DS9 S1E04: A Man Alone

[marchionessofmustache]

So, eppy 4 begins with Julian interrupting Jadzia working on some kind of puzzle game where you meditate to a sphere to make it a cone (the "future/alien games" are always super dumb like this lol). She says they need to have a talk about Trills and relationships -- which to me sounds like she's not completely turned off by the idea of having a relationship with Dr Bashir, but she needs him to understand how it all works first. But she said it in kind of a lecture-y way, like... she's going to tell him why it probably won't work out...? I don't know lmao. He insisted they get together for 'supper' and she let him play the puzzle game, to which the sphere fizzled out because his mind wasn't clear enough or something.

And then the opening rolls. Is... this our story of the day? There's got to be more to this episode than THIS hahaha.



We then get to see Quark and Odo on the promenade, with Quark lusting over Jadzia this time. Odo tells him he has no chance, and that the commander seems to have a thing for her. I disagree, though; I think he's just trying to maintain his friendship with Dax. Seems pretty clear from the way they talk, at least. But even if it were a little true, that means we now have Quark, Sisko, and Bashir all longing for Jadzia. She's quite the popular one...

Odo sees a Bajoran man at the dabo table who seems to quite alarm him. He gets in a tussle with the guy and demands he get off the ship. Sisko breaks up the fight.

Oh yeah, before this, Quark and Odo see O'Brien and his wife Keiko arguing, and Odo talks about how he doesn't understand humanoids' fascination with 'coupling.' Quark is surprised he has never 'coupled,' to which Odo complains about how -- essentially -- in a relationship, the man has to "compromise" by doing whatever the woman wants. Heteronormative AND sexist all at once! I mean, this was the early 90's, so heteronormativity was THE THING, even in Trek, and sexist ideas about relationships were "relatable" at the time. Well, probably a lot of people still find such comments "relatable" and that's why we have a lot of failed relationships in our society lol.

But I'm not here to go on about problems with people miscommunicating, I'm here to lust after aliens. And I guess enjoy the drama and mystery while I'm at it. And minor spoilers (for like... the next two paragraphs lmao), today we have a bit of a mystery on our hands!



Oh yeah we get a little scene showing the marital problems of the O'Briens. Basically Keiko is unhappy on DS9 because she's "not useful." Miles offers to get a transfer, but she says it's "unfair," and he suggests things she could do such as making an atrium and planting flowers and trees in the promenade. She just deflects and says something like "do you really want your child growing up here?"

Like, HE JUST OFFERED TO GET A TRANSFER. Like I get she's frustrated, but I don't get why she's taking it out on him like it's his fault??? He is doing everything he can to appease her but she just rejects it all and complains and blames him anyway??? Keiko is SUPER annoying. I actually liked her when she first appeared in TNG, but she quickly grew into... this. They just use her character as an excuse to have fights with Miles for the sake of creating tension or drama, but she's always just completely irrational and unreasonable and unbearable. So not only is she O'Brien-adjacent, but she's a terrible character in her own right. She never develops or evolves or really does ANYTHING but complain in the entire series. Sometimes Miles treats her poorly, but this isn't one of those cases, and she's STILL a hassle. And then Miles is Keiko-adjacent so that makes him even more crappy, too. It's like they just bundled up the most insufferable characters and lumped them together into one little family.

I actually do admire Miles's efforts here; he really is trying his best to find ways to make her happy, even to the point of giving up his new position and promotion. But in a way, making Keiko so unreasonable and annoying immediately after Odo's "compromises" speech kinda puts women and marriage in a bad light in this episode, which I'm not happy about. Well, not that I'm into marriage itself, but the whole "marriage is a curse" / "ball-and-chain" tropes are inherently misogynistic and I'm not here for that.

I realize it's not unrealistic per se -- there are people like Keiko out there (of any gender), but just the framing is... yeah.

Anyway, that's a lot of talking about a minor scene.

Odo and Sisko have a chat about the guy, basically Odo explaining why he's a bad guy and a murderer. He was in prison for murder, but the provisional government pardoned him since it was a Cardassian he killed and Bajorans don't care much for Cardassians. Sisky insists that Odo not kick him out without due reason, and even threatens his job over it.



Next we see Odo's guy getting a sexy massage (the masseuse literally like kisses on him and stuff during it) from an alien lady, but then an unexposed figure in black pushes the lady out of the way and stabs the guy in the back. MURDER MYSTERY.

