Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Necessary Evil   Rewatch 
July 26, 2015 1:15 PM - Season 2, Episode 8 - Subscribe

Quark is attacked and Odo does some reminiscing.
posted by Solomon (8 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm pretty sure that this is the only episode we see Scared!Kira. We see many different facets of her character, but I think this is the only time we see fear.

Those magnesite drops are pretty cool. For all the fact that duranium is such a difficult material to scan or burn through, those drops manage to destroy it pretty quickly.

I love the flashback scenes in this episode. It's nice to have some Odo backstory and the fact that he's always been the way he is is somehow comforting. Watching him and Sisko work on Rom to get him to confess about the list was quite fun, too. Sisko generally seems to like being the one in charge. I was surprised to see him deferring to Odo. Seeing Odo being submissive to Dukat was kid of jarring, though. He's not usually submissive to anyone, even Sisko. He soon warms up, though.
posted by Solomon at 1:40 PM on July 26, 2015


Here's where Rom really starts to come into his own.

We also learn that Quark actually did some pretty terrible things during the occupation, and was probably lucky not to have been put up against a wall after the Cardassian withdrawal.

And we learn why Odo wasn't put up against a wall, and how much Maj. Kira may have had to do with that. The details relating to running a resistance movement, and having to deal with collaborators and double-agents and such, are handled quite well in this episode. It makes a lot of sense that Kira would have been on a hit squad.

It seems as though, in a similar fashion to Garak's self-imposed exile on DS9, the station may also have been a place to put people who were still slightly too toxic to be on Bajor after the revolution, but still had decent enough connections to not be immediately executed or deported. Certainly, that was explicitly the case with Li Nalas, a few episodes ago.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:56 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Rom's character shifts over the course of the series. Early on, he's just an idiot. Then he becomes a sneaky idiot with some secret cunning, as seen here. Eventually he becomes kind of a savant, highly intelligent in some ways but sort of childlike, naive and backward. Eventually his kind and generous nature inspires huge changes in Ferengi society! He's a real sweetie by the show's end, and the earlier Rom who would try to kill Quark or gloat over his death doesn't square with the guy he became later. (But then again, Quark was really AWFUL to him for a long time!)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:21 PM on July 26, 2015


It's the Cardassian Empire in the flashback, not the Union. Dukat is, for all the terrible things he does, a competent administrator.

The station is foggier, and probably warmer, and poorly lit, in keeping with Cardassian standards.

I had forgotten that it was Kira who gave him the title of Constable.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:43 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


This is one of my favorite episodes. Odo's Mike Hammer-style voiceover logs are so damned good:
"Commence station security log, Stardate 47282.5. At the request of Commander Sisko, I will hereafter be recording a daily log of law enforcement affairs. The reason for this exercise is beyond my comprehension, except perhaps that humans have a compulsion to keep records and lists and files -- so many, in fact, that they have to invent new ways to store them microscopically, otherwise their records would overrun all known civilization. My own very adequate memory not being good enough for Starfleet, I am pleased to put my voice to this official record of this day. Everything's under control. End log."
-----
"Nobody ever had to teach me the justice trick. That's something I've always known. A racial memory from my species, I guess. It's really the only clue I have to what kind of people they are. Are these kinds of thoughts appropriate for a Starfleet log? I don't care. There's no room in justice for loyalty or friendship or love. Justice, as the humans like to say, is blind. I used to believe that. I'm not sure I can anymore."

-----
"Security log, supplemental - The Ferengi holds onto life like it's gold-pressed latinum. Maybe he just doesn't want his brother to get the bar. Or maybe he knows he's the only real witness I have."
-----

Also, the producers missed a golden opportunity to do an Odo and Rom spinoff.

Rom: "I really oughta be getting back to my bar."
Odo: "He's not dead yet, Rom!"
Rom: "They're not keeping him alive by artificial means, are they? My brother wouldn't want that."
Odo: "No, he's clinging to life all on his own."
Rom: "Typical."
--
Odo: "All right, let's try again.
Close your eyes, take a deep breath.
Clear your mind of anything in it
....if there's anything there.
Breathe....
Breathe....
Now. What do you see?"
Rom: "The bar."
Odo: "Yes?"
Rom: "With my name on it!"
Odo: "The past, Rom, not the future."
posted by zarq at 8:06 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]


Another excellent episode, they are starting to get into their stride now, after some of the First Season stuff *cough* weird shaving foam alien who is defeated by stories and mindwaves *cough*

Visitor is excellent as the different Kiras.

I liked that this episode showed Rom in a different, more intelligent light. His behaviour in previous one's has seemed to range from imbecilic to, well, searching Pel's room was downright disgusting.
posted by marienbad at 3:43 PM on October 18, 2015


Watching Quark and Rom do their burglary made me think...if Odo absolutely refuses to put up any security cameras, you'd think he would at least shapeshift into a fly on the wall and monitor everything that Quark does. Like, as soon as the travesty-of-the-week happens Odo knows who the prime suspect is. If they're not going to expel or imprison Quark, maybe Odo could at least take some preventive measures?
posted by polecat at 9:11 PM on September 6, 2023


Wait - WAIT. Hold up.

Two (2) episodes ago we heard that Cardassian technology was so jank that they had to accommodate a visiting scientist with a 20th century-ass wheel chair in a station with shin-breaker bulkheads all over the place and it was a Whole Thing, and now Bashir just hollers for an anti-gravity platform to haul Quark on like it's nothing and one just shows up? Bashier's been holding out. He just wanted to do mad science to the alien lady. I don't trust this dude.

Nah just playing this episode was really good. The Hard Boiled pastiche is easy to over-do but they used it really effectively without getting silly. Several characters really came into their own here, most notably Rom, but Odo also really benefits from the internal monologue, and we see a depth to Kira that was only hinted at before.

Trek fashion is famously suspect but Vaatrik Pallra looks cool as hell in every scene. I don't know who was doing the costuming there but they nailed it.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 10:47 AM on January 8


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