Production Order: 5
Air Order: 5
Stardate: 45076.3
Original Air Date: October 7, 1991
 |
| Just wait until we've done this for the length of the V'Ger scene -___- |
We open with Picard visiting the barber, Mr Mot.
I'm sure some of you have forgotten what that is, so I'll let you know there's a place you go to where a person cuts your hair, and gossips with you.
Mr Mot is here for the gossip. Picard is not. And man, does Mot have opinions. He knows exactly how Picard should handle the Romulans.
Picard is 1000% done. "Yeah, you did an awesome job," he says evasively, checking his reflection.
Mot tells Picard that Riker was in yesterday, and completely agrees with Mot's assessment.
Sure he does.
Riker pages Picard to the bridge (distress signal from the Solarion 4 colony), and the captain makes his escape.
"I told him we shouldn't have colonized so close to the Cardassians," Mot tells no one in particular.
By the time Picard hits the bridge a few minutes later, the distress signal has abruptly cut off, and there's no raising them again. The colony's only 30 minutes away, so they lay in a course.
"Heard you were talking about Federation policy with Mr Mot," says Picard wryly to Riker.
"He's the best barber in Starfleet," Riker laments. "I gotta just go with it."
"Hey, so, getting another signal," says Worf. "Only audio."
They broadcast it into the bridge. "We're the Bajora," says a vaguely threatening voice. "We destroyed the colony on Solarion 4, and we're gonna keep doing shit like that until we get our home back."
Dramatic music and zoom-in on Picard! Opening credits break!
OH.
YO.
I forgot, because I always hit the "skip intro" button, that the opening credits change in one specific way for season five:
They changed how the title of the show is presented. It occurs about 50 seconds in, and you can see it here in all of its terrible glory:
That's gonna be a no from me, dawg. Fortunately, they return to their senses, and the original title, by season six.
Bonus rabbit-hole times - somebody synced up all of the season openings for this show and played them in split screen:
Okay, more show:
Picard's Log 45076.3: "Arriving at Lya Station to drop off survivors of Solarion 4. Gonna meet with Admiral Kennelly to talk about the Bajoran terrorist attack."
Admiral Kennelly is sick. He sneezes at Picard, and my quarantine brain wants to scream, "Six feet back, motherfucker!"
But Picard just orders him ginger tea with honey from the replicator.
Kennelly seems taken aback by this kindness, and Picard mentions that it's his Aunt Adele's cure for the common cold. Kennelly chuckles and says that it's some virus he got from the Cardassian liaison.
Then they get down to brass tacks: the Cardassians have had trouble with terrorist attacks from the Bajorans ever since they took over the Bajoran homeworld 40 years earlier. The Bajorans have never attacked a Federation outpost before, but Kennelly says that's a new Bajoran terrorist leader in town, Orta. And Orta wants attention.
"Okay, so what's our move?" asks Picard.
A sensible question that's responded to with a bad answer.
"I'm sympathetic to the Bajorans," Kennelly says. "They've been kicked off their homeworld, and they're forced to wander around, looking for a new place to stay. That's shitty. But this new attack is not a good move, and I want you to tell them that."
Picard snorts derisively. "You could get a diplomat to tell them that. Why am I here?"
"Find Orta, and put him back in his place, any way you can," says Kennelly simply.
"What the hell does any way you can mean?" asks Picard suspiciously. "What am I offering him in exchange for not attacking Federation outposts?"
"Amnesty."
Picard laughs. It's bullshit, and they both know it.
"Okay, also the promise that we're going to work on this issue with the Cardassians. But like, quietly. Behind the scenes," says Kennelly. "But they have to be patient."
Picard pauses. You know that he's definitely read Letter From Birmingham Jail and taken it to heart. "They've been putting up with this shit for decades, and getting thoughts and prayers in return from bystanders. Why the fuck should they accept that answer?"
"It's your job to make sure they do."
Picard and Kennelly stare at one another, then Riker pages Picard from the transporter room.
"We're getting word that a new crewmember is transferring onboard. Did you approve that?"
"No."
"Yeah, well, Ensign Ro Laren is waiting to beam aboard, and she has orders."
"Ro Laren? From the Wellington?"
"Okay, that was me," Kennelly breaks in. "I assigned her here. I talked to her about this mission, and thought she would be an asset."
"The fuck?" demands Picard. "I should be getting a say in crew assignments to my ship! Also, after what she did, she shouldn't be serving on any ship, let alone the flagship! There are lot of Bajorans in Starfleet, pick another!"
Kennelly barks at Picard that Ro Laren is joining his crew, end of story. When Picard seems to angrily accept this, Kennelly drops a bomb on the audience: it was really difficult to get her out of prison.
Hello, sorry? Spill some tea, show!
"She's that important to the mission," Kennelly insists.
Eye twitching, Picard tells Riker to beam her aboard.
Riker is also hesitant, but Picard assures him that he will talk to him later about it.
Ro Laren appears on the transporter pad, and immediately, Riker's ire is up. Ro looks distinctly uncomfortable, and Riker's frosty reception is not helping. She hands him her orders on some kind of 24th century USB, and gives the correct response of "Ensign Ro Laren reporting as ordered, Commander."
And man, does Michelle Forbes do a masterful job here of juggling Ro's discomfort and edge of attitude. She doesn't want to be here, but she is.
You remember Michelle Forbes, right?
"On this starship, you'll abide by standard Starfleet dress code," he barks.
She makes a "how did I know?" face, then turns her head and removes an ornate earring from her left ear.
The audience isn't aware yet, but the earring is not a decoration. It's a symbol of her religion, and by extension, her culture.
And I call bullshit here.
Now, I know that Gene Rod included "no human religion" as part of his world-building, but you're going to tell me that it's strictly enforced on Starfleet ships on non-human crew members? Really? I bristle as much as Ro does when Riker barks this intolerant crap at her.
Fuck you, Riker.
Anyway, there's some dramatic music and a commercial break.
When we return, Riker and Picard are in the ready room. Riker is bitching about how people won't want to serve with Laren, and Picard tries to cheer things up by smiling and saying that it won't be for long, just until this mission is over.
When she comes in, Picard evenly addresses her as Ensign Laren and offers her a seat.
"Ensign Ro, sir," she corrects.
Then she tells him, in a clipped voice, that in the Bajoran culture, the family name goes first, followed by the individual's name (much like Chinese or Korean). Laren is her individual name. She then explains that a great number of Bajorans have just shrugged it off and reversed their names to make it simpler on other people, but Ro refuses, and sticks to the old naming traditions.
Picard apologizes - he didn't know - and she excuses him from not knowing. But the message here is "now you do."
Picard is polite, but professional: he knows about her past and the incidents that led to her court-martial, and he's concerned about her being on the ship for this delicate mission.
And while Ro has her hackles up, she is following protocol and replying with "sir." "Yeah, I don't want to be here, either."
"Then why did you agree?" asks Riker.
"Honestly? It's better than prison."
This sets Riker off. He starts to yell that the people on the Enterprise - the flagship of Starfleet - worked their asses off for an assignment to this ship. (Himself included.) It's a fair point.
"This wasn't my idea," she says curtly.
Sensing that things are going south, Picard calmly tells both that Starfleet is insisting on this collab, and they're going to have to work together, regardless of how any of them feels about it.
Ro breaks in to say that they won't have to worry about her, she knows how Starfleet do, so they should just get the thing done so they can all go their separate ways. Then she gets up and leaves.
Picard takes a breath. "Dismissed."
Picard's Log, supplemental: "Going to the Valo system, near the Cardassian border, where there are a bunch of Bajoran settlement camps."
Picard has called the senior staff, plus Ro, into the Obs Lounge to talk strategy and go over the sitch. Data gives the rundown on the camps in that sector, and suggests that they talk to Jas Holza on Valo III.
"Oh, I met him at a symposium," says Crusher eagerly. "He seemed like a good, caring leader, and a great dancer."
The others seem on board with contacting Holza, while Ro rolls her eyes in the background.
Riker tells Ro he'd like her to take the con on this mission, and she doesn't answer.
He's immediately angry. "WTF, Ro?"
"Holza's a nobody," she finally answers. "He's just some mouthpiece to make Bajorans look good, and he doesn't actually have any power, and he isn't respected among the Bajorans."
Fortunately, Data is the one to speak up here. "Who should we ask instead?"
