DS9: Series Finale “What You Leave Behind: Parts 1 & 2”

Date: September 4, 2020

Season 7, Episode 25

Musical Accompaniment: The Shadow soundtrack

Interstellar News: Another Day of Dragon Con Goes Virtual with two panels this evening and watching DCTV all day. I’m still so bummed about missing out on everything this year. Tomorrow I will watch Insurrection and on Sunday I will begin Voyager.

So what had happened was…: Bashir and Ezri wake up together and make a pact not to die in the war. O’Brien is going to teach at the Academy after the war is over, but hasn’t had the heart to tell Bashir yet. Yates has awful morning sickness. Odo is joining the crew of the new-Defiant in the hopes of finding Kira. Sisko gets a vision from his Prophet Mother. Quark and Vic play cards while everyone is off finishing the war.

The Founder promises the Breen whatever they want, specifically Earth and Romulus, because she just wants the war over. Garak, Damar, and Kira inspire the workers to revolt and there’s power failure all over Cardassia. The Founder orders a city to be leveled as penance for the people uprising, but that simply inspires more Cardassians to turn. The battle on the front lines begins and the Founder has no idea at how it’s progressing. The trio is caught in Mila’s basement, she is killed for her trouble, but the Cardassian guards shoot the Jem’Hadar so the trio can escape. Communication is restored and they see the Cardassian fleet has started to fire on the Dominion, so the Founder orders all Cardassians to be destroyed, immediately. The Breen move to the front lines and most of the Jem’Hadar are carrying out the Cardassian genocide orders when Damar, Garak, and Kira storm the castle. Damar dies, Garak kills Weyoun, and Kira tries to reason with the Founder who is insistent on the Federation and its allies losing resources even if the Dominion fails, it won’t surrender.

By this time the Federation/Klingon/Romulan forces have made it to Cardassia Prime and Odo beams down to try to reason with the Founder. He links with her, cures her, and she finally orders the troops to stand down. She will stand trial to be judged for her crimes while Odo will return to the Great Link to heal them and teach them about all he’s learned from the solids. Ross and Sisko pour out some bloodwine for their homies while Martok drinks straight from the bottle remembering his. Garak is bittersweet about being home.

On Bajor Dukat and his sight are back. He and Winn go to free the Pah-wraiths, but first Winn has to bring fire to the fire caves. Winn blesses some wine and shares it with Dukat only for him to find out it’s poisoned and he dies as the sacrifice the Pah-wraiths demanded. The senior staff return to DS9 and everyone heads to a party at Vic’s. Sisko has to leave abruptly as he senses a disturbance in the Force. The Pah-wraiths have taken over Dukat, Winn belatedly tries to destroy the book but is engulfed in flames for her trouble, so Sisko tackles Dukat over the cliff and into the flames. Sisko is met by his mother who tells him the Pah-wraiths are now forever sealed in the cave and he can now stay in the Celestial Temple to help bridge the gap between the Bajorans and the wormhole aliens.

Back on the station Yates has a vision from Sisko who tells her he’ll be back at some point, but his work isn’t done. She takes care of Jake who puts the finishing touches on the model house. Worf and Martok head to Qo’noS so Worf can be the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire and Martok can do Chancellor things. The O’Briens pack up and move to Earth and the rest of the crew, including Quark, reminisce and have flashbacks. Odo tries to do the Irish goodbye, but is stopped by Quark, and he and Kira get to the Great Link so Odo can save them. Kira becomes the commander of DS9 and Nog is promoted. The episode ends with Jake looking out and the wormhole opening.

Favorite Quotes:

Bashir: I’m sure we’ll see each other again.

Garak: I’d like to think so, but one can never say. We live in uncertain times.

Garak certainly captures the mood of 2020.

Vic: Hey, pallie. If you’re here for another game of ‘go fish,’ I’m a little busy right now.

QUARK: Actually, I’m here for the end of the war goodbye to Chief O’Brien goodbye to Odo goodbye to Worf party.

Apparently, they have a lot to celebrate.

“All right, I’ll prepare some food. Nobody should die on an empty stomach.”: A few items before I begin. An “Irish goodbye”, as described to me by one of my Irish friends is when you duck out of the party without saying goodbye to anyone because you don’t want to make a big deal out of leaving. This is contrasted with the “Italian goodbye” where it takes two hours to leave the party because you have to say goodbye to each person and then you start bullshitting with one another, and all of a sudden it’s 2 am. I say all that because Mila is totally the Italian grandmother of the bunch, making sure they’re all fed before they go off to war.

I thought the episode was over, and then it kept going. The pacing felt weird and they kept wrapping things up. In fact, I completely forgot about Winn and Dukat in the caves and was thinking the party at Vic’s and a little montage would be the end, but nooooooooo we still had like 20 minutes of episode left. The beginning of the episode was great as it showed what everyone was doing on the station, on Cardassia, and even on Bajor. There was a lot to wrap up and eventually we got there. The Dominion was going to kill as many solids as they could even if they were going to lose, because those resources could not be replaced as easily. There’s an urgency with the Klingons, Federation, and Romulans (not that they’re seen really) to have this war over even if it will cost, because it’s been going on for too long. This wasn’t the strongest series finale ever, but it at least answered a ton of questions that were still lingering and wrapped up several story lines. Odo realizes it’s finally time to heal his people not just from the disease but also from their fear of the solids, it’s why he was sent out in the first place. Sisko also realizes he needs to bridge the gap between his people (humans/Bajorans) and his other people (the wormhole aliens/Prophets) and he knows that Jake and Yates will have each other while he is gone doing important Emissary work. I still rank DS9 as my favorite Trek so far but this season finale lowers the overall rank of the season a bit for me. 6 shots of flavored rum, pick your favorite.

The title of this episode reminds me of a song by Sister Hazel:

TA Out!