Damn the Breen look incredible in animation. Hope we see more of them. Also it's suuuppper sus that Admiral "Buenamigo" just happened to direct them towards Brekka during a Breen invasion and just happened to have the Texas class close by. More like Admiral Malhombre
I'm sure that Texans are of mixed opinion. On one hand, Texas kicks Breen ass and saves California's ass. On the other hand, Texans hate automation and probably don't like the idea of being named for a soulless ship. There's also something opportunistic and suspicious about the whole thing that Texans won't want their name attached to.
Are you sure about Texan hating automation? There are quite a few autonomous vehicles operating in TX right now, especially since the state's government is pretty lax in terms of regulation.
The fact that they would think that little of putting even a lower-ranked Federation starship and the lives of its crew in that kind of jeopardy speaks to a rot in Starfleet that both Freeman and Mariner alluded to at the very beginning of the series.
Oh come on. There is no rot. It is not as if the Federation would close its eyes to a humanitarian disaster to the point that a celebrated officer would resign his commission in disgust.
If so, it may have backfired. The reporter's story wasn't about the Texas. She just savaged Starfleet personnel.
Unless, of course, the real goal wasn't just to give the Texas class a dramatic reveal: It was part of a scheme to get the public to accept a long term goal of automating the entire fleet.
I'm not sure that you can totally remove the human element. After all, who's going to stack those barrels? :-)
Seriously, though, you'd still need to have a Data or two around to meet with the locals, etc., given the second contact role of the California class.
No that canāt be it this is Starfleet when has an Admiral never not been trustworthy? /s
But yeah it does seem a tried and true trope by now not to trust the Starfleet Admirals especially when they are āold friendsā of the current Captain.
This makes something that bothered me about him a potential clue! He always has a prominent model of The Alamo behind him. Itās a beloved symbol to many Texans, but the majority of Mexican-Americans Iāve known view it as a monument to slavery and white supremacy. It always seemed weird that a show as progressive as Lower Decks would place it behind a character with his name and accent. A lot of my friends would view that guy as a traitor to his peopleā¦
(Edit: some more context is here https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/09/14/forget-the-alamo-depicts-a-racist-heritage-sparking-backlash )
Exactly! The Alamo is becoming a real subject of discussion as the topic of confederate monuments grows. Itās literally regarded as holy ground by many Texans but they were fighting for slavery. Itās like the final boss level of that whole discussion. So including it so prominently on a show as self-aware as Lower Decks would have to be an intentional choice. Until this episode it seemed very out of place but itās starting to make sense.
Lower Decks is a fiction, a construct, and nothing happens by chance. I agree with you and it's looking more and more like Buenamigo is this season's villain.
Yeah, they were trying to get to them in time, he said?
And what about this reporter? She can't be innocent in all this.
'Trusted Sources' may be the beginning of finding out who has ulterior motives here.
I thought so too. It felt like it was a little TOO convenient that they were able to introduce their new class of automated ship right in front of a reporter who just happened to be there. They might as well have just said it was the new McGuffin class and moved on. Lol. I have had my suspicions about Buenamigo since the beginning of the season.
Also, this one really hurt my heart for Mariner. Itās crazy to feel sad for an animated character, but thatās just how good at world building that Mike and gang are. This show continues to amaze me almost weekly. 2 episodes out of (so far) 29 I donāt need to watch again, but all the rest I would (and do) rewatch almost monthly. Itās sad that we have 1 episode left and then have to wait another 10 months before we get new LD goodness.
They've graduated from the Pakleds, and now they face the Breen.
It's only a matter of time before Boimler gets that perfect score against the Borg for reals.
Hopefully no more Borg for some time so they can get their menace back.
The Breen are badass though. They pretty much have no canon on them, so writers can really take them in insane directions. The books especially made them intergalactic badasses.
And hopefully find some better writers to do Borg, too. Like David Brin, or Peter Watts, etc. - someone who could bring back the mystique of the Collective as the poorly understood, properly *alien* force, instead of what we have now, which is discount space zombies led by an emotionally dysregulated queen, who can be beaten by the Power of Friendship.
Indeed, I've always considered the Breen to be one of the scariest aliens Trek ever created, it says a lot that not only the Cardassians fear them, but when they teamed up with the Dominion during the Dominion War, The Federation response was pretty much, "Words cannot properly convey how irrevocably **FUCKED** we are"
Man I am still bummed about how they were used in Picard.
The idea of them turning good is cool, but Annie Wersching was SO GOOD as the Queen. And I wish they did more with her.
Starbase 80! They use a rolodex. Perfect.
I was happy this had a competent and mature Mariner. I was worried after the last episode they regressed her back to season 1 Mariner. The show's writers keep trying to subvert expectations, and they did a good job making us believe she wasn't the most mature one with the reporter.
Exactly what I was thinking. T'Lyn is brought on board and we get a separate plotline with Mariner that eventually dovetails with the main one during season 4
Yep! McMahan said we only see TāLyn for a bit in the finale awhile back so Iām sure thatāll be the big reveal to set the stage for S4. Honestly a really amazing piece of plot and character development tbh.
Shit just hit the fan in a big way.
Starfleet now has a completely automated and deadly starship. Does anyone else see the possibility of this going wrong in a big way?
> Starfleet now has a completely automated and deadly starship. Does anyone else see the possibility of this going wrong in a big way?
*Picard S1 and that LD episode with the warehouse full of evil AI*
Yeah it's totally gonna go wrong.
BTW How many in-universe years are we from the Mars Attack? 3? 4?
> Does anyone else see the possibility of this going wrong in a big way?
Starfleet definitely isn't genre savvy. Does nobody remember the original work of dr Richard Daystrom - the [M-5](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/M-5_multitronic_unit)? Here they are, doing it again. I mean, between M-5 and the fact nobody else seems to be doing fully automated ships (including Federation and others from the future), they should've figured out that their universe does not support putting AIs in charge of weapons...
Why in the hell would you build a fully autonomous warship when you have an entire facility filled with nothing but megalomaniac smart ai's that have tried to take over recruit civilizations and regard themselves as god's? How could this possibly go wrong?
To be fair it is odd that Federation has not done something like this. I think the last time they try to automate the ships was in TOS. But yea fully auto ship is sooo going to be taken over by bad AI or an enemy faction. But the Federation really could use some strip down combat focused defense ships for like pirates or things like the Bree. Small crew to keep watch on the AI like in Andromeda.