She thinks the question is ridiculous, that nobody wants to talk, and they're desperate enough to martyr themselves. Worf states that the E is well-armed, and ready to take on insurrectionists, and she promises him that they will. She thinks this mission will end in bloodshed.
Remember that. It's important.
Picard doesn't like her, but he recognizes that maybe Kennelly was right about her having knowledge that they can use, so he repeats Data's question: whom should they talk to?
She recommends going to Valo II, and finding a guy in a camp named Keeve Falor. "He has no diplomatic experience, and he won't ask you to dance."
The away team beams down on Valo II: Picard, Worf, Data, and Ro.
Picard's Log, supplemental: "Humans were shit-flinging monkeys when the Bajorans had art and culture. This straight-up sucks."
It certainly does. They've landed in a refugee camp where the people are dirty, hungry, and cold. They encounter some kids, and Ro stops and puts her uniform coat on one little girl, telling Picard that she used to be just like this kid. (I wonder briefly if she's allowed to just give away a part of her uniform like that, but in Star Trek, she could easily replicate a thousand uniform coats. The real concern here would be if they were trying to hide the presence of Starfleet members on Valo II, and someone saw the coat on the kid.)
The girls are shooed away by a guy who recognizes Ro. She introduces Keeve Falor to the rest of the team.
"Thank you for meeting with us, Mr Keeve."
Keeve is surprised that Picard knew to address him this way, and Picard gives the credit to Ro.
"I'm pleased you still remember," he says coolly to Ro.
Ahh, there we go: a dig at Ro for leaving behind poverty and oppression for the glitz and glamour of Starfleet.
Remember when Tasha Yar's sister did the same?
Keeve offers them a tour of the camp. He tells Picard that Bajorans are not violent as a race, but passion about their cause has led to some taking up arms. They get around to Orta, and Picard asks if Keeve knows where he is.
"No," says Keeve, "but I wouldn't tell you if I did know. In truth, I don't like that they've attacked Federation outposts. You guys are innocent bystanders, and I don't believe in attacking people that aren't our enemies. But here's the thing: you were innocent bystanders when the Cardassians took our home and tortured us."
"Yeah, we didn't love that, but it happened within Cardassian space," admits Picard.
And I'm just like, McKayla Maroney face to that shit, Picard.
I get it: they have a tenuous peace with the Cardassians, but if you became friends with a popular kid in school and you found out that they routinely beat the shit of some kid for no fucking reason, how badly would you still want to be friends with them? Sometimes diplomacy sucks balls.
Keeve calls him on it: "Yeah, you guys are pretty adamant that you don't get involved in the internal affairs of other cultures. That's pretty fucking convenient for you."
This is something that Picard struggles with, as we clearly saw two episodes ago when he had to come up with a clever work-around to keep the Klingon Empire from collapsing into civil war. But that's too deep a dive to take right now with Keeve.
"I really didn't come here to talk Federation policy," says Picard. "I can offer you some help, though."
"Oh, yeah? Maybe I was wrong. We attack you, and you offer us help? Maybe the Bajorans should have attacked the Federation a long time ago." He turns to Ro. "What say you?"
Ro does not mince words: "I think you're a small man who feels a rush of power in his belly and enjoys it far too much, Keeve. Stop talking and listen."
Daaaamn.
"So we're working this treaty any way we can," says Picard. "Now that we're technically friends with the Cardassians, we can talk to them on your behalf, work things diplomatically on the back end. But you guys can't be attacking us in the front."
Keeve pauses, but he is angry. "We're really different people, Picard. Your world is about diplomacy. Mine revolves around blankets."
Picard doesn't miss a beat. He directs Data and Worf to fire up the replicators on the ship and to provide blankets and supplies to every person in the camp. This has the desired effect of assuaging Keeve's doubts.
"Go back to your ship," he tells Picard. "I'll see if I can get you some info."
After he leaves, Picard tells Ro that she was helpful at this meeting.
She disagrees, noting that giving the refugees supplies was more helpful.
He laments that the technology exists that would mean that no one would have to live like this, yet they still do.
Ro replies that she refused to live defeated like this, and the camera swoops up behind them to show the camp.
Dramatic music! Commercial break!
Picard's Log 45077.8: "Keeve Falor has directed us to a moon of Valo I. Gonna meet with Orta tomorrow."
Ro is sitting by herself at a table in Ten Forward, staring into her drink. Troi and Crusher approach, and ask if they can sit with her, but she declines. For some reason, they just walked into the room, and after being turned down, they leave. Did they go to Ten Forward expressly to have a drink with Ro? The camera follows them past the bar, where La Forge is telling Guinan that if he ever ends up on an away mission with Ro, he won't turn his back on her.
"She doesn't belong here, or in the uniform," he insists.
"Huh, sounds like someone I'd like to meet," she replies.
Guinan approaches Ro. "Am I disturbing you?"
"Yes."
"Good. You look someone who wants to be disturbed."
"No, I want to be alone."
"No, you don't." Guinan smiles, because she's Guinan. "If you wanted to be alone, you'd have stayed in your quarters. But you're here, so you want to be around people. I'm Guinan. I listen, and I tend bar."
Ro ironically asks if she's heard anything interesting, and Guinan replies that she's heard some stuff about Ro, about how she never told the full story of "what happened at Garon II" and that she never spoke up in her defense at her court-martial.
"There was nothing to defend," says Ro bitterly. "I disobeyed direct orders, eight people on the away team died, it was all my fault."
Guinan sizes her up. "You work so hard at torturing yourself, I gotta guess that you enjoy it."
"Who the hell are you again?"
"I'm your friend Guinan."
"I don't stay anywhere long enough to make friends," Ro declares, trying her best to shake Guinan off.
"Too late," says Guinan cheerfully. She gets up and walks away from a slightly bemused Ro.
Ro gets a call that there's a subspace communication for her, so she leaves to take the call, looking less than pleased.
Ro returns to her quarters to take the call.
It's Admiral Kennelly, who tells her to make a report.
"Things are going the way you said they would," she says.
Dramatic music!
An away team consisting of Picard, Troi, Data, and Worf gathers in the transporter room. Ro is missing. When they can't raise her via comm badge, they ask Majel.
"She's not on board," Majel replies.
The transporter chief (not O'Brien) checks the logs and says she beamed down six hours earlier, and there's no activity at that site.
"Fuck me," sighs Picard. He instructs the chief to beam them to that exact spot, and has the team pull out phasers.
They beam down into a cave. Tricorder scans show people have been there in the last ten hours. They split up to scan the surrounding caverns, and get ambushed by Bajorans with big guns.
Dramatic music! Commercial break!
Ro walks in with a dude in a mask. He removes the mask, and apologizes for his appearance, as the Cardassians mutilated his face years ago, and cut his vocal chords. He speaks mechanically through a box on his neck.
I gotta say, kudos to the make-up and special effects people here, and to budget. They didn't have to make Orta like this, or spend the money or time on it, but they really wanted to give him tangible reasons to run a terrorist cell against the Cardassians, and it's effective.
Picard is not impressed. "You didn't have to kidnap us."
"Yeah, I talked to Ro, and decided that I did," Orta replied.
"I want peace," Picard insists.
"Not interested."
"I didn't come here to fuck up the negotiations," Ro tells Picard. "I came here to convince them to talk to you."
"Seriously? You've done enough," barks Picard.
"I didn't want this to end in bloodshed," she replies.
Remember that? Avoiding the bloodshed that she's sure will occur is Ro's MO here.
He tells her that it won't, but she tells him that there are things he doesn't know.
"Enlighten me," he snaps.
"We're both being fucked over," Orta tells Picard. "Bajorans didn't destroy the colony on Solarion IV."
Back on the bridge, Worf declares Orta to be full of shit. "He admitted to dozens of attacks on Cardassians. He's lying because he doesn't want us to put the smack-down on him."
"He wasn't lying," says Troi.
"Then who the fuck set them up?" demands Worf.
"Someone wanting to draw us into the fight?" suggests Data.
"What would be gained by that?" asks Ro earnestly.
Picard requests that Ro join him in the ready room. When she does, he tells her straight-up that she isn't to leave the ship without permission, and he's now sending her to her room for the rest of the mission. She tries briefly to defend herself, but decides against it, and leaves.
Ro is sitting on her bed in the dark when the door chime goes off.
"What?" she calls. (Not "come," which seems to be the standard, but "what?" Ro is having none of this shit.)
Guinan comes in.
