2x05 Cardassians

[8.0/10] Give me those hard decisions. Finding the fault lines in our societies, and in the relations between different peoples, with our heroes having to decide which side of the line they fall on, is always an engrossing tack. It forces the audience to confront our own prejudices, interrogate our own thought process as we do the moral calculus in our heads, and try to figure out what we might do in such an impossible situation.

How do you judge, how do you entangle, a Cardassian child raised by orthodox but loving Bajoran parents, who’ve taught him to hate the society that produced him? Is teaching hate enough of a reason to separate a young person from the people who’ve raised him? What if, intentionally or not, it results in a type of self-hate? What if there’s understandable reasons behind their prejudice, even if it shouldn’t be condoned? What if the child was abandoned by the people he’s been taught to hate? What if, instead, there’s a loving parent out there who had no idea their child was still alive? What if the child wants nothing to do with that parent, and would rather stay in the only home, the only family he knows?

How do you decide what’s just in a situation like that? How do you resolve what’s in the best interest of the child, what’s fair to both sets of parents, even before you start to unravel a political conspiracy? These questions alone would be enough to fuel any episode of Star Trek. It’s the crowning achievement of “Cardassians” -- a thought experiment with endless complications, countless pulls on either side of the issues, with sobering ties to real life equivalents.

I don’t know what the writers were pulling from when generating this plot, but it’s hard not to think about America’s abominable history of removing ingenious children from their homes and communities in an attempt to “civilize” them and erase the kids’ cultural heritage in favor of their own. And if you’re me, it’s hard not to think about a much later story from Radiolab on a Supreme Court case called Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, which tees up many of the same issues “Cardassians” does. But the sad truth is that these kinds of situations are not limited to the United States or its history, and the reflections, both direct and indirect, to real life scenarios gives the questions posed real weight.

Oh yeah, and it’s also deeply rooted in the backstory established about the characters and this corner of the galaxy. Sisko puts Rugal, the Cardassian child adopted by Bajoran parents, with the O’Briens as a temporary measure. Chief O’Brien’s discomfort with Cardassians after his time in the Federation/Cardassian war was explored in depth in The Next Generation, and comes back to the fore here.

But Rugal’s presence challenges both his prejudices and progressiveness. He finds common ground with his temporary ward over not wanting to eat Cardassian food, finds himself chided by Keiko for his ugly sentiments, and eventually bonds with the boy. He learns a lesson when he hears his worst views parrotted by a self-hating member of the very same species. Seeing an artifact of this hate, seeing it exemplified in a child who’s learned it, is another brick in the wall for Miles’s evolving view of the people he once considered his enemies.

And thank heaven, we get more of Dr. Bashir and Garak. Julian was all but adrift in the Deep Space Nine’s first season. The show had little idea what to do with him beyond making him a lecherous dope. But he finds his highest and best use as Garak’s sometimes stalking horse and eternal babe-in-the-woods. Watching Bashir advocate for Garak despite not exactly knowing what his ally’s getting at is quite amusing (particularly in Sisko’s sarcastic responses), and watching Bashir be a baby spy himself, putting the pieces together, is entertaining.

But my god, Andrew Robinson is just a delight every time he’s on screen. His affable, slightly slimy demeanor is infectious. His thin excuses for why he knows certain things or has certain abilities as a “plain and simple tailor” are enjoyable to the last. And the hints he drops as to the conspiracies he’s unraveling or his beef with Dukat are intriguing as all get out. “Cardassians” builds he and Julian’s relationship, and adds shading to both characters in the process.

It also deepens our glimpse into the political machinations of the Cardassians. The big reveal here is that Rugal is the son of a noted Cardassian politician, Kotan Pa’Dar, and he was deliberately kidnapped and deposited into an orphanage by Dukat in order to use as political leverage when necessary. Dukat’s playing that card now because of the events of the Circle arc that kicked off the season, with Pa’Dar leading an investigation that could implicate Dukat.

It’s deliciously deceitful and tangled, yet clear. Dukat emerges as the show’s key villain, someone still bitter at having to leave his post as prefect when the civilian leadership ordered a withdrawal from Bajor. He’s also someone willing to take whatever steps are necessary, to the point of stealing a rival’s child and saving him for a rainy day, to ensure he holds onto power. Despite Garak’s teases of Dr. Bashir, the answers here aren’t obvious, but everything snaps into place beautifully, with a foundation in Cardassian political conflicts the audience has been primed for and a new level of dastardliness from Dukat that may as well be his bad guy coming out party.

The only problem with it is that it puts a thumb on the scale when it comes to the hard questions “Cardassians” asks. Pa’Dar is not an absent parent who changed his mind down the road. He’s a loving father who had his son stolen from him by a diabolical mastermind. When Sisko chooses to entrust Rugal with his biological father, it’s still a tough choice, but one made easier by the fact that Pa’Dar was wronged, that he has Rugal’s baby pictures, that he’d willingly blow up his political career to get his son back.

And yet, in a way, it only makes the choice harder, because both fathers wanting to hold onto their son are innocent and seem to genuinely love the boy. My one major complaint against this episode is that while it doesn’t shy away from Sisko making a call, it doesn’t take time to explore the aftermath. We never hear how Rugal feels about this. We never see a tearful goodbye with his Bajoran father or angry recriminations for being torn away from the only home he’s ever known. What makes hard choices so vital to storytelling is that they have meaningful consequences that tell us who characters are, and force us to reckon with their aftermath. DS9 skips over the hard part.

(Unless Rugal returns? I don’t remember that happening, but I’m fuzzy on a lot of the DS9 I watched as a kid.)

Still, “Cardassians” manages to weave together an engrossing political mystery, an entertaining (and revealing) adventure for the team of Garak and Bashir, a small but potent tale of character growth for Chief O’Brief, and most importantly, some tremendous food for thought in the story of an innocent child, used as a political football, torn between two worlds. Deep Space Nine doesn’t offer any easy answers here, because there are none. Just more questions and more loss no matter what side you land on, a testament to the moral complexity this series was never afraid to engage with, in profoundly human terms.