3x23 Family Business

[7.6/10] A lot of fans don’t like Ferengi episodes, and I get why. If you’re into a show like Deep Space Nine for the intricate political dynamics, the ominous Dominion threat, and sci-fi conundrums of the week, the lobe-heavy detours don’t have much to offer you. The Ferengi tend to be played for laughs, with fairly absurd societal norms, and outings that tend to be lighter and sillier in tone.

But I’ve always enjoyed them. Some of that comes down to Quark. Armin Shimmerman is one of the show’s most talented performers, which is saying something. He’s able to inject life and layers to a character who, in other hands, could come off like an unlikable cartoon character, and the writers recognize that and play to his strengths.

Much of it, though, comes down to the fact that the Ferengi are often a means for Star Trek to explore sexism. With the utopian vision of the Federation, there’s rarely an opportunity to examine the same in more heavily Starfleet-focused shows. (Give or take unloved misfires like “Turnabout Intruder” from The Original Series and “Angel One” from The Next Generation.) But with the Ferengi’s retrograde society, more than a few women fighting to sever their legal and cultural anchors, and even Quark himself slowly but surely becoming more enlightened, there’s a ton of good, meaningful material there. (Even if there’s some pain to come for DS9 fans on that front.)

So after showing some respect for women in his Yentl-like situation and his Casablanca-like situation, “Family Business” sees the writers giving Quark the most challenging representative of feminism he’s ever faced -- his mother.

I like that move, because true to the title, it makes this episode as much about family as it is about breaking social mores. There’s a practical challenge here, as Quark’s mother, Ishka is caught earning profits while female, a grave crime on the Ferengi homeworld. Quark has to return home to get her to cease and confess, lest the suitably imposing and venal Liquidator Brunt (Jeffrey Combs, returning to the show already, portending his Trek devotion to come) ruin Quark’s business and the family’s reputation. As in almost all good DS9 episodes, there’s something at stake here for everyone involved.

There’s also a greater cause to be considered. Like Pel before her, Ishka recognizes that whatever her gender, she has the lobes for business. Hell, she has better sense for prompt profit procurement than most of her male counterparts. So why shouldn’t she be able to invest her own money? Why shouldn’t she be able to wear clothes in her own home? Why shouldn’t she be able to directly address a male stranger who’s strolled into her residence? The things standing in the way are law and tradition, but if you recognize both are founded on archaic stupidity, why not buck the system and stand up for yourself?

And yet, as much as “Family Business” is an episode about evading corrupt functionaries and standing up for women’s rights, it’s also about a family. It’s about Quark’s longstanding grievances with his mother’s eccentricities, with his gauzy view of his father, with the way his brother was raised and, in his view, coddled. Beyond the threats to Quark’s business and the socially conscious stands, the story is rooted in Quark reconciling his view of his mother and, by extension, himself. The familial element elevates this one from an academic interrogation of the issues to a personal story of a family with a recognizable dynamic truly seeing and accepting one another, maybe for the first time.

The B-story isn’t quite so grandiose. Commander Sisko makes good on his promise to Jake, and agrees to meet the freighter captain his son’s so anxious for him to connect with. This subplot is the start of great things, but pretty slight and humble in its beginnings. The bit with everyone on the station gossiping and tittering about Benjamin making contact with his son’s fix-up is mildly cute, but doesn’t have much in the way of substance or laughs.

Even the interactions between Commander Sisko and Captain Yates are a little underwhelming. I’m a fan of Kasidy, and an even bigger fan of Penny Johnson Jerald as a performer. But their little meetcute in the cargo bay doesn’t have much of a spark to it. The chemistry isn’t quite there in either their shipside exchanges or their little coffee date, with the back-and-forth seeming forced and labored. But the fact that they bond over a love of some arcane game called baseball, and both come out of their shells a little bit is a cute place to begin things, even if it’s not quite as auspicious a start as something so significant deserves.

It’s certainly not as auspicious as the goings on in Quark’s and Rom’s family home. In truth, there is a bit of a tension between how cartoonishly the Ferengi are typically portrayed, and the seriousness with which showrunner-in-the-wings Ira Steven Behr and co-writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe want the audience to take this. The leaving of a tip when entering any building, the gags about walking up forty flights of stairs rather than paying for an elevator, the goofy and awkward interactions between Rom and his “Moogie” all cut against the gravity of the situation.

And yet, for all the silliness, deep down, “Family Business” is a kitchen sink drama about parents and children resolving their long-held grievances with one another and reconciling over the past. As goofy as the Ferengi can be, there’s something eminently recognizable about this dynamic. Ishka doesn’t want to be condescended to by her own son or lectured with circular arguments about why her behavior is wrong. Quark feels his brother was favored and his father was held back by his mom’s bolder actions. Rom wants to make peace and relish in the chance to return to his place of childhood happiness. The dearly departed patriarch, and who he was and wasn’t, looms large over the disagreements of the day.

In short, it feels real, even as it feels exaggerated. Ishka’s complaints are legitimate. Quark’s resistance is rooted in his own insecurities about following in his father’s failures, and unwillingness to question the validity of a system he’s devoted his life to. Rom sees the best in both of them, and is surprisingly pragmatic in telling them both why they need to find a compromise here for the good of everyone. The psychological depth in all of this buttresses any sense of caricature.

That's especially true in the moving scene where Ishka and Quark have a heart-to-heart. Rom is willing to admit that his father was simply bad in business, and Ishka affirms it. But she also says that Rom is like his father, someone who can participate in the rat race but doesn’t understand enough to win it. And yet, he values family, his children, being a partner, in a way that made her love him more than any acumen with latinum could. These are qualities that Rom carries on, that show Ferengi society’s directive to judge everyone on how much money they can make leaves behind people who have other qualities, no less valuable or worthwhile, that go ignored.

And the sexism behind those same principles threatens to leave behind people like Ishka, who have twice the lobes but none of the autonomy. I love that what forges an understanding between them is the simple realization that Rom may take after his father, but Quark takes after Ishka. She doesn’t want to disrupt Quark’s business, but she wants to use the same aptitude for it she gifted him on her own behalf, to use the skills she has to provide for herself and prove that she’s not limited to what her husband achieved. It’s something Quark can understand, because it’s the same thing he wants. And there is detente, understanding, and yes even love, that helps reconcile two people who’ve been estranged for twenty years.

So Ishka plays along. Quark’s bar can stay open. And with Rom’s complicity, Ishka can hide her investments more diligently from the Ferengi investigators and even Quark himself. But a family is repaired, however unusual or eccentric the norms of that family seem to human sensibilities.

That's what draws me to these Ferengi outings. They are alien in their values and rituals in a way few Star Trek species are. But they’re also an opportunity to explore that, to show that there’s layers and differences and new ideas even in a society that prizes profit above all else. There are people fighting for their rights, if only in their own homes. And there are parents and children who come to see each other a little clearer, make peace with the past, and become, in their own slanted way, a real family again.