The Greatest Generation - Taint Miners (DS9 S7E11)

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

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Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friends of Disoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Is to the finest generation Deep Space Nine. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have

a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. Sorry I'm a little late to the show. Man, that dump was it gonna take itself. But I did arrive with something that I didn't leave with, which is a giant strawberry margarita. Whoa!

Just an amount of strawberry margarita that is a guaranteed hangover. God damn it. Just looking at it I'm starting to get a twinge of a headache. No kidding. You want to get that sweet out of your booze if you possibly can I think most people recognize that's the secret to avoiding that train hitting you. Uh-huh. At least at least limit it like that's why I can't have five teaky drinks in a night. It's not that they aren't delicious, it's not that they aren't too strong. It's the sweet, the sweet really gets you in the end. It's never stopped you though. No, never, never once.

How many teaky drinks could you have? Really? I've had a lot, man. I mean, it's hard when you're at like Smuggler's Cove or something. Yeah. You round the turn after that fourth one, you start eyeing that wood paneling on the floor as a place to crash.

Yeah, that looks very inviting at that point. I don't know. I had a, when we first moved to Los Angeles, it was like pretty close to my birthday and I had a little birthday hang at the Tonga Hut. Happy birthday, no, never. That was pretty like sparsely attended, like not that many people,

and you know, I didn't know that many people in LA, but I invited everyone I knew, and like, I've got a birthday that has a holiday conflict. So it really, it really fucks my ability to like get a group together most years. Is that a thing about LA though, too, where people say yes, and then flake, isn't that? That's one of the things I heard about before moving here

was, yeah, maybe. You can't hold people to plans. That's like the only time I've actually tried inviting anyone to anything. So. I always tell people that what I'm having is a surprise birthday party for Ben and then no one shows up to what I'm actually doing

Maybe the variable is your birthday. Yeah, maybe it's me anyways, I Bring it up because I had a pretty terrific number of Teaky beverages that evening and I remember that at some point that evening. And I remember that at some point, after being at the Tonga Hut, we were at a house party. So I was like, in somebody's backyard, and I remember, I was up for whatever everyone was doing. But when I got there, they had white claws. And it was the first time I'd ever heard of white claws. And I was like, oh, no. I had my first white claws. So I had like two or three white claws after probably, I don't know, five or six teaky drinks.

I had an awesome time. I don't like that order of operations at all. I was walking around my new neighborhood and I was like, is that the house where that house party was? I think it may be. Wow, like through the fog of fucking memory comes the house. I turned a came around a corner and stumbled upon the scene of a crime. A social crime as it was.

Yeah. I have never had a white claw. Really? Yeah, I don't think they're for me. There's a topo chico variant without a call in it now. I trust topo chico to make a good beverage. I bet it's good. What I want in my booze is some minerality.

Yeah. You want like a old, tiny 19th century wellness kind of feeling to your boozey water. I want the sense of lardinum or lardinum adjacent. I bet there were lardnam cocktails back in the day. Like get a little opium in your mixed beverage. The way that there was a place in Seattle that used to make cocktails with tinctures in them. This one has a poppy seed tincture, wink, wink.

Well, the suggestion of a couple of the tinctures was that some of them would make you feel a kind of way. And I think part of their power was the suggestion of that, and that maybe it was just... You don't wanna get placebo, a lot. That's no fun. The placebo cocktail is no good. I mean, I'm not against a buffer drink by any measure,

but I wanna believe what I'm getting is what I ordered. You are well known to be pro buffer. So what possessed you to get a strawberry mark out of the kitchen that is gonna be too much for you? I think it's the classic refrigerator lament. It's that our fridge is full of all kinds of bottles and cans of things and it just feels like we've had this bottle of Costco strawberry mark in there for too long.

I wanted to kill it. And when I poured half of it in, I saw so little in the jug that I was like, well, let's go ahead and take this one to the top. So now I've got my interlated pint glass filled to the very top. There's almost a membrane of strawberry mark at the top of this thing

that a spider could crawl across and that sink. Oh wow. One thing I really admire about the way you and your wife run a house is that you guys you guys have a lot of bed rejections on hand at all times. Is that a thing? How do you not? We just don't.

You have that. No. I may have like one beer and one can of tonic in my fridge at any given point. I have felt from time to time like that is an onslaught of a question to ask a guest where like before a guest arrives I'm like this is going to be great. They've got options. But then when the guest arrives I'm like would you like this or this or this or this?

Cola, purple stuff, sunny D. And they always go for the sunny D. I've realized now that I've inadvertently put someone in a stressful situation where they need to decide. Oh, because they get analysis paralysis at your plentiful options. You just need like coffee, tea, beer, and wine. Yeah. And you're covered, right? I don't want to be the server that works in the tap room that is asked what kind of beer

they have and they have to read off every single fucking one. Hey, person who goes to a tap room whenever tap rooms open again? Don't do that. Yeah, tell them kind of like what you're aiming for and they'll tell you like two or three things that might get you into that neighborhood. Maybe go on an adventure, have something new. Yeah, walk up to the bar and say, give me a beer. See what happens. Just like you're in a movie. Yeah.