Sassy Guinan Moment: "Hi, it's me, Guinan. I heard you got grounded."
Ro says she doesn't want to talk, and Guinan spends a few minutes coaxing things out of her.
"I'm in this situation, and I'm trying to figure out if I can get out of it without anyone getting killed. Like, I'm in huge trouble, and I'm not in control of anything, and I don't know who to trust. I especially can't trust myself."
"Yeah, I know that feel," says Guinan. "I got into some huge trouble once, and I would probably still be in that situation if I hadn't trusted this one guy."
Picard is very surprised when Guinan and Ro appear in the ready room.
"Why tf are you here?" he demands. "Ensign Ro has been confined to quarters."
"Yeah, she needs to talk to you about some stuff," says Guinan. "And she can go back to her room when she's done."
He starts to protest again, but she interrupts with the magical words. "She's. My. Friend."
She turns on her heel and leaves.
Picard pauses. "Guinan is picky about who she calls friends."
Ro tells Picard that she's pretty sure she's going back to prison either way, but man is she tired of this cloak and dagger crap. She tells him that the mission that Kennelly offered her as her ticket out of prison is different from her helping Picard talk to Orta. The secret mission is for Kennelly only: Ro was to offer Orta weapons, ships, and things that would help him in his fight against the Cardassians. In exchange, Orta would go home to the camps.
"That's... what?" Picard is stunned. "He's secretly offering supplies to terrorists?"
"Yep. And if you confront him, he'll deny it. I didn't leave the ship without permission. He gave it to me last night."
Picard sits heavily in his desk chair. "Fuck me. Starfleet cannot supply weapons to terrorists."
She agrees, but tells him why she felt she had to participate: she tells a haunting story of having to watch the Cardassians torture her father to death while she was a child, and how ashamed of him she felt as she watched him beg for mercy. She realized later that she'd been manipulated, and was tired of feeling badly about her people. She agreed to the mission from Kennelly because it would mean that her people would get a leg up. But now she feels lost. This was not the right choice, and it feels like she's being manipulated again.
"Did you make the offer to Orta?" he asks.
"No. Something felt... off when he told me they hadn't attacked Solarion IV."
"Have you talked to Kennelly again?"
"No. I don't know who to trust. But your weird bartender got inside my head, and she said you were her friend, and that she trusted you, so..."
Picard smiles wryly. "Do you think Orta would go along with us if we came up with a new plan?"
Ro shrugs. "Maybe?"
"Because the original plan was to get him to go back to the camps, any way we could. What if we do that? Let's shake up some shit and see what falls out."
Determined music! Commercial break!
Picard's Log, supplemental: "I think we're in the middle of a conspiracy. About to find out soon."
Picard has Kennelly up on the viewscreen on the bridge, where Ro has been sprung and is now working con again.
Kennelly congratulates Picard for getting Orta to agree to return to the camps, and Picard humbly says it was a group effort, with major thanks to Ro. Then Picard gives the exact time and ship class of the flight that Orta and his people will be taking back to Valo III. As an aside, he asks Kennelly how his Cardassian virus is.
"All better now," replies Kennelly.
They sign off, and the E gets ready to escort the Bajoran ship back to the camp. A ship comes up from the surface, and it's a bit... Scooty Puff Jr.
"Hail the ship," says Picard.
"There's only audio," says Worf. "The ship doesn't have visual capabilities."
You don't say.
"Hey," says Picard. "We're here to escort you to Valo III."
"Cool," responds a female voice. "Just a heads up: we can't go any faster than half-impulse."
YOU DON'T SAY.
So they chug along with this tiny-ass ship
and then Data, who was asked to keep an eye on the Cardassian border, says there's shit happening along the Cardassian border. Two Galor-class warships.
"Top of the line," says Riker.
Picard takes a stab at where the Cardassians will turn on their cherry lights and pull them over. He tells the Bajoran ship to keep going to their destination, and then has Ro turn the E to go see the Cardassians. He's all smiles when he answers their hail.
"Hey, what's up? This is Picard of the Enterprise."
"Gul Dolak of the Cardassian militia," says the dude onscreen.
They do this weird little smiley dance where they both declare themselves to be good friends and neighbors to the other, and you know that when the audio gets muted, both captains will mutter, "what a dumbass" to their respective XO's.
And Picard is all, "how can I help you?" in that same tone I used to give Karens who were about to screech at me for some dumb entitled reason.
"So that Scooty Puff Jr with you is carrying a terrorist. We know the markings on the ship," says Karen Dolak.
And Picard is all
"Really? A TERRORIST you say? Oh my goodness! Well, there won't be a terrorist attacks today. We're taking Bajoran settlers to the camp on Valo III. You can watch us go there, if you want."
"No, we want you to move off so we can make them into space dust," frowns Dolak.
"Oh, but this is neutral space," says Picard. "You don't have any jurisdiction here. Also, I promised these people I would take them home."
"Those are enemies of the Cardassian Empire. We're gonna get 'em however we can," snaps Dolak.
"That a threat?" asks Picard.
Sassy Guest Star Moment: "It is a complaint... from your Cardassian neighbors."
I know that's not meant to be funny, but the multiple use of the word neighbor in this exchange makes me think of Picard and Dolak sharing a clipped conversation over a white picket fence about property lines, and I really just cannot even here. Gul Dolak gives Picard an hour to trim the branches on his tree... or else.
After signing off, Picard tells the crew to let Starfleet know what's going on, and when Kennelly calls (WHEN, not if) to put it through to the ready room.
There's a faint red flashing light reflecting off the upper wall in the ready room, and I like that they added that as a reminder that the E is sitting on red alert. We rarely see red alert in a place other than the bridge.
We skip straight to the call.
"Isn't it so weird that the Cardassians knew exactly where we would be at what time with a specific person?" Picard asks Kennelly.
"Nah," Kennelly brushes him off. "They totes watch the border all the time. They probably saw that it was Orta's ship."
"Hmmm, what should we do now?" asks Picard.
"Our top priority is to protect the treaty with the Cardassians, no matter what."
Wow, really? What a complete piece of shit you are, Kennelly. First you insist that the top priority is to get Orta to Valo III. Then you insist that the most important thing is to not break the treaty. If Picard completes his mission, he pisses off the Cardassians, possibly ruining Federation-Cardassian relations. If he kowtows to the Cardassians, he fails to complete his mission.
And Kennelly has put him here.
"Kind of not possible to make both the Cardassians and Bajorans happy here," Picard replies sensibly.
"Maybe you should give up Orta," Kennelly suggests. "We need to keep being friends with the Cardassians. That's the big picture here."
"Yeah, I see a different big picture. One where the Cardassian liaison with his Cardassian virus picks some chump Starfleet admiral and says "Hey, you were attacked by the Bajorans, so now we both have problems with them. Common enemy. We can't find the leader, can you?" Because this whole thing has been about the Cardassians using the Federation to out Orta, so they can move in and kill him."
Kennelly pauses. "I think your tin foil hat is on too tight. Your new direct order is to withdraw." And he ends the call.
Picard re-enters the bridge and tells them that they've been ordered to move off, which they do. The Cardassians move in quickly and take out Scooty Puff Jr with two shots. Space dust.
Ro lets out her breath. Picard was right.
"Kennelly calling," Data announces. "Secure channel. Ready room?"
"Nah, put in onscreen," Picard insists. He really wants a bunch of people to know what an asshole Kennelly is.
"The Cardassians destroyed the Bajoran ship," Picard reports.
Kennelly looks down, as though he's feeling empathy for the Bajorans on that ship. His face is really punchable, you guys.
"All hands lost?" he asks.
"No, sir," Picard barks.
"Survivors?"
"No, sir. The ship was empty."
And then it's Kennelly's turn to be all
but this time it's genuine. "Whut."
"It was remote controlled, with communications run through the ship's system from elsewhere."
Kennelly isn't ready to give up the ghost, so he asks, "Was this your idea?"
"No, it was Ensign Ro's, but I backed it, because I thought this might go down this way."
Now Kennelly is pissed. All pretense out the window. "They're terrorists! They killed our people!"
"Yeah, they didn't, though," says Picard.
"Orta tell you that?" Kennelly sneers.
"Yep. Have you seen their crappy ships? They're older than fucking Stone Henge, and they don't even have warp. They can't get the freaking things out of this system, let alone going to another, and pull off an attack."