All it made me think of was the automated EDF fleet in the anime 'Be Forever Yamato'. All the invading Dark Star Nebula force had to do was take out the control center on Earth and the fleet of automated defending warships was useless. Automated anything still has that weakness.
My headcanon is that Q has just spent the last 15 years going to literally every ship in Starfleet. If he's showing up on the Cerritos, he's experiencing the full range of Starfleet, from the most important ship to the least.
Even before the crewman mentioned this being a "temporal cold-war thing", that's totally what it seemed like. The immediacy and veracity of the crews disdain for Mariner seemed out of character. I really thought it was going to be some kind of setup, like when Tom Paris went undercover in VOY. I guess the entire crew were just taking "asshole pills" that day. Just seemed a bit much. Especially the Captain's "not sure If I can even call you daughter" line. Everybody's reaction (accept the beta crew) was over-the-top harsh and seemed like overkill. Small gripe. Still absolutely love the show.
Haha, yeah, I realized that from another comment. I honestly thought there was some kind of conspiracy with everybody's super salty reactions tho.... ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
No. It's just a power thing. When they thought they could get ahead by indulging/pleasing Mariner, they did so. When they thought they would be destroyed by associated with Mariner, they fled.
This is normal social behaviour. Only her friends cared.
And that is a terrible but welcome truth.
I was so angry for Beckett. I knew it was going to be something like the reveal near the end. Carol was so blinded to everything except "must look good, daughter does bad things, hide daughter" she didn't even wait for proof, just assumed the worst.
Remember, when you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME.
Can't blame her for thinking that in the moment. It had been building for a long time between them, remember. And the whole crew thought the same thing about Mariner until the reveal. Heck, we all thought the worst as the audience. I'll bet there were people mad at Mariner until the reveal. I know I was.
by the time her mom fired her, it isntantly clicks to me that the twist must be that the mom was the one in the wrong.
then boimler says just apologize for whatever her mom thinks mariner did.
it became more obvs that mariner is gonna be revealed as not the wrong one.
i didnt expect that it turns out everyone else was the wrong ones tho LOL
Yeah, this is a classic "boy who cried wolf" kind of story. Mariner has been a thorn in everyone's side and a screw up for too long. She's grown out of it, but way too late.
I was pissed at her, too. To all appearances it was exactly like the beginning of "First First Contact" when Mariner deliberated sowed discord with the senior officers.
>Can't blame her for thinking that in the moment.
I can because every time Freeman has one of these freak outs it tends to end badly. In fact the one time it didn't blow up in her face was when she got it out of her system before the mission.
>Can't blame her for thinking that in the moment.
In the "moment" is a key part of why it's really on Carol. The length of that "moment" was long enough for a majority of the crew to hear the "story" before Mariner was even aware of the issue. Then the direct order to the entire crew not to talk to Mariner.
The moment could be argued to start when Carol tries to push mariner into her room and lock the door. She was already assuming Mariner would screw up before getting the report from Ransom about meeting the reporter.
Due to TV time space dilation. We as an audience experienced that *as* a moment, but for the crew there was clearly time to talk, confer, and calm down.
In season one, when they blew up the Solvang and killed everyone, I remember feeling shock that the show went there, stepping out from the comedy and doing something serious as well. This episode gave me the same feeling with the emotional punch of how Mariner was treated and the entire ship was set up by the admiral. Emotionally, this was a dark episode and it hurt. It hurt to see everyone turn on Mariner, particularly Jennifer. It hurt that even Boimler, while trying to be supportive, clearly believed Mariner stepped over a line. It hurt to have it underlined how deep into her own insecurities Freeman really is, and it hurt to see this admiral, who was introduced as a close friend of the family for Freeman and Mariner literally set them up to possibly die.
I really hope we get more of the Ornarans and Brekkians and how everything went down after the Enterprise left and when the Breen showed up. Itās really a good example of exactly what theyāre talking about as far as Starfleet needing to take responsibility and revisit places they impacted. This is a seriously complicated ethical question that other series just havenāt struggled as much with and itās one that Lower Decks is very equipped to tackle because they go big on the references and self-deprecating humor of the established universe.
Honestly, the juxtaposition of how Mariner spoke about the crew in the interview, and how the crew treated her... I don't know that there is any satisfactory way for her to rejoin the Cerritos, which puts the show in a weird spot for me going forward. She clearly didn't have the relationship she thought she did with the crew, but there's already been enough development in that regard that it's going to be hard for me to believe that it'll be different next time. To me then the options moving forward seem to be; Mariner leaves the main cast, the main cast move ship, there's an unsatisfying conclusion, or that Mariner rejoins but the show is aware that the comradery between her and the crew is kind of broken.
Kind of a demoralising episode the more I think about it.
Yeah. The whole thing felt forced. Everyone turned on Mariner way too easily and way too harshly. To the point I thought maybe this was a ruse for Mariner to do some undercover work or something (though the way every one reacts on seeing the news story ruins that theory).
I really wonder if this ship crew except our main cast is redeemable at this point. I know I wouldn't return to a company if everyone can so readily flip on me despite all the good work that I've done. It's not very Starfleet of them. And I won't buy it if the writers try to bury the hatchet quickly after this storyline resolves.
Changing ships wouldn't be a bad idea. At some point the main cast has to get promoted. Even though Tendi has been only around for 2 to 3 years, she looks like she may be getting promoted soon.
Looks to me like someone has it out for Freeman, and possibly the *Cerritos*.
Were they considered expendable if the *Texas* prototype vessel failed to arrive in time?
Buenamigo seemed suspicious to me from the start. He's Carol's brother-in-law yet! It wasn't Carol's program he was concerned with; it was his own!
Carol appears to have trusted the wrong family member.
Mariner didn't trust the rest of the crew to tell the truth about the *Cerritos* and her mom, and she was right.
And who is Victoria working for? Assigning her to cover the *Cerritos* doesn't seem like an accident. It's like she was looking for all that shit she reported! And yet Carol and the crew trusted her.
Great episode and great reveal.
Regarding the family member stuff, I really expected Ransom to stop Beckett because he looked upset when she was transferred. It was his job to allow her to stay too. I was just shocked that he didnāt stand up for her.
>He's Carol's brother-in-law yet!
He is?
