Trapped in a Dominion prison camp, Worf is made to face increasingly fierce Jem'Hadar warriors in a combat arena. Garak must overcome claustrophobia to crawl inside the facility walls and modify equipment to trigger a transporter rescue. Meanwhile, Dukat has taken control of Cardassia and allied it with the Dominion. Now, a fleet is bearing down on the station. But not all is as it seems, and the changeling who has replaced Dr. Bashir is hatching a nefarious plan.
It's a shame that a bit more of a balance couldn't be achieved between part one of this story and this half; where that episode was sparse setup, this episode is almost too crowded to fit in all the excitement. Still, each plot thread does play well, providing strong moments for different characters.
Worf's journey is the most expected -- a tale of the proverbial unstoppable force colliding with the proverbial immovable object. Over on Star Trek: The Next Generation, it was something of a trope that when they wanted to show how tough some alien threat was, they had it beat up Worf. So we've seen him take a beating before. Still, he comes out looking strong here, despite being punished more than we've ever seen.
There's a nice arc to Worf's battles. He's boastful and taunting after defeating his first opponent -- the "youngest and least experienced" of the Jem'Hadar, as it turns out. Then Martok is the devoted "corner man" who helps Worf through fight after fight, ready to compose a song of his glory, and holding him up even when his resolve begins to waver. Finally, even when Martok says honor has been satisfied and it's time to give up, Worf finds new strength and continues to fight. "Game respects game," and the Jem'Hadar First, Ikat'ika, yields to the indomitable Klingon.
Because the episode does such a good job of building up Worf, it matters a lot when Worf in turn praises Garak for the battle he is fighting. Picking up on a hint of a detail from a past episode, it's revealed that Garak suffers from claustrophobia. The episode is quite ahead of its time in its attitude toward the fear; there's no stigma as Bashir treats it just like a physical condition to be cared for, while Worf and Martok note that there is no greater enemy than overcoming one's fears. Only Garak himself voices the more common view of a phobia: "just get over it."
The episode does a great job of putting you in Garak's head space. We're shown in meticulous detail how long it takes to open up the wall to let him in and out, so we know there's no easy escape. The camera gets right up in his face while he's inside, with harsh light and shadows intensifying the closeness. Garak starts a conversation with himself as a distraction, and actor Andrew Robinson does a great job with the scene. To hear Robinson tell it, "I didn't have to act. I was there." That's because not only does he have claustrophobia in real life ("The very first time I put on the Garak makeup and the wet suit that they build the Cardassian costume on, I thought that I was going to die."), but he had the flu on the day they filmed the scene. He clearly poured overcoming these real world challenges into the story.
Alexander Siddig gives two fun performances in this episode. The real Bashir only rarely shows his backbone on the series, and then usually when in his element in a medical situation. Here, we see him throw sass at his Jem'Hadar captors to the point of endangering his own life, and it's quite striking. Meanwhile, Siddig shades the changeling version of Bashir with less humanity. It's fun to guess at what this character's evil plot will be, and watch how brazenly he acts while still avoiding detection.
There's another villain with an interesting character arc here: Dukat. Though recent Dukat episodes had been showing a softer side (something the writers insist was never meant to be long term), he makes a sharp turn here into a full authoritarian dictator. Episode co-writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe says this was all deliberately modeled on Germany between the two World Wars: the collapse of the Weimar Republic, and the Anschluss capitulation of Austria to Nazi Germany.
For Dukat specifically, regaining any measure of power brings back his true character. There's mocking humor, when he quips that it was never right that he and Kira were on the same side. There's pettiness, when he specifically orders Garak to be kept in detention when all other Cardassian prisoners are being released. There's fascist rhetoric as he pledges to eradicate unwanted foreigners from Cardassian space and swears to "make Cardassia strong again." There's casting himself as the hero even as he does evil, urging Sisko (almost as though he's saying this as a "favor") to join the Dominion. He disowns his daughter Ziyal, and she for her part finally admits to seeing what he truly is. Dukat has gone full villain now, and Kira pledges to kill him the next time she sees him. (She doesn't... though she won't be the last person in the series to express a similar sentiment.)
Amid all these personal stakes are big, galactic changes for the larger story. The Klingons and Federation finally and formally make peace. The Dominion now have a real presence in the Alpha Quadrant. And massive fleets are now looking to be a mainstay on the show -- the arriving Dominion fleet and the combined Federation, Klingon, and Romulan armada are both truly impressive displays of visual effects for the time.
Other observations:
- Kira totally "captainspreads" when she takes command of the Defiant.
- There's a great exchange between Quark and Ziyal, with Quark despairing for his business since neither Jem'Hadar nor Founders "eat," "drink," or "have sex." Ziyal notes that perhaps the Vorta are "gluttonous, alcoholic sex maniacs."
- In the Bashir changeling's final moment, it looks like an artificial (post-production) zoom is used to close in on his face. It's the one really goofy-looking effect in an otherwise outstanding episode for visuals.
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