A bit of a weird episode in that the protagonists didn’t solve much, the two problems just sort of fizzled out for their own reasons.
Kind of surprised that Peanut Hamper was up for parole-- Memory Alpha doesn’t list a specific stardate for A Mathematically Perfect Redemption but judging by the adjacent years and the stardate AGIMUS listed she’s been in Daystrom for less than two years.
IMO this episode confirms that what we saw last week wasn’t an anomaly, Rutherford’s got it bad for Tendi. It’s kind of weird to have him focusing on her encouragement to the exclusion of Mariner (who was in his immediate vicinity!) otherwise.
I want to disagree with this but… you’re right. Heck, in Raiders, Jones actively makes the entire situation worse before the story kind of fixes itself.