Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 ending explained: What happened to the Cerritos crew?

Over its five seasons, Star Trek: Lower Decks has grown into itself, finding more and more comfort in the tightrope between sweet and charming, while still bringing a fresh, adult sense of humour to the USS Cerritos and its intrepid crew.

Created by Mike McMahan (Solar Opposites), Lower Decks finds itself occupying the same universe as its sibling shows – Discovery, as well as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Stark Trek: Prodigy, Picard and the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Throughout its five season run, Lower Decks follows the exploits and missions of various crew members aboard the USS Cerritos – a Starfleet ship of the Federation that is deemed mostly unimportant in the search for new alien life and new civilisations.

Whereas Discovery, Strange New Worlds and the earlier series’ in the saga focused almost exclusively on the command deck, Lower Decks focused on ensign-class crew members, or "lower deckers" – crew members with more menial jobs compared to those of the senior staff we’re used to seeing.

The final season of Lower Decks focused on our beloved crew entering an alternate reality, and subsequent quantum fissures leading to more and more alternate realities – threatening the very fabric of the universe itself. But how does it all wrap up?

Luckily for you, we have it all explained for you. Read on for a breakdown.

Star Trek: Lower Decks ending explained – What happened to the Cerritos crew?

Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) is appointed as the new captain of the Cerritos, and he in turn names Boimler and Mariner as his co-first officers.

The rest of the core Lower Decks crew remains with the Cerritos, and the starship embarks on its next adventure to close the show, featuring a new phrase in the pantheon of Captain’s orders to hit warp speed – "Engage the core".

Naturally, heroism and ingenuity save the day in a Star Trek show, so of course the quantum fissure crisis and the threat to the multiverse is averted.

At the end of the previous episode, Brad Boimler’s (Jack Quaid) clone sends information to his prime version about the impending collapse, leading to the Cerritos entering the main anomaly to seal the rift as it’s the closest ship, with the Enterprise still hours away.

There are a few hijinx along the way as the Cerritos harbours two fugitive Klingon, as well as multiple starship changes as the Cerritos flies closer and closer to rift, altering its very nature – turning it from its usual iteration into a Terran Empire warship, and a Sovereign-class starship along the way.

Thanks to some quick thinking from Tawny Newsome’s Beckett Mariner, the rift is sealed by actually keeping it open thanks to… science, I guess.

This stops the multiverse from breaking down, and actually keeps a permanent portal open for access to alternate dimensions. Something which seems destined to be explored in future potential shows.

The series finale does an excellent job of wrapping up every character's arc in ways that feel satisfying. Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) leaves the Cerritos to take over at Starbase 80, a dilapidated but wholesome Starfleet space station tasked with overseeing the now stable dimensional rift.

So, could the show ever come back? While it is the final season, both the creators and the cast have been open about their hopes for a return some day.

McMahan and Kurtzman previously said: "We remain hopeful that even beyond season 5, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford and the whole Cerritos crew will live on with new adventures."

The cast have also made it clear that they'd love to return.

Eugene Cordero told RadioTimes.com of the show: "It feels great, and it feels like it could keep going," with Jack Quaid adding, "I'll play Boimler for 17 more years, until I can't do the Boimler scream anymore."

Tawny Newsome noted that season 5 "comes to a nice pause", adding: "We'll do this show until we're dust in the ground."

And the fighting talk didn't stop there, with Newsome telling RadioTimes.com: "Mike [McMahan] has re-written 5.10 [the finale episode] so many times, and I feel like it gets longer and longer, and it’s great but you will feel the hanging on that he and we are all doing, like, 'We could keep making this! Let's keep making this.'"

So, perhaps it's only a goodbye for now.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is available to stream on Paramount Plus.

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