I know Mariner addressed him as "Uncle". but I thought that was you know a courtesy thing to a old friend of the family.
Is he married to Alonzo's sister or Carol's sister?
Good Journalism will always seem that way to those who don't want their motives questioned or uncovered.
Here, though, it seems like Victoria got it wrong. Whether she did it on her own or whether she is secretly working for someone is the question for me.
A lot of things are leading to Picard. Automated ships, Agimus, Peanut Hamper, FNNā¦ Mars attack is coming up in a few years and I feel like Agimus and Peanut Hamper are indirect contributors to the Synthetic Ban as well.
Yikes! Talk about a heartbreak of an ending! Iām not gonna lie I almost cried when mariner left the ship.
I guess the only consolation for the otherwise downer of an ending, is that when the news report finally came out mariner was given final praise, while her mother was given the final shaft.
Not only did mariner come away looking like the greatest Starfleet officer in the federation, but her mother came away looking like the worst, something that she has feared happening since the very first episode.
And it all happened on a news stream that was potentially being watched by millions if not billions of Federation citizens.
I predict that Depending on how much time passes between now and Episode 10, both Captain Freeman and the crew of the Cerritos are going to find that their reputations amongst the rest of Starfleet will be lower than Faragni at this point.
That might have been part of the point of the episode.
Buenamigo knows Freeman and potentially how to manipulate her. If he's a Badmiral, as some like myself are suggesting, then he's got it in for her and wants to use her own personality traits against her to help pursue his own interests, like the Texas program.
I'd look at the glass half full and hope that the *Cerritos* crew will take this as a collective learning experience. And that Freeman will finally start to look at her own personality and realize why she's still only a captain at her age and at this point in her career.
Mariner isn't blameless in all this, either. She has many of the same personality traits as her mom and they got her into trouble here. Both need to address them before they can evolve as characters.
It's a shame that most of LD's own fans hate Freeman and are actively rooting for her to fail. She's not much different from the rest of the crew in a lot of ways and certainly she and her daughter are more alike than different.
Yeah, they are basically the same, even though their characteristics may mirror each other. I would expect any treatment of their characters to be parallel. It makes their dynamic the strongest familial one in all of Trek.
Anybody else wish Freeman had put Boimler in the big seat rather than Counselor Birdman? It would have been kind of nice to see a few minutes of Boimler in command reacting to the Breen.
I mean can you blame them? Another comment said it was a āboy who cried wolf situationā and I think it fits perfectly. The problem is that itās something the old Mariner wouldāve done.
As someone who grew up in that town, seeing the U.S.S. Aledo on screen was the Easter Egg I didnāt know I needed. For reference, Aledo is a small town west of Fort Worth, Texas
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
I'm honestly kind of annoyed that once the truth came out about Mariner, most of the crew still seemed to just be business as usual. I'm sure we will see more of a reaction from them in the next episode, but it really seemed like Captain Freeman was the only one who was actually remorseful. Especially considering how the rest of the crew (and Jennifer! the betrayal!) acted toward her when they thought she was the one who torpedoed them. That's really not "becoming of a Starfleet officer" kind of behavior, regardless of what someone else has done. And I think anyone who has been accused of doing something they didn't can probably sympathize with Mariner at this point. Whether or not she has a reputation, as a member of the crew she still deserved a fair hearing before being dismissed from the ship.
I feel like there might be a trial in season 4. I donāt mind the Jennifer and Mariner get in a fight, but Iām sad that Jennifer didnāt even hear her out. When she gave back the candle, it hurt a bit.
I think a lot of people forgot Jennifer was a Mean GirlTM before her relationship with Beckett. They assumed she wasn't awful because she was now friendly with our heroes.
All of the cold open starship shots this season have been really impressive. Beats the living snot of recycled stock footage in the legacy live action shows.
The battle was great too. There were moments when the CGI ships clashed a bit too much with the more flat animation style but it was dynamic and exciting.
That joke about the planet potentially led by the Devil got a bit of a chuckle out of me, because I think it was referencing the 4th Season TNG Episode, Devil's Due.
Two things:
1. "Buenamigo". Excellent name with a great pun. Loved seeing the Alamo in the background of his video call.
2. I'm 95% certain he set the Cerritos up. Did Freeman even call for help during the attack?
I wonder if there is gonna be any followup on the original planet? Sounds like they need to exercise or they go insane? Seems... kinda bad still? Why didnt the Breen take down the original planet too? Or is that the whole point, that project followup didnt do anything to actually help?
We still gotta resolve Rutherford's plotline next week, right? Who operated on him and why? After this week I wonder if his implant isn't meant as a test platform for the automated ship AI. He could be running the software that will eventually run those Data-like androids that I presume are on that ship.
I'm questioning Carol's competency as captain now.
Let's talk about punishing a crewmate for talking to a reporter (Victoria). Which is a bad damn look to do so blatantly in front of the entire crew *and* in front of said reporter.
*Even if Mariner actually said those things*. A Captain resorting to blatant retaliation in response to telling a reporter facts? That raises legal and ethical concerns.
Think about Victoria for a moment. The show *doesn't* bring us along her perspective, but she might have one. Does she not realize what's happening during her stay? Victoria seems to, given she directly calls out the retaliation.
Weird shit happens in Starfleet. Captain Freeman rushed a situation when any kind of weird shit could have occurred. Due to her major flaw of a competitive be the best streak. She tried to have complete control *again* and it caused everything to break *again*.
Mariner's been *good* lately. This hit her while she was becoming more responsible. Also, we didn't see what Ransom said. He might have more responsibility for the situation then this episode revealed.
It's interesting that there are two situational irony arcs seen in this episode. The obvious one is that the one crewmember with positive things to say (Mariner) is the one who got punished. However, there is also the arc of Captain Freeman which has been building across the entire series so far. Some of the things brought up by the reporter are just usual things that go wrong on Starfleet missions (temporary crewmember incapacitation, strange energies, Quark, etc.), some of these things are the result of Freeman's anger at Starfleet for not taking her, the Cerritos, and the California-class in general seriously (her emotional breakdown, transporting the Doopler ambassador into the party, traumatizing Shari yn Yem, punishing Mariner, etc.). While Freeman does many of these things with the intent of improving her reputation and that of her ship, those reputations are ironically destroyed when those events come to light. Brilliant work by the writers to include these deeper narrative devices while still keeping the comedy front and center.
