4x26 Broken Link

[7.8/10] Odo has always been my favorite character from Deep Space Nine. When I was a kid, the reasons were simple -- he had a cool superpower and a mysterious origin story. (And I don’t think it hurt that Rene Auberjonois was one of the best performers on the show either.) As an adult, though, I appreciate the richness of his character.

He is a misfit who wants desperately to belong somewhere, but who hesitates to get close to others given a fear that he’ll be viewed as a living party trick. He is someone who yearns deeply to return “home” to his people while also abhorring their prejudices and cruelty. He is someone with a deep ambivalence about the practices of “the solids”, while also bonding with so many of them.

That last part is evidenced by how many people go out of their way to help him when he becomes sick with a mysterious illness that degrades his ability to stay solid. Dr. Bashir is a dogged caretaker, trying everything to keep Odo well. Kira brings him the Criminal Activity Report to help keep his mind off his troubles. Even his frenemy, Quark, dresses up his question in the usual trappings of mischief and mayhem, but wants to be sure that Odo’s coming back from his visit to the Great Link for help. And Captain Sisko is willing to venture into Dominion space, even let the Jem’Hadar pilot Starfleet’s top-of-the-line warship, to get his constable the help he needs.

The fact is that all of these people are sticking their necks out for Odo. Even Garak, who has some ulterior motives, wants to do Odo a kindness or two. He tries to set Odo up with a one-dimensionally flirty new Bajoran restaurateur on the Promenade. And when Odo’s at his weakest, Garak keeps his mind occupied and his spirits up by intriguing him with tales of his past “gardening” on the Romulan homeworld. For a man who, as an understanding Worf puts it, prefers not to socialize, he’s developed quite a loyal following.

That following leads to another dangerous Gamma Quadrant mission and chance to cross paths with the Dominion. I’ll admit, in principle I appreciate how judicious Deep Space Nine is about the escalation in tensions between the Federation and their foes on the other side of the wormhole. But considering the dramatics that began at the end of season 2, extended to the beginning and end of season 3, and lead to the beginning of season 4, I’m starting to feel the show stringing its audience along a bit at this point.

We’ve had multiple points where things “irrevocably change” but the status quo on the station and the series isn’t especially different outside of a handful of episodes. The benefit is that it makes episodes like “Broken Link”, where the show does advance Odo’s story, the Dominion conflict, and the Klingon tensions at once, feel like that much more of a big deal.

And we get developments on that front beyond Odo’s particular situation. Garak isn’t just there to entertain Odo. He wants to ask the Female Changeling if there were any Cardassian survivors from the battle with the Obsidian Order/Romulan fleet. I love how firm and uncharacteristically fiery the (ostensibly) Head Founder is in response -- telling Garak they’re dead, he’s dead, all of Cardassia became dead the moment they tried to attack the Changelings. It’s a stern, no-nonsense threat, and the way it plainly chills the normally unflappable Garak helps sell it as a grave threat beyond the standard crisis of the week.

So does his response. Garak trying to pull a preemptive strike on the Changeling’s new homeworld, obliterating them before they can obliterate his people, is on-brand for the brutally pragmatic “simple tailor” but still feels pretty shocking. It’s a real test of Starfleet values, because given the threats, the infiltrations, the overwhelming force of the Dominion, you can understand Garak’s logic of not wanting to pass up a golden opportunity to cut off the head of this opposing force. (Though an unmanaged horde of Jem’Hadar doesn’t seem great either.)

The ensuing fight between Worf and him is a little silly, but I appreciate it as a vindication of Starfleet’s norms. This is a mission of mercy, where the Federation and the Dominion are working together out of care for the same individual. Using it as a chance to obliterate an enemy is too much for Worf, who wouldn’t stoop to such dishonor. The move is a good one for both characters, showing Worf as the steadfast officer, and Garak as the canary in the coal mine for how grave the Dominion threat is.