Of course the "obvious" suspect is going to be Odo at this point, and like any murder mystery, we know that means it's definitely NOT Odo that's the culprit. Who will it be?! Dun dun dun. I actually don't remember, so this will maybe be an exciting episode as well. Also we will get to see who is the one Jadzia is most interested in... I bet it's Quark.

Oh yeah somewhere in here Jake and Nog (Quark's nephew) are becoming friends. There's kind of a lot going on.



Julian approaches Jadzia and is obnoxiously aggressive about getting her to date him, to which she explains to him in a more frustrated way that Trills don't like to have romantic relationships because they find them a nuisance. Instead, they try to 'rise above' those feelings. But yet they seem to be perfectly happy having intimate platonic relationships, which can have just as much of the same 'nuisances,' IMO, but alas. And uh, there was that Trill that didn't seem to have any of this problem with Beverly in TNG. But I guess different Trills would have different feelings about such things. Anyway, at the end, Julian doesn't give up and says that he still has champagne ready for her, and Jadzia smiles a little as he runs off to duty. Maybe Jadzia is actually interested in Julian, but is trying to "rise above" her feelings...? When Sisko suggested the idea of the two in a relationship in "Emissary," she was more like "well what if I do like him?" all smug. So maybe her frustration here was just at his methods? Or she was in a bad mood? Who knows.

There's a little scene where Nog and Jake play a prank on an unsuspecting couple having dinner -- they put some kind of little bug things on them that cause them to get very itchy and change colors, but then it quickly goes away. But during the itch attack, the couple panics and calls out for a doctor or help. Then when it calms down they like... sheepishly return to their seats as if nothing happened. Now, if this was me, I would still be QUITE concerned about what had happened even though the immediate symptoms died down. I'd still want to see a doctor and would still be very alarmed.

Then a security officer catches Jake and Nog. Keiko sees the whole thing and makes a disgusted face.



We then go back to the scene of our crime -- the holodeck where the dude was getting his massage program (they keep saying his name but I can't catch it, not that I'd be able to spell it anyway, and I haven't opened the wiki article for this episode yet) and got doinked by a Tonberry.

Now... you'd think technology for solving these kinds of things would be WAY advanced by then, and you'd think a space station like this would have very detailed tracking on everything that was going on. I guess the culprit could have found some way around this -- they talk about how many times the doors opened and how many people could have come in and out and such. But wouldn't they have records of who was doing the entering and exiting? Like, I'm pretty sure in other episodes of previous series, they're able to ask the computer where someone is, and it will identify their exact location upon request. So the computer is tracking everyone on-board, right? Well, maybe it's different on a station than on a starship... and maybe there's some kind of privacy laws that don't allow people to be tracked so easily (maybe the people tracked on previous episodes had consented to it, as part of their jobs or whatever). IDK. It just seems completely unrealistic to me that in this technological age, someone could just walk into a room, stab someone to death, and then walk away completely undetected.

But yeah, basically everyone is just standing around confused. They're gonna search for DNA fragments such as hair follicles. Though today's DNA testing is far advanced beyond what it was in the 90's -- they didn't realize upon writing this in 1993 or what kind of progress we were going to make with that in such a short time. In DS9's time, they probably could gather DNA from the air they were breathing or something lol.

We go back to Keiko complaining again, this time over dinner with Miles, about how children shouldn't have the same freedoms on a space station as they do on a starship. She says that the station needs a school, to which Miles raises a brow.

Sisko introduces Kira to a Bajoran man who says an hour before the murder, Ibudan (I looked up his name) had made a claim that he was scared for his life, worried that Odo was going to kill him after their scrap in the promenade. Kira ensures Sisko that Constable Odo is the most honorable man on the station, but the man they're talking to says that it may be so, but all he knows is that an hour later, Ibudan was killed.



Odo investigates Ibudan's room and does some stuff on the computer, and finds some log entry thing saying "Odo" on it. I don't know exactly what he was searching for... let me read the episode summary. Ah, OK, I guess Ibudan had scheduled a meeting with Odo from his terminal.

Keiko talks to Sisko about opening a school, and he agrees it's a good idea. He agrees to get her space and computers, but warns her that it will be difficult due to the various species' cultures and such, and that he can't force anyone to actually go to the school.

Discussing the evidence further, it seems clear that no one entered the room with Ibudan or after him, and no one exited as well. Odo suggests that someone could have entered through the cracks and not through the passageway -- such as a shapeshifter.

Now, Odo is the only shapeshifter that anyone knows in this universe. He doesn't know where his home is nor where any of his kin are, and neither does anyone else know such a thing. I actually thought he was suggesting that somehow, he himself could be the killer and not even realize. But that was not the case.

