With Captain Freeman fighting for her innocence, the crew has a lot of free time (unintentional pun) on their hands. The Cerritos is in dry dock until the trial concludes so the crew goes back to Earth to kill some time and not always in the most healthy way possible. Boimler is back at his family’s raisins farm working the fields and hating every minute of it, Mariner is feeling helpless in San Francisco at her parent’s house watching the trial unfold and taking her anger out on every fragile item within reach (even the Golden Gate Bridge) while Tendi and Rutherford are going site seeing and just genuinely being Tendi and Rutherford. Tired of feeling helpless and hostile Mariner decides she can’t trust Star Fleet to save her mother from a life behind bars so she gathers the crew and comes up with a just so crazy it might work plan and then several mishaps and Star Fleet level felonies later, they all learn that sometimes trusting the process is more important than trusting your emotions.
Also, apparently in the future, there’s not only replicators and laser cannons and star ships that are the thing of dreams but devices that can clean up alien… DNA should you ever be in that situation and considering this California Class team of misfit’s track record, they should keep more than a few on hand.
Grounded, along with all previous episodes, is currently streaming on Paramount+.
And don’t worry, Ransom is just having a little fun with Mariner.
