WHY WE LIKE IT: We're not made of stone!
WHY WE DON'T: More Twaining?!
REVIEW: Nick Locarno has always been his worst enemy. He never took responsibility for my descendant Josh Albert's death and now he's turned his bitterness at Starfleet kicking him out of the Academy into the quadrant's first independent fleet - Nova Fleet, after Nova Squadron - made up of all the Lower Decks crews and ships he turned/stole across the season. And now he's gone and picked up Mariner, thinking that she would be on his side. Nice place to stick a flashback that prologues The First Duty, with Wil Wheaton and Shannon Fill reprising their roles as Wesley and Sito (and Mariner appearing once have been a "Boimler"). In any case, Mariner is NOT on board with his plan to counter any resistance from the powers who were robbed with a Genesis Device. So that gag on in the Ferengi Lower Decks sequence WASN'T just a gag - it pays off in spades here.
I want to start about all the good stuff in the episode, but I do want to acknowledge its weaknesses - it's not flawless, even if you can chalk up these criticisms to nitpicking. The one that actually bugs me is that the previous episode made a big thing out of missing ex-Starfleet officers. They don't figure here, nor are they mentioned. A smaller mistake is that the "nebula" that's referenced at the end is an ion storm - get your pseudo-science straight! Is that all? Yeah, that's all! Let's keep going!
Mariner will get lots of heroic action, kicking all opposition in the face, stealing the Genesis Device, and hijacking a Sabrerunner-class ship (production details reveals this as the stolen USS Passaro, of a type smaller than the Steamrunner-class, which half-explains how Mariner can fly it without a crew. All the ships in Nova Fleet are relatively small. She flies it through epic space-scapes and when you think she'll fire on Ferengi pursuers, she instead tries to convince them to back off using the Rules of Acquisition. We had an episode on Ferenginar this season to remind us of this connection to the galaxy's merchants, and in fact, there are lots of Season 4 episodes paying off (Orion, Livik, and ugh, yeah, the Mark Twain holo-program).
Meanwhile, Captain Freeman decides to rescue her daughter against Starfleet orders, and though we've seen the bit where a captain gives the crew permission to object to such a mission - and they all join them - before, it still gets me right in the ticker. The Cerritos has no chance of piercing Locarno's Trynar shield, but Tendi thinks she can borrow an Orion warship from her sister, the result of which is her personnal sacrifice - she will leave at the end of the episode, a bit like Worf in Redemption, and though T'Lyn seems a ready replacement, you can be sure it's not permanent given the epilogue's promise as she "goes pirate" (it's all in the eyes). D'Erica cheats them by giving them a broken warship, but in an exciting sequence that has Boimler play acting captain and throwing the giant warship at the shield, and Freeman riding in aboard her Captain's Yacht. It's about at this point that we start getting Star Trek II's score, foreshadowing the explosion of the Genesis Device (with similar effects). No hypocrisy on my part: While I was down on ST: Picard "homaging" ST II-IV elements, Lower Decks is MADE for it. It's humor, but here its poignancy too, comes from nostalgic referencing. Even the closing credits feel like those of the movies, and half-expected the cast to sign their names with a stylus.
Locarno's megalomania makes his fleet abandon him in those final minutes - he dares give orders to his "coalition of equals" - and confronts Mariner alone. She's beamed off the ship seconds from the explosion, and to her credit, tries to get him to beam aboard the rescue ship, but he won't listen. He thinks he can disarm the bomb. He can, but finds the Ferengi installed a paywall on its deactivation. For my latinum, that's the best gag OF THE SEASON. Not sure about calling your new Genesis Planet Locarno (let's not give criminals immortality), but I get why, and I bet we get a Planet of the Locarnos episode next year. Tendi's dismissal is also well played - more feels - with the Admiral's "your lieutenant" faking you out that perhaps Mariner was going to get yet another promotion for her actions (would she want it, this time?). Sweet goodbyes ensue. And a sweet seasonal goodbye to you too, Lower Decks.
LESSON: Ego will get you every time.
REWATCHABILITY - High: Exciting, rousing, poignant, funny... this is the best Lower Decks finale yet.
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