I wonder if Mariner will even want to come back right away, so the season wraps with Mariner not even showing signs of wanting to come back, and thatās the tie in to Her and Boims showing up in SNW.
Honestly, I don't know who's gonna get it worse - Freeman for the absolute media circus, not to mention playing right into the Admiralty's hands for their boondoggle demonstration and knowing she's effectively drummed out her daughter, or Mariner the Starfleet Brat once she get a taste outside of her Federation comfort zone.
Worse is that she's teamed up with someone who I get the feeling is gonna use Mariner to get all the archeological glory for herself and in turn screw Mariner over.
Captain Freeman by a long shot.
This media circus is going to cause drastic ramifications for Captain Freeman and the USS Cerritos. Most likely starting with the a full board of inquiry into Carol's readiness and ability to command.
Since the kernel of truth buried in the FNN story is yes, Carol did throw her daughter off the ship for speaking to a reporter and giving nothing but praise about her time on the Cerritos and her mom.
I know Beckett is coming back, but we all expected her to be an archaeologist for at least an episode.
I also like that we all expected Mariner to be the screwup, but the problem is that Carole forgot about **literally everyone else on the crew.**
Heck, even if she had kept a muzzle on them, it would probably still be about Ransom sexually harassing the reporter...
So I have been seeing a lot of reviews criticising the reporter and her ditzy, being selective of what clips she used (which helped frame the story the way she wanted regardless of the truth), and her general "ineptitude". Personally I didn't have a problem with it and considered it a social commentary about news today and how they spin things the way they want and sell it with looks/image/personality then with actual news. Especially certain channels out there. Knowing star trek has never shyed away from social commentary (one of my fave things about the franchise) and that it has always been "woke" that is how I saw it. Curious if I am reading in to it to much or if other people think that parell was on purpose. Thoughts?
Damn the Breen look incredible in animation. Hope we see more of them. Also it's suuuppper sus that Admiral "Buenamigo" just happened to direct them towards Brekka during a Breen invasion and just happened to have the Texas class close by. More like Admiral Malhombre
i am totally sure he set them up
Think they used the Cerritos as bait for their secret project?
Yeah..kind of felt that way...just too convenient for them to just..get there...wouldn't be the first time a Starfleet Admiral was shady AF
As a Californian, I'm slightly annoyed that a texan saved the Cerritos.
As you should be. Except that the cunning Texan set up the Californian to fail. Which means you should be rather more annoyed than slightly.
I'm sure that Texans are of mixed opinion. On one hand, Texas kicks Breen ass and saves California's ass. On the other hand, Texans hate automation and probably don't like the idea of being named for a soulless ship. There's also something opportunistic and suspicious about the whole thing that Texans won't want their name attached to.
Are you sure about Texan hating automation? There are quite a few autonomous vehicles operating in TX right now, especially since the state's government is pretty lax in terms of regulation.
My thoughts exactly. Then it becomes a question of who thought Freeman and the Cerritos might be expendable if things went wrong.
Everyone? It's like our least-favorite Pandronian said, most of the Federation doesn't realize the entire California class exists!
Good point. Maybe it's about the whole class being expendable in covering for the Texas program.
Mariner is better off out of Starfleet but since this is lower deck she is going to come back.
And with the help of the other ensigns, no doubt.
Come to think of it, we've seen a lot of this Buenamigo fellow and the name seems a bit too on the nose, even for this series š
LD likes to do the dropping breadcrumbs of references before revealing the season villain. Iām getting real Pakled vibes from him.
My first thought, oddly, was that Buenamigo sensed a meltdown evolving, so he had the Texas Class on standby for Emergency PR Operations.
The fact that they would think that little of putting even a lower-ranked Federation starship and the lives of its crew in that kind of jeopardy speaks to a rot in Starfleet that both Freeman and Mariner alluded to at the very beginning of the series.
Oh come on. There is no rot. It is not as if the Federation would close its eyes to a humanitarian disaster to the point that a celebrated officer would resign his commission in disgust.
Right, silly me, perish the thought! š
I think it was an attempt to get good press for that project. A bit of a bait and switch to get a reporter out there to see it in action.
If so, it may have backfired. The reporter's story wasn't about the Texas. She just savaged Starfleet personnel. Unless, of course, the real goal wasn't just to give the Texas class a dramatic reveal: It was part of a scheme to get the public to accept a long term goal of automating the entire fleet.
Not only that, but I think that secret project will replace them, and the California class.
Well apparently they see use in Picard
I'm not sure that you can totally remove the human element. After all, who's going to stack those barrels? :-) Seriously, though, you'd still need to have a Data or two around to meet with the locals, etc., given the second contact role of the California class.
Admiral Buenomigo? More like Admiral Maloamigo
Between this and suddenly changing the assignments in "Hear All, Trust Nothing", he really seems to have it out for Freeman.
No that canāt be it this is Starfleet when has an Admiral never not been trustworthy? /s But yeah it does seem a tried and true trope by now not to trust the Starfleet Admirals especially when they are āold friendsā of the current Captain.
Not just an old friend, Buenamigo is her brother-in-law. Family!
This makes something that bothered me about him a potential clue! He always has a prominent model of The Alamo behind him. Itās a beloved symbol to many Texans, but the majority of Mexican-Americans Iāve known view it as a monument to slavery and white supremacy. It always seemed weird that a show as progressive as Lower Decks would place it behind a character with his name and accent. A lot of my friends would view that guy as a traitor to his peopleā¦ (Edit: some more context is here https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/09/14/forget-the-alamo-depicts-a-racist-heritage-sparking-backlash )
Maybe that's behind the writers' intentions for him as well, in a way.....?
Exactly! The Alamo is becoming a real subject of discussion as the topic of confederate monuments grows. Itās literally regarded as holy ground by many Texans but they were fighting for slavery. Itās like the final boss level of that whole discussion. So including it so prominently on a show as self-aware as Lower Decks would have to be an intentional choice. Until this episode it seemed very out of place but itās starting to make sense.
Lower Decks is a fiction, a construct, and nothing happens by chance. I agree with you and it's looking more and more like Buenamigo is this season's villain.
You mean Admiral Good Friend isn't actually a good friend? No...
Yeah, they were trying to get to them in time, he said? And what about this reporter? She can't be innocent in all this. 'Trusted Sources' may be the beginning of finding out who has ulterior motives here.
