DS9 S2.E24 - The Collaborator

Episode 24 - "The Collaborator," or "Bareilghazi"

It's strange how much more comfortable DS9 is with sexuality and implicit nudity. "Crossover" had Mirror-Kira lounging in a bath, concealed from the camera by a fortuitous curtain of fabric. "The Collaborator" has Vedek Bareil and Kira Nerys lounging in an afterglow and murmuring what might be the most embarrassing pillow talk I've certainly ever heard. This is to say nothing of the bizarre, Freudian sex-dreams Bareil explores through his religious hallucinations, one of which involves a hilariously inappropriate erotic dream of Vedek Winn--the Dolores Umbridge of Bajor.

In "The Collaborator," Bajoran politics make their way to Deep Space Nine when Vedek Winn discovers a dark secret in Vedek Bareil's past. Winn, the underdog in an election for Kai (some sort of Bajoran President-Pope. Popident?) wants to use this information to destroy Bareil's campaign and secure the position of Kai for herself. Bareil was supposedly responsible for the massacre of 43 Bajoran rebels by giving away their position to the Cardassians, and Winn conscripts Kira into investigating the truth.

If there was ever an episode that elicited mixed feelings in me, it's "The Collaborator." I went from utterly bored to intrigued to genuinely surprised to utterly bored again. "Collaborator" comes so close to undermining my expectations and breaking free of the necessities of plot. There is a moment in the third act of this episode where the story goes somewhere I never expected it'd go--to an honest and real place. Unfortunately, "Collaborator" only visits that place before circling back to familiar territory. We come so close to seeing some real, genuine ambiguity in Bareil's character.

Bareil and Kira's relationship is strange and uncomfortable for a few reasons, partly because Bareil comes off about as wooden and unemotional as Al Gore. It doesn't help that Bareil's idea of pillow talk is a sultry "So, are you going to vote for me?" Kira's attraction to Bareil feels like puppy love; physical attraction and careless play, not tender enough to humanize Bareil and not meaningful enough to feel romantic. Their sex seems like a diversion--something they do when they're bored.

I really wish Bareil and Kira's relationship were not so explicitly sexual yet, and instead rooted in tension. Because, oddly enough, there is tension between them. A lot of tension. It's so strange to see them consummate that tension but never have it go anywhere. They're tense before they make out and they're tense after they roll off each other in bed. Is this a Bajoran thing? Are they just chronically incapable of living with abandon and putting aside any thoughts of Bajoran politics for a couple of hours?

It doesn't help that Winn comes off like a nun hiding a dagger in her habit. I want to find a reason to at least empathize with Winn. I want to relate with her. I can't. Her mannerisms are so comically scheming that she makes Cruella DeVille feel human. This is the same Vedek Winn that nearly plunged DS9 in sectarian violence. She makes no effort to conceal her naked ambition (I'm not sorry), and her every expression of faith drips with insincerity.

I expected this episode to follow the same beats of any political frame-job. Kira investigates Bareil, convinced he can't possibly have been responsible for the Kendra Valley Massacre; Kira finds sketchy evidence pointing to Bareil; Kira finds even MORE sketchy evidence pointing to Bareil; Kira is momentarily led to beleive Bareil was guilty, until we discover that by some trick, he set himself up or took the fall for someone else, and therefore his fall from grace trampolines into sainthood.

And, for the most part, the episode proceeds exactly like you'd expect. All the evidence (circumstantial as it may be) points to Bareil's guilt.

What I didn't expect was Bareil owning up to his own guilt. There's a point toward the end of Act 3 where Bareil confronts Kira and admits that--yes--he was responsible for the Kendra Valley Massacre.

Why did you do it, she asks him.

Because the Cardassians would have slaughtered every single village in the region until they found the rebels in Kendra Valley. By handing them over to the Cardassians, Bareil saved lives. He traded 43 lives for thousands.

And I wanted the episode to just end there. Just stop right there. Let Bareil have some blood on his hands. Let him participate in the cruel arithmetic of war. Let his soul be tarnished by calculating the weight of one life against many. I wanted one episode where all the evidence pointed to Bareil, and the evidence was correct, and he was guilty. In a show about ambiguity and uncertainty, Vedek Bareil (and the Bajorans generally) are so unambiguously archetypal that they actually turn me off.