Now Kennelly is confused. "Who attacked the outpost, then?"
IQ tests are not required to become admirals, are they?
Worf is most likely rolling his eyes at his security station and sarcastically muttering. "Probably the Cardassians."
Picard is going to have to walk him through this. "The Cardassians most likely staged it, then looked around for the most naive Starfleet admiral they could find to do their bidding."
Down on the surface of Valo III, Ro asks Picard what will happen to Kennelly, as they walk through the camp.
"I'm guessing court-martial," he replies.
Sassy Ro Moment: "Well, if he gets sent to the stockade on Jaros II, tell him to request a room in the east wing. The west wing gets awfully hot in the afternoons."
She asks how long until they're due back at the station where they picked her up, and he says not for a few weeks. She says maybe she should find other transport out there, instead.
"Orrrr, you could - hear me out - stay," suggests Picard.
She laughs. "Yeah, I'm not really Starfleet material."
"I dunno," says Picard. "You have some good qualities that Starfleet could mold into better ones. You could learn a lot."
"I always thought Starfleet had a lot to learn from me," she grins.
"That's an attitude that's prevalent in some of the best officers in Starfleet," he replies. "Could be a challenge."
"I never turn down a challenge. I guess we could try. But only with one exception." She pauses and puts her earring back one.
And he smiles and requests a beam-out for two.
Damn, I love this episode, too!
Season five, you so sexy!
There's something about Michelle Forbes, y'all. The show runners decided to make a new female cast member, but wanted her to be edgy. They felt like the rest of the cast was pretty much cut from the same cloth, and while that's not terrible, it means that most of the time, someone on the show suggests something, and they all go, "okay, sounds good." (I'm wondering now if they were kicking themselves concerning Yar, and added in another female-with-a-troubled-past to make up for it. Nothing in what I've read suggests it, but perhaps there was a spark of that idea?) But Ro Laren...
Ro Laren does not want to be on a ship that everyone wants to be on. Ro Laren does not want to be in or work with Starfleet, when most people she encounters on this ship have made Starfleet their career. A person whose extreme childhood trauma shines through every comment she makes or action she takes. And who to play this character? Michelle Forbes, the actor that sobbed with her father in one moment, and absolutely destroyed Lwaxana Troi with a look the next. In an episode that contained David Ogden Stiers and Majel Barrett, Michelle Forbes managed to not only hold her own in a five-minute scene, but make such an impression that show runners were like, "Fuck y'all, can we get her back?"
Ro is so complex a character that playing all of the intricate parts that make her up is like trying to do a complicated high-beam routine, and then sticking the landing. She's not quite hero, not quite anti-hero, but somewhere in the middle. It's similar to how I feel about Chief O'Brien being fleshed out, and making him racist toward Cardassians (again, because of trauma): it makes the character more well-rounded, and less black and white. You root for their success, but cringe when they make poor choices.
And the way they've introduced her here works well. It is her journey, and her instinct and feelings of being helpless that drive the story. The Cardassian-terrorist-crooked admiral story is the B-plot!
Let's talk about that Cardassian-terrorist-crooked admiral plot, shall we? It's a pretty good one. We haven't seen much of the Cardassians thus far, and we weren't going to, originally. The initial story involved Romulans, but it was thought that they had just covered Romulans, and they wanted to go in a different direction. This was our first look at the Bajorans, and covered their occupation by the Cardassian Union, their refugee status, and their fighting back against the Cardassians. A lot was packed into the backstory of this new race, though we'll find out more as we go along.
But it also presents a nice problem for the Federation to bump up against: sometimes, you gotta make nice with walking piles of shit in order to keep the peace. The Federation has thus far learned to be friendly, cordial, whatever with some very different people, and has come out of it okay; but here, they're holding a tentative peace just to prevent outright hostilities, as evidenced by the nicey-nice speeches between Picard and Dolak. They actually kind of hate each other. But here's a fun bonus: the Cardassians are subjugating a race that the Federation kinda likes, adding a layer of "hey, could you not?" to their discussions with the Cardassians.
Then we have our terrorist cell. You're not supposed to like Orta. He's not a likable guy at all. But his plight is understandable. His people may have begged, pleaded and cajoled with the Cardassians to get them to back off, and now they're just over it. We don't know. We just know that at this point, Orta has chosen violence. To combat, you know, fucking torture. Maybe you don't agree with his methods, but you understand them. And we understand Ro and her reactions. And that of Keeve. Here are a people who have been tortured and colonized (and whose lives continue to be one long shit-show under the Cardassian Union), and they're tired, and just want the Cardassians to leave them alone. Talking clearly didn't work, and sometimes you Google "how to build a guillotine."
It's always interesting when things get shaken up with Picard. He often gets candid with his commanding officers, and they let him because there's mutual respect there. But Kennelly puts the smackdown on him concerning Ro, and he's forced to acquiesce. It's wild to see him doing a little bow and scrape when so often, the bowing and scraping are done for him by lower-ranking officers. It's also interesting to see him caught off-guard by a lowly ensign, and the weird bartender. It's rather a hilarious thing to watch when a captain bests an admiral like this, and given Kirk's history of doing it as well, I have to wonder if something similar happened to Gene Rod while he was serving.
And lastly, our dumbshit admiral. Now, we've seen a lot of admirals do stupid fucking shit on this show across all iterations (I think in the animated series, too!), and frankly, I always enjoy that. I think too often we see idiots and bootlickers get promotions without merit, and you're stuck in a lower position, watching them receive accolades they haven't actually earned. So there's a bit of schadenfreude involved when some asshole admiral fucks up all the shit and gets court-martialed. LOL. Fuck you, Kennelly.
If I have any complaints about this episode, it's the "Cardassian virus." I don't understand why that was included. It feels like maybe there were scenes cut that explained why that was in there at all - it didn't further the plot or explain anything at the end. *shrug emoji*
A quick aside, because I like talking uniforms: I'm really into Ro's blousy sleeveless top in raspberry, and the high-waisted pants. It looks like it feels cool under those uniform jackets, and it still looks professional when the jacket is gone. (Also, pants pockets? I don't remember those pants having pockets. Were they added just to Michelle's pants because Ro is the type of character to put her hands in her pockets?)
Fun Facts:
- In this episode, female Bajorans are shown wearing their earrings on the left ears, and males are shown as wearing them on the right. In later episodes, it will be switched to right ear for everyone. However, Ro continues to wears hers on the left.
- Ro Laren was originally meant to play Number One to Benjamin Sisko on DS9, but Michelle Forbes turned down the offer, and Kira Nerise was created in her place. (Kind of a cool IRL parallel to Ilia from the aborted Phase II series and ST:TMP being rewritten as Deanna Troi, and Decker of the same productions became Riker.)
- Jeffrey Hayenga (Orta) will later play a Vulcan on Enterprise.
- Though not seen in person again, a wanted poster of Orta will appear in Odo's office in nine episodes of DS9. The photo used was a make-up continuity reference photo.
- Gul Dulak's wanted poster will also be seen in Odo's office. Again, the photo used is from a make-up continuity shot. Wonder what he did. I mean, "complete asshole" is not a crime, so what did he actually do?
- Michelle Forbes was the inspiration for Michael Westmore's make-up design for Bajorans: basically, Forbes was pretty, and he didn't want to fuck that up by covering her in a bunch of weird make-up.
- Bajor was not part of the Federation, so Ro would have had to get a Starfleet officer to sponsor her before entering the Academy.
-Lya Station Alpha (where they picked up Ro and talked to Kennelly) was reused footage from "11001001"... which was reused footage from movie #3.
Red deaths: 0
To date: 0
Gold deaths: 0
To date:
Dramatic music and zoom-in on Picard! Opening credits break!
OH.
YO.
I forgot, because I always hit the "skip intro" button, that the opening credits change in one specific way for season five:
They changed how the title of the show is presented. It occurs about 50 seconds in, and you can see it here in all of its terrible glory:
That's gonna be a no from me, dawg. Fortunately, they return to their senses, and the original title, by season six.
Bonus rabbit-hole times - somebody synced up all of the season openings for this show and played them in split screen:
Okay, more show:
Picard's Log 45076.3: "Arriving at Lya Station to drop off survivors of Solarion 4. Gonna meet with Admiral Kennelly to talk about the Bajoran terrorist attack."
Admiral Kennelly is sick. He sneezes at Picard, and my quarantine brain wants to scream, "Six feet back, motherfucker!"