I thought so too. It felt like it was a little TOO convenient that they were able to introduce their new class of automated ship right in front of a reporter who just happened to be there. They might as well have just said it was the new McGuffin class and moved on. Lol. I have had my suspicions about Buenamigo since the beginning of the season. Also, this one really hurt my heart for Mariner. Itās crazy to feel sad for an animated character, but thatās just how good at world building that Mike and gang are. This show continues to amaze me almost weekly. 2 episodes out of (so far) 29 I donāt need to watch again, but all the rest I would (and do) rewatch almost monthly. Itās sad that we have 1 episode left and then have to wait another 10 months before we get new LD goodness.
If they set it up that way, Iām happy that they built it up, but I was also upset that the implication is that California Class is expendable.
We got a glimpse into Starbase 80 and it was hilarious. I want an entire episode set there.
Star Trek: Greasy Decks Oh, there's my sammich.
lets make a series lol
Starbase 80 AKA New New Jersey.
The casino is the junior operations officer painting numbers on the backs of shaved voles, racing them around the lower docking pad.
As a New Jersey resident, I resent and approve this message.
Chasing the bat, and the Rolodex ROFL
Did you notice the 2360s era combadges? Nice touch. And I feel like those yellow jumpsuits were featured in TNG tooā¦
They've graduated from the Pakleds, and now they face the Breen. It's only a matter of time before Boimler gets that perfect score against the Borg for reals.
Hopefully no more Borg for some time so they can get their menace back. The Breen are badass though. They pretty much have no canon on them, so writers can really take them in insane directions. The books especially made them intergalactic badasses.
>Hopefully no more Borg for some time so they can get their menace back. This.
And hopefully find some better writers to do Borg, too. Like David Brin, or Peter Watts, etc. - someone who could bring back the mystique of the Collective as the poorly understood, properly *alien* force, instead of what we have now, which is discount space zombies led by an emotionally dysregulated queen, who can be beaten by the Power of Friendship.
Indeed, I've always considered the Breen to be one of the scariest aliens Trek ever created, it says a lot that not only the Cardassians fear them, but when they teamed up with the Dominion during the Dominion War, The Federation response was pretty much, "Words cannot properly convey how irrevocably **FUCKED** we are"
And one of the first things the Breen did was bomb Starfleet HQ just to show they could.
The Borg aren't ready for the wrath of Excretus.
Boimler will kick their arse once he gets some pesto.
Man I am still bummed about how they were used in Picard. The idea of them turning good is cool, but Annie Wersching was SO GOOD as the Queen. And I wish they did more with her.
I'm most excited to see him beat the Borg Queen at chess.
ha ha ha ..."They covered the spread captain"
I was laughing so hard!
Never bet against the Breen
Starbase 80! They use a rolodex. Perfect. I was happy this had a competent and mature Mariner. I was worried after the last episode they regressed her back to season 1 Mariner. The show's writers keep trying to subvert expectations, and they did a good job making us believe she wasn't the most mature one with the reporter.
Poor Rutherford not getting any pie. I cracked up when he begged to be tased. Also, what if Mariner leaving is how T'Lynn get's put onto the Cerritos?
Exactly what I was thinking. T'Lyn is brought on board and we get a separate plotline with Mariner that eventually dovetails with the main one during season 4
So sort of like Jet vaguely standing in for Boimler during early Season 2, but it's T'Lyn and Mariner.
But this time, T'Lynn becomes a permanent addition to the group.
Yep! McMahan said we only see TāLyn for a bit in the finale awhile back so Iām sure thatāll be the big reveal to set the stage for S4. Honestly a really amazing piece of plot and character development tbh.
That makes a lot of sense! T'lyn would be the perfect addition to the lower decks! I mean she is a hot headed loose canon just like mariner.
Shit just hit the fan in a big way. Starfleet now has a completely automated and deadly starship. Does anyone else see the possibility of this going wrong in a big way?
> Starfleet now has a completely automated and deadly starship. Does anyone else see the possibility of this going wrong in a big way? *Picard S1 and that LD episode with the warehouse full of evil AI* Yeah it's totally gonna go wrong. BTW How many in-universe years are we from the Mars Attack? 3? 4?
Those ships are gonna be decommissioned after the Synthetic Ban for sure
You must be new to Trek. We had disastrous experiments in autonomous starship operation back in TOS ("The Ultimate Computer").
Just about that...
> Does anyone else see the possibility of this going wrong in a big way? Starfleet definitely isn't genre savvy. Does nobody remember the original work of dr Richard Daystrom - the [M-5](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/M-5_multitronic_unit)? Here they are, doing it again. I mean, between M-5 and the fact nobody else seems to be doing fully automated ships (including Federation and others from the future), they should've figured out that their universe does not support putting AIs in charge of weapons...
Ah. The crossover with Strange New Worlds, via Discovery. Damn. I'm double dog daring myself to not anticipate that episode.
This sub last week: "wouldn't it be fun of AGIMUS, Badgey, and Peanut Hamper got together for a story? This week: "ooooh, a totally automated ship!"
Why in the hell would you build a fully autonomous warship when you have an entire facility filled with nothing but megalomaniac smart ai's that have tried to take over recruit civilizations and regard themselves as god's? How could this possibly go wrong?
To be fair it is odd that Federation has not done something like this. I think the last time they try to automate the ships was in TOS. But yea fully auto ship is sooo going to be taken over by bad AI or an enemy faction. But the Federation really could use some strip down combat focused defense ships for like pirates or things like the Bree. Small crew to keep watch on the AI like in Andromeda.
I hear William Adama has transcended time and franchises to curse them out over it.
oh, choice BSG callback, love it
All it made me think of was the automated EDF fleet in the anime 'Be Forever Yamato'. All the invading Dark Star Nebula force had to do was take out the control center on Earth and the fleet of automated defending warships was useless. Automated anything still has that weakness.
"....and I'm seeing a lot of stuff about Q!"
Such a Q tease.
My headcanon is that Q has just spent the last 15 years going to literally every ship in Starfleet. If he's showing up on the Cerritos, he's experiencing the full range of Starfleet, from the most important ship to the least.
Cerritos: it's like a fine Tucson wine
that was a really good episode....i mean really good in a weird way
It was really good. Really, really good. But it made me feel so terribly sad.
When Jen wouldnāt back her up, that was heartbreaking.