Yeah, do the movie order. The movie order. It's never steered me wrong in a tap room. Now many different types of beers makes me think of many different types of gach, which is a bit of trivia that we get at the beginning of this episode, Ben. What do you say we dive into that? Let's do it. It's Deep Space 9, Season 7, Episode 11. A show title that has been auto corrected into Portugal Daughter.

Do you realize how it... What about this series? No, of course you don't. Do you realize how many? What about this series? Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha The recipient of someone who's overdoing it and Ezri Dax has been overdone with 51 cases of Gach every variety Different their varieties of Gach. Oh, yes What a cell phone by the DAX's impient. This is interesting to me because I imagine that Gach like oysters Probably has to be shipped with a high degree of rapidity Oysters probably has to be shipped with a high degree of rapidity. There's probably a lot of regs around how you do it because it's a live. It needs to be preserved in a certain way. It needs to, you know, the temperature can't shift that much.

It can't be in an unpressurized compartment on the, on the transport or whatever. And so you wouldn't think that you would need like tons and tons of lead time for an order of gach, but that's what's happened here because Esri is receiving gach that was ordered by Jedzie. I can imagine being behind the Klingon at the 51 flavors gach franchise, where the guy just wants a noodle sample of everyone, so obnoxious.

A lot of murders happen in the line at the 51 flavors because they're klingons and they're very violent. If you get Toleroy, David behind you, he's going to tell you, he's going to give you a piece of his mind. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Also, I noticed in the parking lot your red Volvo was a little bit over the line So I had to be a little bit over the line and then the next car that comes in and so on and so forth And why can't I get these little spoons to use it home? It seems like the only place you can get a sample spoon is at a 51 flavors Taler could David. We suck.

It makes Ezri sick to even talk about this. Ezri a famously sick and stomach just at the drop of a hat. She'll get a little nauseous and she can't even talk about all the varieties. She can't even and yet she keeps. That's Ezri Dax and Anacel right there. Right. She keeps listing different kinds of gah, torgid, filled in, meshed,

and getting so sick to her stomach that she is like ready to barf in her commuter mug. Brush it out the airlock. And keeps listing. Know your limits Esri. It's a good time for Dr. B it out there, Locke. And keeps listing. Know your limits, Esri. It's a good time for Dr. Bashir to leave the conversation. His excuse is that O'Brien... I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien.

As due back by a transport ship. And I think when you've come back from traveling, the first thing you want to do is Alamo, with Dr. Bashir or whatever. Like don't even put down your fucking suit case, O'Brien. Yeah. I got you a Western hat and some chaps.

We're gonna go defend the Alamo. Yeah. So he's a little distracted, but Ezra keeps listing gachks to the point where she has to check herself out, and Bichir uses that as his excuse to leave as well. Bashir gets stood up. We hate to see it.

When those roller doors roll open and then roll shut again and our buddy O'Brien hasn't walked through them. Bad time. Bill said. And what? It's sad on a couple of fronts because Bishir knows what O'Brien's truly been up to and unfortunately it rises to the level of needing to tell Ben Sisko. Yeah. The sheer tells Sisko that O'Brien has not returned from what Sisko thought was a visit to the

parents and is in fact a secret mission to which Ben Sisko says, Dr. please. And a very bitch-please kind of way. Did you get this? No way, different. That's really funny. The mission that O'Brien has been on is a callback. He's been looking for the wife of Liam Bilby. Yeah, good. The man that he met under deep cover.

Yeah. You remember how much Bilby cared about family? Oh yeah, the most important thing for Liam Bilbi. Yeah. Besides doing crime, I mean. Yeah. It's number one crime. Number two, wife of Liam Bilbi. But, you know, when asked, he's gonna move family up to number one position, you know.

Because he's not, he would admit to doing crime. But anyways, O'Brien has sort of turned himself into the night, the darkness, and gone on a secret mission to see if he can save Bill B's wife, because he's been like corresponding with Bill B's wife, and she stopped answering her emails. Wonder how Keko feels about that. You think Keko has his email password?

Ha ha ha ha. Miles, who is this woman? Kiko feels about that. You think Kiko has his email password? Miles, who is this woman? When Cisco leaves this scene, he goes through the door into Ops, and I thought he was going to fall through a hole, because when I saw this, it made me think, one was the last time any scene took place on Ops. It feels like they already took the set down. Yeah, yeah, like that part of the show is over. Yeah, yeah, like can you imagine a show set on a starship where we don't go to the bridge for many episodes in a row? If you told me it had been 10 episodes since we've been at Ops,

I would believe you. It feels like forever ago. So they need help because the system that O'Brien went to is not a federation system. It's kind of outside the law, outside of the purview of Starfleet. They can't give him the jurus, my diction crap. So, but they have an advantage because Ezri Dax has family in the support system in honor of which I'm drinking a support o beer. Wow.

