SDS9 – S5E3: "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places" (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on December 27, 2024.

Sam and Scott recap "Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places," where multiple love triangles ensue.

SDS9 seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 can be found wherever you stream Southpaw. Season 5 is only available to paid subscribers.

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Transcript

[Note: Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors.]

This is Southpaw Deep Space Nine Season 5. We are your hosts, Scott and Sam. On this start date, December 27th, 2024, we are discussing “Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places.” Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

We're all Wuk and Pnub in all the wrong places. And we see Bashir is walking around. He sees Quark. They're eavesdropping on whom they believe is Miles and Keiko, but it is actually Kira. As you remember, Kira is holding Miles and Keiko's second child, and there is a talk of controlling and being mindful of their bodies.

At Quark's Bar, Worf and Jadzia are talking about opera and tradition. I wonder, are they flirting? But all of a sudden, Grilka, Quark's ex-wife, shows up on Deep Space Nine. Worf is smitten. Jadzia is dubious. Worf has questions. Grilka hugs Quark. Worf is confused. Quark and Grelka drink.

Grelka explains that the war that has been going on is affecting their family, and Quark, of course, being Quark, asks to look at the book. Quark feels and gets threatened by Grelka's squad, and Jadzia tells Worf about the episode House of Quark, which explains why Grelka and Quark had their situationship But Worf, he is smitten.

He's got a crush. Even though they don't really talk. Bashir and Miles are kibitzing. Miles is sort of controlling the pregnancy, micromanaging. At Quark's Bar, Worf attacks Mourn. and apologizes right before he is acting all tough. He wants to start a beef with the Klingons. He wants to show flirtation to Grilka.

But he is told because Worf's house is shamed, he will not be able to rock with Grilka. And if you know some of the backstory of Worf from TNG, he has never dated a Klingon. He is rebuked. He does have a son, but from a previous playing, not a Klingon. Worf is feeling all the feelings.

He is angry. He is resentful that his family is hated. He also knows the culture of Klingon dating from reading about it, but has never done it, sort of like learning about a subculture from the internet or trying to cook a food you've never had from a cookbook. Quark asks Chadzia for advice.

He is hoping for some relations with his ex-wife. Chadzia explains that the Klingons, they mate in a carnal and intense way, and reminds Quark not to be a pest, and tells him the importance of asking questions. Worf gives Quark advice as well. bring a piece of meat, yell poetry, and talk about some rituals.

We see Miles massaging Kira. This sort of Lamaze thruple is doing just fine. Or are they? Lately, Miles misses Ireland, and we see some affection between Kira and Miles. And Kiko, at this point, seems nonplussed. Quark walks in on Worf's singing Klingon opera. Quark says that all the things that were recommended worked,

and they talk their family history, and they listen to music, and Quark left. And Quark kind of just chides Worf's behavior. It feels like Worf is pulling a Cyrano. Worf then shows Quark in the VR suites how to get nice with the Batleth, the main Klingon weapon, and tries to show him the language,

but Quark performs it without emotion. Odo is worried about Miles not doing right, and that the station has sort of been getting messy as his whole pregnancy is going. Kira starts getting defensive of Miles as she reminds him Odo. She is carrying Miles' baby, and Odo picks up on the feelings. Odo still has feelings for Kira,

and Odo also now has a body because he stopped being a changeling at the end of the last season. At Quark's, Grilka's squad seem upset. And after practicing the Klingon LARP, Quark is connecting. Grilka's protector is angry and pushes Quark and asks for combat death. Keiko and Miles are enjoying some wine and love.

Kira's frustrated, tense, so she decides to go to Bajor for a few days. And Keiko asks Miles to go. They agree, although things seem a little off. Quark asks Jadzia and Quark what to do in this fight. And he's like, wait, do I just recommend my last move where I just offered to be slaughtered?

And they realized that wasn't cool. Quark is like, is there a ritual to get me out of it? Quark is like, no, but they figure out a way where he can puppet Quark and control his actions. Jadzia... keeps on asking why Worf is being like this for someone he doesn't know. And she continues this sort of vibe.

Quark comes to fight Topak, but because Worf is nice with it, Quark is actually doing well. They're confused at why he's doing so good. But then Worf, in a plot situation, breaks connection, which is, of course, surprising. Kork uses his faith to slow down the fight. He makes a speech.

He makes up this thing called the Rite of Proclamation, which consists of a person giving a romantic love speech. But at that time, Kork gets the upper hand. He could kill his enemy, but does not. He grabs Topak and his Batleth, and Grilka exiles him. Quark and Grelka go have what I believe to be aggressive, sexy time.

