Mariner stews on Earth. Her father, Admiral Alonzo Freeman, tries to convince her to trust in the system, but the tribunal is taking Frame-Up evidence seriously and Mariner is convinced that it's a Kangaroo Court. Therefore, she commits herself to finding evidence that will exonerate her mother. After Putting the Band Back Together, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford commandeer a theme park rocket and get on the Cerritos, where Boimler's Captain's Log proves the Frame-Up; however, Mariner resolves to steal the Cerritos and track down whoever sold the Pakleds the varuvian bomb.
Her friends, however, won't let her endanger herself like this, especially since Mariner's plan involves going solo into Klingon space and forcing the warlike aliens to give up evidence. After Mariner's attempt to send them back to Earth fails, she breaks down and admits that she's terrified about what will happen to her mother. The crew begins to make their way back to Earth but is stopped by Starfleet security, who wants to know why precisely an impounded ship is flying around without order. A bit of quick talking convinces the officials that they're on a biological survey to study rare spaceborne aliens, but the plan hits a snag when security wants to know the officer that authorized the mission.
This ends unexpectedly: Captain Freeman returns to the Cerritos, inadvertently saving the four ensigns who are about to hit a situation they can't talk their way out of. She explains that the entire thing was a False Flag Operation; she agreed to go on trial while a Starfleet task force under Captain Bateson confirmed she had been framed. Mariner's entire plan was All for Nothing. Her Military Maverick attitudes and unwillingness to trust authority are finally placed front and center; if she's to remain in Starfleet, her parents agree, she is going to have to pass the standards of the toughest officer any of them know: Commander Jack Ransom.
Tropes:
- Anything but That!: As soon as Ransom steps into the room, Mariner is horrified and pleads to not be set up to deal with the commander.
- Bait-and-Switch: Shots of a vineyard being watered by automated drones eventually focus on a character working in the vineyard with a large hat, obscured by a large Lens Flare. Evidently trying to imply this would be a Picard cameo, as he would be in his family home about this era, instead it is Boimler having returned to work at his family vineyard. Instead of wine, they produce raisins.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: When the verugament start reproducing on the hull of the Cerritos, Tendi quickly spins a lie to Starfleet security about doing a biological survey of their mating cycle, going so far as to physically help despite the painful shocks from their tentacles to sell the lie. It nearly fails because the officers still want confirmation that they've been ordered to do this by a superior officer, but Freeman shows up to solve that problem.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Transporter Chief Carlton Dennis seems perfectly nice and gives sweets and soup to the group, but it's clear he'd phaser them all into unconsciousness if they had hostile intentions.
- Blatant Lies: Mariner certainly wasn't waiting behind the door for an appropriate prompt in order to make a cool entrance.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Ketracel White-Hot sauce, which is supposedly 17,000,000 Scoville Heat Unitsnote , is served at Sisko's. Mariner describes an entire bottle as a "nice little kick". Boimler passes out within 30 seconds of adding only a few drops to his gumbo. Ironically, Mariner's reaction is actually more plausible: there are a few rare people with total capsaicin insensitivity, which she might have, but someone who doesn't, like Boimler, should have been in even worse shape. But even more plausible is that the sauce isn't actually that hot.
- Brick Joke:
- After the ensigns hijack the theme park Phoenix, the fifth passenger dubs himself "Captain Gavin" and declares he'll be going on a trek amongst the stars. At the end of the episode, Starfleet has tracked down the rogue ride and security is busy trying to arrest him.
- When Mariner leaves the Joshua Tree to send the others back to Earth, she tells Boimler she's going to check the port nacelle. The port nacelle ends up being ripped off in the crash landing.
- Call-Forward: There's a brief mention of Admiral Jellico in a news ticker; he then makes a couple of cameos in the second half of Prodigy's first season.
- The Cameo:
- James Cromwell reprises his role as a hologram of Zefram Cochrane.
- Captain Morgan Bateson (Kelsey Grammer) and Commander Tuvok (Tim Russ) appear, albeit unvoiced.
- Chekhov's Gun: The verugament are mentioned in the very first scene, well before the Teleport Interdiction they cause comes into play.
- Coming in Hot: The Joshua Tree is going a little fast, expecting to aerobrake on Earth's atmosphere. Instead it lithobrakes on the interior of the Cerritos's shuttlebay.
- Confirm Before Reveal: At a nearby spacedock, one security officer is alerted the Cerritos is leaving orbit and asks his colleague if the ship is supposed to leave today. When his colleague said the Cerritos is currently in dry dock and asks him why, they both notice the Cerritos is flying by them, thanks to Mariner hijacking the ship and her friends trying to stop her, and the security officer immediately presses the alarm button without even looking at it.