So, support o system is just a great big tall system. Yeah. And doesn't give you a hangover. It's like a 32-ounce system. It's where New Sydney is. Yeah, and they ask you if you want the little one or the big one and the little one's still pretty big. Isn't that the truth? That's a nice beer. Ezre's mom lives there. But it's awkward because while on the one hand, Ezre is happy to do Cisco this favor by asking mom if she can provide any information about

by asking mom if she can provide any information about O'Brien's disappearance. She's estranged from her mom in a way that might make that awkward. And we see that awkwardness play out in the FaceTime that Ezri has with her mom later on. It's a classic mom blackmail where she's happy to do the favor just as long as Ezri comes to visit. Mother, no.

And so that's the pressure that Ezri's on right away. Moms are really good at blackmail. It's kind of amazing. Yeah. Please, don't put me in this. Ezri, goodbye. So after that nine minute cold open, Bashir is walking Ezri to the runabout.

I thought for a moment Bashir would go with. Why isn't he going with? He's turned over a new leaf, W-slash,r-slash-t, getting up in people's business. I think I can answer this question. It's because Bishir can so easily sympathize with Ezri's weird relationship with her parents that he does not want to witness that car crash. Oh yeah. He's like, cool. Well good luck or luck or whatever. Here's a hyposprae for your space, nausea. I don't, I don't have any interest in vicariously experiencing something that I can experience myself for free. I don't know. I feel like Bishir might have preferred to go on this trip if he were an architectural enthusiast

because Ezri's parents live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house built on a cliff overlooking hell. It is all more door out there. Yeah, this is a very industrial-looking planet. I feel like the production was so psyched about what their matte painting looked like. They cut back to the exterior of this house so many times in this episode. I think if you're building the family homestead on this planet, you gotta know it's a pretty bad look

to stick it up in the hill overlooking everything and make it this nice. Yeah. I think you're asking for some vandalism. All of the like industrial serfs that are toiling in your minds below, just looking up at your fucking fancy ass house resenting you we get a moment to meet Ezri's family one by one Yeah, she's sort of fallen out of touch with them because of her joining and there is a little bit of

Retreading the it's been so weird since I got the Dex symbion bit of retreading the, it's been so weird since I got the Dex symbion stuff in this episode that I feel like by episode 11 with this character we should have been well rid of. Norvo looks like he could be related to Chris Brenner. No. I'm Chris Brenner. Brenner information systems. You know, interface operations, net access, channel 90. That Chris Brenner.

He really gave me those Brenner vibes. That's not far off the mark. Yeah, it's me, Norfolk, you know. Painting, sculpture, doing the books. Her other brother is Janelle, who is the blue collar brother and you can tell that because he's covered in ash and he's holding a hard hat. You definitely get one of each in this family. Yeah, Norville keeps it pretty clean. He's got some paintings up around the house. Esri is like complimenting him on the paintings and he really just cannot accept

the compliment. He really drags himself. Every time his work is brought up. Esri's mom is, I mean, I don't think there's another way to put it, kind of a tiger mom, you know? Is tiger mom problematic? I wanna be clear, I'm using it in the non-problematic way in a way that tiger parents refer to themselves.

You can tell she really rules that household in a way that makes people uncomfortable. I hate your hair. She's very intense, she's very involved in the choices that her children make, which is interesting, right? Like the story storyline about Norvo is that he is so deep under her thumb that he, you know, he has deferred his dream of becoming an artist in a way and she is interpreted that as he is like,

he's not an independent enough man to be released into the world. Right, a sort of failure to launch situation. Right. But we get the sense that, like, perhaps part of that is that she has forbidden him from launching. As if the mother has some clamps on the rocket, thus preventing a launch from occurring. Right. Yeah, she hasn't released the docking ring. Go to come to a country. Go to come to a country. released the docking ring. When Mom and Ezri leave, the brothers start discussing a bit of sabotage that's occurred in the mind below.

Workers flung their wooden shoes called Sabo. And the suspicion is that this is an instance of Orion syndication. Everyone knows that after the fourth season, you're eligible for Orion syndication. Everyone knows that after the fourth season you're eligible for Orion syndication. Yeah, and that's when that's when the money really starts flowing in. Yeah. The Orion syndicate doesn't take no for an answer. It's kind of a bad situation there. We know that Asri's mom used to be the proprietor of the fifth largest perineum mine. I forget what kind of mine it is. They mine the space between the anus and the scrotum.

Yeah, but now she's the sixth. She's been knocked out of the top five. So they're taint miners? Yeah, they're taint miners. Taint, dielithium, taint, duranium. Yeah, I mean that's why that one brother was so dirty. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it.

It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not a lot of it. It's not new Sydney, that's the problem. It's Sapporo. Oh. New Sydney's where Bill be lived, but remember,

his family did not live there. I thought new Sydney was in the Sapporo system. I've not connected all these dots. It gets very confusing. And honestly, at the end of the day, who gives a shit? Relax. But we got a scene where the Tegan family

kind of reconnected with her dinner. Of course, Ezra's last name has changed to Dax, but this is the Tegan family household. And she's talking about what a crazy adjustment it's been, how much harder it has been for her than most joined trills. How confusing everything is to her constantly. Yeah, how she has to like look under her bedsheets to decide what gender she is in the morning. I also have an unfortunate tendency to ramble.

