“Just Keep Circling” Lower Decks EP 306 Hear All Trust Nothing Is The Glorious Return To DS9 We Needed

EP 306 opens with Captain Freeman and crew organizing a special payload of gifts from the Federation to be given to the Karemma from the Gamma Quadrant as a gesture of peace and to hopefully help heal old wounds left over from the Dominion war. The gifts were meant to be given during a trade negotiation meeting aboard DS9 between the Karemma and Captain Nguyen of the SS Vancouver but at the last minute, Star Fleet decides that’s too easy and gives Captain Freeman the job of brokering the deal, oddly jeopardizing the mission and just royally pissing the captain off. While Captain Freeman went to prepare for the meeting i.e learning everything she could about the Karemma in mere minutes, the ship’s crew had to kill some time before they could board the station which meant flying aimlessly around the station while pretending to admire the pylons. Ransom’s attitude says it all.

It’s obvious from the start the Karemma are looking to make this as difficult as possible but with the right bribes, er, gifts it’s amazing how quickly attitudes can change. When things start going smoothly, both groups take a walk through the station and stop at Quarks, a popular chain of bar-style restaurants started by Quark that has made him extremely rich but something is definitely off about his business venture. When Capt. Freeman tries to sell the Karemma on trading with the Federation using Quarks as an example of how much money can be made on this side of the wormhole, they find out Quark’s success was built using Karemma technology and that doesn’t exactly go over well and before you know it, the entire station and the Cerritos goes dark and neither the Karemma nor Quark can be found. Meanwhile, the lower deck crew is having the time of their freaking lives including Bold Boimler who’s hitting up the casino and making life miserable for its Ferengi owners.

While trade negotiations are going sideways, Mariner is spending some quality time with Jennifer and her friends, but this particular quality time is something not even remotely interesting to Beckett but it’s for Jennifer so she took one for the team. However, when the ship goes dark and the fragile friends start to panic it’s Mariner’s unconventional thinking that saves everyone in the room. It also gets everyone stunned by a phaser but let’s stick with the positives here.

Tendi and Rutherford have been tasked to handle some lite crate inventory duty that when completed, the BFFs could go do whatever they wanted for the rest of the Cerritos’ stay and they are stoked about hanging out a Quarks. Unfortunately, they pick up a pest; an Orion named Mesk who can’t stop talking about being a pirate and doing pirating things because that’s what Orions do and why didn’t Tendi do pirating things too, and on and on. Tendi tries to ignore his botheration but eventually snaps to which Mesk attributes to her “feminine hormones.” He’s the kind of guy who would tell you you should smile more because it makes you look prettier, that is if you’re a species that has the ability to smile externally. Moving on.

When the ship goes dark and Tendi, Mesk, and Rutherford see Quark being kidnapped by the Karemma they try to intervene but get locked in one of the cargo bays. Mesk falls apart but Tendi gets to shine here and goes from quiet, sweet Tendi to badass Pirate Tendi in just a hot second.

When it’s all said and done we find out Quark wasn’t kidnapped but arrested by the Karemma for his unethical business practices, the trade negotiations get back on track, Tendi makes peace with her old life, everyone survives the impromptu phaser tag party and Boimler hits a winning streak in the casino that is so hot he breaks the bank.

Hear All, Trust Nothing is available to stream on Paramount+ along with all previous episodes.