1x12 Vortex

[7.4/10] The hardest lies to see through are the ones we want to hear. Odo doesn’t trust Croden, the Gamma quadrant prisoner who claims to have met other “Changelings.” The criminal admits to a habit of “dissembling,” and isn’t shy about using his information as leverage to get out of a tight spot. And yet, the things he promises to Odo -- information about where he came from, a pendant that seems made of the same stuff he is, the chance to meet others like him -- is too tantalizing for him to ignore.

So many of the best Star Trek episodes come down to tough decisions. Should I treat this prisoner like a liar who’d say anything to get out of dodge and turn him over to the authorities? Or should I accept that at least some of what he says is true and risk everything to follow his clues about my origins? For someone like Odo, devoted to his job, no-nonsense, pure to a fault, the prospect of something that so speaks to his vulnerabilities and tempts him to break the rules, has tremendous force.

He has a tremendous foil too. I’m a big fan of Croden here, at least for most of the episode. He’s Odo’s Hannibal Lecter, someone who claims to be helping, but is clearly playing his own game. It takes a while before we learn his motives, but his velvet-tongued stories of meeting changelings in the Gamma Quadrant, of cruel government overlords murdering dissidents, work well on our favorite constable and on the audience. We’re in the same position Odo is, forced to judge his guy’s credibility, with the added wrinkle that we too are tempted to learn more about where Odo comes from and whether there are more like him.

What makes the scenes work is a combination of the performance and the dialogue. Guest actor Cliff DeYoung underplays Croden for most of the time. He’s toying with Odo to some extent, but there’s hints of desperation at the edges of his little speeches and put-ons. Odo’s not a flashy character, so the understated back-and-forth helps make the two good scene partners. It would be really easy for a character like Croden to come off as cheesy, but DeYoung holds the line in a way that keeps his character from crossing the line.

His scenes are well-written too. The dialogue also walks the line between tales about Changelings that are plausible, with details that would also be convenient for a prisoner who wants help from his captive. There’s just enough corroborating evidence, in the form of the shape-shifting pendant, to suggest Croden might not be full of crap. And the way he speaks with such confidence about what Odo’s species is like -- proud, paranoid, persecuted -- adds an air of him being in the know. Croden doesn’t simply tell tall tales; he lays breadcrumbs simple but alluring enough that Odo can’t help but follow them.

Naturally, this being a Star Trek show, we need more than a dilemma; we need an active threat. So here comes Ah-Kel, a member of the Miradorn, a twinned species. In a Quark-made scheme gone wrong, Croden kills Ah-Kel’s twin brother, and so the Miradorn swears revenge on him, regardless of Sisko’s insistence that Croden receive a fair trial.

As peril-creation goes, this is fine. Ah-Kel isn’t much of a character, but the fact that he’s trying to avenge the other half of his being gives him at least some color. And it adds urgency when Odo must ferry Croden back to his home planet to face justice. Of course, it also provides an excuse when Odo’s convoy is attacked, so he has to trust Croden to steer their runabout to the titular vortex, where a lost colony of Changelings is supposedly waiting for them. In some ways, it’s too convenient an excuse which prevents Odo from having to make the choice on his own terms. But in others, it provides a solid rationale for why straight arrow Odo would go against his orders for personal reasons.

And yet, when he turns things over to Croden and hide from their attacker on an asteroid in the vortex, they don’t find other shape-shifters. They just find Croden’s daughter in stasis. She vindicates her father’s story of their family being slaughtered and pursued by cruel government enforcers. Suddenly, the stories Croden told take on a new light. They’re not deceptions by a thief to escape justice. They’re the efforts of a father to get back to and protect the last vestige of his family while he seeks refuge from a cruel people.

Candidly, I don’t know how I feel about that. I like Croden as a morally gray figure, one who might be telling at least some of the truth, but who’s mixing it up with self-serving lies. Making those lies exist only for a greater good blunts the character a bit. The same goes for when he has the chance to leave Odo behind, hesitates for a second, before lugging his erstwhile captor out of danger. When I think of Deep Space Nine, I think of a show willing to delve into moral complexities and gray areas other Star Trek series only dabbled in, and these “upstanding, misunderstood refugee” details flatten those types of complications.

But it’s a heartening outing nonetheless. Our heroes escape. They destroy their attacker in a reasonably sharp bit of “weird section of space” cleverness. Odo finds himself lying on Croden’s behalf, getting him passage to Vulcan and smoothing things over with Croden’s government with the fib that he died in Ah-Kel’s attack. Even Quark, comically self-serving though he may be after getting mixed up in such deadly business, seems to look out for Odo at least a little. There’s wholesomeness to “Vortex”, even for an episode built on people telling convenient falsehoods.

It’s really the closing moments that lay things on too thick. Odo’s closing monologue of “Home, someday we’ll find it, cousin” writes on the screen what was better conveyed by implication with Odo simply looking at the pendant Croden gave him. Croden was a liar. He’d only heard legends and myths of Changelings, and his special necklace is uncommon but not rare where he comes from. What he ultimately provides to Odo are vague hints rather than clear answers to his long-held questions.

But Odo wants to believe. He wants to find out who he is and where he came from. That’s the rare personal pull on the otherwise straight and narrow peace officer. Watching the temptation of those answers grab hold of him, knowing what both his duties and his quest to learn more mean to him, makes for a sound story, and a strong look at what moves the most unique and lonely man on the ship.