Why are the trills in her family so unforgiving of her experience? I don't understand how they don't get this. I wonder if you're a trill and you don't live on the trill homeworld if you just kind of like revert to being a standard humanoid. Like you don't think about the possibility of joining because you're so far from it. When you're a trill, you're a trill all the way from your first cigarette to your last dying day. from your first cigarette to your last dying day. Never alone, you're never disconnected. I thought it was weird that she had to explain this shit to them.

I feel like she's explaining it to them like they're strangers to the concept, but they're just like rolling their eyes at her and... They know, but they just don't care. Yeah, like her mom is like, like, give me a fucking break. You should be here helping me run this company not off on some kind of star trek. There's that familial hypocrisy going on here too, where all the shit is being poured onto Ezri's head over, like why don't you take an interest in the family matters?

Like why haven't you been around or whatever? Where they're the ones that have taken just as little of an interest in Ezri's life or her circumstances too. Right, they never come and visit the station. Yeah. Somehow the only way for them to spend any time together is for her to like put her life on pause and stay there for a long time.

Later that night, Ezri visits the brother that looks like James Spader, and you get to see like more of his artwork. And you get the sense that he's a little too much of a polymath for their mother to take. Yeah. He likes a lot of things. He doesn't want to specialize,

but he doesn't, she get that. I wonder why artists like personal spaces are always depicted as being so messy in television shows. Yeah, that is kind of a shorthand, isn't it? What's that about? The studio is always kind of a cluttered mess. I mean, I know artists that have cluttered studios, but I also know artists that have really neat studios. There was something missing from this episode between Ezri and her brothers,

and I think the brothers would tease Ezri more than they do. And no one teases anyone this episode. Did you notice that? That's interesting, yeah. It's all very sincere question and answering, but James Bader isn't like, can I feel the bump? If only I'd really set that. Neri a chop is busted. We gotta have some chop busting here,

and that is never the vibe. I wonder if that's a recency by us from having watched a bunch of lower decks though. Like, that is like nothing but chap busting on that show. And maybe you just miss it in your trek at this moment. Well, Chris Brenner, Jr. is hitting the sorry and brandy pretty hard. Yeah. I think you can tell that he's not doing it to chill.

He's doing it to cope. This is not distribution. This is some. He hates the family business. And like, when their mom walks in in the first moment, like she like delegates a bunch of like business e-shit to the two brothers to like establish that she is, you know, a CEO that has a drive

and a focus on the biz. Like very much unlike Bill B for her, the business is the most important thing. Right. You know, like the Norvo's like, life on hold guy, but also like, I gotta do like a bunch of fucking spreadsheets guy. And we're both artists. We're both basically allergic to spreadsheets. We suck at them.

Hate them. Hate everyone. We're on the other end of whatever like, personality spectrum that is. It's basically allergic to spreadsheets. We suck at them. Hey, them. Hey to everyone. We're on the other end of whatever personality spectrum that is. I'm not very good, Z. The next morning, mom is super upset at Norvos hangover. And Ezri takes the blame. Ezri, like a good sister, is like, it was my fault.

We were up partying because of me. Don't worry about it. Blame the party's victim much. On the one hand, she jumps on the hangover grenade and then on the other hand, it's like, you know he has a drinking problem because of you, right? And all the friends who you put on him. Yeah.

You're smothering him. He didn't just drink his ass off last night. He destroyed all of his work. She's a mental health professional. She should like check him in somewhere. Like he is clearly in a very bad way if he like destroyed every piece of art he made. I have a hard time forgiving the episode

for one specific decision, which is like we momentarily see what he's drawn on top of the painting, which is like we we momentarily see what he's drawn on top of a painting, which is like a stick figure jacking off or something like it's hilarious. But we come back to this location over and over again, and the painting is resting on a wall behind the desk. And the stick figure is cropped out in subsequent scenes. And I so wanted to keep returning to that B over and over again of like, that stick figure in the corner, because it really represents what's going on in the family.

So well. You think it's funny? Yeah, this is one of those arguments where, as we as like, listen, what you've done is, you know, painted him into a corner. He feels trapped. He hates this and her mom flips that shit right back in her face. Like, you've been gone for so long. Don't you dare come in here and presume to tell me how our family is going when you're not even involved with it. You don't know the first thing about being a mother, which, you know, Ezri has a great comeback for.

Actually, I have three, no, four lifetimes worth of memories about raising children. It's that guilt tripping, jujitsu of Ezri being asked to be a greater participant in her family in the moment she does. Yeah. The person asking her to is like, to be a greater participant in her family in the moment she does. Yeah. The person asking her to is like,

whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, you know, that's you actually make observations and then share those with me. That's a little much. That's more than I bargained for here. Before the argument can reach any kind of conclusion, O'Brien has led into the room by handcuffs. This is fucking spectacular.

He looks like he's had a rougher night than Norvo. Looks like he's been punched in the face many times. The secret mission does not go well, Enterprise. Yeah, we learn right away Billby's wife is dead. Yeah. And this police officer, that he does not get along with O'Brien whatsoever. And he sticks around kind of a long time.