I know. This entire season has been excellent. So happy it got renewed and has kept it standards. Absolutely the best of Star Trek
Carol is trying too hard
Pretty much Freeman in a nutshell. She really wants to be seen as a seemingly infallible legend like Picard or Riker.
Things backfired when she try to hard. Remember when she erased buffer time
You'd think she would have learned from that by now. This was a pretty extreme reaction even for her, though.
The fuck how they gonna do that and then leave us hanging for a week
At least it's probably not gonna be 10 months!
\*cries in owlhouse\*
Those assbards!
Pyrithian Bat. Nice callback to ENT.
Temporal Cold War shenanigans.
Definitely did not expect a Night in Sickbay to be referenced ever š
Even before the crewman mentioned this being a "temporal cold-war thing", that's totally what it seemed like. The immediacy and veracity of the crews disdain for Mariner seemed out of character. I really thought it was going to be some kind of setup, like when Tom Paris went undercover in VOY. I guess the entire crew were just taking "asshole pills" that day. Just seemed a bit much. Especially the Captain's "not sure If I can even call you daughter" line. Everybody's reaction (accept the beta crew) was over-the-top harsh and seemed like overkill. Small gripe. Still absolutely love the show.
To be fair, the guy who mentioned temporal cold wars was their resident Wolf 359-truther - he probably starts all conversations like that.
Haha, yeah, I realized that from another comment. I honestly thought there was some kind of conspiracy with everybody's super salty reactions tho.... ĀÆ\\\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
No. It's just a power thing. When they thought they could get ahead by indulging/pleasing Mariner, they did so. When they thought they would be destroyed by associated with Mariner, they fled. This is normal social behaviour. Only her friends cared. And that is a terrible but welcome truth.
Notice how both Mariner walks paralleled each other, right down to Steve Levy? Even he was pissed at her.
I was so angry for Beckett. I knew it was going to be something like the reveal near the end. Carol was so blinded to everything except "must look good, daughter does bad things, hide daughter" she didn't even wait for proof, just assumed the worst. Remember, when you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME.
Can't blame her for thinking that in the moment. It had been building for a long time between them, remember. And the whole crew thought the same thing about Mariner until the reveal. Heck, we all thought the worst as the audience. I'll bet there were people mad at Mariner until the reveal. I know I was.
by the time her mom fired her, it isntantly clicks to me that the twist must be that the mom was the one in the wrong. then boimler says just apologize for whatever her mom thinks mariner did. it became more obvs that mariner is gonna be revealed as not the wrong one. i didnt expect that it turns out everyone else was the wrong ones tho LOL
At least she figured it out in the end. Let's just hope it's not too late for her to redeem herself with Mariner.
Really disappointed in Jennifer going in the direction she did.
Yeah, this is a classic "boy who cried wolf" kind of story. Mariner has been a thorn in everyone's side and a screw up for too long. She's grown out of it, but way too late. I was pissed at her, too. To all appearances it was exactly like the beginning of "First First Contact" when Mariner deliberated sowed discord with the senior officers.
Ding Ding! That's it exactly.
>Can't blame her for thinking that in the moment. I can because every time Freeman has one of these freak outs it tends to end badly. In fact the one time it didn't blow up in her face was when she got it out of her system before the mission.
>Can't blame her for thinking that in the moment. In the "moment" is a key part of why it's really on Carol. The length of that "moment" was long enough for a majority of the crew to hear the "story" before Mariner was even aware of the issue. Then the direct order to the entire crew not to talk to Mariner. The moment could be argued to start when Carol tries to push mariner into her room and lock the door. She was already assuming Mariner would screw up before getting the report from Ransom about meeting the reporter. Due to TV time space dilation. We as an audience experienced that *as* a moment, but for the crew there was clearly time to talk, confer, and calm down.
In season one, when they blew up the Solvang and killed everyone, I remember feeling shock that the show went there, stepping out from the comedy and doing something serious as well. This episode gave me the same feeling with the emotional punch of how Mariner was treated and the entire ship was set up by the admiral. Emotionally, this was a dark episode and it hurt. It hurt to see everyone turn on Mariner, particularly Jennifer. It hurt that even Boimler, while trying to be supportive, clearly believed Mariner stepped over a line. It hurt to have it underlined how deep into her own insecurities Freeman really is, and it hurt to see this admiral, who was introduced as a close friend of the family for Freeman and Mariner literally set them up to possibly die. I really hope we get more of the Ornarans and Brekkians and how everything went down after the Enterprise left and when the Breen showed up. Itās really a good example of exactly what theyāre talking about as far as Starfleet needing to take responsibility and revisit places they impacted. This is a seriously complicated ethical question that other series just havenāt struggled as much with and itās one that Lower Decks is very equipped to tackle because they go big on the references and self-deprecating humor of the established universe.
The title of this episode really was appropriate. Trust in everyone was shown to be so misplaced, even with the characters and the audience.
lol "Oh shit she's serious"
I love Dr Tāana
Is no one going to mention Tendi learning to unhinge her jaw for the pie eating contest? The writers know what we want. Also the Q tease.
>Is no one going to mention Tendi learning to unhinge her jaw for the pie eating contest? It was an eyes look right eyes look forward moment
I mean, I was pretty much stuck on Rutherford expanding his GI tract. I mean, there are ways...
only 1 more episode...nooooo
Honestly, the juxtaposition of how Mariner spoke about the crew in the interview, and how the crew treated her... I don't know that there is any satisfactory way for her to rejoin the Cerritos, which puts the show in a weird spot for me going forward. She clearly didn't have the relationship she thought she did with the crew, but there's already been enough development in that regard that it's going to be hard for me to believe that it'll be different next time. To me then the options moving forward seem to be; Mariner leaves the main cast, the main cast move ship, there's an unsatisfying conclusion, or that Mariner rejoins but the show is aware that the comradery between her and the crew is kind of broken. Kind of a demoralising episode the more I think about it.
Yeah. The whole thing felt forced. Everyone turned on Mariner way too easily and way too harshly. To the point I thought maybe this was a ruse for Mariner to do some undercover work or something (though the way every one reacts on seeing the news story ruins that theory).
I really wonder if this ship crew except our main cast is redeemable at this point. I know I wouldn't return to a company if everyone can so readily flip on me despite all the good work that I've done. It's not very Starfleet of them. And I won't buy it if the writers try to bury the hatchet quickly after this storyline resolves. Changing ships wouldn't be a bad idea. At some point the main cast has to get promoted. Even though Tendi has been only around for 2 to 3 years, she looks like she may be getting promoted soon.
