Star Trek 455: Strange Bedfellows

455. Strange Bedfellows

FORMULA: Covenant + Afterimage + Return to Grace

WHY WE LIKE IT: Damar turns. Weyoun's death. Winn admits it.

WHY WE DON'T: Still some soap bubbles.

REVIEW: What's most incredible about this episode (and the entire arc, really) is how long we can stay with the villains without ever wondering where the heroes are at. On Cardassia, Damar has pretty much been taken out of the equation, with mysterious territorial concessions being made to the Breen and the latter getting full access to all things Cardassian. His one spot of joy (or at least, jolity) comes when Weyoun 7's neck is snapped by Worf (at once shocking and morbidly amusing by the sheer simplicity of the move). Weyoun 8 is easier to anger, but also tortures Damar with mind games, laughing it up with his new Breen friends. No wonder Damar turns, and when he does, it's a great moment.

Back on the station, we're following the seduction of Winn at Dukat's hands. This couple makes your skin crawl because their relationship is a kind of rape. If Winn only knew who shared her bed! But it's a fight for her soul as well as her body, and it may seem like a bad idea for the pah-wraiths to show their hand so early, but it leads Winn to ask advice from the Prophets and then from Kira, all of which further pushes her on the path of evil. HAS she been foresaken by the Prophets? Or have the wraiths been interfering with her communion all along, preparing her for this moment? Even her epiphany before Kira, that ambition has led her astray, cannot make her abandon that ambition. And written off once too many times, she turns to that ambition and lets it control her destiny.

There's still a lot of attention paid to Ezri and Worf as their soap opera goes on, but at least there's closure for them here. And it's more a character study than melodrama in this one, with Worf's giant ego keeping him from admitting the truth, while Ezri is ever the psychologist. Her gentle sense of humor (waiting for an execution seems like "a lazy day" to her) lightens up the scenes, and the two make up in a reasoned way. This new status quo ("friends and more") is perfect for them.

And despite moving the plots moving along well, the episode finds time for character moments. Martok presents marriage as a grand war, one Sisko aims to fight with hot sauce. The guys are missing Ezri, but Bashir perhaps more than normal. Again, gentle humor and unself-conscious acting win the day.

LESSON: Be really really careful who you sleep with.

REWATCHABILITY - High: When your villains are as interesting as your heroes, it's going great. Strange Bedfellows is a lot of fun despite the serious subject matter.