Boimler has a girlfriend who’s shockingly out of his league. Mariner, who initially doesn’t believe she exists, thinks its shockingly implausible that a real life human woman would be so amazing and pick a guy like Boimler. Boimler resents her skepticism, but ironically spirals into self doubt when he sees how amazing her ex is compared to him.
Meanwhile, Tendi and Rutherford are in awe over the much more prestigious USS Vancouver compared to the Cerritos and are made to compete against each other for one of the new T88.
1. Mariner KNOWS it’s too good to be true
Mariner’s skepticism that Boimler could get with somebody as amazing as Brinson is as understandable as it is mean. For the entire episode, she is convinced that Barb is “a little too great” to the point that she comes across as unhinged when trying to investigate what could possibly be wrong with her.
It does come from a good place, as well as a traumatic event on a different ship, and a desire to protect her less experienced friend from a similar fate. Yet it really shows the lack of respect Mainer has for Boimler that Barb’s attraction is a “red flag.”
2. Everyone loves Bradworth
As offended as Boimler is about Mainrer’s paranoia, the show cleverly shows that he is just as surprised by the situation as she is when he begins to freak out about how attractive her ex-boyfriend Jet is, as Brad (short for Bradworth apparently) desperately spirals into his own insecurity and feelings of inadequacy.
Thankfully, Barb and Mariner believe in Boimler more than he does himself. Barb reassures him that she likes him for who he is, and for all of Mariner’s cruel skepticism, she believes that Boimler will find Barbs out eventually, when she is still convinced she is a parasite.
3. Even saving an entire planet is up for debate
Captain Freeman is once again shown to be regarded as second rate relative to her peers when she is interacting with the Captain of the USS Vancouver whose smug tone leaves Freeman with a sour expression. Yet as always, Freeman and her crew show that even on a second rate ship like the Cerritos, there’s important work to be done. Or in this case, convincing a bunch of representatives that the Federation should in fact safely implode the moon in order to save the planet from total annihilation.
The reasons vary from religious reasons, to crops yields, to ocean tides, but even after all of these problems are resolved, there is one voice of dissent that insists his moon will be destroyed due to the debris from the other moon. Hilariously, with seconds to spare, Captain Freeman realizes that.
4. Rutherford and Tendi aren’t similar, they’re the exact same
Rutherford and Tendi, even after the fifth episode, remain eerily similar in their mutual interests and unrelenting enthusiasm. They are in total agreement on how much more awesome the Vancouver is compared to the Cerritos.
Even when they are pitted against one another for a T88, they still react with the exact same competitive intensity towards one another and insist that their department needs the T88 more. Even after Lieutenant Docent informs them that, since they tied, they’ll both be transferred to the Vancouver, they both come to the same conclusion that they’d rather stay on the Cerritos. This is clearly done on purpose, especially at the end of the episode when they both reveal they’ve stolen a duffle bag worth of T88s, but I hope they differentiate the two characters more by the end of the season
5. What’s Really Hard to Believe
The interesting twist at the end of the plot is that, like Mariner, Barb just can’t believe Boimler and Mariner are such good friends. This contrast between the two characters carries the show and highlights the personality of each of them for the audience.
But Mariner’s paranoia is the first time we see action based on their friendship so far. The show has slowly and successfully built their relationship in front of us from antagonism to toleration to a genuine friendship, all while both of them have hardly said a nice thing to the other.