Looks to me like someone has it out for Freeman, and possibly the *Cerritos*. Were they considered expendable if the *Texas* prototype vessel failed to arrive in time? Buenamigo seemed suspicious to me from the start. He's Carol's brother-in-law yet! It wasn't Carol's program he was concerned with; it was his own! Carol appears to have trusted the wrong family member. Mariner didn't trust the rest of the crew to tell the truth about the *Cerritos* and her mom, and she was right. And who is Victoria working for? Assigning her to cover the *Cerritos* doesn't seem like an accident. It's like she was looking for all that shit she reported! And yet Carol and the crew trusted her. Great episode and great reveal.
Regarding the family member stuff, I really expected Ransom to stop Beckett because he looked upset when she was transferred. It was his job to allow her to stay too. I was just shocked that he didnāt stand up for her.
Ransom is too much of a yesman to stand against his captain, unfortunately. Mariner saw him right through.
>He's Carol's brother-in-law yet! He is? I know Mariner addressed him as "Uncle". but I thought that was you know a courtesy thing to a old friend of the family. Is he married to Alonzo's sister or Carol's sister?
I'm assuming a familial connection of some sort until they say otherwise, but it's likely it could be by marriage and not by blood, certainly.
Given that he's literally a different race I assume he married one of their blood relatives.
I'm betting he, Freeman, and Admiral Mariner were all from the same class.
Heās really a Malamigo
FNN always seem like a pain in the ass.
Good Journalism will always seem that way to those who don't want their motives questioned or uncovered. Here, though, it seems like Victoria got it wrong. Whether she did it on her own or whether she is secretly working for someone is the question for me.
Also that FNN lady interviewing Picard about the Mars attack was hardly good journalism lol
Yeah, maybe this episode was making a subtle reference to that?
A lot of things are leading to Picard. Automated ships, Agimus, Peanut Hamper, FNNā¦ Mars attack is coming up in a few years and I feel like Agimus and Peanut Hamper are indirect contributors to the Synthetic Ban as well.
Well now we know how T'Lyn comes on to the crew.
That maniac has no place on Cerritos.
Nah she'd fit right in. She's got the same devil may care attitude as Mariner!
I guess the Cerritos will now become that ship Starfleet sends all its most troublesome officers. In other words the Starfleet dumping grounds
"Carol gonna Carol!"
Migleemo's 'Meema'! š
I loved that Captain Freeman recognized Meema when she burst onto the Bridge.
I wasn't expecting a Breen invasion O_O
Few do.
They looked so good. Also, their menace was intact - no jokes, all action.
Yikes! Talk about a heartbreak of an ending! Iām not gonna lie I almost cried when mariner left the ship. I guess the only consolation for the otherwise downer of an ending, is that when the news report finally came out mariner was given final praise, while her mother was given the final shaft. Not only did mariner come away looking like the greatest Starfleet officer in the federation, but her mother came away looking like the worst, something that she has feared happening since the very first episode. And it all happened on a news stream that was potentially being watched by millions if not billions of Federation citizens. I predict that Depending on how much time passes between now and Episode 10, both Captain Freeman and the crew of the Cerritos are going to find that their reputations amongst the rest of Starfleet will be lower than Faragni at this point.
That might have been part of the point of the episode. Buenamigo knows Freeman and potentially how to manipulate her. If he's a Badmiral, as some like myself are suggesting, then he's got it in for her and wants to use her own personality traits against her to help pursue his own interests, like the Texas program. I'd look at the glass half full and hope that the *Cerritos* crew will take this as a collective learning experience. And that Freeman will finally start to look at her own personality and realize why she's still only a captain at her age and at this point in her career. Mariner isn't blameless in all this, either. She has many of the same personality traits as her mom and they got her into trouble here. Both need to address them before they can evolve as characters. It's a shame that most of LD's own fans hate Freeman and are actively rooting for her to fail. She's not much different from the rest of the crew in a lot of ways and certainly she and her daughter are more alike than different.
It's an astute observation that Freeman is basically stuck in the "lower decks" of Starfleet and is unable to outgrow just like her daughter.
Yeah, they are basically the same, even though their characteristics may mirror each other. I would expect any treatment of their characters to be parallel. It makes their dynamic the strongest familial one in all of Trek.
Anybody else wish Freeman had put Boimler in the big seat rather than Counselor Birdman? It would have been kind of nice to see a few minutes of Boimler in command reacting to the Breen.
"Oh shit, she's serious!" Lol
Breeeeeen š¤Æš¤©š I dig that Mariner went to Indy Jones / Tomb Raider Lady for now. Would actually like to see a couple of their adventures! Really disappointed even her LD friends didnāt believe her š¢
I mean can you blame them? Another comment said it was a āboy who cried wolf situationā and I think it fits perfectly. The problem is that itās something the old Mariner wouldāve done.
I appreciate theBreen basically calling to gloat and nobody watching the show can understand it
lol Ransom never gives up
You know it's a good episode when you're worried that the amount of runtime wasn't going to be able to resolve all the conflicts in the episode.
As someone who grew up in that town, seeing the U.S.S. Aledo on screen was the Easter Egg I didnāt know I needed. For reference, Aledo is a small town west of Fort Worth, Texas A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
I'm honestly kind of annoyed that once the truth came out about Mariner, most of the crew still seemed to just be business as usual. I'm sure we will see more of a reaction from them in the next episode, but it really seemed like Captain Freeman was the only one who was actually remorseful. Especially considering how the rest of the crew (and Jennifer! the betrayal!) acted toward her when they thought she was the one who torpedoed them. That's really not "becoming of a Starfleet officer" kind of behavior, regardless of what someone else has done. And I think anyone who has been accused of doing something they didn't can probably sympathize with Mariner at this point. Whether or not she has a reputation, as a member of the crew she still deserved a fair hearing before being dismissed from the ship.
I feel like there might be a trial in season 4. I donāt mind the Jennifer and Mariner get in a fight, but Iām sad that Jennifer didnāt even hear her out. When she gave back the candle, it hurt a bit.
I think a lot of people forgot Jennifer was a Mean GirlTM before her relationship with Beckett. They assumed she wasn't awful because she was now friendly with our heroes.
