Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x04 "Something Borrowed, Something Green"

T’Lyn was such a wild woman this week. Admiring Nya’al’s appearance, telling Tendi that what matters is being a loyal friend, saying she was alarmed by D’Erika’s combat abilities and then tossing that report out of the ship with a flimsy justification. Even Mariner said so. OUT OF CONTROL I TELL YOU!

She has lost ALL control eyebrow

Loved this one, prob my favorite of the season so far. We've had Tendi's attitude towards her own Orion heritage hanging over her character this entire show (plus a touch of SNW), so it's fun to finally dive deeper. I like how T'lyn was used here-- basically as a manifestation of Tendi's friends prying into her personal life. I wasn't expecting Mariner's main role this episode to be running gag, but hey, it worked.

The plot resolution (at least on the character arc side) wasn't super surprising, but I think it works and goes beyond where we last left the thread of Tendi's pirate identity in season 3. On DS9 it felt like she just saw herself as a trained pirate trying to be a scientist, here we have the gang affirming that the scientist is Tendi's real self. For those of you reading queer allegories onto Tendi, this episode just makes them all the deeper.

The Brutherford B-plot was incredibly silly, even as LD plots go. It's not deep, but I think it was just audaciously funny enough to work. I was initially skeptical of how they just yadda-yadda'd past the guys' conflict resolution on the holodeck. I think it works because it heightens captain Freeman's (and the audience's) disbelief that they'd expect their petty Seinfeld shenanigans would translate to any useful diplomatic measures.

Other notes:

The big guy from the B-plot friggin' threw Shaxs. might be the first time we've seen Shaxs succumb to the so-called Worf effect
T'lyn seemed to accept a group hug at the end with nary a raised eyebrow. So un-Vulcan!
Tendi's great-grandmother Astrea had the same title Mistress of the Winter Constellations, and if the bouncer's reaction is any indication it's related to D'vana being her family's prime--does that imply Astrea also had a similar path in life before ending up on the science ship D'Var?

I agree that Mariner's role in the episode was nothing but a running gag, but I have to point out what an exceptionally well written running gag it was, both in terms of her character and her character development over the course of the series.

Mariner's behavior in this episode tells us two things about her. First, she's the type of person who can get stabbed three times in a single day and (mostly) shrug it off. This isn't really a surprise. She's has always been both tough and resourceful, but she's also impulsive and emotional which too often results in her messing things up. Not this time though, and that's the second thing the episode tells us. Mariner is maturing. In past seasons a knife in her shoulder would have resulted in either a fight or a great deal of grandstanding about what a badass she is for not caring that she got stabbed, but not this time. This time Mariner knows that she's only here to support her friend.

Mariner is the running gag in this episode because now, perhaps for the first time, she can handle being the running gag. She knows that this adventure is about Tendi, and she's not going to derail it over a little thing like getting stabbed three times.

This was actually possibly my favourite episode this season.

I loved T'Lyn loosening up and allowing herself to be real friends with Tendi and Mariner.
I loved the modern extrapolation of the Orion world building from Enterprise. The nightclub and the BDSM pheromone dungeon were both hilarious and believably what Orions would be doing a couple hundred years later.
I loved the Syndicate crime lords being like "also, we want you to get your shit out of the garage."
While I thought the girl's story line was way more fun than the boy's story line, that was because the boy's story line was par for the course good Lower Decks content, while the girl's story line was top shelf. Boimler and Rutherford both playing Mark Twain was hilarious.

BDSM pheromone dungeon

In the subtitles it was spelled "scentuary". Neat little pun.
- Yeah, I wouldn't have noticed the pun without reading the subtitles.

I laughed out loud when that alien ate their bonsai. fucking love this show.

RIP Little Boney

Lower Decks continues to shine. I enjoy finally being shown aspects Orion culture, beyond being considered, " ... delinquents, pirates, slave traders." (DSC s1e15, although the same perception about Orions is held throughout Star Trek). The expansion of Tendi's background is great. I'm hoping for more on Orion in Star Trek's future. Poor Mariner, lol.

Getting to see Boimler and Rutherford settle in as roommates made for a nice B story. That got me wondering again about Mariner and Tendi's new quarters since their promotions. And, T'Lyn's.

The mysterious ship of destruction is getting old for me. When only ten, twenty-five minutes each, episodes are considered a season, there's little time to dilly-dally around with story telling. I'm just hoping this tease doesn't continue to be unexplained until another season.

