DS9: “The Maquis: Parts 1 & 2”

Date: June 24, 2020

Season 2, Episodes 20 and 21

Musical Accompaniment: So. Much. Warped Tour. I have every single year of compilation albums from 1996 – 2018 plopped into one playlist.

Interstellar News: There is so much to do and so little time. I’m truly hoping for a miracle, or at least some good karma.

Favorite Quotes:

Quark: Then we can discuss it over dinner. That is, we can plan the business meeting to coincide with when you think you might get hungry.

Sakonna: That would be acceptable.

Quark knows just how to talk to Vulcans.

Sisko: You don’t want peace, Cal. You want revenge.

Hudson: I prefer to call it retaliation.

Two old friends disagreeing.

Part 1, “Education is power. Joy is vulnerability.”: A Cardassian vessel leaving DS9 blows up and it’s found to to be sabotage by a group called the Maquis. Hudson, and old friend of Sisko’s, comes aboard and explains what’s happening in the DMZ and the colonies that feel abandoned. A Vulcan named Sakonna meets with the man who sabotaged the ship and then goes to Quark for weapons. The man gets abducted by aliens (heh) while Gul Dukat visits Sisko insisting they need to take a runabout to the colonies. While on their way they witness a Federation vessel under attack by two Cardassian ships and then another unknown ship enters the fray. They arrive at Volan 3 where Gul Evek and the colonies are arguing about the attacks and then Evek drops the bomb that they apprehended the man and he confessed but then committed suicide. Sisko and Dukat head back to DS9 but Dukat is kidnapped that evening. Bashir, Kira, and Sisko go looking for Dukat and they arrive to a planet where they are surrounded by phasers and Hudson greets them, as he is one of the Maquis.

Part 2, “Stop counting!”: Sisko and Hudson discuss the treaty and Hudson stuns the trip and the Maquis leave, though they didn’t have Dukat on planet. Back on DS9 Sisko first meets with Admiral Necheyev who wants the Maquis problem taken care of and then Legate Parn who throws Dukat under the bus for supplying the colonies with weapons and they absolutely do not want to go to war with the Federation. Odo arrests Quark because of his dealings with Sakonna, who is trying to mind-meld with Dukat and failing miserably. Sisko, Bashir, and Odo rescue Dukat and they decide to work together to find the middle-men suppliers. They find a Xepolite ship and work together to get them back to DS9 and confess. Sisko tries one last time to bring Hudson back, but Hudson disintegrates his uniform and they come to an impasse during a space battle. Sisko is congratulated for maintaining peace and Dukat heads home, but has anything really changed?

My Thoughts and Impressions: Quark out-logics a Vulcan, even one he was super smitten with, and I am very impressed. So I know this technically happened before “Preemptive Strike” but I still have the same problem I did then. The Federation gave people a choice: we’ll help resettle you or you can become part of the Cardassian Empire, or maybe they didn’t and I’m just reading into what eventually happened in TNG. I get that people had lived there for years but they also made the conscious decision to stay. I am not saying they didn’t need to defend themselves, but I’m not sure I completely feel for them either. It’s hard for me to watch things out of order and now I’m rethinking watching TNG straight through… sigh. I did think that it would have been more of a punch in the gut to us all if we didn’t see Sakonna cavorting with the saboteur, but what do I know? Speaking of Sakonna, the actor that plays her reminds me of Paget Brewster, what do you think?

As much stuff happened in both parts, overall nothing really happened. It’s an introduction to the Maquis and why they were formed, but everything happens so quickly and we don’t have time to really see what was happening in the colonies to even feel for them. If we had seen or heard things over the last few episodes, I think this would have been more impactful. It was adorable how Sisko and Hudson bonded like two old friends and then things got awkward. It was interesting to see Odo’s preference for Cardassians running the station because they didn’t care much about law and order, but Kira takes offense and Odo has the grace to look a little taken aback. Part 2 was a little stronger than Part 1, and it was fun to see Dukat and Sisko working together and getting exasperated with each other, especially because Dukat is a shit, but it also gives us an excellent and passion-filled Sisko speech about how everything out in space isn’t all peaches and cream like it is on Earth. Earth doesn’t have the need for money but DS9 certainly runs on gold-pressed latinum and such. 5 runabouts in not-so-perfect running order, to give O’Brien something to do of course, for these episodes.

TA Out!