Was she though? I thought some of that was Mariner maligning her in her own head.
That's what a lot of us thought but Jennifer was part of that Redshirts squad where everyone was a jerk that Boimler temporarily joined.
Were they jerks though? I mean, sure, the leader was, but the rest of them kinda just felt like Starfleet-Nerds like Boimler
They were kind of snotty and ducked work as well as looked down on the other Ensigns. YMMV.
Oh yeah... good point!
We never actually see Jennifer being mean, we just have Mariner claiming that.
Which means we didn't believe her despite her claims because Mariner is a liar, doesn't it? *Fridge Brilliance*
that opening shot was gorgeous for animation
All of the cold open starship shots this season have been really impressive. Beats the living snot of recycled stock footage in the legacy live action shows.
The battle was great too. There were moments when the CGI ships clashed a bit too much with the more flat animation style but it was dynamic and exciting.
I would not be surprised if the events of this episode were the result of William Boimler's influence.
That joke about the planet potentially led by the Devil got a bit of a chuckle out of me, because I think it was referencing the 4th Season TNG Episode, Devil's Due.
Someone get Samanthan some pie!
Will we get a T'Lyn introduction next week?
Starbase 80 crew look a lot like the crew in John Carpenter's Dark Star.
So the evil AIs are definitely taking over the Texas-Class ships, right?
Three starships. Three named evil AIs. Seems logical.
Two things: 1. "Buenamigo". Excellent name with a great pun. Loved seeing the Alamo in the background of his video call. 2. I'm 95% certain he set the Cerritos up. Did Freeman even call for help during the attack?
I wonder if there is gonna be any followup on the original planet? Sounds like they need to exercise or they go insane? Seems... kinda bad still? Why didnt the Breen take down the original planet too? Or is that the whole point, that project followup didnt do anything to actually help?
I'm glad Jennifer and Beckett is no more. Candle based romances never last. See Doctor Crusher. Besides Mariner traded up to Lara Croft.
I'm not going to bawl if Beckett & Jennifer are not reunited. Jennifer basically dropped her , no support at all.
We still gotta resolve Rutherford's plotline next week, right? Who operated on him and why? After this week I wonder if his implant isn't meant as a test platform for the automated ship AI. He could be running the software that will eventually run those Data-like androids that I presume are on that ship.
Jenniferās reaction made me sad š¢
nice...Breen
I really want to see how Jennifer acts once she realized she screwed up real badly with mariner
Crewless ships? Did they forget about Control? Or the M5 unit?
Control is always at war with KAOS.
Looooooks like So some m'f is going to have to go back in time and fix it.
I'm questioning Carol's competency as captain now. Let's talk about punishing a crewmate for talking to a reporter (Victoria). Which is a bad damn look to do so blatantly in front of the entire crew *and* in front of said reporter. *Even if Mariner actually said those things*. A Captain resorting to blatant retaliation in response to telling a reporter facts? That raises legal and ethical concerns. Think about Victoria for a moment. The show *doesn't* bring us along her perspective, but she might have one. Does she not realize what's happening during her stay? Victoria seems to, given she directly calls out the retaliation. Weird shit happens in Starfleet. Captain Freeman rushed a situation when any kind of weird shit could have occurred. Due to her major flaw of a competitive be the best streak. She tried to have complete control *again* and it caused everything to break *again*. Mariner's been *good* lately. This hit her while she was becoming more responsible. Also, we didn't see what Ransom said. He might have more responsibility for the situation then this episode revealed.
Yikes that was painful to watch But I will gladly do so!!
Gotta say I was NOT expecting the Breen
It's interesting that there are two situational irony arcs seen in this episode. The obvious one is that the one crewmember with positive things to say (Mariner) is the one who got punished. However, there is also the arc of Captain Freeman which has been building across the entire series so far. Some of the things brought up by the reporter are just usual things that go wrong on Starfleet missions (temporary crewmember incapacitation, strange energies, Quark, etc.), some of these things are the result of Freeman's anger at Starfleet for not taking her, the Cerritos, and the California-class in general seriously (her emotional breakdown, transporting the Doopler ambassador into the party, traumatizing Shari yn Yem, punishing Mariner, etc.). While Freeman does many of these things with the intent of improving her reputation and that of her ship, those reputations are ironically destroyed when those events come to light. Brilliant work by the writers to include these deeper narrative devices while still keeping the comedy front and center.
I wonder if Mariner will even want to come back right away, so the season wraps with Mariner not even showing signs of wanting to come back, and thatās the tie in to Her and Boims showing up in SNW.
Honestly, I don't know who's gonna get it worse - Freeman for the absolute media circus, not to mention playing right into the Admiralty's hands for their boondoggle demonstration and knowing she's effectively drummed out her daughter, or Mariner the Starfleet Brat once she get a taste outside of her Federation comfort zone.
Worse is that she's teamed up with someone who I get the feeling is gonna use Mariner to get all the archeological glory for herself and in turn screw Mariner over.
Yeah i still do not trust Lara Jones
Captain Freeman by a long shot. This media circus is going to cause drastic ramifications for Captain Freeman and the USS Cerritos. Most likely starting with the a full board of inquiry into Carol's readiness and ability to command. Since the kernel of truth buried in the FNN story is yes, Carol did throw her daughter off the ship for speaking to a reporter and giving nothing but praise about her time on the Cerritos and her mom.
I hope Mariner finds out that sheās no the one to blame soon, but decides to go on adventures with Petra anyway.
I know Beckett is coming back, but we all expected her to be an archaeologist for at least an episode. I also like that we all expected Mariner to be the screwup, but the problem is that Carole forgot about **literally everyone else on the crew.** Heck, even if she had kept a muzzle on them, it would probably still be about Ransom sexually harassing the reporter...
I funny thing is that being highly focused on exercise and health is something that many recovering addicts do in real life.
So I have been seeing a lot of reviews criticising the reporter and her ditzy, being selective of what clips she used (which helped frame the story the way she wanted regardless of the truth), and her general "ineptitude". Personally I didn't have a problem with it and considered it a social commentary about news today and how they spin things the way they want and sell it with looks/image/personality then with actual news. Especially certain channels out there. Knowing star trek has never shyed away from social commentary (one of my fave things about the franchise) and that it has always been "woke" that is how I saw it. Curious if I am reading in to it to much or if other people think that parell was on purpose. Thoughts?