Back in “First First Contact,” Rutherford got a stray memory that indicated that his cybernetic implants were not obtained voluntarily, but that whoever put them in programmed him to believe that it was an elective surgery.
This week’s Lower Decks gives us a lot more background on Rutherford, and it’s not pretty, though it does provide us with some actually really good character development.
RECRUITING SPOILERS TO JOIN STARFLEET!
Rutherford has consistently been portrayed as the nerdiest nerd in Nerdylvania, but in this episode we find out that it was not always thus. Rutherford has been having nightmares, including him working frantically on a critical system that’s about to explode and his reflection has no cybernetic implants.
Tendi deletes the cache that has built up in his electronic memory, but that allows a younger version of Rutherford to come to the fore. Apparently when they gave Rutherford his implants, his brain partitioned, and one version stayed in his subconscious, and now it’s trying to become conscious.
Trek has done this sort of thing before, whether it’s Kirk split into his “good” and “evil” selves in the original series’ “The Enemy Within” or Picard getting a chance to revisit his wilder younger self in TNG’s “Tapestry.” In this case, we find out that Young Rutherford was kind of a dick. Still a quality engineer, but much more dudebro-ish and self-centered and uncaring about rules and regs. He also is very bad at faking being Current Rutherford, especially since he doesn’t know any of the crew.
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When Tendi realizes that Rutherford isn’t himself, she calls security on him, and Shaxs eventually tracks him down and stuns him. The conflict between Rutherfords combines with the stun blast to cause Rutherford’s body to lapse into a coma. They confront each other in a mindscape where they decide to settle who gets to keep the body (with the other one basically going to oblivion) by each building a ship and then racing it in the Devron system, which involves going through the Romulan Neutral Zone. Young Rutherford builds himself a fancy-ass hot-rod ship called the Sampaguita, which looks like Anakin Skywalker’s pod in The Phantom Menace with Trekkish nacelles. Current Rutherford constructs a duplicate of the Delta Flyer, complete with the dorky racing outfits from “Live Fast and Prosper.” Young Rutherford dismisses the Flyer as a shuttlecraft with a paint job, while Current Rutherford dismisses the Sampaguita as a chair attached to an impulse engine.
In the end, though, the Flyer wins. This is mainly because it is a mindscape, and so Rutherford doesn’t just provide himself with a ship, but also a crew that includes Mariner, Boimler, and Tendi. When a Romulan ship appears, it’s the Sampaguita that takes all the damage, and it’s destroyed, but Current Rutherford and his crew are able to rescue Young Rutherford. The latter concedes, and gives Current Rutherford a memory of an explosion that badly damaged his body and resulted in him getting his cybernetic implants—and whoever did it created a cover story that he volunteered for the implants. So much of his memory had to be erased—seemingly for some kind of security reason—that his entire personality changed to the “okeydokey” Rutherford we all know and love.
This plot is very compelling, for all that it’s ridiculous. I like the fact that Rutherford used to be a douche, and I’m also happy to see that they’re revisiting that tease from the end of last season. I’ll be curious to see where it goes from here. While I’m leery of conspiracies within Starfleet generally, I’m willing to give this a chance—this being LD, it could go somewhere completely ridiculous…
Meanwhile, our B-plot has Mariner and Boimler representing Starfleet at the twenty-fourth-century equivalent of a job fair. Ransom has made it clear that Mariner needs to be on her best behavior, to the point where he orders her not to even leave the booth. (What if she has to pee?)
Their recruitment drives are sabotaged by Petra Aberdeen of the Independent Archeologist Guild, who undermines Mariner’s sales pitches. (“Want to become a Borg drone? Starfleet crews are assimilated all the time” and so on.) She drives Mariner completely crazy, but the breaking point actually comes when word gets around that Mariner and Boimler aren’t allowed to leave the booth. They’re taunted by the Collectors Guild, the Truthers, a couple of Ferengi, and the Outpost Scientists. The latter are the straw that breaks Boimler’s back, as one scientist removes his rank pin and tosses it away to get stepped on.
Boimler then goes completely ripshit, tearing the entire place apart while ranting and raving—which was what Aberdeen wanted all along. With Boimler going nuts, she’s able to sneak into the museum and retrieve the scepter of the Grand Nagus, which the museum on the planet apparently stole. Aberdeen contacts Mariner after the mission is over and thanks her for the help and offers her a place in her guild if she ever gets tired of Starfleet. Mariner refuses, but also keeps Aberdeen’s contact info. Best of all, though, is that Mariner actually gets some potential Starfleet recruits (mostly because Boimler’s tirade is impressing everyone, particularly with how much confidence he’s showing). Boimler does wind up in the brig for this, but even as he and Kayshon are escorting him there, Ransom admits that he’s impressed with how Boimler defended Starfleet.
