5x07 Let He Who Is Without Sin...

[6.7/10] Here’s a dirty little secret. I don’t much care for Risa episodes. They’re important to the history of Deep Space Nine! The original episode set there was one of showrunner Ira Steven Behr’s first scripts in Star Trek. It’s Rom actor Max Grodénchik’s first credit in the franchise. The roots of this series lie on the pleasure planet!

But Picard’s jaunt to Risa was a dumb romp. The Enterprise episode set there is pretty awful. And while Voyager obviously never stops at that particular relaxation destination, its vacation episodes in the same vein are also a mixed bag. These all tend to be an excuse to parade the characters (especially background actors) around in skimpy clothing for spicy network promo material, and do broad comedy that rarely lands.

And yet, “Let He Who Is Without Sin” is probably the best of them, even though it indulges in the same thing. Because it has something on its mind. While it engages in the same ogling and broad shtick that make me roll my eyes, it serves as both a commentary on the prudish sticks-in-the-mud who see any kind of diversion or difference as weakness, and as an exploration of Worf’s psyche and why he’s much more uptight than the average Klingon.

I like both ideas. The former is represented by the “Essentialists” a group of naysaying schoolmarms lead by a man named Fullerton, who carries himself with a recognizable sort of condescension and finger-wagging. He decries the pleasures of places like Risa and the comforts of modern Federation luxury with the suggestion that it’s made the UFFP into lambs for the slaughter. His criticisms are sadly resonant with modern complaints that American society has “gone soft”, with an air of religious judgment for anything even vaguely hedonistic as childish and wrong. Like much in this episode, the presentation is corny, but the idea it’s conveying is potent.

So is the undertone of conservative distaste for any kind of lifestyle outside of the norm. Nobody here outright decries “free love” or polyamory or gay romances, but it’s the subtext to the arguments Fullerton and, eventually, Worf marshal against the goings-on of Risa. The way claims of societal concern betray a baser distaste for people living in ways different than the norm is well-observed.

The subtext is particularly strong with the inclusion of Vanessa Williams, whose tenure as an entertainer hit a roadblock because of a pearl-clutching backlash to risque photos of her with lesbian undertones. This isn’t the most incisive examination of the idea, but pointing out how gripes about a departure from “traditional values” mask a more general and pernicious disdain for people whose personal and romantic lives don’t fit the old standard adds meat to an otherwise fluffy episode.

In the same vein, there's a well-observed point that the people who subscribe to the backwards ideologies of groups like the Essentialists are often less moved by principle than they are reacting to their own personal and romantic troubles and trying to project it onto some larger societal rot.

Worf joins and aids the Essentialists. And while he’s always had a certain traditionalism to him -- it’s what made him and K’Ehleyr incompatible -- you also get the sense that he doesn’t join their cause purely for philosophical reasons, but rather because he’s smarting from disagreements with Jadzia over how to conduct themselves as a couple. He’s essentially taken in by this space-bound Jordan Peterson equivalent because he’s frustrated with his erstwhile girlfriend not meeting his tradwife expectations. That sense of radicalization from lonely or upset young men who bristle at women not conforming to antiquated gender roles is, if anything, sadly more resonant today than it was in 1996.

The problem is in how “Let He Who Is Without Sin” dramatizes all of this. The shenanigans involving Julian and Leeta doing an elaborate break-up story and Worf not understanding are pure sitcom-style nonsense. You can see the show trying to illustrate the idea of not judging other cultural or personal practices just because it’s not your thing, but the whole deal feels too steamy and cheesy.

Most importantly, the dispute between Jadzia and Worf is too over the top. Worf is comically unreasonable here, flipping out about everything from a lunch conversation with an ex, to drinking allergy-inducing juice, to spending time with one of Curzon’s former lovers. He just sucks, in a way where you never really feel for him despite him having some at least comprehensible points about feeling uncomfortable given his expectations for a relationship.

Jadzia’s points about not wanting to be controlled or stage-managed, by contrast, are completely right, but to the point that the dispute isn’t really compelling, just caricature. The two never feel like a real couple having a real fight, just stand-ins for blunt ideas meant to be compared and contrasted. The fact that Worf’s breaking point is seeing Dax and Vanessa Williams shaping a phallic clay sculpture together only adds to the cartooniness of the whole thing.

That said, “Let He Who Is Without Sin” gets points for answering one of the big questions of Star Trek since The Next Generation -- why is Worf such a stick-in-the-mud when other Klingons care about honor, but tend to be more boisterous and gregarious? Jadzia effectively calls him out on that, and his answer is satisfying. He was a typically boisterous Klingon in his youth, but after an incident where he accidentally killed a classmate in the throes of soccer, of all things, he realized he needed to tone himself down, remain devoted to self-discipline, left the more expressive side of him result in more people getting hurt.

It’s kind of Hank Hill’s origin story as well, and I like it. Worf grew up among humans, not other Klingons. He had to suppress parts of himself he thought were dangerous. And as a consequence, he became this uptight, arguably backwards person who became intolerant of others who didn’t follow the same path. It’s an interesting idea and a satisfying explanation for his personality.

There's just one problem -- “Let He Who Is Without Sin” does its job too well. By the end of it, I was pretty convinced that Worf and Jadzia were wrong for one another. She is a self-possessed free spirit who’s seen the ways of a multitude of cultures and embraced the different modes and possibilities of human interactions, with no desire to stop. He is a repressed square who wants a Klingon tradwife who’s more disciplined and straight, in all senses of the word, like he is.

The episode centers all of this on trust, with their inevitable reconciliation centering on Worf’s ability to understand that no matter what Jadzia does, it doesn’t mean she’ll be unfaithful to him. But that doesn’t seem to be the biggest problem between them. There's an undeniable attraction there, but they seem to be of two different minds about what they want and expect out of a relationship. You can paper over that with one emotional conversation and implied jamaharon all you want. It doesn’t fix the essential problem that this one spends ninety-percent of its runtime establishing.

Still, there is meat here, both personally and philosophically. The social commentary about retrograde groups casting aspersions on different lifestyles under the banner of societal weakness is potent. The observations about personal hang-ups in relationships reflecting longstanding self-repression are strong. “Let He Who Is Without Sin” spends plenty of time on the annoying fluff that tends to sink most Risa episodes, but also has something more to say amid the hoverball and horga'hns. The problem is that it says it with too much exaggeration, and makes its points too well before a fumbling, if insightful, last minute attempt to pull back from the brink.