I put off watching the next episode, first because I didn't feel like watching a family drama about child custody, and second because of the Labor Day Weekend. And then there turned out to be an unintentional third reason. A YouTube Channel, Target Audience, just reacted to TNG's "Suddenly Human". Sometimes things just work out the way they were meant to, and that'll be fresh in my mind while I go into...
"Cardassians"
It's about time Garak showed up again! What took so long? When Bashir is talking to Garak about Bajoran clients Garak has, or any clients for that matter, it feels like how I imagine if Bashir were in the UK post-WWII (he has a British accent, so why not?) and asking Garak, if he were German or Japanese, how anyone would do business with him. When Garak says he builds trust with his clients, Bashir says then those clients will tell him things and continues to suggest that Garak is a spy. Garak, of course, denies it and tells Bashir that he's letting his imagination run away with him. In this opening scene, Garak is reintroduced and everything about him is summed up, including the mystery surrounding him. It's a real crime he was only in one episode of Season 1.
Rugal, a teenage Cardassian boy who was a War Orphan raised by a Bajoran foster-father, was raised to hate is own kind. When he bites Garak, that was the scene I was dreading watching again. Even though I could understand from Rugal's point-of-view. After that, Dukat immediately hears about the incident and demands an investigation from Sisko: both about the War Orphans and about Rugal himself. Dukat wants the War Orphans returned. And then that's when "Cardassians" begins to parallel "Suddenly Human". In "Suddenly Human", Jono was a Human raised by Talarians who thought of himself as Talarian even though he was Human. Rugal thinks of himself as a Bajoran even though he's Cardassian. And like in "Suddenly Human", the question becomes about whether or not to return Rugal to his biological people or the people who raised him.
Dukat is another character who gets to be focused on and fleshed out in this episode after also having such limited exposure in Season 1. Prior to this, any time Dukat showed up in an episode, he was there to offer some insincere pleasantries to Sisko and little more. In "Cardassians", part of the focus is turned directly onto Dukat. He was in charge of Bajor during the Occupation, he was the commander of Terok Nor, he knew what was going on, and he sure knew about the War Orphans that were being abandoned. Garak points out to Bashir the renowned Cardassian attention to detail.
Then we get THE scene of the episode. In Ops, when Sisko is talking to Dukat via subspace, Bashir interrupts and grills Dukat. When I was watching this, I thought two things: "What the Hell?" and "That takes guts!" Sisko tells Bashir it was the highlight of his day, but also tells him in no uncertain terms, "Don't do it again." What I appreciate is that we get to delve a little bit deeper into the Cardassian chain-of-command. The civilian government decided to withdraw from Bajor, a decision Dukat didn't agree with, and Dukat tries to make it sound like the military reports to the civilian government, but Bashir says it's the other way around. Rather than continue to answer Bashir's questions, Dukat asks him how he learned so much about "Cardassian social studies" (interesting choice of words there, because my brother happens to be a Social Studies teacher), and Bashir says it was from Garak.
Then there's even more development for Garak's character. Garak, as we've seen, never tells anything straight to Bashir. I kind of like that the Cardassian who isn't straight (don't argue about it!) doesn't say anything straight either. Double-entendre! Also, Garak and Dukat don't like each other.
Rugal staying with the O'Briens. I didn't remember this episode very well. I expected Rugal to completely freak out when Keiko was serving Cardassian food. Instead, Rugal and O'Brien quietly reject it, shoving the plates aside until both their plates connect. They make eye-contact. They both hate Cardassians. The entire meal scene felt very tense.
Later on, Rugal asks O'Brien what he thinks of the Cardassians. O'Brien tries to the dodge the subject, then says you can't judge an entire race and Rugal says outright he hates them. I think it's very big of O'Brien when he says doesn't like some Cardassians, but likes others, like Rugal.
In a parallel to Season 1's "Past Prologue" when Bashir told SIsko that Garak wants him to buy a suit, this time he tells Sisko that Garak wants him to take a Runabout down to Bajor. To one-up last time, Bashir tells Sisko in the middle of the night! Then Sisko is contacted by Dukat over subspace. I kept thinking, "Please don't interrupt again, Bashir!" Thankfully, he didn't. But Dukat did say they were able to find out who Rugal's biological father is, and it turns out to be some prominent politician. Bashir tells Sisko that Garak probably knew about this which why he wanted Bashir to go to Bajor to investigate something. So, this episode is also establishing just how on top of things Garak really is.
Garak really gets to show off in this episode! When Garak and Bashir are on Bajor, they want to look up information about Rugal but the computer at the orphanage isn't working. Garak volunteers to fix it. I was just as surprised as Bashir that he knew how to do that!