But the episode didn't end there. We discover that the previous Kai was responsible for the Massacre at Kendra Valley, and sacrificed her own son to the Cardassians. The Judeo-Christian undertones are not lost on me. But with this unsubtle and obvious twist, Bareil washes his hands of the blood that stained them for all of ten minutes.

Bareil went from a casualty of war to just another martyr. I would have respected him more if he had sacrificed forty-three Bajorans to save thousands. That decision, I think, is much harder than sacrificing his future as Kai in order to preserve the Bajoran's faith in their own society.

It's possible I am being a little too harsh on poor Bareil. He's a subtle character, outwardly pious but inwardly practical. He understands politics and understands that if Bajorans knew that the previous Kai was responsible for the Massacre, the damage to Bajoran society would have been irreparable.

It's just a shame that the subtle implications of this episode are drowned out by the frankly bizarre and unintentionally hilarious Freudian dreams.

DS9 S2.E23 - "Crossover"

"Crossover," or "Deep Space Ten"

Something I never thought about until watching this episode: when do gestures fall out of use? How long have people been using the middle finger as an expression of obscenity? Are there any colloquial gestures used in the Star Trek universe that are somehow widespread in the 24th century, but as yet unknown in the 21st? Did biting one's thumb make a comeback from Shakespeare's era?

I ask this because I noticed Julian Bashir said he he was "this close" to Chief O'Brien by crossing his index and middle finger. Of all the gestures to survive three centuries into the future, I'm glad that one made it.

Anyway, in this episode, Kira and Bashir run afoul of the vicissitudes of quantum mechanics while traveling through the wormhole and come out in the Mirror Universe. I don't know what the Mirror Universe is, but the episode establishes early on that this is the same alternate universe visited by Captain Kirk.

I've never watched TOS. I'm not familiar with that episode or its contents, so this reference is lost to me. If you did watch TOS, I imagine this episode was either epiphanic or infuriating. Long story short--Kirk ends up in this dark mirror of a universe where everything is familiar yet wrong. Humans ("Terrans") are barbaric despots until Mirror Spock reforms them into a peace-loving society of enlightened philosophers, whereupon they are summarily conquered and subjugated by an alliance between Klingon and Cardassian.

All the players are the same, but the roles are different. Kira is a hedonistic, narcissistic administrator in charge of DS9; DS9 is an outpost and ore processing facility with a dystopian, Snowpiercer-esque class society where Terrans toil as a subjugated class, while Kira and her cronies live in enlightened decadence.

I admit I initially rolled my eyes when Kira and Bashir end up on the opposite end of the wormhole with no DS9 in sight. "Oh, this is probably some sort of time travel/alternate dimension episode where everything's gone wrong. Kira and Bashir probably have to find some way to get back home before an artificial clock renders them permanently trapped in this strange reality. There's probably some gross Klingon woman who fawns over Bashir, and Kira probably learns to sympathize with a friendly Cardassian or something."

I was so hilariously wrong.

I'm so accustomed to this sort of thing happening in TNG. Alternate reality/dimension-hopping episodes are a well-worn and well-loved trope of Star Trek's storytelling, and there's usually one in every season, so I just assumed this was DS9's token dimension-tripper.

What I love about this episode is everything I've come to love about DS9. Even in this strange, dark reflection of the world, the characters are nuanced and complex. Mirror-Kira saunters about like an 80's dominatrix in elaborate leather and an ostentatious silver torc, but there are layers to her. She has Prime-Kira's compassion, trust, fire, and authority. She has pride. I don't like her, but I don't hate her either.

Nana Visitor's acting doesn't get nearly enough credit (from...well, from me, I guess) because Kira has until now been a fairly one-dimensional character; but in this episode, it's hard for me to believe Kira and Mirror-Kira are the same person. They're standing face to face with each other, and there are times where I swear they're two completely different actors.

