5.21 - “Soldiers of the Empire”: General Martok asks Worf to go on a mission with him, and Worf is like, yeah, I love being a Klingon, and Dax is like, yeah, I love being a Klingon too, and Worf is like whaaaaaaat. Unfortunately, they’re on the Bad News Bears of Klingon ships, and these guys need a win! Seriously, they are fucking sad sacks, and Dax tries to keep morale up while Worf tries to support his friend. It’s fun to be on a Klingon ship, and there’s lots of tension as to whether violence will erupt (it does, at one point, but I kept expecting there to be full-scale mutiny). I also loved seeing Dax in her Klingon element. Okay, so I liked this episode, but I don’t have a whole lot to say about it? It was solid, and I did not expect the outcome of Worf’s challenge—he wasn’t actually trying to take command, he was trying to restore the crew’s faith in Martok by giving him a win. And for his trouble, he gets to be part of his house! Awww. B+

5.19 - “Ties of Blood and Water”: Kira’s fake dad is back! And he’s dying! And he wants to spill all his Cardassian secrets to his fake daughter! Kira is truly adorable with her excitement about seeing Ghemor, and I enjoyed their interactions. She is less adorable when he is dying. Also not adorable: Gul Dukat, with whom Sisko has really had it up to here. More adorable: Weyoun Number Five, Vorta clone who’s just fascinated by everything and immune to most poisons, including iocane powder and whatever Dukat tried to murder Ghemor with. So this episode is...very slow. Once again, Kira is watching someone she loves die, but this time there aren’t high-stakes political shenanigans in the background, just Gul Dukat being annoyed. And she’s having flashbacks to her actual dad dying, and it turns out Ghemor was partly responsible maybe?? She gets really angry at him and Odo is like SLOW YOUR ROLL. I don’t think we’ve heard about Kira’s dad at all, or how she feels about him, or her parents, so all that dad drama didn’t really do much for me; it felt like a forced connection. And then Ghemor dies, and...there were some good things about this episode, but in retrospect, it left me kind of cold. B

5.17 - “A Simple Investigation”: Odo goes noir again!!! While the episode initially teases a Bond reprise, it’s probably best that they don’t try to recapture that magic, though it’s fun to catch a small glimpse of the proceedings, including O’Brien as the one-eyed goon Falcon. Instead, the episode goes all-in on the A plot, as Odo conducts the titular investigation to determine what’s up with the sexy new lady aboard the station, the one who compliments his “bedroom eyes” and also tries to break into his computer, and then his storage room. It’s only a matter of time before Odo and this femme fatale lock lips, but first Odo has to stop being so bad at flirting, and also he has to barge into Bashir’s Bond fantasy to ask him for romance advice. And then he and Arissa totally do it. It’s his first time with a humanoid! Oh man, what is sex with Odo like? Does he have a shapeshifting penis? Why did I just type that? It’s all very sweet and sexy, and Arissa even seems to have a Changeling fetish, which is a wee bit kinky, but, well, work it, Odo. But then again...Arissa is not really Arissa! She’s an undercover spy! Man, this is like something out of Bashir’s holo stories. Actually, that is a pretty awesome connection there. Unfortunately, the real Arissa is married, but the fake Arissa’s love was real! And so was Odo’s. Aww. B+/A-

Oh, that is a really good comparison!

5.16 - “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?”: ROM AND LEETA AWWWWWW!!! Okay, that is a minor aspect of this episode, but can we talk about how Leeta is super pretty and cute (and has more brains than Quark gives her credit for) and Rom is worse at dating than I am, and I am just so happy for them right now. The real story involves the titular Doctor Bashir, who is chosen to become a long-term hologram doctor, an upgrade of the hologram doctor on Voyager (I haven’t watched Voyager yet, so I don’t know whether this is the first time we’ve “met” the actual human doctor before). What an honor! But the real story involves his parents, whom Dr. Zimmerman invites against his wishes, and at first, it seems like he didn’t want them there because he gets along with them about as well as I get along with mine, but, no, he’s just worried they’ll spill his Big Secret. And they do. And the Big Secret is…Bashir was genetically enhanced! Oh shit!! There’s something a bit ableist about this story, even though it doesn’t seem like Bashir was actually developmentally disabled (as he says, they decided he was a lost cause in first grade), but his mother’s heartfelt plea rings true. What parent wants to see their child struggle if they had a way to help them succeed? I’m sure this is a retcon, but I do wonder about Julian overall now, and how this has informed his character, and how they might work with this going forward. Like Miles said, it’s not like making him...better at everything made him the person he is; it certainly didn’t make him a compassionate man. His father gave him gifts, but the gifts were merely tools, and it was he, Julian, who used them. And if he’s been pretending to not be amazing at darts all this time, what does this mean for that one test question he foolishly got wrong? Did he handicap himself even then out of guilt for being a fraud? In conclusion, Morn was not very helpful in his interview. B+

5.15 - “By Inferno’s Light”: Good goddamn, this show is not afraid to fuck with the status quo. The Dominion fleet is not coming to attack DS9...but to welcome Cardassia into the Dominion! DUKAT YOU ASSHOLE. I don’t know what to do with that fucker anymore. Why is he going back to Cardassia? I thought they hated him! That’s why he left to become a rogue Klingon hunter (what’s a rogue Klingon?). But he thinks the Dominion can Make Cardassia Great Again. Whereas I think the Dominion will fuck him over the first chance they get. Or the third chance: they are known for playing the long game. As witnessed yet again in this very episode, where they have Dukat slyly threaten DS9, thus bringing the best and strongest Federation, Klingon, and even Romulan ships come in to protect the station...while Changeling Bashir’s plan is to BLOW UP THE FUCKING SUN and destroy Bajor and everyone else because good goddamn the Dominion are such fuckers. Kira and Dax pull off an amazing intra-solar system warp-and-grab to save everyone. Meanwhile Garak also pulls off a nick-of-time save after battling his claustrophobia to do...engineering...stuff while Worf distracts everyone in Jem’Hadar Fight Club. A lot of people die in this episode, but not as many as could have. Whew. On the upside, the Klingons and Federation are allied again, and Martok (the real one!) will remain on DS9. But. I repeat: good goddamn. B+/A-

