All Of Me

"Facets" Plot Summary:

Jadzia asks her friends to take on the personalities of Dax's past hosts for a Trill rite of closure. She bonds with suddenly maternal Kira and shudders from a violent Sisko who has taken on the personality of an unstable murderer. But once Odo gets Curzon inside him, he doesn't want the ritual to end. Only when Jadzia confronts her mentor and he reveals that he was in love with her can she bring all the personalities back into herself.

Analysis:

One of the finest Dax episodes we've ever seen unfortunately unravels what little Trill history we know. On The Next Generation, symbionts overwhelmed the personalities of their hosts; we knew only Odan, not the man or the woman who contained the knowledge and personality of the ancient being. Now it seems that symbionts are so completely separate that one former personality embedded therein can hide a great secret from a later host. It's cool to see more of the deadly Joran, but I don't understand what Dax has left to resolve with him, and I'm flabbergasted by the twist in her relationship with Curzon, whose memories she shares frequently enough to reminisce with Sisko about them.

I understand the writers needed a gimmick to show us the previous Dax personalities by manifesting them externally -- I'm not sure how well Terry Farrell could have performed so many different personalities, and it might have gotten boring to see her try, rather than to see, say, Quark taken over by a sensitive woman. So it's great fun to see what happens to Odo when he's taken over by a guy who loves wine, women and song, and doesn't really ever want to die. Sure, it's sort of pathetic that such people still exist in the 24th century, but it's also sort of comforting. Because Odo is so malleable to begin with, Curzon adapts to his shapeshifting properties and actually merges with him. Rene Auberjonois obviously has a blast acting drunk and changing his clothes Q-style, and it's delightful to watch.