WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2, Episode 3 "We'll Always Have Tom Paris," streaming now on Paramount+.
In a starship that explores the more mundane and tedious side of Starfleet, Ensign Tendi is easily the most effervescently cheerful member of the U.S.S. Cerritos' crew, constantly in awe of her job as the ship traverses the cosmos. And while Tendi has been seen making more morally questionable decisions, especially when dealing with her best friend Ensign Sam Rutherford, she remains as chipper and unfailingly good-natured as ever. This positive outlook, however, is challenged and explored when Tendi revisits her home before Starfleet, with Ensign Beckett Mariner not only seeing her friend's origins but finally learning her first name.
Doctor T'Ana tasks Tendi with retrieving a family package of utmost importance for her from the leisure planet Qualor II. Tendi has never gone on a team-up with Mariner before, she invites Mariner to join her, with the two ensigns discovering that the package is actually a mating post for T'Ana to relieve her annual sexual tension. As Mariner examines the post back on their shuttlecraft, she accidentally breaks it, causing Tendi to panic. Initial attempts to find someone able to repair and restore the post prove fruitless, with T'Ana's package only being damaged further in the process. Growing increasingly desperate and running out of places to turn to for help, Tendi decides to return to the Orion Syndicate, an interstellar organization of feared pirates.
With Starfleet and the Orion Syndicate maintaining a contentious relationship over the syndicate's widespread criminal activities, Tendi and Mariner are forced to disguise themselves, with Mariner painting her skin green while both women wear traditional Orion clothing. In a sharp contrast to Tendi's bubbly demeanor on the Cerritos, it is immediately clear that she has developed a fearsome reputation among her fellow Orion, violently dealing with anyone giving her the slightest amount of side eye to assert her dominance. And as Tendi and Mariner approach an Orion repairman, Mariner learns that Tendi's first name is actually D'Vana.
Mariner is shocked by the existence of a first name, with Tendi indignantly responding that of course she has a first name, offended that Mariner doesn't know her as well as she thought. And as the two Starfleet officers' cover is inevitably blown and the mating post damaged even further in the resulting skirmish and escape, the two women work out their differences over their preconceived notions of one another. And even though the mating post is destroyed, Tendi remains in T'Ana's good graces, with the doctor's feline instincts making her more interested in the box than the contents of it.
For all of Tendi's outgoing, friendly nature, it's clear that she comes from a harsh society where unwavering brutality was the only way to stay free and gain respect. And while her crew mates likely won't be referring to her as D'Vana any time soon, Tendi's backstory shows that Starfleet really did offer her a fresh start at a new life, away from the deadly, violent rigors omnipresent in the Orion Syndicate. Tendi's return to her roots is a reminder of what she managed to escape from and how quickly she could fall into old rhythms but, with Mariner by her side, the two friends are able to save each other, if not the mating post.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 is now streaming on Paramount+, with new episodes premiering every Thursday.