Morn has died in an accident with his ship, leaving his entire estate to Quark. When it appears that inheritance will amount to a staggering 1,000 bricks of gold-pressed latinum, all sorts of characters start coming out of the woodwork: Morn's flirtatious ex-wife Larell (who thinks she deserves a cut), tough guy loan sharks Krit and Nahsk (who say Morn owed the money in debt to them), and lawman Hain (who says it belongs to a royal family and must be returned). Quark is soon caught up in a heap of trouble.
The series writers had always been open to the idea of a Morn episode, but there was a major hurdle that none of the pitches they'd received over the years could clear: Morn could never speak. To hear the writers tell it, this was a precious joke they never wanted to let go of; Morn was to Deep Space Nine as Maris was to Frasier (an often-talked-about-but-never-seen character), who would never, ever, ever speak on the show.
Actor Armin Shimerman had a less-charitable take on the matter. Background actor Mark Allen Sheperd had played Morn for years on end, enduring horrendous makeup, garnering fans, even getting an action figure that earned Paramount profit... but the powers-that-be weren't inclined to reciprocate with a speaking role. (In that light, it's perhaps an even greater indignity that in this episode, the person Quark pulls out of the crowd to first take a "shift" sitting in Morn's chair is Mark Allen Sheperd, out of alien makeup.)
Regardless of the background and one's view of it, freelance writer Mark Gehred-O'Connell, who had successfully sold three previous episodes to the show, finally cracked the "Morn episode" with this idea: don't actually make it a Morn episode at all. He pitched an episode where Morn disappears and all our heroes band together to find him -- realizing in the process how little they know about him. The staff writers massaged that into a Quark-centric story, adding the colorful criminal characters Quark comes up against.
There's a classic improv game that goes by a few names, but it plays like this: multiple performers begin a scene by describing an off-stage character in the craziest ways they can think of, freighting him with a laundry list of wild traits that another performer must then enter the scene and embody. Morn in general, and this episode in particular, is like that game. We've always known that Morn will talk your ear off (though we never see this). In this episode, we learn he sparred weekly with Worf (and was excellent), has a second stomach, used to have a full head of hair, runs a shipping business, and sleeps in mud.
He also took part in a bank heist in which he and four partners stole a fortune. And amid that backdrop of increasingly wild details, the lies those partners weave slip right in. Maybe Morn did have an ex-wife and is a lottery winner. Maybe he was massively in debt to criminals. Maybe he was a prince who abdicated his title. One wonders why these associates would tell lies that you'd think could be researched and verified easily enough. (Clearly, Morn was the brains of the operation.) Still, it's fun that each takes a different approach with Quark -- flirtation, a mob shakedown, and an outright con.
It is all fairly fun, though it does depend on a sort of regression to a version of the show and the characters that feels more first season than sixth season. Quark is back to full greed, lacking signs of the nuances he's picked up (particularly in season five). Odo is all over him, not so much to bust him as to just be there to watch him fall, even at times building up Quark's hopes just for the schadenfreude. ("Maybe his fortune is in business assets." "Maybe he's hiding it in his quarters." "Maybe it's in this tiny little box I'm about to open for you.")
But this all is generally funnier than attempts at comedy in season one Deep Space Nine ever managed. Quark using a hologram to keep business up is quite on-brand. His interplay with each of the Morn's different crime partners is clever. The parade of them all breaking into his quarters is funny. Quark's high-pitched scream at the prospect of having his thumb cut off is both hilarious and probably just how I would react. Him standing up in the middle of a gun standoff is a great visual. There are even a couple of fun moments that don't involve Quark, the most successful being Bashir and O'Brien both praising each other ("good man") for keeping Morn's seat warm.
The signposts in the story are also very deftly woven in: Dax references that people used to "make change with an eye dropper," setting up the final revelation on where Morn's "liquid assets" are really hidden; Hain fails to pick up Quark's signals that people are hiding in his quarters, making it more satisfying when Odo is quicker on the uptake; and some of the wild details about Morn pay off in the end when it's revealed he faked his own death.
Other observations:
- I think Quark's eulogy at Morn's memorial is meant to be taken as genuine. Kira and Odo are certainly impressed. But given what we see of quintessentially greedy Quark in this episode, it reads to me like Quark has calculated a way to replace his most valuable patron: by guilting others into keeping his seat full.
- This episode was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Makeup. I believe the award category is based on new makeup designs, and thus the nomination was based on the look of Krit and Nahsk. But it's also quite a trick when the painting is busted over Quark's head without destroying the Ferengi makeup.
- Hain is played by one of television's most omnipresent actors, Gregory Itzin. He's arguably most known for role as Logan on 24, but he's been a regular or guest star on countless shows, and this is only one of his five Star Trek appearances.
- Why can Quark crumble gold bars to powder with his bare hands? I suppose latinum must be unstable in some way that compromises the gold if extracted?
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