Why? Exactly. I couldn't really figure this out. Like, it seemed like Ezri's mom kind of has, she's a prominent enough citizen that she kind of has like special use of the local authorities kind of a thing. But I agree, like this character seemed like he should have just been a lineless extra that brought O'Brien in, not in handcuffs. You know, like we found this guy, like this is the guy you asked us to look for, but instead

he's like, you know, like, you know, you're lucky we stopped you from poking around because like the Iranians could have killed you, but they definitely didn't kill that woman, because they don't kill people. That's not how they do things. And it's like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? Like the logic, like never connects. I think it may connect only after watching the entire episode when I think you may reach the understanding that everyone has reached Orion's indication

who works on the planet. Yeah, that's why they all have those like really fancy cars that everyone has reached a Ryan syndication who works on the planet. Yeah, that's why they all have those like really fancy cars and like house in the hills. They get involved in politics after having made all that money. Yeah, like I feel like in retrospect, maybe he's got that syndication power. Yeah, I don't know. Our SVP Billbees wife though

Who was beat over the head and then thrown into a river Fucked up we pull a dozen bodies a month out of that river They don't agree with the cause of death specifically, but O'Brien tells Esri about body decomposition over lunch and That's when you want to do it his face looks a lot better. It looks like he may have waved a light over it and he's not as swollen anymore. Yeah and as we're just like, oh, we gotta get, like, you gotta get some R&R, like, relax, feel better and he's, he's, he's feeling great to the extent that when, when Janelle walks in and asks like hey can you come fix the third piece of sabotaged equipment we've mentioned in this episode O'Brien is like

yes awesome wanted a job I don't want to go home feeling like this was a total failure put some to work that's a free lunch there O'Brien why don't you earn it yeah And the morning comes to a Ford, and the rain comes to a Ford. What are you doing, what are you doing? What are you doing now? Come to a Ford, and the rain comes to a Ford. And the car, and the car, and the car, and the car, and the car, and the car. Exactly. Meanwhile, Ezra goes and checks in on Norvo, who is clearly both hung over and depressed.

Good morning. Good morning. Good afternoon. What shape is Norvos bed? Mmm. It looks triangular to me. It does look a little bit triangular. It could be heart-shaped. That wouldn't be insane on deep space nine

where the pillows are triangular, so maybe you pick up the, you know, like a pillow is roughly the same shape as a bed. Yeah. Just turned 90 degrees. He gets woken up and then gets therapy done at him right away. Yeah, he has better defenses for this than almost anybody though. Please go away, let me sleep for the love of God!

Like this may be the one moment of chop busting, right? When he's like, don't therapy me. I'm your brother. She pivots into an appeal of him to come with her back to the station. And he says he's too busy with work to do that. He needs the vacation that she's suggesting. And he's kind of of the opinion that maybe like,

maybe things would get even more crazy if he left. Like, and she's making the case like higher a fucking accountant, you suck at this. You're not a spreadsheet guy. I think she kind of persuades him by the end of this scene. I don't know, Z. I'll think about it. Back with O'Brien, he has quickly identified the problem with the equipment.

Yeah. Nice to see some actual work getting done in the Star Trek caves. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I love a classic hardhat, you know? Yeah. Like once you reach Apex Hardhat, there's no reason to make a new one. You already have the best.

That's as good as a hard hat can get. There's no one's gonna reinvent the hard hat here. One time I was doing a shoot for CNET and we were filming something about a lunar rover that was being developed in Pittsburgh and to simulate the lunar surface, they took this rover to this quarry outside Pittsburgh, and we're running it on the regolith dust at this quarry, and then they gave me a hard hat.

And it was a hard hat in the shape of a cowboy hat. Like, is a prank? It kind of felt like that. I was like, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? I'm not a cowboy hat guy The thing I love about a Pittsburgh Rover is that it comes with Ryzen set I love a heart hat shoot been because guess what you don't have to give the heart hat back Yeah, every heart hat shoot I've ever had

Sends me home with the heart hat. That's a free heart hat. Just why I have a collection of heart hats. I was flying back like that night so I didn't have room in my luggage for my heart hat but I really wanted to keep it because it was just like how ridiculous would it be to have a heart hat and the heart hat I have is a cowboy hat. It's definitely an L. Enter Thaddeal Bokar, a name straight out of Dungeons & Dragons, whose melee weapon is

commodities brokerage? Yeah, yeah. Because O'Brien says, I wish this part that was broken was a 52J, but it's a 52L and Bokar enters by going going wish did somebody say wish Wish is granted long live John me this guy played John be on bwees playhouse Adam Shut the fuck up. Yeah wow Yeah, his name is John Paragon Amazing I clocked him I clocked him immediately. I was so excited. And then he has like one scene.