Crossover is such a brilliantly unsettling episode. Before Game of Thrones, mainstream shows were never comfortable killing off their major characters for dramatic effect; DS9 is no different, but an alternate dimension is a little like an alternate canon. You can do anything there. The consequences are very real for everyone who exists in that dimension, but only temporary for us. "Crossover" kills off a few of our major characters, but never in a way that feels wasted or gratuitous; Mirror-Quark's death hit me hard--not because it was my favorite lovable little Ferengi scamp, but because Mirror-Quark was both vulnerable and deeply sympathetic. He's a fundamentally decent guy sticking his neck out for some poor terrans, and it never feels out of character. I already know Quark has some decency in him, and so Mirror-Quark's selflessness never takes me by surprise. It feels genuine because it is genuine.

Therein lies the genius of this episode. Mirror-Characters are not, in fact, alternate versions of themselves. They are dark mirrors. Every character in this episode contains some quality intrinsic in their original counterparts. Mirror-Kira is proud, driven, and sympathetic; she loathes violence but values loyalty, and can be driven to violence by a breach of trust. Mirror-O'Brien is a talented engineer and a decent, conscientious, gentle man under his brusque exterior. Mirror-Sisko is a leader of men, a hardline pragmatist who nonetheless yields to his own better angels at the last possible moment. And Mirror-Garak is just Garak if he was never banished, and therefore never humanized.

My favorite moment in this episode is when O'Brien, captured and forced to answer for his role in assisting Bashir, tells Mirror-Kira why he threw away his life. Kira and Bashir represent the way things could be, the way things should be, if they only happened differently. The characters are all the same; it's only their circumstances that have changed.

"Crossover" is going to stick with me for a while. This is an episode about what it means to be you. Are you who you are because of your circumstances? If the events of your timeline changed, would you still be the person you are? Or is there a fundamental you, a basic immutable image that defines you regardless of your environment? It's an episode that explores the question of nature and nurture, but even if I'm not looking at this episode philosophically, it's incredibly well-written, suspenseful, and has some of the best performances I've seen out of Nana Visitor.

To me, in the Prime-Universe, "Crossover" was an outstanding episode at the end of a pretty good season.

To the version of me in the Mirror-Universe, "Crossover" is the most nihilistic and horrible season finale ever. But hey, at least we got an amazing ending to Game of Thrones.

DS9 S2.E22 - "The Wire"

"The Wire," or "You Wanna Know How I Got These Emotional Scars?"

First of all. I want to take this opportunity to formally express my profound and abiding disappointment toward Amazon Prime's Episode Synopsis, which completely spoiled the premise of this entire episode for me. "In this episode, Dr. Bashir helps Garak deal with a brain implant that he's addicted to." Way to give away the entire episode, Amazon. I hope that in the utopian alternate future of Roddenberry's Stark Trek, the cryogenically preserved body of Jeff Bezos is summarily ejected into space in the trunk of a Tesla.

Anyway.

The Wire is an outstanding episode that makes me want to quit coffee.

I really wish I could have a once-a-week lunch routine with somebody. That sounds like the kind of soul-enriching, Tuesdays with Morrie experience that could turn into a Lifetime special on the value of friendship and the importance of cherishing every moment as if it were your last, or something. Bashir and Garak have lunch in the Promenade once a week, and frankly I can't imagine a more unlikely duo to break bread together. I've always admired Julian Bashir for his brazen confidence and extraverted charm, and Garak seems to delight so much in his own enigmatic mystique and wry, trickster-like persona.

But I also haven't seen much of either character. Bashir has, until now, lived comfortably in the margins of DS9, popping his head in whenever Sisko needs an expert medical opinion or Jadzia looks lonely. Likewise, Garak has always just existed, too enigmatic and strange to have a story arc of his own, conveniently available whenever a Cardassian of dubious loyalty needs to steal the scene with an aphorism about tailoring and a well-placed wink.

Because Garak and Bashir are both (at least until now) secondary characters, I didn't have high expectations for this episode. A weekly lunch-date goes sour when Garak turns tetchy and impatient. Something's obviously wrong with him. He's evidently in pain but refuses to let Bashir take him to the infirmary. The situation worsens over the next few days; Garak seeks out increasingly desperate ways to blunt his pain, first with alcohol, then with more alcohol, and finally through self-medication (which is a gentle way of saying he drugs himself up with enough opiates to knock out a large animal.)