- Continuity Nod:
- The ensigns visit Bozeman, Montana, now a national monument/theme park. The statue La Forge mentioned is there, a replica of the T'Plana-Hath serves as a playground for kids, replicas of the Phoenix do warp tours of Cochrane's maiden flight (with "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf playing), and there's plenty of musical references.
- The Cerritos still has its outer hull removed since the events of the last season finale.
- They also have a meal at Sisko's Creole Kitchen.
- Covered in Gunge: The main characters wind up covered in verugament sploof as part of their claim they're helping them reproduce.
- Cutting the Knot: Unable to disconnect the autopilot that Mariner has programmed to take them "home" (i.e. to Earth), Boimler reprograms its references so that the "home" destination instead returns the shuttle to the Cerritos.
- Deconstructed Trope:
- Military Maverick is deconstructed here. For the past two seasons, Mariner is shown to be a maverick within Starfleet, always bucking against them and believing their bureaucracy is slow and worthless, jumping into the fray when she feels things need to be done faster. Here, it's not enough that they already found proof of her mother's innocence, she also insists on finding the actual guilty party, which involves attempting to hijack the Cerritos to do so. However, it turned out that it was All for Nothing as the entire thing was a False Flag Operation to root out the truth, meaning that if Mariner had been patient and trusted them as others did, things would have worked out for the best. Instead, she’s now on a very short leash.
- The Unfavorite gets a similar deconstruction, at least from Mariner's perspective. She assumes Starfleet would throw her mother under the bus because she commands a California class vessel, which most everyone in the organization treats as less than nothing for doing not-so prestigious work. Her assumption leads her to hijack the Cerritos so she can prove her mother's innocence, which turns out to be All for Nothing; Starfleet knew Freeman was innocent, and were using the trial as a means to fool the responsible parties into thinking their plan worked. Starfleet may give more prestige towards certain ships and captains than others, but it doesn't abandon its own. It does, however, land Mariner on her last chance to stay in Starfleet, and one more mistake will result in her being kicked out.
- Detrimental Determination: Mariner doesn't trust that Starfleet will find her mother innocent, simply because she is captain of a Cali-class ship and is expendable in their eyes. She goes on her own mission with her friends to get evidence and clear her mom's name, but her obsession with finding irrefutable proof and paranoia against the higher ups leads to her attempting to steal the Cerritos to try to find who is responsible herself. This backfires spectacularly when it almost gets her and her friends arrested, and the only reason they don't is because Captain Freeman, who was found innocent without her help, arrives to vouch for them. Mariner's actions this time also prove to be the last straw for her parents, who realize they have been too lenient on her and she now thinks she can do stuff like this without consequences. So, as a punishment her fate is now in the hands of Commander Ransom, who she hates, where if she steps out of line like this one more time she'll be kicked out of Starfleet for good.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- When Mariner sends the others back to Earth on the shuttle Joshua Tree, Boimler solves the problem of the auto-pilot by changing the parameters of what "home" is from Earth to the Cerritos. It isn't until Tendi notices they aren't slowing down that Boimler realizes the shuttle is still trying to compensate for the friction of a planetary atmosphere, causing them to crash.
- Mariner's theft of the Cerritos certainly qualifies, as she is attempting to singlehandedly fly a ship normally crewed by several hundred people and which is currently missing its hull plating into battle against Klingons. It quickly becomes apparent that she is not thinking at all and is simply reacting in ways that she hopes will give her the chance to exonerate her mother.
- Double-Meaning Title: The immediate meaning of the episode's name refers to the fact that the Cerritos crew has been put on administrative leave by Starfleet. Once the episode comes to a close, however, one could also assume that the word "grounded" also refers to the fact that Mariner's parents are finally putting their foot down on Mariner's rebellious Military Maverick behavior by putting her on a short leash in Ransom's hands.
- Enmity with an Object: Mariner hates the Golden Gate Bridge simply because she thinks it's pointless when nobody drives.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Despite the urgency of their situation, Mariner can't bring herself to knock Dennis out, especially after he tears up mentioning his late wife. But she has no problem trying to make Boimler to do it in her stead.
- Sneaking onto the Cerritos is one thing, but Boimler, Rutherford and Tendi all agree that stealing it is a line too far and resolve to stop Mariner.
- Evolving Credits:
- The battle scene in the credits is now joined by a Crystalline Entity, which one-shots a Borg Cube.
- The Star Trek logo intro that debuted with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds now features the Cerritos going to warp in place of the Enterprise. The nebula in the background is also shaped like a koala.
- False Flag Operation:
- The Pakleds blew up their own planet and framed Freeman in an attempt to get relocated to a resource-rich planet.