That he'll book. I'm commodities broker. I felt so ripped off. Great face. Very threatening manner. Like he's the sort of threatening where like a person who knows a lot about you and you don't know how has. Yeah. That's the sort of threatening he is. Totally. He's creepily trying to get into business with these people, I would say. He wants that syndication money. Yeah, he explains to O'Brien like I'm trying to get into business with this mine. And yet the way he discusses things with them is as though it's going to be their ass if they don't get into business with them. There is no industrial setting past, present, or future that does not require an escort in a situation like this. That yellow bow car just walking around unescorted.

Yeah. Do you think that might be part of the problem with the... with your shit breaking all the time and possibly being sabotaged? Just strangers and business suits keep walking in. Yeah, it's clear that the syndicate is putting pressure on Chanel and the family business. So Brian starts to talk to, as you read about this, like, it's like, hey, like I got this, I got this feeling that there's some,

some dirty tricks being played here. Just being around your family makes me feel like the, a Ryan syndicate is putting pressure on them, having observed that from the other side back when I was in deep cover. I am really worried about them and specifically worried about your brothers because it seems like they're kind of like

maybe some leverage here that they're right and syndicate has that they're being plied with. That's the way the syndicate extorts money from legitimate companies. As we just like really resist into this idea, right? Like the idea that her mom would be anywhere near a criminal enterprise is basically impossible for her to accept. At this point, who was your suspect of the family members, the artist's brother, the dirty brother, or the mom? Amid immediately went to Norvo, because Norvo is the exo-comp of this episode.

They never stopped saying the word Norvo. Yeah. They've given him by far the most character development. And he also seems from the outside to be the cleanest. Like, I know that they were trying to misdirect us away from Norvo, but I've seen enough Star Trek to know the math of a moment like this. You're smarter than I am.

I was most suspicious of the mom. And it's this thing that did it. Like, the idea that Norvo has every reason to leave and it feels like mom applies the pressure to keep him to stay felt like a felt like an evil mom moment. Yeah. Who maybe wants to cover her tracks. I mean she does like have a sort of evil mom vibe. So I can see where you're coming from. Oh Brian looks through the books of Asri's family company. Yeah, they've got grill marks on them. Immediately finds what's going on here.

He finds, he finds Bilby's wife on the payroll, getting like progressively higher salaries every couple of weeks. It'd be like if we hired Rob and then like started paying him more and more and more. When in reality, what we've done is pay him less and less and giving him more and more and more. When in reality, what we've done is pay him less and less and giving him more and more responsibilities.

That's capitalism, baby. Yeah. That's why we got into podcasting to exploit guys like Rob's. Oh, Brian's ability at forensic accounting is positively forrangi-like. This guy gets to the bottom of things real fast. Yeah. I feel like I'm trapped in gets bored of my things real fast. Yeah.

I feel like I'm trapped in some kind of Ferengy nightmare. Maybe hanging around with Rom on the engineering team has, some of that is rubbed off on him or something. The big reveal is that Morica Bilbi has been on the payroll. She was on the payroll when she died. Right. And because no one told them when they ask about Morica Bilby, Ezri and O'Brien can assume that someone is not only lying,

but that person is also involved in Morica's death. He wants to do something about this and Ezri asks him to slow his role until she can figure it out specifically what happened. And I thought that this was going to be like, there'll be a couple more scenes where this tension is hanging over every moment. But instead it like smash cuts to her having like family meeting with her mom and her two brothers

and interrogating them about what this was. Why was this woman on your payroll? It's really interesting how the episode and this storyline hands the baton to Ezri from O'Brien. Look, the suggestion up top is that this is going to be an O'Brien story. He's the one that's locked into the billy experience. And it's just really not

It's it's an Esri story and I really like the way they did that I like that O'Brien is there to like you know give a new clue to move the story along But it's really Esri's adventure to go on that confrontation does not go well Enterprise because Janelle explains how we went into Hawk with the Orion Syndicate. They came to me. Yeah, the price of Perineum went down when the Frangies started their own mind. The Taint does not maintain its value.

It's very volatile. It's an abundant commodity at this point. That happened right when they had, you know, so bills coming due and the syndicate kind of took advantage, came in and gave them the bridge loan, but now they owed the mob a favor. And you don't want to owe the mob a favor. Classic Blunder. There's some indignity about this being revealed because it's presented very much like a, what other choice did I have? You don't want the business to die, right? They offered us a way out and I took it. The last gasp of every failed capitalist covering their immoral act.

Right. He was standing there realizing that they didn't have enough money to service their debts. And he said, I just wish we had a little bit more Latinum on hand. And Bocarcabin and said, Wish did somebody say wish? Yeah, make a like a high, make a high Nihau, and then... Make a like a high, make a Latinow. Born, born, born, born, born, born. and then make a like a high mechalette no. The thing is mom kind of suspects Janelle.