Jadzia then starts a fight with Worf, implying she likes him. She does. They fight. They have a moment. And they have what I believe to be aggressive, sexy time. The place in Bajor is... They're very romantic, and Kira and Miles realize that they're having a connection, but they know better.

Kira will go see some peeps and tells Miles to leave. Bashir notes that Quark is all beaten up from doing things with Grokka, and then Worf and Jadzia come back, and they are also worn and battle-worn as well. Worf understands that normally in the tradition they would be married,

Jadzia admits that there's aggression and just would like to be held by Worf and see where it goes. Worf is nervous, but seems interested.

So as you mentioned, this was DS9's version of Cyrano de Bergerac. I think I laughed more in this episode than any other DS9 episode. And part of the comedy in DS9 doesn't come from the direct writing, but what you already know about the characters.

This is why the comedic episodes keep getting funnier and funnier as we go along. So being in season five and us knowing the character so well allows for more absurdity and comedy. This also explains why sometimes you're trying to tell somebody about a funny episode about something, which isn't necessarily a comedy,

and they don't see the comedy in it. The reason why is often they don't know these characters. So the comedy is, here's the characters, here's what you know about them, and then here's the absurd situation with them in it, right? So that's why it doesn't translate unless you've invested a lot of time in getting

to know these characters. So it's this pre-existing history that made the relationship with Kira and Miles also so tense. And in one moment, go from comedic to real. It wasn't just an attraction, but a sadness as well about the attraction.

And it's kind of sexy. This episode is kind of sexy. And Star Trek doesn't do sexy that much. And honestly, I don't know. I was kind of feeling it. I really was.

And also this episode, the subplot, paralleled the main plot. Where Worf can't pursue his affections and has to help Quark. Like Miles, Kira, and Keiko, it's another love triangle with Dax involved. However, despite the Dax and Worf love story being foreshadowed longer, the Miles and Kira story felt more natural to me.

Maybe it's because we've known both characters since the first episode. Either way, the main plot got us to Worf and Dax getting together, or at least in that episode. But in these two plots, we got to see courtship and forbidden love play out in various different ways with various different rules. It's a Ferengi episode,

but also a Klingon episode, but we also got to see more of a standard human romantic love triangle. Something they didn't address, however, is relationships with co-workers in the same military, all of whom have different ranks. I think this is one day-to-day difference between liberals and radicals. Radicals tend to think about the starting power dynamics,

and liberals tend to only think about it after the relationship has started and only in the light of patriarchy. So in liberal media, that's often never thought about unless it's an explicit story about harassment. But taking it as it is, it was the funniest episode so far for me. I enjoyed it. Scott,

I'd love to hear your thoughts, how you rated it and where it is in the mythology and especially the Dax-Whorf relationship.

So I'm giving this episode a four and here's why. This is where Jorf happens. Jorf being Jadzia and Worf. If you've been paying attention since Worf came, there has been sort of an attraction. And it's been largely one way. I mean, Jadzia... is a sex positive, pansexual, multi-gendered, hundreds of year old being that's lived lots of ways,

has been a Lothario, has been a soft person, has been lots of things, is, you know, in our modern language, would probably define themselves as a queer person, but I don't think that was a term really used by the people writing Star Trek in 1995. And her sort of complicated libido just connects to Worf in his...

love and self-loathing and passion and guilt and anger and honor. I mean, you do not really have many characters as morally complex as Worf. So when this moment happens, and I'm not saying, I don't want to say whether this continues or To me, it makes sense.

And I liked it, and I thought it was done in a really smart way. So for that, it gets a four. The Quark stuff did really nothing for me.

It was funny.

Yeah, it was funny. It was hilarious, actually. And you sort of saw a genuine part of Quark, which you see more as the show progresses, but it's not like you're going to get a full sea change of Quark. I'm not trying to... Spoiler alert.

Because in this episode, right, there were two couples that got together. One is mythology... the quark story is more just like an episode of the week kind of love interest thing that what the difference is it's not that important to me and yeah it's just

to me it really got the characters uh the miles keiko kira love triangle was true to their characters. Again, there was a sensuality in this episode, which you don't get a lot of in Star Trek. Sensuality is nice. Sex is great. Love is multifaceted and can sometimes be subversive.

Yeah, is this episode the most practical of our leftist understanding of Deep Space Nine? A little bit, but you have to go deep to get there.

Can you tell us about the next episode?

War is hell.

Until then...