HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

Lower Decks does a really good job of keeping track of its minor characters, but this is the first time they’ve ever really dedicated an episode to one. “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption,” the third season’s seventh episode, answers the question that no one was really asking: “What happened to Peanut Hamper, the awful exocomp?” I honestly wasn’t expecting this particular episode, but despite some pacing issues, it turned out to be a really interesting exploration of the idea of redemption. However, in true Lower Decks style, the episode flips the narrative and manages to be funny while also poking fun at the narrative.

Plot Ahoy!

Drifting alone in the debris field left after the disastrous Pakled engagement that concluded season one, Peanut Hamper has carefully scavenged enough pieces of wreckage to assemble a crude warp nacelle that would allow her to escape, somewhere. However, just as she’s about to activate it, the Drookmani scavengers appear to harvest the scrap from the field. Peanut Hamper escapes and launches herself into warp. However, her slapdash ship does not survive the jump. Peanut Hamper gets thrown out of warp and crashes onto a planet.

Kaltorus, Village Leader of the planet’s population—the Areore—rescues her and restores her to functionality. He introduces her to his son Rawda, assigning his heir to be Peanut Hamper’s guide for all things Areore. Neither of them is overly enthusiastic about this arrangement until Peanut Hamper saves Kaltorus from the venom of a Sky Snake using her Starfleet medical training. Rawda begins to warm up to her and ultimately initiates a romantic liaison with her. He also takes her below the village to show her the history of his people. The Areore were apparently spacefaring, but they found themselves in constant war. They decamped to Areolus and renounced technology. Peanut Hamper is excited to learn that she’s not technically breaking the Prime Directive.

Time passes, and she and Rawda decide to marry. However, Drookmani interrupt the ceremony to claim salvage on the ancient Areore ships. The Areore refuse, so the Drookmani decide to take the ships by force. Peanut Hamper declares that she’s the only one who can stop the madness and commandeers a Drookmani shuttle. She rams it into the Drookmani ship, mirroring Rutherford’s maneuver from Season One, and boards. She finds a terminal and disables the ship.

The Cerritos receives her distress signal that she sent prior to boarding the shuttle and warps to Areolus in time to watch as the Drookmani ship is destroyed and for Peanut Hamper’s act of self-sacrifice. Captain Freeman beams down with an Away Team to investigate, and the Areore refuse to surrender Peanut Hamper. Peanut Hamper, however, gives a speech about needing to return to Starfleet after having learned about love and sacrifice. Rawda asks to accompany her as her husband, but Peanut Hamper demurs.

Suddenly, they watch as an Ancient Areore ship activates and proceeds to break atmosphere. It attacks the Cerritos, and hails reveal that the Drookmani are aboard and incensed over Starfleet lies. They reveal that Peanut Hamper had contacted them to tell them about easy salvage, and they proceed to overpower the Cerritos. Just as all seems lost, the Areore mothership lifts off with Rawda at the helm and returns fire, saving the Cerritos. Rawda returns to his people triumphant, and his father declares him ready to lead the village. Rawda declares an end to fear and banishes Peanut Hamper from Areolus.

She pleads with Captain Freeman to no avail, and she gets deposited in the prison for malignant AIs right next to everyone’s favorite megalomaniac computer Agimus.

Analysis

Clearly, the writers intended “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption” to be a bait-and-switch, as the episode seems to build up to a redemption arc for everyone’s least favorite exocomp. To be fair, that particular plotline would not be out of line in a Trek series, but the redemption here isn’t Peanut Hamper’s. Rather, it’s Rawda’s as well as his people’s. The story forces Rawda to come to terms with his fear of technology, a fear that has been societally inculcated for generations, and that fear has hampered their collective ability to advance. The lesson they learn through their experiences with Peanut Hamper is that technology is not inherently to be feared, and even though Peanut Hamper betrays them so terribly, Rawda does not succumb to the same impulse his ancestors did. He does not turn his back on technology, again despite the harm that has come to his village, but rather, he rejects the fear. As a result, there’s a decent chance we’ll see more of the Areore in the future.

The other really interesting aspect of the story is that Starfleet doesn’t swoop in to save the day. Rawda does. Trek has a tendency to slide into the role of savior all too often, robbing the indigenous people they’re saving of agency in their own rescue. Despite the franchise’s overall stance regarding respect for different cultures, in these stories, there tends to be a touch of condescension. The Original Series even plays with the trope similarly to what Lower Decks does in this episode in “Day of the Dove.” However, the Organians turn out to be far, far more advanced than Starfleet. In a sense, the Areore do as well, but they had relinquished that technological superiority. Thus, Rawda’s activation of his ancestral birthright takes on a much deeper significance than the Organians forcing a peace treaty onto the Federation and Klingon Empire.

The episode is not without its flaws, however. Due to the massive time jumps necessary to the story, the episode’s pacing gives the impression of being very uneven. The jumps are clearly telegraphed (Dear Netflix Witcher, please pay attention), but they’re hardly smooth. The episode also plays the sexual relationship between Peanut Hamper and Rawda for incredibly awkward laughs. The visuals skate very close to the edge of prurience, and the joke comes off as more puerile than anything else. We saw a similar issue in the mugato episode.

Despite those issues, “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption” demonstrates that Lower Decks doesn’t have to rely on references to older Trek to be funny. The show tells an entirely new story that’s both funny and interesting with minimal references to previous franchise installments. It’s a profoundly weird story, but it is new and unique to Lower Decks.

Rating:

Four cups of Earl Grey Tea

The Egg Hunt:

1. Peanut Hamper is herself a reference to a TNG episode, and she also refers to both Dabo girls and Freecloud. Dabo comes to us from DS9, and Freecloud is a Picard reference.
2. We get a chance to see Rutherford’s original implant floating in space. That’s a thing that happened.
3. Sophie felt very much like a Trek version of Wilson.
4. Rawda showing Peanut Hamper the ancient ships gave me very real Moana vibes.
5. I feel like the incubation hut needed some additional heat sources.
6. I’m also very confused as to why it looks like Rawda lets his wings drag on the ground like a cloak. That seems like it would damage his primaries, rendering flight much more difficult. That was just weird.
7. The Aurelians are again a reference to TAS.