Mariner and Tendi team up for a mission to retrieve an heirloom for Dr. T’Ana. Meanwhile, the Cerritos is visited by Lieutenant Tom Paris, much to the excitement of Boimler, who is hoping to meet him. While all this happens, Rutherford is haunted by the mystery surrounding the reappearance of a familiar presence on the Cerritos.
1. Girl’s Trip
For the first time ever we get an episode that features Tendi and Mariner in the main plot together while Boimler and Rutherford have their own separate subplots together. We see how Mariner’s rule breaking tendencies affect the more well behaved Tendi. While Boimler confronts this head on only to be ignored by Mariner, Tendi is more of a people pleaser and goes along with antics.
This leads to some tension in the mission as Mariner’s curiosity towards Dr. T’Ana’s family heirloom nd accidently breaks it. D’vana tries to keep a positive attitude and approach the situation with solutions but eventually she and Mariner start fighting, they both begin to wonder if they are even friends.
2. Not Recognised
Boilmer isn’t in the Computer’s Authorised personnel. Since the Paklads attacked they had to up the security on the Cerritos. He now can’t access the food, the automatic doors don’t open to him, and the computer regards his voice as “Unauthorized Personnel”. Despite it being done by an Artificial Intelligence it’s hard for Boimler not to take it personally.
Desperate to meet one of his Voyager heroes, Tom Paris, he climbs into the vaults with his plate. Willing to do whatever it takes to get it signed. After an ordeal in the ventilators and nauseous gases that made him talk to his plate; Boimler finally falls out of the vent only to get beaten up by Tom Paris. Boimler doesn’t mind as Tom offers to take him out to dinner to apologise. He thinks the black eye is a better souvenir but like the good “Trekkie” that he is, he brings the plate to dinner as well.
3. Shax is Back!?!
In this episode, we see that Shax is somehow alive. No explanation given, only that Bridge crew always come back to life. This is simply unacceptable to Rutherford who states that as an engineer, it is his job to know the unknowable. The problem is that it is rude of him to ask and Senior Bridge crew often don’t bother to tell ensigns what they’re up to. After seeing someone else test the waters and get lambasted for asking.
Sam does his best to put the thought out of his mind but his constant speculation and endless possibilities are shown to him and the audience. When he finally finds Shax, he charges into the closing elevator and confesses that he feels responsible for him dying and that he needs to know how he came back. Shax explains that they only don’t tell the Lower Deck crew because the horrors of conquering death can’t be unheard once they are told. Rutherford think that’s an easy price to pay, but the fade out in sound and the horrified face slowly being tinted in darkness argues differently.
4. “Family Heirloom”
The central McGuffin of the episode is the family heirloom that Dr. T’Ana asked Tendi to get her. Thanks to Mariner’s encouragement, they soon learn that the “family heirloom” is a libido post. Mariner starts playing with it, until she realizes how gross it is and abruptly drops it.
Mariner tries to hustle their way into getting enough money to be able to pay for repairs. After this fails, they then go to an Orion pirate outpost where Tendi tries to convince her cousin to help them repair the heirloom. When this ends up not working D’vana decides to confess and Mariner says that’s a terrible idea and deliberately crashes the ship. While Mariner tells a skeptical Ransom that a bee was in the ship, Dr. T’Ana, like every cat, wants nothing to do with what’s in the box and only cares about the box itself.
5. Glaring Oversights
What is really remarkable is how much they manage to insert characterization by having the “girls trip” premise. We learn that Mariner likes bad boys and all bad people across the gender spectrum. We learn that Tendi has the awesomest nickname, “Mistress of The Winter Constellations”. Mariner also tells Tendi that she tries to keep things vague with people because they always get promoted and leave. That way she doesn’t open up only for them to leave. Tendi tells Mariner that she’s always busy trying to make others happy, and doesn’t open up much herself. Tendi then adds that she knows her better than Rutherford now, even if she didn’t know her first name in the beginning of the episode.