I never imagined I'd see Garak in pain. It's so strange, so unlike his character, and yet I found myself liking him all the more because I could see the vulnerability and suffering under his grinning, Cheshire mask. Garak was always the image of self-control; careless instead of stoic, playful instead of grim, but clearly enjoying himself in any situation. The sight of a grimacing, snarling, hateful Garak is shocking, and deeply humanizing.

We learn that Garak has a brain implant that renders him immune to pain. This implant was ostensibly designed to make Garan invincible against any form of torture by flooding his synapses with endorphins as a reaction to physical pain. Over the last two years, the stress and agony of living in exile from Cardassia forced Garak to find relief in his implant. He becomes addicted. The implant malfunctions, and the withdrawal that follows is pure agony.

On paper, The Wire is an episode about substance abuse, withdrawal, suffering, and escapism. Bashir is treating a drug addict and Garak is showing all the signs of violent and painful withdrawal. But what makes this episode so brilliant is its use of an unreliable narrator. Garak is a liar by trade; I can't ever take what he says at face value. I never know when he's telling the truth. I never know when he's fabricating a story.

And yet, I want to point out that Garak's sincerity is never in question. He is very much a Cardassian in pain, which is to say, he is a Cardassian suffering  from withdrawal from Cardassia. Cardassia itself is a drug. It is a system of dependence. Cardassians are culturally and psychologically inculcated into a system whereby their entire sense of self-worth, their identity, their very reality, becomes inextricably intertwined with Cardassia itself. To be Cardassian is to submit to the cause of serving Cardassia. Exile from the homeland is exile from the object of one's deepest desires.

It was only a few episodes ago that Garak talked about how much he loved Cardassia. Love is a strange thing, and his love of his homeland leads him to act in strange ways. In the Persian interpretation of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Satan suffers in hell because of his distance from God, the object of his obsessive love. Cardassia is a toxic relationship, and to be Cardassian is to spend your life in love with something that will never love you back. Garak's entire sense of self, his whole identity, is so closely intertwined with being Cardassian that his exile onto DS9 is the worst form of torture imaginable.

And that's why this episode is lingering with me. Did Garak's implant malfunction at all, or was it designed to fail? Was the implant designed to punish Garak, by giving him a source of relief from his own psychological and existential suffering, thereby prolonging that suffering? As long as Garak had that implant, he could never truly be free of his own pain, because he never had to confront it. All he had to do was run away into the warm, endorphin-laced embrace of his brain implant.

My favorite scene in this episode is a dissolving montage of the loyal Dr. Bashir spending sleepless hours watching over his patient and his friend. I loved Bashir's sheer, brazen stubbornness in this episode. He refuses to give up on Garak, and he also refuses to put up with Garak's nonsense. It is a matter of professional pride that keeps him from giving up on the medical problem of Garak's addiction, but it is a matter of friendship that keeps Bashir fighting on Garak's behalf. Bashir is the hero Garak needs in this episode, and it is delightful and wonderful seeing him step into a hero's role.

I cannot overstate how much I loved watching that moment where Garak wakes up, wild-eyed in horrible sobriety, as clear-headed and sharp as he's ever been in two years, shouting a litany of his sins out at Bashir. Garak has obviously suffered at the hands of Cardassia. He has done something that caused him to be exiled, but the story of his exile is inconsistent. Once he's a heartless Gul who murders Cardassian civilians in order to kill Bajoran runaways; in another, he's a soft-hearted traitor who takes pity on Bajoran children; in a third, he's a scared agent of the Obsidian Order who loses an elaborate game of espionage and finds himself exiled as a result.

Garak's story is obviously a lie, but the lies surround and imply a truth. Like a black hole that implies its presence by the absence of light, the truth of Garak's past is implied by the incongruities of his lies. His lies surround the truth; the shape of the truth is bordered by lies. 

