After a couple of weaker the normal outings, Star Trek: Lower Decks absolutely storms back to form in “Reflections,” a character episode from series creator Mike McMahan which finally provides a look at our engineering ensign’s backstory — one which shines with warmth, humor, and character growth.

It’s so nice to sing Lower Decks’ praises again, and as “Reflections” signals the halfway point for Season 3, here’s hoping the season three upswing mirrors that in Seasons 1 and 2 where the season’s back half begins to absolutely excel.

Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) is left in a coma when his old personality — which he learns was almost deleted when his implant was forced upon him — attempts to reassert control of his body. We learn that pre-implant, the ‘original’ Samanthan Rutherford was an angry racer who participated in illegal starship races during his first year at Starfleet Academy.

After an accident, Rutherford was given his implant to wipe out both his memory and old personality to cover up a still-unknown scheme — by a high ranking Starfleet officer.

The two Rutherford personalities race each other for control of present-day Rutherford’s mind. ‘Original’ Rutherford loses after his anger and cockiness get the better of him, and he cedes control of his mind to ‘our’ Rutherford. But after that experience, the Cerritos engineer now knows what happened to him — including the fact that someone else chose to give him the high-tech cranial implant.

Meanwhile, the Cerritos spends time back at Tulgana IV (first visited in “Envoys”) after Commander Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) sends Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) down to the planet with the unenviable task of manning a Starfleet recruitment booth at a local job fair — drawing the ire of the other vendors nearby.

“Reflections” is a wonderful and surprising character episode for Rutherford, and one that’s also got a lot of funny moments. The episode only begins to unpack some of the implications for Rutherford of learning about his past — who he used to be, how that differs from who he is now, what was done to him.

The ‘original’ Rutherford is a fascinating character, who is so unlike the Rutherford that we’ve come to get to know, and I really like that as a character choice. Eugene Cordero does a great job expressing both versions of the character with just his voice, and making it sound authentic.

And while I might have liked one more scene with ‘original’ Rutherford — considering the implications of what was done to him and his seeming gone-for-good ‘death’ — it does not feel like this is a story arc that ends with this episode.

This episode is also potentially Lower Decks’ most self-referential episode to date. From revisiting Tulgana IV to the Collectors Guild, “Reflections” includes many references to previous episodes of the series. I love that as the show becomes more established — in addition to all the great callbacks to other Star Trek shows — Lower Decks can also start referring back to itself.

It adds layers of enjoyment not just for fans of the franchise as a whole, but for Lower Decks fans in particular. There’s the Data bubble bath from “An Embarrassment of Dooplers” in one moment, a T88 scanner from “Cupid’s Errant Arrow” in the next, and so on.

In addition to pulling back the veil on Rutherford’s backstory, “Reflections” also feels like it’s setting up future story arcs for Lower Decks. Furthering the Rutherford storyline for sure, but Mariner’s encounter with Petra Aberdeen (Georgia King) from the Independent Archeologists Guild — plus the continuation of “Bold” Boimler’s attempts to be more assertive — seem like they are laying the groundwork for much more to come on all fronts.

TREK TROPE TRIBUTES

• Visitors to the Starfleet booth on Tulgana IV make jokes about whether Starfleet is a military organization or not — which is completely fair, because even the fans can’t agree on the answer to that one!
   
• When asked about Starfleet uniform changes, Boimler explicitly acknowledges that the California-class uniforms are not used everywhere across Starfleet — and as fans know, different parts of Starfleet where different uniforms (and update them frequently).
   
• Petra Aberdeen, clearly a Vash stand-in, taunts Mariner and Boimler by scaring away a potential Starfleet recruit interested in the transporter by saying that they would spend seven years in a windowless room… referring both to the length of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager (and the fact that all the transporter room sets seen in Star Trek have been windowless rooms).

CANON CONNECTIONS

• The Cerritos first visited Tulgana IV in “Envoys.”
   
• When Rutherford tells Tendi that he’s been having bad dreams, Tendi asks if his dream is one where he’s in “a new timeline with Kirk and Spock, and they have cinematic chemistry?!” This is, of course, a wink-and-nod towards the Kelvin Timeline films.
   
• Ransom threatens to have Boimler and Mariner transferred to Starbase 80 if they aren’t successful in sharing the good word of Starfleet at the recruitment booth — the dreaded “worst” starbase was first used as a reassignment threat in “Terminal Provocations.”
   
• When Rutherford’s ‘original’ personality first manifests, he worries that might be possessed by an anaphasic alien — like Ronin, the candle-dwelling specter that tried to, uh, ‘merge’ with Beverly Crusher in “Sub Rosa.”
   
• At least one Antedian, one Vorgon, and one Arcturian can be seen in the job fair crowd.