Basically, he's suggesting he's been framed in a "neat package" -- a murder only a shapeshifter could commit, when he was supposed to meet with him, and knowing Odo would go into the room afterward, leaving his own DNA behind. Odo's alibi is that he has to return to his goop form every so many hours, so he was in a bucket in the back of his quarters during the murder. I feel like they're probably be a way to prove that, but they make it sound like there's not.



Keiko badgers Quark's brother about letting Nog attend school, but he says his son can learn nothing from a "female." It's really and uncomfortably common for the non-human species in Trek to be aggressively misogynistic by nature. I don't know why. I don't know if they're trying to show off how humans are not like that or what??? But it's really weird.

Anyway, elsewhere on the promenade, that guy from before who said I... Istanbul... what was his name? Ibudan, yes, yes. The guy who said Ibudan was scared for his life talks among his friends and suggests to them that Odo is suspicious. Quark chimes in and defends him as a character witness, stating that while he may be ill-tempered, he's no killer. When they comment that they're surprised Odo is being defended by his worst enemy, Quark says "maybe that's the closest thing he has to a friend."

The relationship between Quark and Odo is actually quite interesting, and I'm curious to see how it develops over time (if it does). This series seems like it focuses a lot on developing the characters and relationships, so I'm hoping we see something evolve there.

Anyway, after the little discussion, this hooded man is shown and eerie music is played. No explanation, just that.

Odo has Julian conduct a DNA scan of Ibudan's room to see if he could find out who was using his double bed. He finds some kind of DNA experiment thing that it seems Ibudan was trying to get rid of...? He was apparently doing some kind of biological experiments in his quarters. I don't really understand what they were going on about, to be honest. But the short of it is, if they can reconstruct the DNA from Ibudan's samples, they might have a lead.

Meanwhile, much to Kira's opposition, Sisko decides to temporarily relieve Odo of duty after the Bajoran men from before complain about the conflict of interest in having the prime suspect in the case be the same person in charge of the investigation. I think it's completely reasonable. When Sisky tells Odo that he doesn't personally suspect him, Odo gets all mad and says he surely must have some doubt and doesn't even know him??



Odo returns to his quarters to find the whole place defiled -- walls scratched up, consoles broken, furniture thrown about. Quark comes by and says he can find out who did it, but somehow he and Odo end up in a little argument about whatever, but Quark lets Odo know he's been looking into Ibudan himself and can't find any enemies.

Bashir is expanding the petri dish of Ibudan's experiment, and it's turning into some sort of... organic... blob... that seems to be somehow humanoid-ish? I don't know. A lot of technobabble. Sisko and Julian have lunch together and Ben reminisces about his time with Dax when he was Curzon.

Keiko gets the school ready, though other than Jake, she hasn't been able to get a confident answer from any other kids' parents about their attendance. Miles seems to be giving his all in supporting her. As much as I hate O'Brien, he's acting quite admirable this episode :P



An angry mob chases down Odo, and he retreats into his quarters with doors locked. Security is called, and Julian goes on inspecting his ever-growing skinblob thing. Mysterious hood man is shown again, standing at the back of the angry mob quietly looking on.

I don't have a lot of commentary for these parts, but I'm enjoying watching them.

Sisko and company try to break up the mob, to the point where he has to fire a phaser in the air to get everyone to come to their senses. Julian appears and claims he's found evidence that the man that was murdered was not Ibudan at all -- but rather a clone Ibudan created and killed to frame Odo for the murder.

And that ends up being exactly the case. They catch Ibudan, who was masquerading as the old man in the hood, and turn him over to Bajoran authorities for his illegal cloning experiments and for the murder of the clone. Interestingly, his clone Bashir was developing grew up and began its own life.

Now, the clones are completely unique individuals with their own thoughts and actions. If Ibudan created a clone of himself, how did he convince the clone to go along with his plan so he could kill him? He would have had to have had him go to the right place at the right time, as well as live aboard DS9 all this time being undetected. I don't really get it, and it wasn't really explained. The whole "he killed his clone" thing was clever but it left me wanting to know more about how exactly it was orchestrated.

The episode ends with Keiko getting four students, one being Nog, and beginning her first lesson. We now have a school established aboard DS9!

Another fun episode, though with a little bit left unexplained that I was left a little dissatisfied with. But overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. We see Odo express fear for the first time, and a little development of Quark and Od----------- WAIT DO I SMELL A NEW SHIP?

No cries this time, so Cry Count is still at 6.

MASTERPOST