The Greatest Generation - The Prophet Goodbye (DS9 S7E25 & 26)

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice.Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord| WikiSign up for our mailing list! 

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 friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Is to the finest crew, Deep Space 9. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys, just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast I'm Adam Pryanaka.

I'm Ben Harrison. We're here. We stand at thwart the end. This is a pretty special occasion for us because this is a once every couple of years thing we get to do, which is send off a Star Trek program with a final episode from the greatest generation about it. Yeah, we could look back on a series consumed,

look forward to another series that we will consume. This Star Trek buffet is all you can eat. Yeah. And I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon. Yeah. And it's the 350 first episode of the greatest generation. Yeah. Who the thought?

We've almost made a greatest generation for every day of the greatest generation. Yeah, we've thought. We've almost made a greatest generation for every day of the year. What a terrible challenge someone will take that as. Yeah, that'll kill you dead. I really am feeling good about the occasion, you know? I think I approached the show far more reluctant than I was to do the next generation of the series. Yeah.

This one being so much more unknown to me. And I wasn't really sure what it was going to be or if I was going to enjoy it as much. But as a series, I think I really have grown to appreciate it quite a bit. I mean, there are a lot of people that say DS9 is peak track. A lot of people that say it's their favorite of the track series. I'm going to stop sort of saying that. Yeah. But I do like it a lot.

Well, you know, TNG is my heart, but I have to say that the past couple of years of reviewing DS9 with you have been a delight. And I'm a little bit sad to see it go. There's some pretty compelling reasons to feel that way. And I think as we go through the final episode, we'll do our best to call those out. But I think for now, Ben, I'm looking at a bottle of sparkling wine, bucket of ice. This is the good stuff. I'm looking at a coffee.

I'm looking at a packet of broad. Oh wow. I think I've got everything set up. You've got the kit. And ready to go. Yeah, I've got my greatest gen kit ready. What about you? I don't have any coffee. I don't, I think my broad is in the house. Oh, no, man.

I'm a course out here in my bunker. It's a quarter mile back to the house. If you want to get that broad, we got like 35 mile gusts of wind going this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode.

I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. I have a lot of fun with this episode. So the nothing consumes all and we wind up on chunks of floating space rocks that somehow still have atmosphere. Yeah, with princesses that aren't our wives. Yeah. It's going to be a tough day answer for.

I think my wife knows that princesses get my hall pass. Wow. Lucky you. I don't think I have one of those. Nobody really does Adam. It's fictional. Right. As our princesses, nobody is actually divinely ordained to be the sovereign of a country. Oh boy, Ben, you done did it. You gave us our pivot into show. Speaking of that kind of ordained, we have a show not quite primarily concerned with that of the Cisco, but but a big big part of the story ahead has to do with him. What do you say we get into it? Yeah. Should we pop champagne corks to theme.

I think that's a great idea. Ben, it's Deep Space 9, Season 7, episodes 25 and 26. They are called What You Leave Behind. I am pouring a bottle of Las Geras 2018 sparkling wine. This is an unfiltered sparkling wine. Oh, wow. It's like a pet net. We're all great sparkling wines, belong. Vessel worthy of it. A lot of people don't remember that Taco Bell did have a

meth-toed traditional sparkling wine on the menu when they did those glasses. Cheers to you. Cheers to you, my friend. And cheers to all of the friends of DeSoto out there who have made it this far with us. Yeah, thank you. Do you realize how incredible this is? No, of course you don't. So the way you want to start your series finale is with a topless basher. Oh yeah, let's see that hunk. Very nice.

Clear up a lot of unanswered questions. There's a very fun camera move here Ben. Were you following along with what looked to be a camera handoff over the top of the bed? Oh no, I didn't notice that they handed it off. That's great. It seems like we start in profile on the bishier side of the bed, which I want to call a driver side of the bed.

