159. Lower Decks: Friendship is Magic (LD 4.09)

Anika and Liz definitely failed Hoodlums and Racketeering 101 at the Academy, but that's FINE, we're just going to hang out on this nice jungle planet, hiding from various warring factions while we talk about the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "The Inner Fight"...

• Tom Paris and Nicholas Locarno are different people, which we knew, but sometimes it's nice to have it reinforced
• Important sidebar: which canonical Vulcans are most likely to be in an MLM and why it T'Pring's parents?
• Freeman is the best captain because she's the only one willing to make a fool of herself 
• "The First Duty", "Lower Decks" and Beckett Mariner
• Is Mariner the only character in the franchise who did NOT join Starfleet to escape trauma and/or her family?