• The other booths at the information fair include he Collectors Guild (introduced in “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”), the Archeologists Guild, a group of Wadi (from “Move Along Home”) operating some kind of gaming booth, and a booth operated by Federation scientists who struggle to convince visitors that “outpost science is real science.”
   
• The Collector’s Guild booth includes Data’s painting of Spot that appeared often in his quarters, the Stone of Gol (from “Gambit, Part II”), the Data bubble path from “An Embarrassment of Dooplers,” the ancient Bajoran Reckoning tablet, and one of the swords Worf uses in his calisthenics program.
   
• The Archeologists Guild booth includes a Preserver obelisk as seen in “The Paradise Syndrome.”
   
• The starship model on the desk at the Starfleet recruiting booth is the USS Stargazer. Boimler affectionately refers to it as the “Gazer” at least once, which is probably something nobody else in Starfleet has ever said ever — but the Star Trek: Picard Season 2 and 3 production crew most certainly did!

• Mariner talks through the process of signing up for Starfleet as a non-commissioned officer and attending the Tech Services Academy on Mars. The Starfleet Technical Services Academy was previously mentioned on an Okudagram in “The Eye of the Beholder.”
   
• One of the booth visitors is from Gelrak V, whose love of crystals the Cerritos crew encountered in “Temporal Edict.”
   
• Representatives manning the Collector’s Guild booth include a Zabalian, the same race as Kivas Fajo, and an alien of the same race as Palor Toff — also from “The Most Toys.”
   
• One of Mariner’s catchphrases — to generate interest in the Starfleet recruiting booths — is “Prepare Yourself for Warp 10 Excitement!” which was the log line for the novelization of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

• Petra Abderdeen served on the USS Victory, seen in “Elementary Dear Data.”
   
• Young Rutherford is wearing an engineering division Starfleet Academy cadet uniform underneath his jacket, of the same style seen in episodes like “Valiant.”
   
• Young Rutherford won money participating in “Devron Races” through the Neutral Zone, likely a reference to the Devron system that was established to be inside the Romulan Neutral Zone in “All Good Things.”<   /li>
• Rutherford builds his own Delta Flyer for the mind-race, and even wears the flight uniform seen in “Drive.”
   
• The conspiracy theorists reference Captain Sisko’s ascension to the Celestial Temple in “What You Leave Behind,” and the attempted alien takeover of Starfleet Headquarters in “Conspiracy.”
   
• Tendi is studying one of the mind control plants from Omicron Ceti III, encountered by the original USS Enterprise crew in “This Side of Paradise.”

• In his meltdown that drives interest to the Starfleet recruiting booth, Boimler references Voyager’s holographic doctor and says “The Doctor didn’t spend seven years in the Delta Quadrant for you to question his agency! He’s got rights!”
   
• ‘Original’ Rutherford induces ‘our’ Rutherford to remember how he got his implant by holding a hand against the side of his face like a Vulcan mindmeld, and saying “Remember…” — just like Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when he transfers his katra to McCoy.
   
• The Starfleet officer overseeing Rutherford’s implant operation is wearing an older TNG-style combadge and uniform, appropriate for the era in which the events were set.
   
• Petra Aberdeen was on Tulgana IV to steal a staff belonging to the Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance.
   
• Boimler and Mariner’s booth features a Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock photo op, drawn in the style of The Animated Series, depicting their encounter with the Horta in “The Devil in the Dark.”

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

• Tendi signed up for Starfleet through a recruitment booth like the one seen in this episode.
   
• Barnes, Federov, Kayshon, and Chief Lundy all appear in this episode, making “Reflections” a veritable who’s who of Lower Decks secondary characters!
   
• Rutherford’s ship, the Sampaguita, really does look like a Starfleet hot rod — or as the ‘original’ Rutherford describes it, “a seat strapped to an impulse engine.”
• Sampaguita (or Arabian jasmine) is the national flower of the Philippines; Rutherford voice actor Eugene Cordero is of Filipino descent.
• Where our Rutherford hates pears, apparently ‘original’ Rutherford loved them!
   
• The animation for the race between the two Rutherfords is absolutely gorgeous; this is one good looking animated show.
   
• Boimler failed the Kobayashi Maru test 17 times, which, well, seems just about right.

Overall, “Reflections” is fun, it’s funny, and it has important character growth for Rutherford. It’s rewarding to find out more about his backstory — and to find out how surprising it is — and the Boimler and Mariner storyline is both fun and funny.

Lower Decks is a great show, and “Reflections proves why.

Star Trek: Lower Decks returns with “Hear All, Trust Nothing” on Thursday, September 29 on Paramount+ in the United States, Australia, Latin America, and the Nordics, as well as on CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada and on Prime Video in many other regions.