridge for the day, and he’s hoping to become a member of command. As he arrives however, the first officer is killed by the captain for plotting a mutiny. The captain then declares that whoever does the best job that day will become his new first officer. This Warrior of a Lower Decker does his best to impress the captain all day, but time and time again it seems like it’s not enough. It is, however, and he’s named the first officer he wanted to be, that’s when he learns some very unsettling news. This Klingon Captain has been helping the Pakleds by supplying them bombs.

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We also got to see what life is like on a Vulcan ship for the Lower Deckers there. One Vulcan officer in particular has enhanced the range distance of their scanners and managed to pick up a strange anomaly. She brings it to the attention of her captain and is basically told to not do more than her job. She’s given more meditations for her insubordination. That doesn’t stop her from doing more research about the anomaly. At the same time, the Cerritos also detected an anomaly. They pull out of warp to find a Pakled ship and the Klingon Bird of Prey, and they decide the Pakleds are attacking the Klingons, so they fire on the Pakleds. The Klingons and the Pakleds fire on the Cerritos, and it doesn’t look good. It’s all hands on deck! Which… leads to some interesting discoveries. Boimler lets it out that he’s not from Hawaii, and then slowly everyone else confessed they aren’t from Hawaii either. Even Ransom confessed that he’s actually from the moon. And then the other two happen to be from moons as well! Just like that? They’re all back to being the best of buddies while Boimler is left out, once again.

When all seems lost, because the Cerritos looks like they might not be able to pull out of this one, the Vulcan ship shows up just in time to block the Cerritos from the oncoming fire of two ships. They’re almost not able to withstand it either. But, just remember, young Vulcans, rules are made to be broken. Our troublesome Vulcan has made a modification to the shields that would strengthen them. She begs the captain to implement it before they’re blown up. Thankfully, she’s amazing and it boosts their shields beyond 100%. While all this is going down, the captain on the Klingon ship is fighting his newly minted first officer. The first officer finds it offensive to have Pakleds fighting their fight, but also ruining peace isn’t something the Klingon High Council would approve of. They fight on the bridge and our new first officer defeats the captain and easily takes his place. They flee and leave the Vulcans and the Cerritos to handle the Pakleds. That’s not a problem for their combined firepower since they do some damage and get the Pakleds to turn tail and warp. Captain Freeman offers to thank them, and it goes over as well as you can imagine. Oh, and our brave Vulcan who saved everyone? She’s being transferred to Starfleet.

At least the Borg Lower Decks are pretty calm.

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