SDS9 – S5E8: "Things Past" (Patreon)

This episode was recorded on January 26, 2025.

We recap "Things Past," discussing the moral inconsistencies of how DS9 portrays the occupation and all the inconvenient truths fans conveniently forget.

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

You can also listen to this episode directly from your favorite podcast player by following these instructions: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212055866-Subscribe-to-your-Audio-RSS-link-on-the-Patreon-app

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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 star date, January 26, 2025, we are discussing things past. Another time travel episode. We just had one not too long ago. Scott, can you tell us about this episode?

Yes, but I'm so tired of time travel episodes.

They got to space it out.

Yeah, or time it out, you know, because time and space, four-dimensional, what? Garrick, Jedzia, Ben, and Odo are coming back on the runabout. They were just having sort of like a post-occupation space United Nations debate with moderators from the Bajoran people sort of, this is foreshadowing, talking about how

Odo was kind of a good cop during all this and loved justice and was kind of a good guy during the occupation in a sea of bad. And that Garrick is a snake and Garrick says that there was no real debate while being accused of being a bad faith genocide supporter and violence apologist.

And again, is he or isn't he a spy? I think he's a spy. Deep Space Nine, the other team, Bashir and Worf, they're waiting for the return. But on the runabout, there's no signs of life. But we see Ben open his eyes, and he appears to be on Terok Nor. Now, what is Terok Nor?

Terok Nor is a previous name for Deep Space Nine during the Cardassian occupation. And he sees a bunch of Cardassians walking around. And Bajoran's running around, talk to Ben, and they're worried about another cleansing. And it seems that Ben is not seen as himself because, again, if they are in the occupation,

which we'll find out later what they are, surely a changeling, a trill, a human, and our Cardassian all hanging out sounds like the premise of a joke. And it just would be weird and wouldn't happen. Bashir and Worf worry about maybe a plasma time storm. And Ben realized that they are definitely in Terok Nor.

And they are not in a hollow suite because he checks. They are not in a dream. He doesn't check. But, you know, and it's posited that their minds have timed traveled to other minds. And there was some sort of sound, and they're here. Garrick believes that he can use secret codes and passwords to get the Cardassians

to know who he is, but probably not. Odo sees the previous cop of Tarek North, Thrax, so it must be nine years ago, because Odo was the top cop seven years ago, and Jadzia is selected for something, and there's some punching, some fighting, Garrick gets a bloody nose, and then future Garrick gets a bloody nose.

And Bashir thinks that there's a psychosomatic brain-body dance, but Garrick, it turns out, did all that because of his duplicity. He has a plan. So once he and Odo and Ben are by themselves, he explains that he stole a scanner, got it from a guard when they took Jadzia after punching. And

uses it to figure out who they are. The, you know, Bajoran cover, um, is, uh, Mal, Ishinche, Garrick, Julliard, Guetta, and, uh, Odo already realizes what this is and calls himself Tim Orlandi. Before Ben can ask more questions, um, Past Quark shows up with some guards being Quark, tells him to work at his bar, and Odo's like,

oh, would it really be bad for the past paradox if something were to happen to Quark? And Ben's kind of like, whatever. Dukat is talking to Jadzia under the name Lita and has a drink with her, and it seems that Dukat has a sexually exploitative relationship with Bajorans, which would obviously be S.A.,

and Garak says that Bajorans are basically better slaves. Odo is freaking out about a smell. Odo... just doesn't understand what's going on. But he's like, check it out. Isha and Jalur Timur, they were innocent Bajorans. They were executed for an assassination attempt against Dukat. And Ben's like, oh, we've got to get out of Dodge.

Quark is then killed. being asked about smuggling, and that rumor has it from the Obsidian Order, which is like the Cardassian secret police. They want to know what Quark is up to smuggling crystals and threatens him. And Quark's like, I would never sell illegal crystals. And he feels threatened, so he starts giving up information.

