Boimler, in a desperate attempt to find a “bridge buddy,” pretends to be from Hawaii in order to speed time with a bridge member. Meanwhile, we see what it’s like to be a lower deck crewmate on Vulcan and Klingon starships.
1. Bridge Buddies
In preparation for a 12 hour warp, Boimler plans on hanging out with Rutherford, Tendi, and Mariner. Much to his dismay, he realizes that all three of his friends have made prior commitments to hang out with a member of the bridge crew.
Rutherford is already double booked, trying Any Billups’s soup recipe, then taking a pottering class with Lieutenant Shax. Tendi has been invited by Dr. D’Vana to go to the holodeck with her and Captain Freeman made plans with Mariner to spend “mother/daughter time” together, which Mariner claims she can’t get out of due to her mom knowing she has no work for the next twelve hours.
This leaves Boimler with nobody to hang out with but, worse than that, it leaves him with little opportunity to get promoted as he lacks the same level of rapport that his fellow ensigns have.
2. Boimler’s Buddiless
In an effort to network and not spend the entire warp on his own, Boimler tries to tag along to his friends’ meetups with their respective commanding officers. First Boimler tries to go to the pottery class and accidentally triggers Shax’s PTSD in a failed attempt to make small talk.
Worse than that, Boimler walks into Mariner and Freeman’s “mother/daughter time” and walks into a hectic training exercise where they are both shouting about oversharing intimate details about one another’s personal information about their menstruation cycles.
Needless to say, Boimler is unsuccessful in hanging out with his fellow ensign’s bridge buddies. Fortunately, he runs into Jack Ransom in a turbolift who’s talking about living in Hawaii.
3. No one’s From Hawaii
In a moment of desperation, Boimler tells Ransom that he is also from Hawaii and gets invited into the holodeck to go to the beach. Rutherford being the supportive and honest person that he is, recommends that Boimler comes clean and tell Ransom the truth. Boimler being the reluctant sycophant that he is, ignores his friend’s good advice.
During the climax of the episode, Boimler blurts out that he doesn’t want to die in a Hawaiian shirt after he, Ransom and the other crewmates coming from the beech party in the holodeck. Eventually, everyone confesses to Ransom that they aren’t from Hawaii either. Ransom then confesses that he isn’t even from Hawaii. Then he confesses that his former commander was from Hawaii and he did exactly what Boimler just did back when he was an Ensign.
4. Vulcan Lower Decks
While Boimler’s rather low stakes aim of passing the warp time with a high ranking officer from The Cerritos unravels, we gat a rare look into what its like to be in the lower decks in two of the most iconic humanoid species in Star Trek. On the Vulcan cruiser, Sh’vhal, T’Lyn is being stifled by her fellow Vulcans who think she is acting irrationally, which by Vulcan standards is merely taking the initiative in fulfilling her tasks to a higher standard that is required of her.
This reliability on “her gut” is considered particularly troubling for the Vulcan’s who are prone to overemphasize the virtue of logic over feelings and instincts. Although this rebellious behavior by T’Lyn ends up being crucial for the survival of The Cerritos and Sh’vhal, she is assigned to work directly for the Federation, where “gut feelings” are more encouraged.
5. Klingon Lower Decks
An equally interesting subplot unfolds on a Klingon Bird-of-Prey IKS Che’ta’. Ma’ah hopes to impress Captain Dorg because he expects his second in command, Commander Togg, to come to blows with the captain sooner rather than later. After Ma’ah watch Dorg kill Togg, he offers to dispose of the body and throughout the episode does various degrading jobs akin to what the lower deckers on The Cerritos are often forced to do.
Eventually Ma’ah gets what he wants but begins to second guess his Captain after he undermines many tenants in Klingon ideology in his attempt to work with the Pakleds and dismantle the Klingon Empire’s treaty with the Federation of planets. Unlike T’Lyn, Ma’ah’s challenge to his captain’s authority is very much in keeping with Klingon culture and he is rewarded with the position of captain after besting Dorg in one on one combat.