But this is also a moment where it feels like the mom is covering for herself. And that's another time where I felt like the mom was the heavy here. This is something that I think you and I can relate to. We are now the business owners of the dumb podcast that we make. We've had a couple of times where we found out somebody that we'd gotten, we hired an accountant that was bad and we discovered that like late in the game and there is some friction in admitting you like made a bad decision when you made an arrangement like that with somebody. And I think that that's

kind of what she's going through. Like she kind of didn't have her eye on the ball. So she is, she is kind of playing the blame game here. And it's like ripping into genet off camera and they fade all the audio of that argument down and have Ezri just turn and look at Norvo and realize that it was Norvo. I thought that was a neat sequence because the moment you're thinking, me thinks, thou suspect too much, you get Ezri's recognition of the truth. And boy, that escalates quickly. I handled a problem that you couldn't. I handled it. He kind of does the like law and order style confession of the crime. He went over to plead with Mrs. Bilby saying like, hey, you keep like saying that the salary

we're paying you is not enough. It's it's like eating our business alive and and then he realized like if she was just dead, it would solve all their problems. Which is a very short-sighted way of thinking when you're talking about the mafia, like killing somebody that the mafia wants you to give a bunch of money to, is not likely to get the mafia off your back. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works. That doesn't get you out of syndication. Yeah, you did not really solve a problem, Norva. You just, you made one problem into a different, bigger problem.

Ezri encourages Janelle to leave after the trial. Like, there's a lot of planning around the trial. And it made me wonder how long the trial would take in a circumstance where the Where the suspect has admitted guilt. Yeah, but I guess it doesn't take very long to send it to 30 years Yeah a long time. Yeah, so back on DS9 O'Brien sits with Esri in the Reppelamat Where O'Brien says with Ezri in the Reppelimat where O'Brien says he got off easy,

mostly because he's not in a 200 year mind prison. So I guess anything is easy compared to that. No, I've only got 30 years, that's cake. I can do time like that with my eyes closed. And I did. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Miles, just refer to it once. It's basically the most significant moment in Miles' oprion's life. And he never talks about it. You're going to love his wild ass hair when he comes out of that jail. Yeah. Esri is incredulous about what happened to her family and her absence.

She kind of believes that it was nurture versus nature. Like mom, mom turned them into the monster. And she feels responsible because she wasn't around to stop it. And when she walks out of frame and that's like the gavle on the episode, I was like, is that what the episode's trying to say? Like, is this episode trying to say go home more? Because if shit's fucked up, at home it's your fault. If so, I don't like that message at all.

Wow. But did you like the episode, Ben? You really want to do this here. Now, okay, okay, let's do it, to her authentically, but I didn't agree with her assessment of that. But I think that that's like a sign of a good episode that you can like see a character come to a conclusion that you disagree with and not feel like the episode was telling you the wrong thing. So I liked it. I liked developing Asri's family a little bit more. I think that's an interesting way to take

Dax as a character because it's not really something we got to do with Jidzea. Yeah. And yeah, I thought it was a strong ep. Another pretty far away from Deep Space Nine and the War kind of feeling episode in a row. But I enjoyed watching it. How about you? I like ending the episode on a main character who may have come to the wrong conclusion. Families are so often a kind of quicksand and that it was interesting to see how

Star Trek treats that idea. So I think that's a difficult thing to do and I thought the episode I think that's a difficult thing to do and I thought the episode Abely presented Many of those pitfalls, but I mean, I don't know are we ever gonna hear from these people again? It feels like we we have known up till now very little or next to nothing about Esri And I'm going to assume that this is it like this is all we're ever going to know about her We just have no time. Yeah, we're running out of time. We only have like 15 episodes left in the season.

And we got no time for that. We have a word to fight. We have no time to talk about this episode any longer because we have priority one messages to read. That's true. Let's go check them out. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it.

A supplement? A supplement. A supplement. Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Our first priority 1 message is from Court. It is for Brian. The requested day was Father's Day of 2020.

Just gonna get that out of the way. Okay. Happy, probably belated Father's Day dad now that I'm starting my own family. I'm practicing my dad jokes on she who is my wife. And in parentheses, she hasn't laughed yet Well, court. I think that's how you know you got a good dad joke in there. That's a successful dad joke Don't expect any laughter at a dad joke Looking for eye rolls specifically message continues. I love you tons You'll always be the Ben Cisco to my for some reason Jake

Court gets it. Cork gets it big time. I like for some reason Jake doesn't have any spaces. It's just intercapitalized. Yeah, I like that a lot. Happy Father's Day Brian, sorry, our schedule is so packed. This is just a very, very popular way to send Father's Day messages. The greatest generation.

Injuries. Adam, we have another priority one message here. This one's from Daniel in Chicago, and it's too been in Adam. Hey, and it goes like this. What if I told you I could take away your pain? Of course, it would be, it will be replaced with a diff kind of pain entirely, but hear me. You don't have to watch Voyager.

Instead, I give you Earth, colon, final conflict, a rotten-brey brainchild, fertilized with inconsistent plots, scene-tuing and drudging asalians, and different cast in season five than season one. Pulse the rug right out from under you every time. I just googled Earth Final Conflict, and the first thing that popped up was, Earth Final Conflict, what went wrong?