To bad there wasn't time in "wej Duj" (LD s2e9) for an Orion Lower Decks segment. Now, I'm just waiting for an appropriate situation to say, " ... that makes you more of an Orion plagiarist."

Honestly, whilst it would be nice for the mysterious ship of destruction to actually reach the central plot someone soon, I'm enjoying the little snapshots into lower deck life on other ships. It's a shame it always inevitably ends with vaporisation.
- I was hoping the little ship of doom is using unfamiliar tech to transport the people on the destroyed ships somewhere. Mainly because of Ma’ah and the Che’Ta’, and now the Orions. But, I'm leaning more towards destruction, than transporting. On the plus side, I have an astonishingly consistent track record of being wrong when guessing story points. Fingers crossed that my streak continues.
- These snapshots, combined with Wej du, are the best intro for new people into different Trek species. I love them and I want as many more as possible. Give me Cardassians, Ferengi, Jem'Hadar!
- Captain Freeman referenced it destroying the Orion ship in the intro, so it's making its way toward the plot. Or the Cerritos is making its way to the plot.
" … delinquents, pirates, slave traders." (DSC s1e15, although the same perception about Orions is held throughout Star Trek).

It seems that Orion culture internally looks down on those who want to be in the sciences, but it's Tendi's grandmother that shows the galaxy that they are not all just pirates. Some several years after DSC S1, in SNW S2.
It's clearly there to seed the ongoing mystery to be resolved in the finale. This show doesn't really do long-form storytelling except in very broad strokes.

Mariner really shouldn't be pulling out those knives, especially the ones with serrated hooks on the back. That just seems like a recipe for severe bleeding.

Tendi is a medical officer; she probably has it covered.
- Interestingly enough at no point did Tendi ever actually do anything about the wounds.

I liked the little look into the lower decks of the Orions, especially the plagiarism line; but the mysterious ship is getting less mysterious in the not-so-fun way.

Boimler and Rutherford are absolute dweebs. It was different having such a low stakes B-Plot. I feel like their story was missing a little something though. Still good fun.

Really enjoyed the A-Plot. Tendi does such a great job balancing being sunshine and rainbows and underworld assassin. I’m a little surprised her ride home wasn’t stolen/stripped for parts.

It was weird seeing T’Lyn, not just admit, but volunteer that she was friends with Mariner and Tendi. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Vulcan do that. I mean, sure Spock and Tuvok have admitted they were friends with their respective captains, but only ever in some form of private non-sexual intimacy. But, as established, T’Lyn is a rebel, so it somehow fits her really well.

I'd like to see T'Lyn go more and more renegade through association with the LD crew just eroding her Vulcan discipline. Then have her parents show up and accuse her of acting like a Romulan or something.
- Oh that's absolutely perfect. I'd love that at the end of this season or the start of the next.
I’m a little surprised her ride home wasn’t stolen/stripped for parts.

Fifth most powerful family in the Orion crime syndicate. The people who are above Tendi in the social hierarchy don't need it, those below probably like living.
What was revealed about the ship? It always does the same thing.
- That it's not immediately blasting every ship it comes near. It was either oblivious to the Orions' presence or ignoring them outright, until they were foolish enough to threaten it.

Annotations are up at: https://startrek.website/post/1908647

Thanks as always.

This episode will take a few watches to catch all the jam-packed Orion details.
Still waiting for someone to decode the Orion text on the invitation and sedan chair.
- @[email protected] has this covered.
  
  See his post.
  
  It looks like the Orion alphabet and language has a one-to-one correlation with English, just for laughs.

It was cool to see a Raven-class again!

That was the stolen ship at the end?
- Yep!

So... what's up with the big bad ship of destruction? Any thoughts?

My assumption is that it's a collector module for some advanced race. Destroys ships but transports the crews into a cosmic menagerie.

It's going to have problems when it runs into the Moopsy fleet.
- Moopsy!
Assuming they're not going to introduce a new species I was thinking The Breen. As they seem to like to develop some of the less well used but established species
- I would love to see the Breen taken on seriously, and had hoped they were the big bad in Picard S3. This doesn’t have the feel of them at all though.
  
  Perhaps Matalas can take a lead out of the Relaunch novelverse Typhon Pact books and give us some serious Breen machinations.