STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
SEASON 3, EPISODE 7
SEASON 3, EPISODE 7
A Mathematically Perfect Redemption
Series: Star Trek: Lower Decks - (2020 - 2024)Season: 3
Episode #: 7
Original Airdate: October 6th, 2022
Writer(s): Ann Kim
Director(s): Jason Zurek
Guest Stars
Jeffrey Combs as AGIMUS
J.G. Hertzler as the Drookmani Captain
Kether Donohue as Peanut Hamper
Paul Scheer as Lieutenant Commander Andarithio "Andy" Billups
Harry Shum, Jr. as Rawda
James Sie as Kaltorus
Lauren Tom as Areore Female
Stardate: Unknown
Synopsis
Peanut Hamper, the exocomp Ensign who selfishly abandoned the Cerritos and her crew during a battle against the Pakleds, has been drifting alone in the debris field from the battle over the past year. While working to repair a warp nacelle, and in her loneliness, she has built an exocomp-like doll that she named Sophia, and at first seems to have a strong attachment to it. But the moment a ship of Drookmani scavengers show up, Peanut Hamper dumps Sophia to save herself using the scraped-together engine. It warps her uncontrollably through space, and eventually, she crash-lands on a primitive planet populated by bird people.
She awakens in a treehouse and is greeted by the village leader, Kaltorus of the Areore, who sees her arrival as destiny, a gift from the ancestors. The villagers are skeptical of the mechanical being, especially Rawda, the son of Kaltorus and next in line to become the village leader. Kaltorus pushes Peanut Hamper in a wheelbarrow and introduces her to some villagers. Peanut Hamper impresses the villagers when she replicates some candy for a child but remains caustic and dismissive of what she sees as a boring backwater planet. Kaltorus tasks Rawda with showing Peanut Hamper their ways. As Rawda shows Peanut Hamper around the village, where everything including the farm animals has wings, a sky attacks. Kaltorus shoots it down but is poisoned by its deadly venom, which no one has ever survived. Peanut Hamper promptly replicates an antidote, and the villagers rejoice.
Surrounded by praise, she seems to come around to the villagers’ way of life and takes on a healer role, even helping in a hatching process that usually sees a high infant mortality rate. The last one particularly impresses Rawda. He takes her on a flight across the sky and starts to sing… or, more accurately, squawk. Slowly, the two begin to fall in love after bonding over similar parental issues. Rawda reveals that the reason he was so skeptical of Peanut Hamper is that his people have long been taught to fear technology. He shows her to an underground cave… It turns out, his people used to be an advanced, warp-capable society, but that led to endless wars, and so they chose to live a simple life. Some of these ancient ships remain beneath the village, and Peanut Hamper realizes she hasn’t violated the prime directive after all.
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Sometime later, Peanut Hamper and Rawda are preparing to get married. Suddenly, the Drookmani scavengers reappear to disrupt the ceremony. They’ve come for the underground ships under the belief that it is trash no one wants anyway, and they can take it with no problem. But of course, there is a problem: over the years, the trees have grown around the ships, and digging them up would destroy the village. The Drookmani start raising the ancient ships anyway, causing chaos. Up until this point, Peanut Hamper has refrained from sending a distress call to Starfleet, knowing she’ll face court martial and be sent to a penal colony for abandoning her post during the battle with the Pakleds. But that was the old Peanut Hamper! The newly redeemed Peanut Hamper is determined to save her new husband’s idyllic home no matter the cost to herself. She calls the Cerritos, and Captain Freeman, disturbed that Peanut Hamper appears to have violated the prime directive, orders the ship to her location.
The crew of the Cerritos realizes what the Drookmani are doing and prepare to intervene. But there’s no need as Peanut Hamper launches into a heroic flight to save the village, choosing others over herself in the way she failed to during the Pakled battle. She boards the Drookmani ship and fights her way through it. From the ground, Rawda witnesses the ship’s destruction and despairs at Peanut Hamper’s apparent sacrifice. Fortunately, she was able to exit the ship and survive. The newlyweds are reunited, and Peanut Hamper gets a hero’s welcome. Freeman, Shaxs, and Tendi beam down, and the villagers protectively surround Peanut Hamper, having heard of her fears that she’d be sent to a penal colony. But Freeman isn’t here to arrest her – she’s here to thank her and invite her back to Starfleet. Rawda asks to come along as the devoted husband.
Suddenly the Drookmani show up in one of the ancient ships, having beamed aboard and made it operational, to reveal that they were invited to come to the planet to salvage the ship by none other than Peanut Hamper. As it turns out, Peanut Hamper arranged the whole attack so the Cerritos would witness her being a hero and get her off the planet without her getting in trouble. Rawda is heartbroken, and Peanut Hamper cruelly says that she has no interest in living the rest of her long robot life on this boring planet.
The Drookmani start attacking the Cerritos. Tendi points out that Peanut Hamper has one more chance at redemption: She can board the ship again and save the day. Unfortunately, Peanut Hamper is only interested in saving herself. It’s Rawda who gets to be the hero, taking another one of his ancestor’s ships and using it to bring down the Drookmani. He returns to his village and declares that they will no longer live in fear of technology.
Peanut Hamper tries to sweet-talk her way back into Rawda’s good graces, but he promptly dismisses her. Freeman isn’t having any of her nonsense either. Peanut Hamper then reveals the full extent of her evil robot-ness by trying to contact the Borg. The Cerritos crew, having had enough of her, disable her transmitter. She’s promptly shipped off to Starfleet’s Self-Aware Megalomaniacal Computer Storage, where she’s placed in the cell next to AGIMUS, a fellow evil computer.
Trailer
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