But Picard just orders him ginger tea with honey from the replicator.
Kennelly seems taken aback by this kindness, and Picard mentions that it's his Aunt Adele's cure for the common cold. Kennelly chuckles and says that it's some virus he got from the Cardassian liaison.
Then they get down to brass tacks: the Cardassians have had trouble with terrorist attacks from the Bajorans ever since they took over the Bajoran homeworld 40 years earlier. The Bajorans have never attacked a Federation outpost before, but Kennelly says that's a new Bajoran terrorist leader in town, Orta. And Orta wants attention.
"Okay, so what's our move?" asks Picard.
A sensible question that's responded to with a bad answer.
"I'm sympathetic to the Bajorans," Kennelly says. "They've been kicked off their homeworld, and they're forced to wander around, looking for a new place to stay. That's shitty. But this new attack is not a good move, and I want you to tell them that."
Picard snorts derisively. "You could get a diplomat to tell them that. Why am I here?"
"Find Orta, and put him back in his place, any way you can," says Kennelly simply.
"What the hell does any way you can mean?" asks Picard suspiciously. "What am I offering him in exchange for not attacking Federation outposts?"
"Amnesty."
Picard laughs. It's bullshit, and they both know it.
"Okay, also the promise that we're going to work on this issue with the Cardassians. But like, quietly. Behind the scenes," says Kennelly. "But they have to be patient."
Picard pauses. You know that he's definitely read Letter From Birmingham Jail and taken it to heart. "They've been putting up with this shit for decades, and getting thoughts and prayers in return from bystanders. Why the fuck should they accept that answer?"
"It's your job to make sure they do."
Picard and Kennelly stare at one another, then Riker pages Picard from the transporter room.
"We're getting word that a new crewmember is transferring onboard. Did you approve that?"
"No."
"Yeah, well, Ensign Ro Laren is waiting to beam aboard, and she has orders."
"Ro Laren? From the Wellington?"
"Okay, that was me," Kennelly breaks in. "I assigned her here. I talked to her about this mission, and thought she would be an asset."
"The fuck?" demands Picard. "I should be getting a say in crew assignments to my ship! Also, after what she did, she shouldn't be serving on any ship, let alone the flagship! There are lot of Bajorans in Starfleet, pick another!"
Kennelly barks at Picard that Ro Laren is joining his crew, end of story. When Picard seems to angrily accept this, Kennelly drops a bomb on the audience: it was really difficult to get her out of prison.
Hello, sorry? Spill some tea, show!
"She's that important to the mission," Kennelly insists.
Eye twitching, Picard tells Riker to beam her aboard.
Riker is also hesitant, but Picard assures him that he will talk to him later about it.
Ro Laren appears on the transporter pad, and immediately, Riker's ire is up. Ro looks distinctly uncomfortable, and Riker's frosty reception is not helping. She hands him her orders on some kind of 24th century USB, and gives the correct response of "Ensign Ro Laren reporting as ordered, Commander."
And man, does Michelle Forbes do a masterful job here of juggling Ro's discomfort and edge of attitude. She doesn't want to be here, but she is.
You remember Michelle Forbes, right?
"On this starship, you'll abide by standard Starfleet dress code," he barks.
She makes a "how did I know?" face, then turns her head and removes an ornate earring from her left ear.
The audience isn't aware yet, but the earring is not a decoration. It's a symbol of her religion, and by extension, her culture.
And I call bullshit here.
Now, I know that Gene Rod included "no human religion" as part of his world-building, but you're going to tell me that it's strictly enforced on Starfleet ships on non-human crew members? Really? I bristle as much as Ro does when Riker barks this intolerant crap at her.
Fuck you, Riker.
Anyway, there's some dramatic music and a commercial break.
When we return, Riker and Picard are in the ready room. Riker is bitching about how people won't want to serve with Laren, and Picard tries to cheer things up by smiling and saying that it won't be for long, just until this mission is over.
When she comes in, Picard evenly addresses her as Ensign Laren and offers her a seat.
"Ensign Ro, sir," she corrects.
Then she tells him, in a clipped voice, that in the Bajoran culture, the family name goes first, followed by the individual's name (much like Chinese or Korean). Laren is her individual name. She then explains that a great number of Bajorans have just shrugged it off and reversed their names to make it simpler on other people, but Ro refuses, and sticks to the old naming traditions.
Picard apologizes - he didn't know - and she excuses him from not knowing. But the message here is "now you do."
Picard is polite, but professional: he knows about her past and the incidents that led to her court-martial, and he's concerned about her being on the ship for this delicate mission.
And while Ro has her hackles up, she is following protocol and replying with "sir." "Yeah, I don't want to be here, either."
"Then why did you agree?" asks Riker.
"Honestly? It's better than prison."
This sets Riker off. He starts to yell that the people on the Enterprise - the flagship of Starfleet - worked their asses off for an assignment to this ship. (Himself included.) It's a fair point.
"This wasn't my idea," she says curtly.
Sensing that things are going south, Picard calmly tells both that Starfleet is insisting on this collab, and they're going to have to work together, regardless of how any of them feels about it.
Ro breaks in to say that they won't have to worry about her, she knows how Starfleet do, so they should just get the thing done so they can all go their separate ways. Then she gets up and leaves.
Picard takes a breath. "Dismissed."
Picard's Log, supplemental: "Going to the Valo system, near the Cardassian border, where there are a bunch of Bajoran settlement camps."
Picard has called the senior staff, plus Ro, into the Obs Lounge to talk strategy and go over the sitch. Data gives the rundown on the camps in that sector, and suggests that they talk to Jas Holza on Valo III.
"Oh, I met him at a symposium," says Crusher eagerly. "He seemed like a good, caring leader, and a great dancer."
The others seem on board with contacting Holza, while Ro rolls her eyes in the background.
Riker tells Ro he'd like her to take the con on this mission, and she doesn't answer.
He's immediately angry. "WTF, Ro?"
"Holza's a nobody," she finally answers. "He's just some mouthpiece to make Bajorans look good, and he doesn't actually have any power, and he isn't respected among the Bajorans."
Fortunately, Data is the one to speak up here. "Who should we ask instead?"
She thinks the question is ridiculous, that nobody wants to talk, and they're desperate enough to martyr themselves. Worf states that the E is well-armed, and ready to take on insurrectionists, and she promises him that they will. She thinks this mission will end in bloodshed.
Remember that. It's important.
Picard doesn't like her, but he recognizes that maybe Kennelly was right about her having knowledge that they can use, so he repeats Data's question: whom should they talk to?
She recommends going to Valo II, and finding a guy in a camp named Keeve Falor. "He has no diplomatic experience, and he won't ask you to dance."
The away team beams down on Valo II: Picard, Worf, Data, and Ro.
Picard's Log, supplemental: "Humans were shit-flinging monkeys when the Bajorans had art and culture. This straight-up sucks."
It certainly does. They've landed in a refugee camp where the people are dirty, hungry, and cold. They encounter some kids, and Ro stops and puts her uniform coat on one little girl, telling Picard that she used to be just like this kid. (I wonder briefly if she's allowed to just give away a part of her uniform like that, but in Star Trek, she could easily replicate a thousand uniform coats. The real concern here would be if they were trying to hide the presence of Starfleet members on Valo II, and someone saw the coat on the kid.)
The girls are shooed away by a guy who recognizes Ro. She introduces Keeve Falor to the rest of the team.
"Thank you for meeting with us, Mr Keeve."
Keeve is surprised that Picard knew to address him this way, and Picard gives the credit to Ro.
"I'm pleased you still remember," he says coolly to Ro.
Ahh, there we go: a dig at Ro for leaving behind poverty and oppression for the glitz and glamour of Starfleet.
Remember when Tasha Yar's sister did the same?
Keeve offers them a tour of the camp. He tells Picard that Bajorans are not violent as a race, but passion about their cause has led to some taking up arms. They get around to Orta, and Picard asks if Keeve knows where he is.
"No," says Keeve, "but I wouldn't tell you if I did know. In truth, I don't like that they've attacked Federation outposts. You guys are innocent bystanders, and I don't believe in attacking people that aren't our enemies. But here's the thing: you were innocent bystanders when the Cardassians took our home and tortured us."
"Yeah, we didn't love that, but it happened within Cardassian space," admits Picard.
And I'm just like, McKayla Maroney face to that shit, Picard.