But for now, at least, they’re only a threat to one person -- Odo. I appreciate the psychological swings of this one. For much of the episode, our heart goes out to Odo. He’s in dire straits, and it’s emotional watching him suffer. (Auberjonois gives a great physical performance to convey Odo’s infirmity, above and beyond his consistently stellar week-to-week performances.) The way Sisko takes some pretty extreme chances to try to save him, the way he strives to walk the promenade with dignity, the way everyone dotes on him, makes it feel like a blessing, a relief, when the Female Changeling stabilizes him and seems apt to heal him entirely if he’ll come to the Great Link. She calls off the Jem’Hadar and seems downright considerate of Sisko and company, in a way that makes you think this could all have a happy ending.

Then, you find out that she’s not here to help. Rather, the Dominion gave Odo the illness to force him to return to them, given his resistance to doing so before. (Presumably during the events of “To the Death” but who knows.) Worse yet, they’re not simply trying to convince this prodigal son to return home, but rather want to judge him for daring to kill another Changeling in order to save “the solids.” This isn’t an act of mercy, it’s part of a calculated plan to force Odo back into their orbit so they can punish him.

The reveals are harsh, but on brand. So is Odo’s response. As someone who believes so strongly in justice, and still feels a connection to his people, however strained, Odo cannot help but submit himself to their judgment. It’s a Socrates-like move, believing that accountability doesn’t only extend to others, but requires you too to submit to the principles you abide by. Even if there’s good, principled justifications for why the Founders’ brand of justice isn’t so just, it’s in keeping with Odo’s character for him to go along with it.

The only thing that holds back such a momentous decision is the unconvincing visit to the Changelings’ new homeworld. Most of the time, little on DS9 seems dated. If anything, many of the dogfights look better than some modern, overstuffed space battles. But here, watching Sisko and Bashir hang around on a fake rock in a green-screened environment that looks like a 1990s Windows background while unconvincing CGI muck flows and bubbles around them takes you (or at least me) out of the moment.

Still, what happens next sweeps away any aesthetic failures on the part of the show. The Founders give Odo the best and worst punishment they could -- they make him human. Odo can no longer shapeshift. The Changelings indulge in poetic justice. For siding with the solids, Odo is made to become one, a fate his counterpart deems worse than death.

The punishment is both wonderful and terrible. It’s wonderful because it opens up a whole world of experiences to Odo. He can eat and drink, the way he did when imbued with the spirit of Curzon. He can experience physical sensations, the kind that might make him more apt to indulge in the “mating rituals” he decried at the beginning of the episode. He’s felt estranged from both his liquid family and his solid one, but with this push toward humanity, he has a chance to become closer to those aboard Deep Space Nine and experience the world as they do.

And yet, it’s terrible, because for once he knew peace. For his time brief in the Great Link, he belonged somewhere. He could lose himself in the collective thought of his brethren. He knew what it was like to be fully embraced, however fleetingly. And not only was it ripped away from him as soon as he could countenance it, but he was stripped of the ability to experience it ever again right after, and robbed of the abilities he’s known all his life. He is understandably devastated, sorrowful after seeing his heart’s desire dangled in front of him, only to be condemned to a state of being lesser than he was before.

Holy hell that is a bold storytelling choice, one with consequences personal and practical that should reverberate throughout the rest of the series. The benefit of a season finale is that you have more room to make changes to the status quo than in a normal one-off episode. More so than the tease that Gowron might be a Changeling plant, more so than the looming specter of war between the Federation and the Klingons, reducing Odo to a solid takes advantage of that latitude to deepen the character’s pain, but also the complexity of his psyche.

That's why he’s my favorite. Even without his cool powers, even when his history is less and less mysterious, even when he loses those powers, he remains a person who desperately wants conflicting things: to return to a people whose choices he cannot abide and to bond with a group of colleagues whom he struggles to relate to. He is a seemingly stoic and serene man, who nonetheless roils on the inside with lost love and unfulfilled longing. I’d venture to say he is the most complicated, nuanced, pathos-ridden character in all of Star Trek, and one of Deep Space Nine’s greatest achievements.

Season 4 as a whole ought to be considered that. While the prior couple of seasons remain superb, the diehard fans are right that something shifts in this season. Things kick up a notch, in terms of the chances the show will take, the gray areas it will explore, and the surprises it will unveil. Those surprises don’t always bode well for Odo, but they give the viewing faithful plenty to be excited for, and moved by.