Sleeping With the Enemy

"Strange Bedfellows" Plot Summary:

Weyoun asks that Worf and Ezri be placed in the same cell so that they can comfort each other physically, which he would enjoy watching. Though Damar is very unhappy about the Breen alliance, which has resulted in Cardassian concessions of which he has not been apprised and which seems to have taken precedence over Cardassia's own alliance with the Dominion - thousands of Cardassians are being slaughtered by the Klingons on Septimus 3 - Weyoun tells him that they all serve the Founders together, silencing his protests.

Martok tells Sisko that the battle on Septimus 3 is going in favor of the Klingons, then asks Sisko about his own war - the one Martok is convinced he must be waging with his new bride, since marriage is always a struggle. Sisko says it's fine, but when he later asks Yates to assist him in blessing would-be Bajoran mothers in his role as Emissary, she balks, telling him she doesn't even believe in the Prophets. "The battle begins," Sisko murmurs. In Quark's bar, Bashir admits to O'Brien that he has feelings for Ezri.

Elsewhere on the station, Winn and Dukat - still masquerading as Anjohl Tenan - make love and share wine. The Kai says that she's happier than she has ever been in her life: the Prophets brought them together and will help them lead Bajor to its restoration. She wants to know all about the man who guides her work and shares her bed, but a vision interrupts her. "I give myself to the Prophets," she says hopefully, but the form of Sisko calls upon her to give them her allegiance rather than the false prophets. "You are the Chosen One. Feel the love of the Pah-Wraiths!" Winn screams, tells Dukat of her vision, and demands that he bring her the Orb of Prophecy so that she might hear the true will of her gods. Dukat leaves smiling.

Hanging upside down in a cell on the way to Cardassia Prime, Worf and Ezri argue about his determination to escape, her inappropriate sense of humor, and his belief that she has been trying to initiate sex with him since she came onto Deep Space Nine. Ezri is outraged, forcing Worf to face his guilt over the fact that when he made love to her, he was pretending to be with Jadzia. When he finally admits that he doesn't love her as Ezri but as the embodiment of his former wife, she reminds him that they're only people, and make mistakes - of which the other night counts as one. Since the Dominion has demanded that they provide information or face execution, however, he gloomily points out that they should be pondering the next life instead of reliving the mistakes of this one.

When Weyoun makes a joke about Ezri and Dr. Bashir, Worf leaps at him and breaks his neck. Jem'Hadar threaten him but Damar calls them off, laughing at the dead Vorta clone and teasing Worf that he should have killed the Cardassian leader since there's only one of him. He also teases the new Weyoun, telling him when he can't get information from the prisoners that he should go talk to Worf again. Later, however, when Damar realizes the Breen have been given access to all of Cardassia's military files and that Weyoun is listening to their leader about strategy more than he ever listened to Damar himself, the Cardassian gets drunk and mocks his own reflection.

Winn approaches the Orb of Prophecy but fails to have a vision. "The Prophets show me nothing...they have forsaken me," she weeps to Dukat, who admits that the Pah-Wraiths led him to her. She calls him a heretic and throws him out when he points out that the Prophets did not support her during the Occupation and chose an alien to be their Emissary, but his insistence that she really wants power and adoration rather than the redemption of Bajor affects her deeply. Calling Kira to her quarters, the Kai sobs that she has strayed from the path, but when Kira suggests that she must set aside the things which led her astray by renouncing her title as Kai, Winn rejects the idea, claiming that the Prophets would surely have told her if that was their will. "They don't always use words," Kira points out, but her spiritual leader refuses to listen.

Weyoun has plans to attack the Romulans, but Damar is livid that Septimus 3 has fallen to the Klingons because the Founders deemed it an acceptable loss. When he goes to get Ezri and Worf for their executions - the latter having forgiven one another respectively for his obsession with Jadzia and her secret crush on Bashir - he shoots the guards and sends them to a Cardassian ship so that they can warn the Federation about the Breen alliance and alert the leaders that they have an ally on Cardassia. Then Damar blames the Jem'Hadar for the Starfleet officers' escape, laughing that if the Founders execute Weyoun in punishment, he will look forward to meeting the next clone.

The Kai calls Dukat with a confession: the first time she saw the Celestial Temple, she felt nothing. She has never felt anything for the Prophets and they have never spoken to her, yet now it seems they want her to give up her position in order to seek their elusive blessing. "True gods don't ask their children for such sacrifices," says Dukat, and Winn agrees; she won't serve gods who have given her nothing. "I will walk the path the Pah-Wraiths have set for me," she vows, and Dukat promises, "I will walk with you." Winn proclaims vengeance against Bajor, Sisko, and all who oppose her while her lover looks on adoringly.

Analysis:

This was a transition episode and felt like one, though it had some truly classic moments - Damar howling in amusement when Worf killed Weyoun, Julian realizing he's in love with Ezri as opposed to Dax, Winn pulling a Trek V Kirk and discovering her own ego is to big to share the universe with any gods. The Worf/Dax storyline dragged somewhat but I liked its resolution - these two were NOT meant to be together, yet it was much more satisfying to have them find that out through trial and error than it have been had they never made the effort. I have gotten a real kick out of Ezri's confirmation of Jadzia's promiscuity, hinted at but never made explicit during the previous six years; it's nice to know that, Voyager's female crew notwithstanding, there are some nice girls who do it and enjoy it and don't have any problem fulfilling their professional duties. I was not a big fan of either Ezri or Worf prior to this mini-arc, but they've both done a superb job owning up to their shortcomings and attempting to move past them. I'm just sorry they didn't do it when there was more time left in the series for us to enjoy them.

I'll admit I'm a pervert, but I have to confess that Kai Winn makes me hot. When was the last time we saw a woman in her sixties revel in her sexuality, reject her gods, and plot despotic control of a planet? You go, girl! This is the character I adored five years ago, the one who worked with Jaro to rule Bajor and who connived to take Bareil out of the running for Kai via murder...not the sniveling creature who needed the approval of Kira, Sisko, and the Prophets.

I am most curious how Goldilocks will react when she learns who's been sleeping in her bed. Will she kill herself in horror and disgust, or accept that Dukat's Occupation was her means to power as well as her torment? Perversely, I'm hoping the latter. Maybe it's because she and Dukat deserve each other that I find them such a sexy couple - something I have never felt about Dukat and any other female on the series, despite Marc Alaimo's slimy charm. He may be using Winn now, but in ambition they're equals, and she looks like she's getting as good as she gives.

The Breen have been pretty useless so far except as catalyst for the reclamation of Damar, which we've been able to see coming all season. This is the first episode in which I actually liked him, too; his shameless glee over the death of Weyoun and endless needling of the successor made a great contrast with the brooding, drinking, ultimately seething guy who decided he'd been sleeping with his own enemy too long. One can't exactly root for the Cardassians; one can only hope they can be tamed, rather than exterminated as seems to be happening to the Founders. The one glimpse we saw of the female changeling pulling her tattered body together for the Breen was very telling both about the character and the slow demise of her people.

On the bedfellows count, I'd say the women won this week: Dax got Worf off her back and Bashir on it, Winn got Dukat right where they both want one another, Damar figured out which side he prefers to sleep on. But in terms of this battle stuff, I'm definitely rooting for Kasidy Yates.