4x14 Return to Grace

[7.7/10] I quickly got tired of what I’d call the “What happened to you, Kira? You used to be cool” episodes in the early seasons of Deep Space Nine. The conflict was usually trite. Some old friend would want to go back to their freedom fighter ways. Kira would have a crisis of conscience about her new role versus her old life. And inevitably, she would side with her Starfleet colleagues, demonstrating the way she gradually came to respect those in her orbit and accept some of their values, even if it’s bittersweet. The scripts tended to be on-the-nose and predictable, and the conflicts themselves tended to be fairly rote.

But some of that drudgery is worth it for an episode like this one, where Kira has a chance to go back to the life of a freedom fighter, and chooses not to. You can see the appeal Dukat’s offer might hold. Stop being an administrator and start being a soldier again. Help save Cardassia from the Klingons so that Bajor doesn’t fall next. Use those hardscrabble skills you developed in the resistance rather than letting them wither on the vine while you manage docking ports and promenade vendors.

And yet, when pressed, Kira says no. In fact, she says that she was never even really tempted by the offer. I don’t know if she would have made the same choice in season 1. (Though maybe the fact that it’s coming from Dukat would create the same result.) But after three and half years aboard the station, she believes in her new life. She trusts in her new mission. She certainly trusts her friends like Sisko and Dax and Odo more than she trusts a man like Dukat. In that time, after all those recriminations about who she used to be, she’s become comfortable, confident even, in who she is now.

More than that, though, she looks back on her days as a freedom fighter with, if not regret, then certainly an acknowledgment of the scars they left on her. The smartest choice Star Trek vet Hans Beiler and Tom Benko make with the story is to include Dukat’s daughter, Ziyal, in the proceedings. Kira can let Dukat play out his crusade, however foolish or unappealing it may seem to her now. But she can't let another bright young girl, with so much potential, be subjected to the same rigors and horrors that Kira herself went through. Kira doesn’t want that for Ziyal, or for anyone really.

That may be the greatest sign of progress since those tender early days when she only reluctantly took on the post of liaison to the Federation. We know, from ehr conversations with Kai Opaka and others, that she’s struggled to make peace with her actions during the Occupation. The moral discomfort over having taken lives, over fighting and losing friends, stays with her even now that she’s comparatively comfortable and secure. The greatest hope in war is that you can give your children peace. Kira’s actions to spare Ziyal from the worst of what she went through may be her most noble act to date, which is saying something, and speaks as much to how Kira feels about the freedom fighting days she once valorized herself as it does to how she feels about Ziyal’s future.

In that “Return to Grace” is a fine follow-up to “Indiscretion” from earlier this season. It follows up on the consequences for Dukat choosing to take Kira’s advice and bring Ziyal home. He’s been demoted to a freighter captain. His wife left him and took their children. This was not a costless thing where he could use his power to pave over any impropriety. Doing the right thing cost Dukat something, and showing that now helps make his choice in the prior episode that much more meaningful.

But it also leaves him scraping for more. I’ve sung my praises of Marc Alaimo’s performance before. Here, he not only continues his virtuoso performance as the gentleman villain, but nicely walks the line between sympathetic and still malevolent as a man who has, true to the title, fallen from grace. The way he tries to run this backwater freighter like a military warship, aims to leave a mark despite his chintzier environs, and sees this all as a temporary setback before he regains power put him in an unusual position that makes him more vulnerable and human than we normally get to see.

It also makes him more in need of Kira’s help. That's the fun twist to this whole thing. The premise is that Dukat is ferrying Kira to a joint Bajoran-Cardassian conference. But when they find the outpost where the conference was going to take place has been pulverized by a Klingon vessel, the whole thing turns into a mission of revenge.

The catch is that Dukat is used to being the big dog. He’s not used to having to fight like an underdog. But Kira is, so he has to turn to her again and again to get tips on how to deploy her terrorist tactics in service of his newly diminished states. He lauds her resourcefulness, follows her lead in breaking certain Cardassian traditions in the name of simply getting the job done, gives him techniques to help make up for with guile what you lack in power or resources.

Seeing the tables turned here, the one-time occupier forced to turn to the sort of terrorist he once tried to stamp out, in order to borrow her tactics for his own overwhelmed state is worth the price of admission on its own. War makes strange bedfellows, and seeing Dukat embrace, and even take a liking to, the sort of guerrilla tactics that used to be Kira’s bread and butter is a treat.

Only, that's not all he’s taken a liking to. Holy hell! In “Indiscretion”, there’s some potent but understated subtext that Dukat might harbor some affections for Kira. Here, on the other hand, he’s practically reading her love poetry. The way he runs down Shakaar as unworthy of her attention, asks her to dinner and insinuates certain interests, and all but begs her to be his girlfriend in that indirect, Dukat sort of way, stands out for how clear he makes his intentions. Kira gracefully but firmly rejects him, for the reasons you expect, but it complicates their dynamic, which almost always adds to any longform, character-focused storytelling.

That's certainly the case here, an episode that builds on the pair’s long history together. This is mainly a talky installment. There is some good gamesmanship in the confrontation with the Klingon warbird. And the cleverness of sneaking in a sucker punch and then taking over their ship is exciting. But for the most part, this is full of conversations between some combination of Dukat, Kira, and Ziyal, about what the future holds for any and all of them. Digging into the meat of those relationships, and how each of them have changed since their last encounter, as well as since they were last adversaries, helps give this one a little more oomph.

But the grand irony at the end of it is that Dukat chooses the life Kira’s giving up. His commandeering of a klingon warbird gives him his old position back, but the Cardassians now want a diplomatic solution, and he wants to fight. It’s the same conflict Kira herself struggled with when the show began. WIth a new government interested in forging consensus, he makes the choice Kira rejected so many times in those early days. He takes a ship and plans to keep striking against the Klingons from the shadows, to use the skills and talents he learned in war.

But Kira doesn’t want that anymore. She wants to return to the station, to help her people and the QUadrant in ways that are different, but that take less from you, put those you love in less risk, leave more friends waiting for you when the day is over. She wants that for Ziyal too. And as striking as it is to see Dukat become the little guy, the most incredible thing about “Return to Grace” may very well be how, after all these years, Kira is finally comfortable being part of something else.