But by giving up this information, realizes that from the names and stuff talking out because Garrick overhears the name of a Romulan spy so it's actually seven years ago Thrak should not be there What is going on? On the promenade, Ben sees Dukat and uses a code that he learned from Kira to subtly request Bajoran resistance help,

and he starts talking with a Bajoran resistance person, and Odo is having a hard time. The Bajoran actually, on a lark, actually guesses the truth, that they are Federation spies, but then there's a boom, Ben runs to save Jadzia, and they are rested. On the brig, Garak is still upset, and he knows that they're screwed,

because in Cardassia, the punishment is often decided before the trial, and Ben and his people are suspected as sympathizers and assassins. Thrax disagrees with Odo and the team to do a forensic investigation to find out what really happened. There will be a sham trial. Odo begs to talk to Thrax alone. Dukat talks to Jed Zia.

People have tried to assassinate him four times and Dukat does this gross thing where he talks about how the Bajorans are like his children and that bad manners are the fault of the parents. And then Jadzia knocks the Dukat out. Ben asks about Thrax and why he is different from other Cardassian cops.

And Ben understands that something's going on with Odo, but can't figure it out, and it seems to be like time is getting weird. Jadzia breaks them out. There's a gunfight. They fight with Thrax. Thrax turns out to be a changeling, but then somehow they're back in the cell, and they're going to die in the morning.

Ben again suspects that Odo knows something that he's not revealing. All roads lead to Odo, and then there's a philosophical argument about morality. Odo reveals to Thrax that he is from the future, and Thrax says that he knows, and then says, what will you do, Odo? Addressing him by name, they're

transported, and Odo says that it's not supposed to be Thrax. He breaks down, yells that it should have been him. Suddenly, everything shifts. Ben, Jedzia, Odo, Garrick, they are back to their normal outfits, watching from a distance the Bajorans that they were Dukat and a different Odo dressed as Thrax stand by disappear

leaving bodies and Ben realizes that Odo was Thrax ashamed Odo realizes that it was him he let those people die and he didn't do the work he didn't do the things that he asked fake Thrax to do. He didn't check the forensic. He just let it happen. And then a few days later,

a bombing in the same style happened, which pretty much unequivocally proved that they were innocent. But he just didn't understand the difference between justice and order. And just sort of, yeah, just kind of messed up. And after revealing all that, they wake up in the infirmary, and Bashir can tell that whatever happened to Odo messed him up.

And Bashir says through some weird science that there were some Odo enzymes, and the Great Link did some time travel. And I didn't totally understand that part, to be completely honest. And then a couple days later, we see Kira, who's now learned the truth and feels betrayed and is like, Odo, how could you do this?

But also sort of admits that no one is innocent in war and asks if Odo caused other innocent Bajorans to die unnecessarily. And Odo answers honestly. He doesn't know.

So this episode did a lot of character building and world building, but for me, lacked moral consistency. They're talking about innocence where they're trying to convince me that Odo was good and Bajorans loved him because he only went after guilty Bajorans. But for that to be true, that would mean Bajorans feel resistance fighters are indeed guilty criminals,

terrorists. But then the way they kid around with Garrick and his pro-oppression stance and act like it's no big deal, I guess there is some kind of consistency. At least within the canon of this episode, the occupation was bad, but it wasn't bad, bad. However, even if it was bad, bad, it doesn't excuse terrorism, aka resistance.

Sounds like the U.S. liberal narrative over Palestinians. Like, even the supposed tense conversation with Odo and Kira, I'm supposed to feel some kind of way about it, but it's like, really? You're going to be like, so long as you killed resistance fighters, we're cool, but if you killed anyone else, now we have problems?

And Odo doesn't feel bad about resistance fighters he killed, but does feel bad for the ones he mistook for resistance fighters. So then why is any Cardassian bad for killing resistance fighters? Since the show is so much based on Western foreign policy and Western Henry Cassandra realpolitik, the morals and logic will never make sense to me.

Rather than making me feel bad for the characters, it just made me dislike all of them. It's a lot like the past episode with Worf, Let He Who Is Without Sin. In it, you also had a backstory where Worf killed another child accidentally as a kid. And that was supposed to explain his aggressive behavior.