I have a theory. The stories Garak tells Bashir about his own past are his own version of the Cardassian book, The Never Ending Sacrifice. Garak says the repeating epic is the finest form of Cardassian literature; in a way, Garak's own stories are a repeating epic--consistent in every way but for the facts. Every story Garak tells Bashir is a story about separation from Cardassia. There are many ways to tell the same story; all of them are true.

Even the lies? asks Bashir. Especially the lies, says Garak.

This is my favorite episode of DS9 so far. I'm even willing to forgive the poorly casted Enabran Tain. "The Wire" is one of those episodes that reveals something new with multiple viewings.

======

Best Bashir Moment: Julian Bashir swiping out Garak's bottle of liquor behind his back is some smooth sleight-of-hand. As much as I love Dr. Crusher, Bashir has one thing Crusher doesn't have. He's a little too slick than any doctor has a right to be.

Weirdest Character: Enabran Tain is so bizarrely miscast it actually took me out of the episode. Is this guy the leader of the Obsidian Order, or is he a guy trying to sell me discount furniture on the Shopping Network at 3 AM? Seriously, what is with Tain's folksy, down-south charm? This guy's the ex-leader of the most feared spy network in the galaxy, and he comes off like Uncle Louie chilling in his bathrobe after knocking back three beers and an enchilada at a family cookout.

DS9 S2.E20 and E21 - "The Maquis, Parts 1 and 2"

"The Maquis," or "Nobody Speak, Nobody Gets Choked"

First of all, how is Quark not the patron saint of every reformed incel on Earth? For a guy who looks like a pork dumpling with teeth, Quark has more game than a Steam Summer Sale. I feel like I should be rolling my eyes every time Quark hits on the first female humanoid that walks into his bar in any given episode, but I'm not. There's something hideously endearing about that opportunistic little Ferengi.

Quark doesn't have a lot to do with "The Maquis," but he is critically (and inevitably?) involved with the inciting event. An attractive, ice-cold Vulcan visitor to DS9 saunters into Quark's bar and makes a few unsubtle requests at a business venture. And by "business venture," I mean a ridiculously illegal weapons deal consisting of several hundred photon torpedos, phasers, shields, and enough of an arsenal to arm a small army.

The Vulcan--Sakonna--belongs to a group of violent anti-Cardassian rebels unsubtly calling themselves the Maquis. The Maquis are somewhere between a guerilla terrorist group and a renegade resistance government operating illegally in the demilitarized zone. Sakonna is arming the Maquis, and the Maquis are attacking and destroying Cardassian transport ships smuggling weapons--also illegally--into the demilitarized zone. DS9 becomes the unwitting accomplice in a Maquis plot when Sakonna arranges for a Cardassian transport ship to be sabotaged and destroyed, killing everyone on board.

The entire concept of a demilitarized zone feels hopelessly ineffective. Bajoran settlers and Cardassian settlers share a tenuous colonial space protected by the Federation and its Cardassian allies. The Cardassian settlers are arming themselves against the Bajoran settlers, and the Bajoran settlers are arming themselves against the Cardassian settlers. Cardassians smuggle weapons in transport ships, so Bajorans blow them up. The Bajorans blow up Cardassian transport ships, so Cardassians retaliate.

The demilitarized zone is peaceful in name only. Cardassian settlers and Maquis rebels stab each other and then hide their daggers behind their backs whenever the Federation glances their way. Everyone knows there's violence, but no one wants to admit complicity, because that would mean war.

Sisko finds himself dragged into the conflict after a surprise visit from an old friend, Commander "Cal" Hudson--the diplomatic attache assigned to the demilitarized zone. Cal and Sisko are more than old friends. They're practically mirrors of each other: foils, similar in all respects but for one crucial difference. Proud, honorable men with a strong sense of duty, Cal and Sisko differ only in the object of their loyalty. Sisko is absolutely loyal to Starfleet and the continued peace--tenuous and threadbare as it may be--between the Federation and Cardassia. Cal, on the other hand, has gone native. Years of exposure to Cardassian violence and brutality has stripped away any lingering loyalties to Federation law, and replaced it with a deep and abiding sympathy toward the Maquis.