I love this episode because the humor grows naturally from the situation, from the setting, and from the characters. We learn a lot about Rutherford, and we see the depth of Mariner and Boimler’s friendship, as the latter helps the former keep her cool in the face of Aberdeen’s taunting. (I do also love the business of the model ship constantly breaking despite Boimler’s multiple attempts to fix it.) For that matter, we also see the depth of Tendi and Rutherford’s friendship, as Tendi tries to help Rutherford, and Rutherford is scared to death of what his younger self might do to her.
This is the sort of thing LD does best, plus it gives us fodder for future episodes, both in terms of Rutherford’s backstory and a potential reappearance from Aberdeen.
Random thoughts
- The Devron system was established as being in the Romulan Neutral Zone in the TNG finale “All Good Things…”
- The Delta Flyer was designed and built by Tom Paris, B’Elanna Torres, Tuvok, Harry Kim, and Seven of Nine on Voyager, first seen in “Extreme Risk” and was used as a support vessel on that ship for most of its final three years in the Delta Quadrant.
- Sampaguita is the national flower of the Philippines, lending more credence to the notion that Rutherford is Filipino. (Eugene Cordero, who voices Rutherford, is also Filipino.)
- Rutherford and Tendi both think that Rutherford has been possessed by an anaphasic lifeform, such as the creature Ronin from TNG’s “Sub Rosa.”
- Among the aliens we see at the job fair are an Antedian (from TNG’s “Manhunt”), someone from the same species as Palor Toff (as played by the late great Nehemiah Persoff in TNG’s “The Most Toys”), a couple of Wadi (from DS9’s “Move Along Home”), a Benzite (from TNG’s “Coming of Age” and “A Matter of Honor” and DS9’s “The Ship”), plus the usual selection of Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans, Ferengi, Cardassians, and Klingons, and some others besides.
- Boimler’s rants cover things like Starfleet being forced into armed conflict when all they want to do is “look at fucking quasars” (à la the original series’ “The Galileo Seven”), bitching at the Wadi for trapping people in games (the aforementioned “Move Along Home”), saying that the EMH has agency and rights (as discussed in Voyager’s “Author, Author”), and that Boimler “failed the Kobayashi Maru seventeen times, motherfucker!” (referring to the no-win scenario Academy test introduced in The Wrath of Khan).
- The Truthers make reference to Sisko’s fate, from DS9’s “What You Leave Behind,” as well as the attempted parasite takeover of Starfleet in TNG’s “Conspiracy” (which Boimler thinks is just a dumb conspiracy story, but which Mariner quickly says she thinks actually happened—though the Truthers think the parasites went up people’s butts rather than through their necks).
- The Grand Nagus’s scepter was first seen in DS9’s “The Nagus,” and it reappeared several times throughout that show. As of DS9‘s “The Dogs of War,” which takes place seven years prior to this episode, the Ferengi Grand Nagus is Rom, and I can’t bring myself to be surprise that he allowed the scepter to be stolen…
- Kayshon’s only line of dialogue is “Koltar, when he drowned in the swamp,” which in reference to what a hellhole Starbase 80 is.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is at FanX Salt Lake City this weekend—please note that the convention starts today, and runs Thursday to Saturday. He’ll be at Bard’s Tower, booth 2377, alongside fellow word-slingers D.J. Butler, Jay Boyce, Michelle Cori, Larry Correia, Steve Diamond, Marion G. Harmon, Rick Heinz, Gama Ray Martinez, Brian McCellan, Dan Peyton, Christopher Ruocchio, Michael A. Stackpole, and Dan Wells, cartoonists Wendy & Richard Pini, and actor Carlos Ferro. Trek actors William Shatner, Brent Spiner, John deLancie, Donny Most, Ron Perlman, and Mark Alan Sheppard. Keith will also be doing a couple of panels. Click here for more info.
You’re in Salt Lake City!?! Welcome to the Beehive State. I hope you enjoy your trip.
Convention booths are kind of similar to the job fair in this episode. I definitely enjoyed the Rutherford storyline more than the job fair, but it might be interesting to see that the job fair could lead to further developments.
My favorite episode of the season since the premiere, but I wish Boimler’s melt-down had been more controlled. It was more a temper tantrum than being bold — not a good look for a Starfleet officer, even in a cartoon.