Ha ha ha ha ha. Daniel in Chicago wrote this P1 in a very like internet Argett, where the word you is replaced by like the letter you and the word yours replaced by you are and and and Raddenberry is Rinnberry? Yeah yeah so you know if you're trying to if you're trying to

write persuasive business correspondence Daniel and Chicago I think you want to use a slightly more professional tone in your writing. Whoa! Clap and back. Okay. I love Voyager! I'm excited about Voyager. That makes one of us. If you if you have a professionally written persuasive bit of messaging to send to me and Ben, or if you've got a father, you'd like to send a very late message to. You can go to Maximumfund.org slash Jembo Tron where both father's day messages and appeals to a left turn out of Star Trek Voyager. Her a great way to support the ongoing production of our show.

Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Did I ever? I don't know, did you? It's Norvo, obviously. Yeah, you got very drunk in this episode. Yeah, I mean, you see how that guy powers through the brandy.

Guys got a real taste for the stuff. Yeah. I like his brandy glasses. Those are fun, they're blue. He's got a whole setup. He's got a works for the brandy. And I'm here for it. So Norvo is my Shimoda.

What about you? My Shimoda is Mar-ashimoto. What about you? Mashimoto is Marthok. What? For nobody comes to his birthday in this episode. Oh yeah. I feel like this is a pitch for a brand and bird cartoon. No one wants to come to Martok's birthday. I feel like Ezri really could have played this beautifully by saying, okay, like I am going to like put my cylindrical star fleet away bag over my shoulder, walk down the hall to Martox apartment, say,

hey listen, card go bay two, 51 cases of gach, I got it for you, I would love nothing more than to enjoy it with you. But unfortunately, something's come up with work. I've got to leave the system for more time than God's lasts. So I will be in the Sepuro system. You enjoy that God. Happy birthday. I'm so sad that we're not going to get the jackass style cock eating contest between Ezra and my talk where like everyone in quarks is like Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck and they're just going to town on those worms.

Yeah, give me them worms. Give me a gross episode. That's what I want. Give me a wet hair kind of city of lost children. God, you ever have got come out of your nose? Oh. Yeah, you laugh so hard that the goch comes out your nose.

Yeah, that's gnarly. It's like pulling a hair out of your nose. That's super long that you've just inhaled. Yeah. That's some rough trade. Yeah. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay,

to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information

for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald.

Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry.

Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Well, rats, hey, hey, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We gotta get on the art.

It is about terrain, about a story of humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's going to end, so seem like something for us to

check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Oner Ross and Carrie, available Shimo does all around. Do you want to talk about what our next episode is going to look like? Gotta do that. It's part of the job. It's gonna be season 7 episode 12. The Emperor's new cloak, Cork and Rom risk their lives by crossing into an evil alternate universe to rescue the captive leader of Quark's homeworld. Wow. Sounds like Negus in the Mirror universe is the note card pinned to the corkboard there.

I can't believe we're going back. I thought there are last visit to the Mirror universe was going to be it. Yeah. Got to say goodbye. Yeah. To the the mirror universe send it off in style with a wall is shron Oh, we got to give wall is shona good send off uh We've also got to go over to our game of boat holes Will the profits to see how we're going to be experiencing that episode Ben were currently on square 32. Couple squares ahead.

We've got a measure of a man episode. How do you feel about vehemently arguing the pro or the con of this one? It could happen. I would measure my manhood. I can't stand anyone. If I were to roll a four, it would give us a canar with demar episode, so.

Shit dog. See what I do. You're required to learn as you play, roll. roll a 4 it would give us a canar with tomorrow episode so... shit dog see what I do you're required to learn as you play... roll we have somebody working on a homemade canar for us I believe and we've proven that we'll drink pruno on the show basically

yeah if you send us alcohol you made yourself, we will try it. Hahaha. All right, I got the die in my hand, given it a roll, and I've rolled a five. Shula! Did I win? I've hopped us over both.

Of those landmines, we're on square 37, it's a regular old episode. We're on square 37. It's a regular old episode. We're making up a ton of ground. Yeah, wow. With 15 episodes left, I like our chances of making it to the Mornhammer Dip. I think we could do it. It could happen. We're on our way there. Good happen. Wow. Well, that will just about do it for this episode of the greatest generation. If you like the show, if you want it to continue to exist, support it. Maximumfund.org slash join is where you do that. We got to thank a couple of people.

Of course, our card daddy Bill Tilly, who we put on the payroll, is now running the at greatest track accounts on Instagram and Twitter. Two different, very different follows. I really like that the Instagram account is really an Instagram account, and the Twitter account is really a Twitter account. He's doing a great job over there. Yeah, it really is. We couldn't have afforded to pay him

without the support of our friends at the Soto. You can make sure Bill gets paid by going to Maximumfund.org slash join. That's true. That's how you do that. The music you're hearing right now, as well as the music you've heard throughout the episode, you know that's Adam Regusia putting his spin on the dark material inspiration that has been with us from the beginning of the greatest generation.

And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and an episode of the greatest generation, Deep Space 9, which gets those leather pants out of the closet. Powder them up and roll them on. You should see the sex, yeah, shit, the negas slinks around in in the mirror universe. Oh man, I bet. Really pouring himself in those chaps. Sounds like a truck. Years like what? Can you see my beautiful snuff? May her do my snuff snuff sn, snuff, snuff Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture

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