And I didn't have a way to fit that in when we were discussing that episode, but it fits in nicely here because that backstory is supposed to explain his current aggressive behavior, which it didn't. It made it make less sense. And this backstory for Odo... over guilty conscience also didn't make sense to me.

Kira's reaction didn't make sense to me how she's differentiating good killing and bad killing of Bajorans. And also Bajorans liking Odo at all doesn't make sense to me. But then again, weird stuff like this happens in real life as well and that doesn't make sense to me either.

So this episode to me, much like reality itself, is a hot mess. Scott, I'm curious. What did you think of this episode? How did you rate it? What were some of the feelings you had?

It was a great episode. I give it four stars. It sort of shows that, yeah, it gives you this sort of vibe that there are no good guys there. I just thought that there was a powerful story told there. That's all. It's a good episode. Understanding Odo was just good. I liked it.

Did it make you feel like it humanized him more? Because I feel like when we were first watching DS9 episode by episode together... You've mentioned before how you've rewatched episodes in the past, but like you didn't really pay attention to it like you did this time around.

Yeah.

So you had kind of a more of a flat kind of one dimensional view of Odo. He's a cop. That's it. Right. And then it was like you had maybe a different view about Worf. And then it's like, no, they're all complicated. They're all gray. That kind of like where you're at now. Mm hmm.

I mean, it was interesting to actually feel a sort of way about Odo, which I don't normally feel.

the inconsistencies for me weren't like the in episode in world internal logic. It was more about like just the inconsistencies with just like how we think about morality in general and consistencies there. But then I guess DS nine is going to keep taking us to these kinds of places and

explore these kinds of things where you're going to feel sometimes gross and yucky, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. even the way it was lit, it made you feel like you were in like a dank cave or a dungeon or something. You know what I mean?

So I guess the whole thing, even the cinematography kind of gave you a icky kind of vibe. And also like these kind of episodes where we have gone back to the occupation, they've shown Quark and it's like somehow his behavior in the past somehow makes him less bad to me. it's like he could have really been worse.

And in some ways he's like better in that awful situation as far as like how he treated people than he is in the current timeline. So that's interesting too, how they're, they're not too on the nose about it, but they're like, you know what, like in the occupation,

like Hork in his own way tried his best as well.

Yeah. And then we're, we're still talking about like Dukat and Garrick, like, It's weird because growing up, you're like, oh, Garak's kind of charming. You're like, damn, Garak's kind of a bad person.

Up to this point now, I'm like, wait, who's worse?

In some ways, Garak is really bad. And I mean, Dukat basically taking advantage and really essaying Bajoran women and exotifying them is pretty gross. And again, like... sexual exploitation is something that needs to be discussed more and sort of something that I did extrapolate a little bit from Let He's Without Sin, because again,

there is this underpinning of saying without saying it of sex work in that previous episode.

Yes, yes.

And I've talked about this before, but I think about xenofeminism, which looks at rationalism in the exploitation and that how reason is inherently patriarchal, but by accepting that, we're giving up. And men like Dukat are dominating the history of thought And they're gripping science and technology, but it doesn't mean that it's there forever.

So that's a problem of the character of Garrick. And yeah, the real politic and these morally reprehensible, complicated characters. And I got to tell you, this sort of thing becomes sort of a benchmark of Deep Space Nine. We're in a different show now.

And I will also say, I think there was a point where Garrick was saying straight up, like he thought the cut was too soft. And if he was running it, he would have been even worse. So yeah, that tells you a lot about Garrick.

And it's like very different from the way like fans have told me about him. And I'm sure in future episodes, it's kind of like, if there's a competition, they're going to show more of what Dukat did. But up until now, as far as intent or shit they're saying, it's like, man, Garrick is fucked up.

But at the same time, he is also acted very well and charming and funny and reminds me of a serial killer right like those serial killers who are like the way they get away with it for so long and not get caught and people don't know their

serial killer is because of how charming and like likable they are and so i'm kind of like seeing garrett more like that two episodes very morally gray makes me more curious about what's to come scott can you tell us about the next episode

Yeah, Odo and Cork go on an adventure.

Until then...