This was a great character story for Rutherford. I loved how at first, we don’t know what’s going on. Is this all a dream or is “Red Rutherford” actually walking the ship? Speaking of “Red Rutherford”, a part of me wonders how he got into the Academy–he’s just so angry and dismissive of everything. He must’ve left a good impression on someone. He actually reminded me a little of Chris Pine’s Kirk when he was recruited by Pike. This episode did clear up something for me, I think. I’ve been wondering about Rutherford’s family. How did they react to his implant? But “Red Rutherford” is such a loner–I don’t think he has any family out there. It wasn’t intentional but getting that implant may’ve been the best thing that happened to Rutherford since his new optimistic personality allowed him to make friends and find the family that previously alluded him.
As someone who wondered when the show premiered “Why the heck would he voluntarily agree to a cranial implant?” I’m really enjoying the mystery behind it. It just makes so much more sense to be part of some conspiracy.
They mentioned Starbase 80 again! A place so dreaded that the thought of being transferred there strikes fear into Mariner!. I’ve been calling it “the place where dreams die.” LOL
I have to admit, my knee=jerk response to Starfleet recruiter’s booth was “Why do they need one? Everyone’s flocking to join Starfleet.” But I realize that just might be my personal bias because shows are always telling us how great Starfleet is. Also, this is less then ten years after the Dominion War ended–recruitment probably died down. I did love Mariner’s comment that “No one’s joined Starfleet from one of these recruitment booths” and Tendi says she did. It makes perfect sense too. Of course Tendi would! I just picture her, a young Orion wanting to do something interesting with her life besides pirating and she comes across a Starfleet recruitment booth–and her life is changed forever!
Boimler losing it was one of the best moments in the series! He’s all calm, ignoring all the stuff people are saying, then they disrespect by pulling off his pip and stepping on it and that’s it! It was great.
The ending was great. I don’t know what Mariner will do. On one hand, she does like Starfleet but on the other hand, I can see her really loving galivanting around the galaxy with Petra. Surprisingly, if Mariner did decide to do that–I’d be happy for her since I think she’d be much happier working for herself than being a member of Starfleet.
Best episode of the season to date by far…particularly considering we had lightweight season 1/2 retreads for the past few weeks. It was great to give Rutherford some focus, and I was really happy how they subverted the expectation that he was a Section 31 sleeper agent…turns out that “Dark Rutherford” is the real one! Plus despite numerous small callbacks, the script didn’t have to rely on an old character coming back again (it would have been so easy to just have Vash in the role of the archeologist, for example).
Did anyone else think back to Beavis being Cornholio when Boimler hulked out?
The episode makes me wonder to what extent “our” Rutherford is just a more mature version of Young Rutherford and to what extent his personality is an artificial construct. Also, I have some question about the timeline of his accident, given that the first episode implied that he had only become a cyborg recently (and that Mariner knew him beforehand; of course, it’s possible that Mariner herself is somehow in on the conspiracy). Still, it was good to get some background on Rutherford, and the idea of Starfleet ensigns “tabling” at some kind of career day seems like a realistic bit of world building.
I guessed wrong. I thought that Petra was going to turn out to be working with Ransom, as a test to see if Mariner could resist the temptation to defy orders. But in retrospect, that would’ve been a jerk move for Ransom, and inconsistent with the trust he began to develop for her on the space elevator.
I liked it that they lampshaded the ever-changing Starfleet uniforms.
I really hope the shadowy conspirators behind Rutherford’s implant aren’t Section 31. I’m so tired of them.
Keith, the Delta Flyer racing suits were from “Drive,” not “Live Fast and Prosper” (which was about living fast in the con artist sense, not the literal sense).
I’m totally coming to see you tomorrow.
Mariner believing that the parasite conspiracy actually happened is yet another hint that she spent time on the Enterprise as a child.
The past two and a half seasons have been 75% Mariner & Boimler, 25% Tendi and Rutherford. I was so very glad to get to spend more time with Rutherford this week and to get some back story on him!
I just hope that plot about his implant doesn’t involve Section 31.
Christopher: gah! Can’t believe I got those episodes mixed up. Sigh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
So nobody else caught the pun of Petra Aberdeen referring to independent archaeologists as “Indy” archaeologists? (Although she believed the Nagus’s staff did not belong in a museum…)
I thought younger Rutherford ship looked more X-wing than podracer, but either way it had to be deliberate. Shots fired!
Really fun episode and I like the conspiracy with Rutherford. I love that the writers are playing the long game with it and that’s awes
With the additional context, the implant conspiracy looks less like Section 31 and more like Rutherford’s superior officer (and possible enabler) covering his own backside.
Eugene Cordero is American of Filipino descent, perhaps?