- Freeman's entire trial was a sham so the Pakleds would think their gambit succeeded.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The news crawl mentions that Admiral Jellico has banned the Zebulon Sisters from active-duty starships, while there was an incident involving 12 teenagers being injured at a Sonny Clemonds concert.
- Funny Background Event: After Boimler puts a couple of drops of extremely spicy hot sauce on his gumbo, we get to watch him slowly succumb to the intense heat in the background as the group discusses how to exonerate Captain Freeman. (Mariner, in comparison, dumps a whole bunch into her gumbo and barely notices, saying it has a nice kick.) Despite this, Boimler still manages to participate in the conversation before passing out.
- Hero of Another Story: Captain Bateson and Commander Tuvok, who were able to solve the Pakled crisis offscreen.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Mariner tries to slip away from the others after rigging up the shuttlecraft autopilot by claiming she needs to go "check the port nacelle".
- Jumped at the Call:
- Boimler jumps at the chance to help Captain Freeman, because the alternative is being stuck on his family's raisin farm.
- Tendi and Rutherford also jump at the chance to help, more out of loyalty than boredom as they've been enjoying sightseeing during their extended leave.
- Leitmotif: A number of musical cues from Star Trek: First Contact are used as the characters visit Boseman, Montana.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Obviously, so much of this episode would have been avoided have Freeman been able to let Mariner in on the truth her "trial" was a sham.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: A hard subversion, as Mariner was certain that Starfleet was planning to steamroll her mother in court and that made her desperate to find independent evidence to support her claims. After an entire episode scrambling to find log entries on the Cerritos and potentially develop criminal charges by hijacking the ship, they learn Captain Freeman was cleared in court an hour ago because Starfleet Intelligence had already tracked down the bomb's origin, method of framing Freeman for the conspiracy and the intended motives of the Pakleds. As it so happens, Starfleet really is as good and noble as they claim to be (Freeman had been briefed after her arrest, so she was in on the plan the entire time).
- Mind Probe: Commander Tuvok used his abilities to extract the memories of a data fabricator which led him to discover the Pakleds' culpability for their homeworld's destruction.
- Mundane Utility: The Bozeman theme park has warp-capable replicas of the Phoenix that serve as the futuristic equivalent of an automated tour boat, taking the passengers on a recreation of Cochrane's maiden flight before flying back.
- Mythology Gag: Mariner, Boimler and Tendi wear casual civilian clothing with stylish jackets, similar to those seen in the TNG movies, while Rutherford wears a sweater with geometric patterns and clashing colors similar to numerous civilian characters seen on Deep Space Nine; specifically it looks almost identical, with the sides flipped, to one Jake Sisko wears.
- Oblivious to Love: Boimler is surrounded by horny women in the vineyard and treats all their innuendos completely literally.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Exaggerated. Freeman tells the Lower Deckers how Captain Morgan Bateson led a secret mission to expose the Pakleds' plot and got the information from Tuvok, now a Commander.Tendi: Holy (bleep).
Rutherford: Can we hear that again, please? - Only Sane Man: Inverted. Mariner is the only one freaking out and wanting to get the truth out about Captain Freeman, while everyone else is more than certain that things'll work out in the end. They're willing to sneak aboard the Cerritos to obtain evidence that they hope will exonerate the Captain, but even this simply entails picking up a copy of Boimler's journal, since he made copies of the Captain's Log and then added his own commentary to them. They draw the line at stealing the ship to track down the Klingons who Mariner thinks are behind the whole thing.
- Pun: One of the shops at the First Contact amusement park is named "Thirst Contact".
- Reconstructed Trope: The Paragon. Throughout the first two seasons, the California-class and the crew of the Cerritos specifically is shown to be given a case of The Unfavorite, given the unglamorous job of Second Contact and being pretty much ignored by more haughtier captains just because of the ship they're on. "First First Contact" even had the idea that if a captain promoted to a new ship and job, it's just the captain and not the rest of the crew. This is the bulk of the reason why Mariner went Military Maverick in search of evidence to save Captain Freeman. However, just because the California-class isn't as glamorous as other ships and the crew does lame jobs doesn't mean that Starfleet would happily toss them aside - Starfleet Intelligence smelled a rat and convinced Freeman to go with the trial while Captain Bateson and Commander Tuvok (among others) sought out the truth. When push comes to shove, Starfleet would never abandon their members.
- The Reveal:
- Captain Freeman never destroyed the Pakled homeworld—the Pakleds did it themselves, in an attempt to force Starfleet to relocate them to a resource-rich planet.
- Captain Freeman's trial was never real; it was a sham to expose the Pakled's scheme.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Mariner and her friends' efforts to clear her mother's name were completely wasted because the whole trial was a sham meant to root out and track down the actual culprits and Captain Freeman was already in on it.
