The season three finale of Lower Decks is the one time ejecting the warp core actually works, and it’s Shaxs who gets to call it.

It wasn’t a bad episode, man. I actually liked it a lot, and so did my co-host, who was happy to report she even caught a couple of the references. The episode’s called “The Stars at Night.”

The California Class on Trial

Top of the episode, Admiral Buenamigo and the other admirals are essentially facing Captain Freeman around the table, and they’re more or less saying your ship clearly screwed up this whole thing. Project Swing By was bad. That’s the thing that happened last episode, and it’s why she’s facing all of this. Ultimately the meeting turns on her and they decide to decommission the California class entirely. The whole fleet of California class support vessels, they’re looking at getting rid of. It’s pretty serious.

So the captain throws down a challenge, and now the Cerritos has to defend its position against the Texas class. All they have to do is go on a series of second contact missions, dropping stuff off and whatnot. It’s supposed to be very simple, and it turns out to be almost anything but.

Mariner’s Indiana Jones Space Adventures

Then we go to Mariner, and she’s having the time of her life again. She’s just dealt with a little tiki-looking thing (it’s not a tiki thing) and a little Indiana Jonesy looking dude, because she’s off having Indiana Jones space adventures. I like that.

Back on the ship she asks who pays for all of this, and the answer she gets is don’t worry, I’ve got the money. We find out about that later. You also find out Mariner’s kind of not super happy in that scenario. She’s not miserable per se, but she’s not great about it either.

Boimler’s Impressions

There’s a thing at the beginning where Boimler is doing impressions for some people, and oh my gosh, it’s so bad. He’s heard from his friend’s girlfriend’s mother that they’re all going to get kicked out, and then he starts doing everybody. He does Dr. T’Ana. He does Ransom. And then he does the big guy, Shaxs.

Shaxs walks in while Boimler is doing the impression of him. “So that’s how I sound to you?” And then he starts crying. Bro literally cries in the scene, walking away from him. My co-host felt so bad for him. “My poor guy, I love him so much.”

The Race the Cerritos Loses

While they’re out on the missions, Rutherford starts to remember the code the Texas class is built on. He’s been studying it, and something’s really not happy in his brain.

Part of one mission is where Tendy does a scan, because she thinks there might be little microorganisms and you have to check for that. That puts them behind. The final mission is a planet that comes in and out of phase for a few minutes. The Aledo gets there first and transports the supplies. The planet phases away, the Cerritos shows up after and can’t complete the mission, and so technically they lose. Sucks to suck.

Back at the starbase there’s a quick discussion, and that’s when it comes to Captain Freeman’s attention that if the Aledo had done the job it’s supposed to do, which is scan for life signs and do all the stuff Starfleet does, they’d be neck and neck. It didn’t. Shout out Tendy, because without her they would’ve been toast.

Buenamigo Is One of Those Admirals

That’s when Rutherford finally tells the captain that the AIs are unstable and there’s no way this is going to work. And how did we almost forget this part: Buenamigo is the one who was in the little shadowy thing. He’s the one who erased it. He’s the cause of all of that, because he’s dirty.

Captain Freeman literally says to him, you’re not one of those bad admirals, and he’s like, no, really, I am. His reason is that you spend so much time in Starfleet, you’ve kind of got to make a name for yourself. It felt dirty. It totally did.

So he decides to take the Cerritos out, and he brings the AI all the way up so it gets to control itself. The AI’s response is basically, all right, I don’t have to take your orders anymore. And for no reason whatsoever that we’re given, it just decides to start attacking the starbase. You’ve got the three Texas class ships unleashing holy hell all over it. It’s pretty awesome. Buenamigo gets killed by the Aledo, by the way. It blew him up.

My co-host was worried for a minute there, because they were hitting the lower decks and she thought people were actually dying down there.

“That’s My Ship”

Meanwhile Mariner is with Petra, and this is when she snoops and discovers that Picard is the benefactor. Come to find out, she wants to go back anyway. Petra says haven’t you seen the news, turns it on, and sure enough, there’s the Cerritos. We’ve got to go help them, because what else is Mariner going to do? We’re all going to die. I don’t care. That’s my ship.

That’s right.

Shaxs Finally Gets His Warp Core

Back on the Cerritos they’re getting attacked, they go to warp, and the other three are right behind them. Everyone’s spewing out ideas. Shaxs is trying to talk and nobody’s listening.

Boimler has been trying to apologize to him this entire time, and Shaxs won’t hear it because he’s really hurt. So Boimler is the one who says, hey, everyone shut up, he’s trying to say something. And what Shaxs has to say is eject the warp core, which is kind of his go-to, I guess. This is the one time they do it. It explodes into the other three.

They think they’re in the clear. They’re not. The main bad guy comes zooming straight at them. The best way my co-host could explain it is something you thought was dead, really beat up, and still going at it.

Then Mariner shows up. “Hey.” Her mom says no, you can’t be here, you’re going to die. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I called another one.” Well, they’re going to die too. “Yeah. That’s why I called all of them.”

And then it’s all of the little Starfleet ships, the Santa Monica, the Sacramento, everybody but the bad Texas class, all of them everywhere, bam bam bam, and all at the same time they go at that thing. It tries to shoot back, and no. It dies. Because they’re just awesome.

Everyone Gets a Little Buddy

My co-host reminded me of what I forgot. Mariner joins back up, and now she’s shadowing Ransom. Tendy gets a little shadow person. Everyone gets a little buddy.

And Shaxs and Boimler are best friends now. He calls him baby bear and hugs him like a baby bear. It’s pretty funny. It’s pretty awesome, actually.

The Verdict

Star Trek: Lower Decks “The Stars at Night” gets an 8.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index from my co-host, and she says she’s a little more lenient than I am.

As a season finale, this is good. Not too shabby. I liked it, she liked it, and it’s good stuff, man.

I’m starting Prodigy next, so watch for that one. We get up early in the mornings for these, and when I said it was time for Prodigy, my co-host said that one’s all mine. She’s pretty sure it’s going to be a good one to watch anyway.

Did you enjoy it or not? And tell me whether you’d like us to dig into the details of what’s happening this season while we’re between seasons. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.