I get it: they have a tenuous peace with the Cardassians, but if you became friends with a popular kid in school and you found out that they routinely beat the shit of some kid for no fucking reason, how badly would you still want to be friends with them? Sometimes diplomacy sucks balls.
Keeve calls him on it: "Yeah, you guys are pretty adamant that you don't get involved in the internal affairs of other cultures. That's pretty fucking convenient for you."
This is something that Picard struggles with, as we clearly saw two episodes ago when he had to come up with a clever work-around to keep the Klingon Empire from collapsing into civil war. But that's too deep a dive to take right now with Keeve.
"I really didn't come here to talk Federation policy," says Picard. "I can offer you some help, though."
"Oh, yeah? Maybe I was wrong. We attack you, and you offer us help? Maybe the Bajorans should have attacked the Federation a long time ago." He turns to Ro. "What say you?"
Ro does not mince words: "I think you're a small man who feels a rush of power in his belly and enjoys it far too much, Keeve. Stop talking and listen."
Daaaamn.
"So we're working this treaty any way we can," says Picard. "Now that we're technically friends with the Cardassians, we can talk to them on your behalf, work things diplomatically on the back end. But you guys can't be attacking us in the front."
Keeve pauses, but he is angry. "We're really different people, Picard. Your world is about diplomacy. Mine revolves around blankets."
Picard doesn't miss a beat. He directs Data and Worf to fire up the replicators on the ship and to provide blankets and supplies to every person in the camp. This has the desired effect of assuaging Keeve's doubts.
"Go back to your ship," he tells Picard. "I'll see if I can get you some info."
After he leaves, Picard tells Ro that she was helpful at this meeting.
She disagrees, noting that giving the refugees supplies was more helpful.
He laments that the technology exists that would mean that no one would have to live like this, yet they still do.
Ro replies that she refused to live defeated like this, and the camera swoops up behind them to show the camp.
Dramatic music! Commercial break!
Picard's Log 45077.8: "Keeve Falor has directed us to a moon of Valo I. Gonna meet with Orta tomorrow."
Ro is sitting by herself at a table in Ten Forward, staring into her drink. Troi and Crusher approach, and ask if they can sit with her, but she declines. For some reason, they just walked into the room, and after being turned down, they leave. Did they go to Ten Forward expressly to have a drink with Ro? The camera follows them past the bar, where La Forge is telling Guinan that if he ever ends up on an away mission with Ro, he won't turn his back on her.
"She doesn't belong here, or in the uniform," he insists.
"Huh, sounds like someone I'd like to meet," she replies.
Guinan approaches Ro. "Am I disturbing you?"
"Yes."
"Good. You look someone who wants to be disturbed."
"No, I want to be alone."
"No, you don't." Guinan smiles, because she's Guinan. "If you wanted to be alone, you'd have stayed in your quarters. But you're here, so you want to be around people. I'm Guinan. I listen, and I tend bar."
Ro ironically asks if she's heard anything interesting, and Guinan replies that she's heard some stuff about Ro, about how she never told the full story of "what happened at Garon II" and that she never spoke up in her defense at her court-martial.
"There was nothing to defend," says Ro bitterly. "I disobeyed direct orders, eight people on the away team died, it was all my fault."
Guinan sizes her up. "You work so hard at torturing yourself, I gotta guess that you enjoy it."
"Who the hell are you again?"
"I'm your friend Guinan."
"I don't stay anywhere long enough to make friends," Ro declares, trying her best to shake Guinan off.
"Too late," says Guinan cheerfully. She gets up and walks away from a slightly bemused Ro.
Ro gets a call that there's a subspace communication for her, so she leaves to take the call, looking less than pleased.
Ro returns to her quarters to take the call.
It's Admiral Kennelly, who tells her to make a report.
"Things are going the way you said they would," she says.
Dramatic music!
An away team consisting of Picard, Troi, Data, and Worf gathers in the transporter room. Ro is missing. When they can't raise her via comm badge, they ask Majel.
"She's not on board," Majel replies.
The transporter chief (not O'Brien) checks the logs and says she beamed down six hours earlier, and there's no activity at that site.
"Fuck me," sighs Picard. He instructs the chief to beam them to that exact spot, and has the team pull out phasers.
They beam down into a cave. Tricorder scans show people have been there in the last ten hours. They split up to scan the surrounding caverns, and get ambushed by Bajorans with big guns.
Dramatic music! Commercial break!
Ro walks in with a dude in a mask. He removes the mask, and apologizes for his appearance, as the Cardassians mutilated his face years ago, and cut his vocal chords. He speaks mechanically through a box on his neck.
I gotta say, kudos to the make-up and special effects people here, and to budget. They didn't have to make Orta like this, or spend the money or time on it, but they really wanted to give him tangible reasons to run a terrorist cell against the Cardassians, and it's effective.
Picard is not impressed. "You didn't have to kidnap us."
"Yeah, I talked to Ro, and decided that I did," Orta replied.
"I want peace," Picard insists.
"Not interested."
"I didn't come here to fuck up the negotiations," Ro tells Picard. "I came here to convince them to talk to you."
"Seriously? You've done enough," barks Picard.
"I didn't want this to end in bloodshed," she replies.
Remember that? Avoiding the bloodshed that she's sure will occur is Ro's MO here.
He tells her that it won't, but she tells him that there are things he doesn't know.
"Enlighten me," he snaps.
"We're both being fucked over," Orta tells Picard. "Bajorans didn't destroy the colony on Solarion IV."
Back on the bridge, Worf declares Orta to be full of shit. "He admitted to dozens of attacks on Cardassians. He's lying because he doesn't want us to put the smack-down on him."
"He wasn't lying," says Troi.
"Then who the fuck set them up?" demands Worf.
"Someone wanting to draw us into the fight?" suggests Data.
"What would be gained by that?" asks Ro earnestly.
Picard requests that Ro join him in the ready room. When she does, he tells her straight-up that she isn't to leave the ship without permission, and he's now sending her to her room for the rest of the mission. She tries briefly to defend herself, but decides against it, and leaves.
Ro is sitting on her bed in the dark when the door chime goes off.
"What?" she calls. (Not "come," which seems to be the standard, but "what?" Ro is having none of this shit.)
Guinan comes in.
Sassy Guinan Moment: "Hi, it's me, Guinan. I heard you got grounded."
Ro says she doesn't want to talk, and Guinan spends a few minutes coaxing things out of her.
"I'm in this situation, and I'm trying to figure out if I can get out of it without anyone getting killed. Like, I'm in huge trouble, and I'm not in control of anything, and I don't know who to trust. I especially can't trust myself."
"Yeah, I know that feel," says Guinan. "I got into some huge trouble once, and I would probably still be in that situation if I hadn't trusted this one guy."
Picard is very surprised when Guinan and Ro appear in the ready room.
"Why tf are you here?" he demands. "Ensign Ro has been confined to quarters."
"Yeah, she needs to talk to you about some stuff," says Guinan. "And she can go back to her room when she's done."
He starts to protest again, but she interrupts with the magical words. "She's. My. Friend."
She turns on her heel and leaves.
Picard pauses. "Guinan is picky about who she calls friends."
Ro tells Picard that she's pretty sure she's going back to prison either way, but man is she tired of this cloak and dagger crap. She tells him that the mission that Kennelly offered her as her ticket out of prison is different from her helping Picard talk to Orta. The secret mission is for Kennelly only: Ro was to offer Orta weapons, ships, and things that would help him in his fight against the Cardassians. In exchange, Orta would go home to the camps.
"That's... what?" Picard is stunned. "He's secretly offering supplies to terrorists?"
"Yep. And if you confront him, he'll deny it. I didn't leave the ship without permission. He gave it to me last night."
Picard sits heavily in his desk chair. "Fuck me. Starfleet cannot supply weapons to terrorists."
She agrees, but tells him why she felt she had to participate: she tells a haunting story of having to watch the Cardassians torture her father to death while she was a child, and how ashamed of him she felt as she watched him beg for mercy. She realized later that she'd been manipulated, and was tired of feeling badly about her people. She agreed to the mission from Kennelly because it would mean that her people would get a leg up. But now she feels lost. This was not the right choice, and it feels like she's being manipulated again.
"Did you make the offer to Orta?" he asks.
"No. Something felt... off when he told me they hadn't attacked Solarion IV."
"Have you talked to Kennelly again?"