I loved the chemistry in this episode. This is an episode about conflicts between friends and agreements between enemies. Cal and Sisko could have been the closest of friends, but the problem of the Demilitarized Zone becomes an impossible rift between the two of them. Sisko and Gul Dukat are diametrically opposed to one another. It's tempting to say they set aside their differences for a common cause, but really, they don't. They hold on to their differences. Sisko and Dukat are at each other's throats even as they pursue the same goal: peace between Cardassia and the Federation.

What I love about "The Maquis" is how effortlessly the episode pivots from a terrorist plot to a story about individual characters. We're never going to see the Cardassian-Bajoran conflict resolved by the end of the episode. (Frankly I'll be surprised if we see it resolved by the end of the series.) The episode is not about stopping a terrorist plot, or defeating a villain, or discovering some elaborate Cardassian scheme to foment a war between two factions; this episode is about conflicting loyalties.

As a Federation officer, Sisko must be loyal to his own commanding officers. He is honorbound to protect and defend the Federation's treaties. But unlike Patrick Stewart's Hornblower-esque Picard, Avery Brooks plays Sisko with seething contempt and barely controlled rage. His uniform is a harness, and underneath his brass buckles and Starfleet badge, Sisko bristles and churns against the sheer stupidity of Starfleet command, the intransigence of Maquis rebels, the sneering and supercilious condescension of Gul Dukat. He's putting up with everyone's nonsense, and watching him march steel-jawed through this episode, barking orders and staring people right in the eye, is an absolute delight.

I loved everything about Sisko in "The Maquis," and in a two-part episode filled with outstanding lines, he delivers one of the most impassioned and profound speeches I've heard in any episode of Star Trek, and that includes TNG. His line about "the problem with Starfleet is Earth" is some of the best writing I've seen in Star Trek. This is the kind of deep insight I love seeing from Sisko. Earth is a paradise, and in paradise, it's easy to be a saint. The demilitarized zone is anything but paradise; reduced to living under abject conditions, the settlers are driven to acts of violence and brutality. What an outstanding speech.

As much as I loved Sisko, two other characters came very close to stealing the show for me. Gul Dukat is a hard-bitten, ruthless, imperialistic, iron-fisted tyrant, and I kind of love him. I love that he has a sense of humor. I love that he has a sense of honor. Even if he is ruthless, it's impossible not to admire his sense of loyalty toward Cardassia, toward his family, and even toward the post he once occupied. I love watching Gul Dukat hover around Sisko like an apparition. He's like some sort of helicopter parent; he can't let go of DS9. He can't let go of his old office. Sisko is, for better or worse, Dukat's successor, and he has a kind of strange, perverse camaraderie with him. The relationship between Dukat and Sisko is the perfect illustration of the relationship between the Federation and the Cardassians: covered in contempt, expressed through terse barbs, never friendly--but somehow, suspiciously strong. Sisko and Dukat understand each other more than either of them want to admit.

I want to close by mentioning Quark again. He has a scene at the latter half of episode 2 that stands out to me as the finest moment Quark has ever had in this show. Granted, I'm just about two full seasons in, so I don't have much in the way of perspective, but anyone who has seen this episode knows what I'm talking about.

I should hate Quark, but I don't. How can I hate someone who successfully explains the concept of pacifism to a Vulcan using capitalism as a metaphor? Quark's speech on "the price of peace" is maddeningly brilliant; it's so simple it ought to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but it makes a startling amount of sense. With the Cardassians caught smuggling weapons to their own settlers, and the Maquis giving the Federation a massive headache, both sides have a strong incentive to sit down and work something out. The longer they wait, the more expensive peace will become in the long run. Right now, at this moment, YOU can get peace at bargain bin prices! 

And you thought I was kidding when I said Quark had more game than a Steam Summer Sale.

Excellent episode.

5/5

Underrated Character: Sakonna, because I have a terrible weakness for ice-cold Vulcan women who can down a glass of chardonnay and justify terrorism with zen-like patience. Also, in an episode (indeed, a series) steeped in Bajoran/Cardassian conflict, it's nice to see a Vulcan now and then.

Underrated Moment: Odo complaining about the lack of iron-fisted security regulations aboard DS9. The man wants to do his job, but can't, because no one wants to let him impose a curfew, hire fifty deputies, and mandate searches on every incoming ship. Poor guy.

