44. The Collaborator

Summary

On the eve of the Choosing to determine the next Bajoran Kai, a former Bajoran collaborater named Kubas Oak returns to the station and is promptly arrested. Kira denies him permission to return to Bajor and is shocked and angry when Vedek Winn gives him amnesty to return. Meanwhile, Bareil has been having disturbing Orb visions involving a Prylar named Beck who hung himself aboard the station...visions in which Kai Opaka also appears. Winn informs Kira that Beck has given her information about the infamous Kendra Valley Massacre, in which 43 Bajoran resistance fighters (including Kai Opaka's son) were murdered because Prylar Beck gave the Cardassians the location of the base. Kubas says that Beck was merely an intermediary and was ordered to commit this act of betrayal by another man...Vedek Bareil. Kira doesn't believe it but agrees to investigate for Winn. She and Odo discover that Bareil did visit Beck on the station right after the massacre...and that Bareil erased and sealed all record of communication between Beck and the Vedek Assembly. Deeply troubled and forced to suspect that he's guilty, Kira confronts Bareil and he does not seem to deny it. Her suspicions is aroused, however, when Winn informs her that Bareil has just withdrawn from the Choosing. Winn is elected Kai, but after the installation Kira comes to Bareil with new information. She's discovered that Bareil was on retreat during the week before the massacre, he could not have been responsible. She deduces that he was covering up for Kai Opaka, who gave the Cardassians the location of the base because if she had not, they would have wiped out the entire valley killing 1200 innocent Bajorans.

Analysis

Love Bareil. I do love Bareil...but I have to say I'm glad he didn't last, and I also don't think he had any particular chemistry with Kira (and that's said honestly, laying aside my own personal prejudices about who I think Kira should be with). Nevertheless I like this episode, it was one of the rather dismal second season's better episodes. The course of Bajoran spiritual life is closely intertwined with the unfolding of political and military matters on DS9, not to mention Sisko's life, and the dance of subtext is always interesting when Winn is around. Knowing what we know now this just makes us regret even more the fact that Bareil did not become Kai, even though he might very well have been killed either way. It was also a welcome return for the otherwordly, serene presence of Camille Saviola as the much-missed Kai Opaka. I'm one of many proponents for her triumphant return from her Gamma quadrant prison planet...who else could put the contemptible Winn in her place? Go Opaka! It's interesting, and another insight into Kira's character, about how she really held it against Bareil when she thought he was a collaborator but doesn't seem to hold it against Opaka. Perhaps it's because Opaka is for all intents and purposes dead and therefore beyond justice, or perhaps it's because Opaka was so irreproachable in all other ways that Kira found it easier to forgive her. It's well known that Kira holds those she loves to a different set of rules than everyone else...interesting that this didn't seem to extend to Bareil, though she confesses to Odo (another interesting fact) that she does love Bareil. The episode is a bit mired in Orb Vision obliqueness and drags in parts, but it's a good one. I would have liked the ending a lot better if Bareil had been guilty, but had done what he did because he felt it was the right thing to do...then Kira would have had to deal with that.

Rating: 7.0

Memorable Quote:

Kira: He says he's not guilty. I know he's not guilty.
Odo: But you're afraid he's guilty.
Kira: (pause) I love him, Odo.
Odo: Ahh...I see. Well, I...
Kira: What?
Odo: I was just wondering when you were going to figure that out. You humanoids...when it comes to emotional attachments you rarely see the obvious.

Classic Scene:

Kira's confrontation with Bareil in the station's temple is excruciating for both parties and leaves the viewer believing Bareil guilty as well.

Sexually Slanted Line 'O the Episode:

"Nothing could make me happier than to please you, Emissary." --Vedek Winn...not in this lifetime, honey.

The O/K Status Report

Most fanfic writers, when they compose scenes in which Odo tells Kira when he first realized that he was in love with her, point to the scene quoted above in Memorable Quote. When she tells Odo that she loves Bareil, the look on Odo's face is certainly indicative of disappointment. He covers it up, but he can't hide from us.

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