"No. I don't know who to trust. But your weird bartender got inside my head, and she said you were her friend, and that she trusted you, so..."
Picard smiles wryly. "Do you think Orta would go along with us if we came up with a new plan?"
Ro shrugs. "Maybe?"
"Because the original plan was to get him to go back to the camps, any way we could. What if we do that? Let's shake up some shit and see what falls out."
Determined music! Commercial break!
Picard's Log, supplemental: "I think we're in the middle of a conspiracy. About to find out soon."
Picard has Kennelly up on the viewscreen on the bridge, where Ro has been sprung and is now working con again.
Kennelly congratulates Picard for getting Orta to agree to return to the camps, and Picard humbly says it was a group effort, with major thanks to Ro. Then Picard gives the exact time and ship class of the flight that Orta and his people will be taking back to Valo III. As an aside, he asks Kennelly how his Cardassian virus is.
"All better now," replies Kennelly.
They sign off, and the E gets ready to escort the Bajoran ship back to the camp. A ship comes up from the surface, and it's a bit... Scooty Puff Jr.
"Hail the ship," says Picard.
"There's only audio," says Worf. "The ship doesn't have visual capabilities."
You don't say.
"Hey," says Picard. "We're here to escort you to Valo III."
"Cool," responds a female voice. "Just a heads up: we can't go any faster than half-impulse."
YOU DON'T SAY.
So they chug along with this tiny-ass ship
and then Data, who was asked to keep an eye on the Cardassian border, says there's shit happening along the Cardassian border. Two Galor-class warships.
"Top of the line," says Riker.
Picard takes a stab at where the Cardassians will turn on their cherry lights and pull them over. He tells the Bajoran ship to keep going to their destination, and then has Ro turn the E to go see the Cardassians. He's all smiles when he answers their hail.
"Hey, what's up? This is Picard of the Enterprise."
"Gul Dolak of the Cardassian militia," says the dude onscreen.
They do this weird little smiley dance where they both declare themselves to be good friends and neighbors to the other, and you know that when the audio gets muted, both captains will mutter, "what a dumbass" to their respective XO's.
And Picard is all, "how can I help you?" in that same tone I used to give Karens who were about to screech at me for some dumb entitled reason.
"So that Scooty Puff Jr with you is carrying a terrorist. We know the markings on the ship," says Karen Dolak.
And Picard is all
"Really? A TERRORIST you say? Oh my goodness! Well, there won't be a terrorist attacks today. We're taking Bajoran settlers to the camp on Valo III. You can watch us go there, if you want."
"No, we want you to move off so we can make them into space dust," frowns Dolak.
"Oh, but this is neutral space," says Picard. "You don't have any jurisdiction here. Also, I promised these people I would take them home."
"Those are enemies of the Cardassian Empire. We're gonna get 'em however we can," snaps Dolak.
"That a threat?" asks Picard.
Sassy Guest Star Moment: "It is a complaint... from your Cardassian neighbors."
I know that's not meant to be funny, but the multiple use of the word neighbor in this exchange makes me think of Picard and Dolak sharing a clipped conversation over a white picket fence about property lines, and I really just cannot even here. Gul Dolak gives Picard an hour to trim the branches on his tree... or else.
After signing off, Picard tells the crew to let Starfleet know what's going on, and when Kennelly calls (WHEN, not if) to put it through to the ready room.
There's a faint red flashing light reflecting off the upper wall in the ready room, and I like that they added that as a reminder that the E is sitting on red alert. We rarely see red alert in a place other than the bridge.
We skip straight to the call.
"Isn't it so weird that the Cardassians knew exactly where we would be at what time with a specific person?" Picard asks Kennelly.
"Nah," Kennelly brushes him off. "They totes watch the border all the time. They probably saw that it was Orta's ship."
"Hmmm, what should we do now?" asks Picard.
"Our top priority is to protect the treaty with the Cardassians, no matter what."
Wow, really? What a complete piece of shit you are, Kennelly. First you insist that the top priority is to get Orta to Valo III. Then you insist that the most important thing is to not break the treaty. If Picard completes his mission, he pisses off the Cardassians, possibly ruining Federation-Cardassian relations. If he kowtows to the Cardassians, he fails to complete his mission.
And Kennelly has put him here.
"Kind of not possible to make both the Cardassians and Bajorans happy here," Picard replies sensibly.
"Maybe you should give up Orta," Kennelly suggests. "We need to keep being friends with the Cardassians. That's the big picture here."
"Yeah, I see a different big picture. One where the Cardassian liaison with his Cardassian virus picks some chump Starfleet admiral and says "Hey, you were attacked by the Bajorans, so now we both have problems with them. Common enemy. We can't find the leader, can you?" Because this whole thing has been about the Cardassians using the Federation to out Orta, so they can move in and kill him."
Kennelly pauses. "I think your tin foil hat is on too tight. Your new direct order is to withdraw." And he ends the call.
Picard re-enters the bridge and tells them that they've been ordered to move off, which they do. The Cardassians move in quickly and take out Scooty Puff Jr with two shots. Space dust.
Ro lets out her breath. Picard was right.
"Kennelly calling," Data announces. "Secure channel. Ready room?"
"Nah, put in onscreen," Picard insists. He really wants a bunch of people to know what an asshole Kennelly is.
"The Cardassians destroyed the Bajoran ship," Picard reports.
Kennelly looks down, as though he's feeling empathy for the Bajorans on that ship. His face is really punchable, you guys.
"All hands lost?" he asks.
"No, sir," Picard barks.
"Survivors?"
"No, sir. The ship was empty."
And then it's Kennelly's turn to be all
but this time it's genuine. "Whut."
"It was remote controlled, with communications run through the ship's system from elsewhere."
Kennelly isn't ready to give up the ghost, so he asks, "Was this your idea?"
"No, it was Ensign Ro's, but I backed it, because I thought this might go down this way."
Now Kennelly is pissed. All pretense out the window. "They're terrorists! They killed our people!"
"Yeah, they didn't, though," says Picard.
"Orta tell you that?" Kennelly sneers.
"Yep. Have you seen their crappy ships? They're older than fucking Stone Henge, and they don't even have warp. They can't get the freaking things out of this system, let alone going to another, and pull off an attack."
Now Kennelly is confused. "Who attacked the outpost, then?"
IQ tests are not required to become admirals, are they?
Worf is most likely rolling his eyes at his security station and sarcastically muttering. "Probably the Cardassians."
Picard is going to have to walk him through this. "The Cardassians most likely staged it, then looked around for the most naive Starfleet admiral they could find to do their bidding."
Down on the surface of Valo III, Ro asks Picard what will happen to Kennelly, as they walk through the camp.
"I'm guessing court-martial," he replies.
Sassy Ro Moment: "Well, if he gets sent to the stockade on Jaros II, tell him to request a room in the east wing. The west wing gets awfully hot in the afternoons."
She asks how long until they're due back at the station where they picked her up, and he says not for a few weeks. She says maybe she should find other transport out there, instead.
"Orrrr, you could - hear me out - stay," suggests Picard.
She laughs. "Yeah, I'm not really Starfleet material."
"I dunno," says Picard. "You have some good qualities that Starfleet could mold into better ones. You could learn a lot."
"I always thought Starfleet had a lot to learn from me," she grins.
"That's an attitude that's prevalent in some of the best officers in Starfleet," he replies. "Could be a challenge."
"I never turn down a challenge. I guess we could try. But only with one exception." She pauses and puts her earring back one.
And he smiles and requests a beam-out for two.
Damn, I love this episode, too!
Season five, you so sexy!
There's something about Michelle Forbes, y'all. The show runners decided to make a new female cast member, but wanted her to be edgy. They felt like the rest of the cast was pretty much cut from the same cloth, and while that's not terrible, it means that most of the time, someone on the show suggests something, and they all go, "okay, sounds good." (I'm wondering now if they were kicking themselves concerning Yar, and added in another female-with-a-troubled-past to make up for it. Nothing in what I've read suggests it, but perhaps there was a spark of that idea?) But Ro Laren...
Ro Laren does not want to be on a ship that everyone wants to be on. Ro Laren does not want to be in or work with Starfleet, when most people she encounters on this ship have made Starfleet their career. A person whose extreme childhood trauma shines through every comment she makes or action she takes. And who to play this character? Michelle Forbes, the actor that sobbed with her father in one moment, and absolutely destroyed Lwaxana Troi with a look the next. In an episode that contained David Ogden Stiers and Majel Barrett, Michelle Forbes managed to not only hold her own in a five-minute scene, but make such an impression that show runners were like, "Fuck y'all, can we get her back?"