Subreddit I Could Totally See Become A Thing: /r/notlikeothervulcans

DS9 S2.E19 - "Blood Oath"

"Blood Oath," or "Embrace Death"

I really don't understand Jadzia Dax. She's a trill. She can be whoever she wants to be. Her lives are legion. Life doesn't truly end for her at all, and each new identity is like another volume in an endless epic saga. Once she was Curzon Dax. Now she's Jadzia Dax. Some day she'll be another Dax. She bears their memories and their experiences, but she is not beholden to her previous self. Every life is new, born from a previous life but independent of it.

I don't understand why Jadzia is so hung up on being Curzon Dax. One episode ago, she gave a young student a lecture on how every Trill is their own person. Now she's abandoning her duties to starfleet and running off on some damn-fool mission with the Three Geriatric Klingon Musketeers because Curzon Dax swore a blood oath eighty years ago--an oath no one expects her to keep.

Why? What's the point?

Let me backtrack a little. Here's what happens. A trio of aged Klingon warriors meander onto Deep Space Nine, apparently by chance and circumstance. Jadzia Dax happens to know these three Klingon warriors--Kang, Kor, and Koloth--from a previous life.

Nothing too surprising so far. Jadzia Dax knows half the galaxy. I sometimes wonder if the whole of the Federation is just Six Degrees of Jadzia Dax. Everybody knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows Curzon. What surprised me was the degree of intimacy and familiarity Jadzia shared with these Klingons. She knows them by name and by reputation, by deeds, by history. She can name the various wounds and scars they have. She's godfather to one of their sons. Jadzia knows these Klingons and their ways so well she's practically a Klingon herself.

Eighty years ago, Curzon Dax swore a blood oath--a kind of shared brotherhood--with three Klingon warriors. These warriors have a long-standing vendetta against some nameless Klingon bandit called "The Albino." The Albino killed their firstborn with a gruesome genetic disease, and Curzon swore vengeance. He's held to that oath for eighty years.

What baffles me is that absolutely no one expects or wants Jadzia to fulfill her blood oath. There isn't a person on Deep Space Nine that expects her to go through with an oath sworn eighty years ago by her previous host. Not Kiera. Not Sisko. Not even Kor. But, against all wisdom and common sense, Jadzia absolutely insists on accompanying her old band of brothers on some foolhardy revenge mission that could very well jeopardize her career with Starfleet and taint her soul with the act of murder.

It just feels so shockingly out of character for Jadzia to go through with this, and to the episode's credit, I respect how just about every single character in this episode tries their best to keep Jadzia from throwing her life away.

Maybe that's what bothered me about this episode. Jadzia feels like she's behaving out of character. Trill are cultural dilettantes. They know a little bit about every species and race. But Jadzia is more than a Klingon dilettante who speaks their language fluently and knows how to push their buttons. She understands Klingons almost as well as they understand themselves. She's a skilled Bat'leth fighter and intimately familiar with Klingon psychology. She practically IS Klingon.

"Blood Oath" is best when it focuses on the nuances of the Klingon warrior ethos. This is a culture that prides itself on battle and death, self-destructive and suicidal by nature. I admit, I enjoyed the little twist at the end, when we realize that our three Klingon musketeers are not saddling up for one last adventure, but throwing themselves with reckless abandon into a suicide mission. They're old, broken down relics of a bygone era, out of place in the modern world; they don't want to go gently into that good night, and so they elect to die with a blade in their hands.

I respect that story. I have a weakness for bittersweet endings, and the sunset of the lives of three Klingon warriors seems oddly spoiled by the presence of a Trill outsider. No matter how much Jadzia insists that Curzon is one of them, no matter how fervently she believes in the sanctity of their blood oath, this story was never about the oath. This story was never about vengeance.

This was an episode about the sunset of a life, and choosing the way you die. Trill are, therefore, the very worst possible representatives of this principle; a Trill never dies--they merely turn a page. I can't help but feel that this episode would have been better if it were somehow divorced from Jadzia entirely.

2/5