@10 Yeah, that was the most obvious callout, but her outfit and name, while not super-heavy-handed, were also nods to a certain popular 20th century adventuring archeologist with questionable field technique.
Her name is an inversion, with <biblical name> <place name>. Petra is both a female version of a classic biblical name (Peter), and it’s the home of the Al-Khazneh, the facade of which served as the entrance to resting place of the Grail in The Last Crusade.
And her outfit is certainly “rogue archeologist”-flavored, with nods to Doctor Jones and, I think, Vash.
@15/Jason Ipswitch: But that means that both her names are place names. When I heard “Petra,” my first thought was the historical site, not a form of the name Peter.
@13/jahoan
With the additional context, the implant conspiracy looks less like Section 31 and more like Rutherford’s superior officer (and possible enabler) covering his own backside.
That’s what I thought too. Though it’s possible the shady admiral is working for Section 31.
@14/Antipodeanaut
Eugene Cordero is American of Filipino descent, perhaps?
Yes, he is.
I hope it is Section 31 so they can make fun of how dumb and tiresome Section 31 has become. Also paranoia and conspiracy theories in general.
I’m going to call Section 32, the lame little brother/sister of Section 31. Section 31 handles galactic issues like major wars, espionage against galactic Powers, and so on. Section 32 handles minor conspiracies like who’s secretly brewing real alcohol in the torpedo tubes and who’s responsible for putting Ex-Lax in Admiral Janeway’s coffee.
One positive by-product of this show being self-aware — at times too ridiculously so, like this episode’s reference to the alt-U Kirk/Spock bromance* — is that characters are quick to pick up on, and others believe, the fact that someone’s possessed by an entity or whatever rather than it taking multiple acts for an obvious personality change to be investigated. (*Shout-out to the Filmation Kirk/Spock cutout display, though, because it was relatively subtle and technically could’ve been anyone.)
“What if she has to pee?”
Highly localized transporters.
Section 31 is no longer a secret organization at this point, given that Boimler referred to it in the second episode. Which makes sense, given that I can’t imagine that either Odo, Bashir, or the Dominion would have any reason not to make its existence known after its genocide attempt on the Founders.
Really enjoyed this one, but I’d suggest the younger Rutherford’s ship was basically a one-man version of Irina’s Ship in the Antarian Space Rally that Harry Kim ended up as Co-pilot on rather than a version of the Pod Racer- as were the obstacles and the buoys marking out the course. Lots of nice ‘Easter eggs’ to that episode besides just the Uniform that older Rutherford wore.
@21/jaimebabb: But Rutherford’s accident happened years in the past, so maybe it was before S31 was exposed. I think the shadowy figure we saw was in a TNG-era uniform.
#19. I like the way you think, sir.
I choose to believe that instead of a secret conspiracy, we’re going to find out that the MYSTERIOUS GUY is Rutherford’s father.
Which resulted in Rutherford’s personality changing completely from his removal.
I bet the Mysterious Guy is someone on the crew for extra drama points. Billups.
The mysterious guy was wearing a TNG style uniform with two pips clearly visible.
And since Eugene Cordero is Filipino there’s about a 99% chance that Rutherford is also supposed to be Filipino, especially with the trend in modern casting of not having people play someone of a different identity.
Overall it was one of the better episodes of the show. Still too many gratuitous references in the Boimler/Mariner part but the show is what it is.
I don’t even think it’s necessarily “not have people play a different ethnicity” but the fact that we know there’s going to be a live action SNW and Lower Decks crossover with all of them being actors known for appearing in sci-fi properties as well as open to it.
So, yes, I consider the name of Rutherford’s ship plus the actor plus the crossover proof enough.
All of the characters also strongly resemble their actors.
By the way, for those of you wondering, the headline for this review comes from this song…….
https://youtu.be/2YcnwBiuWF8
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
When it comes to Rutherford, I’m wondering if McMahan and company had this bit of backstory planned all along. Because if it wasn’t, I gotta say, it fits perfectly, aligning just right with the previous memory glitch episodes.
It makes sense that he’d been a more rule-breaking nasty person. Current-day Rutherford can be pretty vanilla compared to the other characters. This reveal reminds me not only of TNG‘s Tapestry as pointed out, but also of DS9‘s Dr. Bashir, I presume. The kind of late-game reveal that sounds like a dire break from establishment at first, but in retrospect fits perfectly with the character.
A pretty damn good episode. Loved the job fair side of things, and Boimler hulking it out. This bold Boimler gag is providing some good fodder this season, and it definitely represents an evolution of sorts. We probably wouldn’t see season 1 Boimler going nuts over this kind of provocation – at least not in public.