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| Les Landau directs Michelle Forbes |
Ro is so complex a character that playing all of the intricate parts that make her up is like trying to do a complicated high-beam routine, and then sticking the landing. She's not quite hero, not quite anti-hero, but somewhere in the middle. It's similar to how I feel about Chief O'Brien being fleshed out, and making him racist toward Cardassians (again, because of trauma): it makes the character more well-rounded, and less black and white. You root for their success, but cringe when they make poor choices.
And the way they've introduced her here works well. It is her journey, and her instinct and feelings of being helpless that drive the story. The Cardassian-terrorist-crooked admiral story is the B-plot!
Let's talk about that Cardassian-terrorist-crooked admiral plot, shall we? It's a pretty good one. We haven't seen much of the Cardassians thus far, and we weren't going to, originally. The initial story involved Romulans, but it was thought that they had just covered Romulans, and they wanted to go in a different direction. This was our first look at the Bajorans, and covered their occupation by the Cardassian Union, their refugee status, and their fighting back against the Cardassians. A lot was packed into the backstory of this new race, though we'll find out more as we go along.
But it also presents a nice problem for the Federation to bump up against: sometimes, you gotta make nice with walking piles of shit in order to keep the peace. The Federation has thus far learned to be friendly, cordial, whatever with some very different people, and has come out of it okay; but here, they're holding a tentative peace just to prevent outright hostilities, as evidenced by the nicey-nice speeches between Picard and Dolak. They actually kind of hate each other. But here's a fun bonus: the Cardassians are subjugating a race that the Federation kinda likes, adding a layer of "hey, could you not?" to their discussions with the Cardassians.
Then we have our terrorist cell. You're not supposed to like Orta. He's not a likable guy at all. But his plight is understandable. His people may have begged, pleaded and cajoled with the Cardassians to get them to back off, and now they're just over it. We don't know. We just know that at this point, Orta has chosen violence. To combat, you know, fucking torture. Maybe you don't agree with his methods, but you understand them. And we understand Ro and her reactions. And that of Keeve. Here are a people who have been tortured and colonized (and whose lives continue to be one long shit-show under the Cardassian Union), and they're tired, and just want the Cardassians to leave them alone. Talking clearly didn't work, and sometimes you Google "how to build a guillotine."
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| Dramatic music! Head-chopping sounds! |
It's always interesting when things get shaken up with Picard. He often gets candid with his commanding officers, and they let him because there's mutual respect there. But Kennelly puts the smackdown on him concerning Ro, and he's forced to acquiesce. It's wild to see him doing a little bow and scrape when so often, the bowing and scraping are done for him by lower-ranking officers. It's also interesting to see him caught off-guard by a lowly ensign, and the weird bartender. It's rather a hilarious thing to watch when a captain bests an admiral like this, and given Kirk's history of doing it as well, I have to wonder if something similar happened to Gene Rod while he was serving.
And lastly, our dumbshit admiral. Now, we've seen a lot of admirals do stupid fucking shit on this show across all iterations (I think in the animated series, too!), and frankly, I always enjoy that. I think too often we see idiots and bootlickers get promotions without merit, and you're stuck in a lower position, watching them receive accolades they haven't actually earned. So there's a bit of schadenfreude involved when some asshole admiral fucks up all the shit and gets court-martialed. LOL. Fuck you, Kennelly.
If I have any complaints about this episode, it's the "Cardassian virus." I don't understand why that was included. It feels like maybe there were scenes cut that explained why that was in there at all - it didn't further the plot or explain anything at the end. *shrug emoji*
A quick aside, because I like talking uniforms: I'm really into Ro's blousy sleeveless top in raspberry, and the high-waisted pants. It looks like it feels cool under those uniform jackets, and it still looks professional when the jacket is gone. (Also, pants pockets? I don't remember those pants having pockets. Were they added just to Michelle's pants because Ro is the type of character to put her hands in her pockets?)
Fun Facts:
- In this episode, female Bajorans are shown wearing their earrings on the left ears, and males are shown as wearing them on the right. In later episodes, it will be switched to right ear for everyone. However, Ro continues to wears hers on the left.
- Ro Laren was originally meant to play Number One to Benjamin Sisko on DS9, but Michelle Forbes turned down the offer, and Kira Nerise was created in her place. (Kind of a cool IRL parallel to Ilia from the aborted Phase II series and ST:TMP being rewritten as Deanna Troi, and Decker of the same productions became Riker.)
- Jeffrey Hayenga (Orta) will later play a Vulcan on Enterprise.
- Though not seen in person again, a wanted poster of Orta will appear in Odo's office in nine episodes of DS9. The photo used was a make-up continuity reference photo.
- Gul Dulak's wanted poster will also be seen in Odo's office. Again, the photo used is from a make-up continuity shot. Wonder what he did. I mean, "complete asshole" is not a crime, so what did he actually do?
- A special jacket was used to accomplish Ro taking off her jacket and putting it on the Bajoran kid: Starfleet jackets zip up the back, not the front. But it would have been strange to watch Ro struggle to get the thing off, so they changed it up slightly. (Aside: if one does not have a partner to zip them into their uniform, how is that accomplished? Do you catch someone in the lift on the way to your shift, and ask for their help? Did O'Brien get married simply so he would stop pulling muscles trying to wriggle into his uniform?)
- Though this episode did not inspire the DS9 show, it certainly informed it.
- This is the only TNG episode where the term "Bajora" is used when referring to the people. It would be used a few times in the first season of DS9 as well, and then never again. (I'm glad. It's clunky.)
- The Bajorans were not created to comment on a specific group of humans, but on any group of humans who have been oppressed and subjugated. Certain episodes may reflect special circumstances tied to one human group or another, but overall, they are meant to reflect oppressed people in general.
- Nana Visitor (Kira Nerise on DS9) remarked that Bajoran women tend to be aggressive, and compared them to Celtic women.
- The Bajoran camp scenes were filmed in an area close to where the outdoor scenes for "Darmok" were filmed.
- This is the first appearance of the barber, Mot. Other Bolians have been seen in the salon, but this is the first time we encounter Mot specifically.
- The uniform thing: Worf is allowed to wear a Klingon baldric. Troi is allowed to not wear the uniform at all. But Ro is dinged for a piece of cultural jewelry? It seems that Starfleet itself is not super strict about the uniform. Variations like Worf's and Troi's are actually left up to the people directly in charge of those officers. So Riker could have made an exception to the rule for the earring, but because he had a chip on his shoulder concerning Ro, demanded that she follow the stricter version of the uniform. Still a dick move.
- It's stated here that the occupation of Bajor has lasted 40 years, but differing dates have made it possibly 50 or 60.
- Bajoran nasal ridges included a winged part that goes above the eyebrows in this episode, and the first episode of DS9. However, the wings were later ditched because they interfered with the actors' frown lines. Following that change, Bajorans were marked with 4-7 nasal ridges.
- Michelle Forbes was the inspiration for Michael Westmore's make-up design for Bajorans: basically, Forbes was pretty, and he didn't want to fuck that up by covering her in a bunch of weird make-up.
- Bajor was not part of the Federation, so Ro would have had to get a Starfleet officer to sponsor her before entering the Academy.
-Lya Station Alpha (where they picked up Ro and talked to Kennelly) was reused footage from "11001001"... which was reused footage from movie #3.
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| I am cat furniture |
I like the "long, lingering-look" scene in TMP.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure if I were on the E I'd be bouncing back and forth between Ten Forward and the salon all the time. Guinan is amazingly cool but she's got a lot going on and I'd mostly want to stay out of her way.
ReplyDeleteMr. Mot would be fun to hang with for idle chitchat.
This turned out to be a timely episode to review this week.
ReplyDeleteIt is. I both love and hate it when that happens. Somehow, reviews or reruns always seem to line up with what is going on in the world. As a writer, it makes things more nuanced and leads to better understanding of human nature as a whole.
DeleteBut as a person with anxiety, I have feared what might be happening in our world when I reach the Bell Riot episodes of DS9.
I like how Guinan was being a bit less subtle than usual while still keeping her laid-back persona. She gauges how receptive someone will be and adjusts her approach, and she knew neither Ro nor Picard would be receptive.
ReplyDelete