5.14 - “In Purgatory’s Shadow”: Dukat is really pissed that Ziyal and Garak are friends! Pissed at Garak, pissed at Ziyal, pissed at Kira, he’s just pissed. But that is only one very small conflict in this episode! Well, it’s a bigger conflict than the one where Dax is pissed at Worf because he didn’t tell her he was going on a mission with Garak to rescue TAIN, who is apparently not dead. But that’s nothing compared to the fact that Worf and Garak get captured by the Jem’Hadar and find themselves in an internment camp with the real Martok! And...THE REAL BASHIR?!?! SON OF A FUCKING FUCK CHANGELING BASHIR IS ON DS9 FUUUUUUUCK. Oh my God Alexander Siddig is so creepy. Also it turns out Tain is not just Garak’s father FIGURE but his ACTUAL FATHER WHAT THE FUCK. And then the Dominion fleet fucking SAILS OUT THE WORMHOLE AND EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE TO BE CONTINUED WHAAAAAAAT?!?!?! B+

5.13 - “For the Uniform”: Sisko vs. Eddington: FIGHT! Sisko personal vendettas the hell out of this shit because he’s so angry at himself for having been fooled by Eddington, and I am pretty certain that the writers just one day decided to make him a criminal mastermind so it’s a bit hard to accept this completely new character, this guy who is always a step ahead of the Federation, but that does make him a fun villain! He’s a total fuckhead, disabling the Defiant and pretending it’s cool that he’s only trying to kill Cardassians, and he only...leaves humans in distressing situations where they might die. Sisko is at Peak Sisko in this episode, doing that authoritative yelling he does so well, and even when he’s taken off the mission, he defiantly takes the disabled Defiant to go after Eddington...who continues to be a fuckhead, like, wow. Until the show totally spoils me for Les Miserables as Dax and Sisko do book club to psychoanalyze Eddington...and Sisko decides HE MUST BECOME THE VILLAIN! He plays the villain well, though, sadly, he does not play a Bond villain. He plays...well, the villain Sisko would be if he were one, and it’s frightening how convincing he is. Eddington falls right into his hands and sacrifices himself like a good hero. After, uh, Sisko poisons a planet without telling Starfleet. All in a day’s work! B+/A-

5.12 - “The Begotten”: Kira finally has the fucking baby! But that’s not what this episode is really about, though it’s thematically connected to the main plot. The Kira plot isn’t very strong, but it’s not bad; it’s mostly Shakaar and O’Brien being, well, men. The Odo plot, on the other hand, is great, a much better exploration of his past with Dr. Mora than that episode where he became a homicidal blob thing. Odo buys a BABY CHANGELING from Quark and tries to teach it how to shapeshift, but he doesn’t want to torture it the way Mora did to him. Instead he talks to it, like it can actually understand him, which is something Mora never did. Mora plays the passive-aggressive parent well, and, like most things on DS9, the situation is not cut-and-dry: Mora had his reasons for using some rather painful methods to get Odo to shapeshift, and his methods did help Odo evolve quicker and become the man he’s become, and sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. Daddy Odo is adorable, and it’s heartbreaking to watch him become so attached to a cute shapeshifting blob—and closer to his own “father,” understanding his parent in the way a child only does when he becomes one himself—only for the blob to...not die...but go inside Odo AND GIVE HIM HIS SHAPESHIFTING POWERS BACK YES HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIT. The ending is lovely, too, with Odo and Kira taking a walk, both unexpectedly having fallen in love with children taken away from them. B+

5.11 - “The Darkness and the Light”: It’s a Bryan Fuller episode!! Well, he has a story credit at least, and you can definitely see his touch in the titular themes of darkness and light he would go on to explore more fully in Hannibal. So someone’s killing off Kira’s old Resistance buddies and sending her creepy messages (that turn out to be her own voice, even creepier). And, like, we get the least fun transporter malfunction I’ve ever seen on this show, holy shit. People just keep fucking dying in this episode! There’s a few brief moments of lightness—Dax and Worf bantering about an unfortunate Tonga experience, Kira’s buddies being all cute and paranoid before they get blown up—but otherwise, it’s pretty dark. It is, of course, the umpteenth time the show has played the Kira Sure Killed a Lot of People in the Resistance and How Bad Should She Feel About That Card, and it really only attempts to add something new to the conversation in two scenes. The story of how Kira joined the Shakaar cell is horrifyingly adorable—she was thirteen, for fuck’s sake—and has an Innocence Lost vibe to it; she had no idea what she was really signing up for. And then there’s the Villain Monologue, where the disfigured civilian Cardassian—who also appears to be mentally unstable—berates Kira for not feeling guilty about her actions, and he does make one salient point in that he, unlike her, was exceedingly careful to kill only his targets and no others. The people Kira hurt via collateral damage, now that’s good territory, but the episode doesn’t get enough time to focus on it, instead tossing around darkness and light metaphors relentlessly for ten minutes in the hope that we get the point. B/B+