As far as the computer displays... ummmm, they looked primitive even in 1993. Sorry! It looks like, not even Windows, it looks like the MS-DOS computers that I used in junior high and most of high school. We had old computers. And electronic typewriters. Getting to use the new computers and Microsoft Office during my senior year was a Big Deal. But, of course they didn't have Windows 95, like I had at home. Nope! They were still Windows 3.1. I usually try NOT to comment on the computer displays in this series, but this time it just jumped out to me a little bit too much. Anyway...
When the other children at the orphanage see Garak, they ask if he's there to take them home. He says not. They don't seem angry or frightened like Rugal. They probably also don't like and/or hate Cardassians, but I think Rugal probably has anger issues that are specific to him. That's my read of him compared to the other War Orphans, from what little we see.
Bashir figures out, thanks to Garak, that Rugal's father was a politician at odds with Gul Dukat and was the one who made the decision to have the Cardassians withdraw from Bajor to take Dukat's position of power away from him. Very much a political decision. I didn't remember this at all.
When Rugal's father, Pedar, arrives on the station, O'Brien talks to him first. He wants to prepare him for facing that Rugal hates his own kind. Pedar says that "family is everything." It's what the Cardassians believe in. I also think it's what the Mafia believes in, so these Tough Guys have deep family values as well. Pedar didn't know his son was alive, he thought he was dead, and becomes upset at himself that he didn't try harder to find his son, who ended up being raised by Bajorans. The scene between Rugal and his father is tense. Rugal wants nothing to do with him. I can see Rugal's point-of-view and his father's. You feel for them both.
Rugal's biological father and adoptive father meet in Sisko's office. Both want Rugal and Sisko suggests that they need arbitration. Both fathers agree to have Sisko be arbitrator because he's neither Bajoran nor Cardassian and he's a father as well. Then Odo informs Sisko that Dukat has arrived on the station. The plot thickens. And now it's not just Bashir who feels like they're being manipulated. Sisko feels manipulated as well. By Dukat. So now, finally, in the fifth episode of the second season, we have Dukat actively involved in the plot, instead of just someone who pops in and pops out like all his previous appearances.
When Sisko, Dukat, Rugal, his fathers, and O'Brien are in the room, during the custody hearing, it feels so tense. I feel like I'm really in a custody hearing. This feels stressful in a way that I didn't expect it to... and I'm not even a parent! Nor do I think I want to be. But I feel so bad for everyone there. Except for Dukat. It's agonizing for Rugal and his family, Sisko's in a tough spot, and Dukat? "I'm here for the children." Yeah right. Sisko gets right to it and points out that Dukat and Pedar are political adversaries. He didn't wait and wanted to establish that right off the bat.
Meanwhile Bashir and Garak are trying to find out why Dukat is really there and why Rugal's files have been purged, and conclude Dukat didn't want something to be found out. He didn't want something to be exposed. However, Dukat is counting on the news of Pedar's son will disgrace him and his political career will be over. A member of the Cardassian military woman delivered Rugal to the orphanage while knowing that he wasn't an orphan. This was in hopes that one day it would be found out and used against Pedar. The woman who brought Rugal to the Orphanage worked for Terok Nor. Bashir asks what Terok Nor is. Dukat says it was DS9. That's what the station was called before Starfleet arrived. Bashir asks, "Gul Dukat? Who was the commander of Terok Nor eight years ago?," as he walks out the door. They all know it was him.
Sisko makes the very tough decision to grant custody of Rugal to Pedar, since Rugal was the true victim of Dukat's conspiracy. Making this the polar opposite of "Suddenly Human" where Jono stayed with his adoptive family.
Pedar says that Bashir gave him the leverage he needed, Pedar can say that Dukat set him up, if Dukat tries to disgrace him publicly. Which leaves that at stalemate now because neither will talk about it in public. It's still uneasy between Pedar and Rugal but no longer super-tense. Pedar says, "I suppose it will take some time." I would've been interested to see how that would've turned out.
As an epilogue, Bashir wants to know the truth about what happened between Garak and Dukat. Then Garak says he doesn't tell the truth because he doesn't believe there is such a thing. Sums up Garak to a T. He tells Bashir everything he needs to know is right there, scattered around. It's like a mind puzzle that he wants Bashir to be engaged in.
Summing this up, I think "Cardassians" fleshed out the Cardassians in the same way "In the Hands of the Prophets" and the Circle Trilogy fleshed out the Bajorans. We get a taste of Cardassian politics. We see how Machiavellian Dukat can be. We get some family drama. We definitely get to know a LOT more about Garak. "Past Prologue" introduced Garak, but "Cardassians" defined him. And this is Bashir's best episode on Deep Space Nine up to this point.
"Cardassians" wasn't a knock-out but I liked it better than It thought I would, given all the family drama, and I can't believe how much they packed into a single episode. I give it an 8.
Still, what was shown in Tribbleations is a better explanation than most of the times Trek went to time travel...
