Monday, July 23, 2012

The Maquis, Part II

 **** (4 stars out of 5)

Kira's sympathies are with the Maquis, as you might imagine. But Ben can't accept Cal's impromptu army of guerrilla settlers. Won't see any Maquis ships stopping at DS9 for their repairs.  Maybe the drive-through window at Quark's...

Cardassian Big-Wig Legate Parn and Starfleet Brass-hole Necheyev stop by to bluster, bark, and throw their weight around. In Parn's case, literally. Too many Taspar Egg McMuffins?

Necheyev wants the Maquis to behave and she says it twice: "they're still Federation citizens." But... but... the whole point of this was THEY'RE NOT! They're human-types who woke up one morning on the wrong side of the fence as Cardassian citizens. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE PISSED.

Sisko blames it all on that wonderful, oblivious, paradise: Earth. When you look out a window on Earth and everything's hunky dory, you forget that it's still terrible elsewhere. "It's easy to be a saint in paradise," Sisko figures.

If only Earth still sucked, eh?!

Sakonna can't bring herself to torture Dukat for information when her mind meld fails, and winds up arrested. Sisko's team saves the former evil dictator. Hooray?

Dukat puts them on the trail of Xepolites smuggling weapons into the DMZ. Hetman Drofo Awa, Lost Fish Prince of Atlantis, crumples under Dukat's death threats. And now Dukat and Sisko are BFFs! Hooray?!

I love Quark lecturing Sakonna on the logic of 'peace at a bargain price', but what's Odo thinking putting them in the same cell? He's got like three empty ones. Maybe he was hoping the Vulcan might finally snap and kill Quark. Hooray?!?

Sisko can't talk Hudson into a puff on the peace pipe, and Ben's Brigade must shoot Hudson's ships to drive them off. "I said I'd stop the Maquis and I have, but I won't kill a good man for defending his home." Even this doesn't satisfy Dukat. Ben probably thinks satisfying Dukat is the unenviable task of Mrs. Dukat.

"The Maquis, Part II" brought my fanboy buddies and me some cool combat effects, as runabouts dogfight with space crop dusters. It also brought forward a schism that might be one of Star Trek's biggest hypocrisies: Come for the utopia, Stay for the violence.

Whatever became of Cal Hudson? Tune in tomorrow, same Maquis time, same Maquis channel.

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