- Shameful Source of Knowledge: Subverted by Boimler, who has no hesitations offering up his overly-detailed personal logs if they contain entries that help Captain Freeman's case. He doesn't feel self-conscious until he sees Mariner's reaction to them and her dismissal of them as "a joke" and "a freaking blooper reel". (Which fits her pattern of mistrust towards Starfleet, presuming that they would disregard it as evidence solely on the basis of its embarrassing content.)Boimler's Log: Got caught sniffing the Captain's chair again.
Mariner: They're... they're all like this?
Boimler: No no no, that's just one or two. The rest of them are very professional.
Boimler's Log: The alien atmosphere is giving me insane gas... (beep) Gotta be better about hiding my purple hair dye. Nobody knows my real hair color is... (beep) ...alien bird ate my combadge. (beep) ...dropped my tricorder in the toilet again! (beep) I actually woke myself up, these gas pains are so bad. I just wish i could fart! - Ship Tease: Rutherford and Tendi first appear in the episode having dinner together.
- Shoot the Television: To stop the newsfeed about her mother's trial, Mariner throws a plant pot at the viewscreen. We can see she's done that to several other screens already, and her father reminds her that they can just be turned off.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Mariner gets hit with this; convinced Starfleet Command is going to throw her mother Captain Freeman under the bus because she's just a captain of a lowly workhorse ship, she breaks the rules in attempt to exonerate her. In reality, Command wasn't fooled for a second by the accusation leveled at Captain Freeman, and had her in on their plan immediately after her "arrest" to play along to catch the real culprits the whole time.
- Souvenir Land: The site of First Contact is now an amusement park, complete with churros.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Mariner's theft of the Cerritos is the very last straw for her parents, as Mariner is just too much of a loose cannon for both of them. Thus, Freeman tosses Mariner's fate to Commander Ransom as he's not related to any of them, thus has no qualms about kicking her out if she goes wild again.
- In addition, Freeman finally realizes that after years of covering and excusing Mariner's actions, Mariner feels like she can do and say whatever she wants without repercussion because she and her husband are too soft on Mariner due to being family and they're reaping what they sow.
- Mariner assumes that Starfleet is suckered by the obvious frame job on Freeman and will throw her under the bus because she's the captain of a Cali and goes to great lengths to exonerate her. Except not only was Starfleet not remotely fooled, they found out who did it and why over the course of about an hour; the trial was just a distraction to give the illusion they'd been suckered.
- Swiss-Cheese Security:
- Zig-zagged. When taking over the Phoenix, Mariner and Rutherford override the autopilot (which presumably allows Gavin to take control afterwards), which is hardly out of the realm of possibility for a Starfleet engineer of Rutherford's skill when hijacking a glorified theme park ride. That no one is supervising said ride raises its own questions, though they're at least competent enough to catch Gavin once they realize the ride is malfunctioning.
- When Mariner decides to hijack the Cerritos, she's able to pilot the ship out of dry dock with no apparent need to bypass any security. It's only when Rutherford deliberately locks the helm that she's foiled, which makes one wonder why that hadn't already been done.
- Tantrum Throwing: Mariner is so pissed about her mother's trial that she smashes things all over the house.
- Teleport Interdiction: The migrating verugament naturally generate a scattering field which blocks transporters, stopping the ensigns from simply beaming to the Cerritos from Earth.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The trial of Captain Freeman and the Lower Deckers' attempt to exonerate her. In a meta-example, what we're seeing is the B-plot, leaving viewers in the dark about Freeman's fate until the very end
- The Unreveal: One of Boimler’s log entries mentions that he uses hair dye to color his hair purple. Mariner skips to another entry just as he was going to reveal the real color.
- Walk-In Chime-In: Parodied. Mariner walks into Tendi and Rutherford's conversation just at the right moment to make a witty quip based on what they were talking about. Boimler, who's following her, says that she was waiting around for upwards of a minute in order to find the right moment to make a dramatic entrance.Tendi: I wonder how Mariner's taking it.
Mariner: [enters] Oh, I'm taking it... taking it to the limit.
Rutherford: Did you- did you time your entrance to say that?
Mariner: What? No.
Boimler: [enters] Oh, yeah, she did.
Mariner: No. I mean, like, only, like, a few seconds.
Boimler: It was at least a minute. I was like, "Why are we hiding by the door?" - What the Hell, Hero?: Mariner gets chewed out for her attempt to steal the Cerritos, as everyone had tried to tell her that Starfleet would see Freeman through, and she was the only one who went rogue over it. Her parents finally shut her maverick behavior down for good by assigning her to Commander Ransom, who will have the final say on whether or not she gets to stay in Starfleet.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Mariner is convinced that her mother is going to be railroaded by Starfleet Security, to the point that she doesn't want to just give evidence to her mother's lawyer. She is obviously wrong.
