You Can't Go Home Again

"The Search, Part Two" Plot Summary:

While Odo learns about his people and their customs with the help of a female shapeshifter, the crew experiences a Dominion attack on the Alpha Quadrant. But Kira becomes suspicious of Odo's new friends when she finds a locked door, and she and Odo discover the crew in suspended animation, experiencing the attack via mind-control.

They all learn that the changelings are the Founders of the Dominion, but Odo, disgusted, refuses to rejoin his own species, preferring to return to Deep Space Nine with the humanoids. The threat of war looms, however, now that the Federation knows that the Vorta are controlled by the Founders and have greater telepathic powers than was suspected.

Analysis:

I hate dream sequences. This episode's was even worse than an orb vision. And it was so easy to see the unreality, from the minute Necheyev (my favorite Trek bitch of all time - I was so glad to see her) started dictating treaty terms to Sisko. The only good news is that Garak was never really dead.

I might have forgiven this annoying plot device if we'd gotten a really juicy Odo episode and gotten to see him become a bird and everything else he said he turned into, but all we saw him do for the most part was look aggravated...which we've seen before. We still don't know what kind of job Odo's going back to, since he formally quit as security chief. Worst of all, we never learned how the Founders live, what shapeshifter sex is like, how they reproduce, what they hoped to accomplish by farming out their young, etc. I just hope we return to that planet in some episode.

The only redeeming moment for me was the end, sentimental sap that I am, with Odo and Kira holding hands...