Asri's on passenger side and the camera starts on driver side, shooting in profile profile this two shot and then it kind of goes up and tilts down and then Goes in profile on the passenger side and I'm wondering how they did this shot if they didn't hand it off Yeah, maybe they just had the the steady cam guy walking around on the bed Between them I wonder if that's a half bed too like because you never see past I walk around on the bed. In between them. I wonder if that's a half bed, too. Like, because you never see past,

you never see lower than the nips. So, you never see how low the spots go. You just hear them comments on it. I think Ezri is pretty surprised at how interested Bishir was in water sports. The very first time they hook up. I suppose you want to tell miles. surprised at how interested Bichier was in water sports. The very first time they hook up. I suppose you want to tell miles.

Why would I want to do that? They're like, well, I'm glad we went back to your place. The uncomfortable part of this scene is with every movement they make in the bed, you can hear the vinyl mattress cover move beneath them. Yeah. I had to special order this mattress. I ordered the cover but they didn't have covers for triangular pillows. How sure were you that a main character would die this episode? Because this kicks off a series of vignettes that sort of go in the promise you won't die category of conversations with people that we care a lot about.

I think that there were versions of the script where that did happen. I think that the first version of the script was like Cisco dying in battle on their way to Cardassia. And I feel like that, maybe this could be like a vestige of that version of the script, like getting us ready for the idea of the mortality of these characters. I mean, except that the payoff doesn't give us that. I mean, it's a half death. It's not true death. Well, you know, in most faith traditions, death is a butter beginning.

Just as the marriage of Miles O'Brien contains multitudes. These pancakes couldn't kill me because I was already dead. Yeah, who was that lady in O'Brien's apartment? Did you recognize her? I had to look her up. Okay. And I was pleasantly surprised by Keko O'Brien in this scene. Oh, right.

She was a minor character on TNG. That does ring a bell. Yeah. She's great. There was just the one scene with her. Yeah. They literally brought her back for like two lines. It's true.

And I'm all for it. A two line come back. Yeah. Give me that all day. I'll come back for that Yeah And it in an interesting way in a way that had me expecting and looking In the corners of scenes for more moments like this, you know to the episode's credit I think they did do a great job. I think over the course of the previous episode on this one

I think over the course of the previous episode on this one, like tying things up to one extent or another with just about every single character that ever had a recurring role. But yeah, I kind of wished Kiko got a little bit more. I'm looking over at Lida in the corner of this description, kind of like shaking her head. I mean, she's going to be the first lady of Ferenganar, so. I guess, yeah. She's gonna fucking hate that planet, given how tall she is.

Every single door. She has to go to like a waist. She's gonna have to, or a foam helmet. She goes. Another minor character that did have a recurring role is for some reason Jake, who shows up in this episode, doesn't have as much to do as Nog. Sounds necessary to me.

Cassidy Yates is feeling some pregnancy discomfort. And it made her feel especially pregnant in all the worst ways. A discomfort she is not willing to address with any of the many drugs that are for sure an option to her. I wondered about that. Like, isn't this something that could be just a six bay trip away from not being a problem in the 24th century? Yeah. You would like to hope. You sort of unintentionally forced to compare all of these goodbyes happening I really like how Ben Cisco has to promise to come back after the war and

Ezra and Bashir promise something kind of like that and that's never on the table with Kiko and Miles who were like Full on into their return to earth conversation and and not really talking about the risks involved in this last mission. I mean miles knows how much trouble He'd been if he didn't he'd be in if he didn't come back from the war, right? Like, that would be his ass. Miles can't say it, but I think a part of him is looking forward to the sweet embrace of death that could be possible on a mission like this. Try to get some sleep.

Is there any way I could sit closer to something that will explode on the bridge? You know who's got a bucket that would be super useful to Cassidy Eights at a time like this? A bucket that is conspicuously missing from next to the couch where it should be is Odo who is doing the walk with Wharf on the promenade on their way to the Defiant. Everyone is sort of having their final moments before disembarking. They are heading toward Cardassia. This is the big armada of ships that will take the fight to the

dominion and Odo is coming with. He's not staying behind. They're basically leaving an empty station so that they can go fight this war. I kind of wish we saw that a little more. You're basically leaving an empty station so that they can go fight this war. I kind of wish we saw that a little more. You're so right about that. Like Quarx says it later, like there's a half a dozen people at his bar in an entire day, but the contrast between this massive convoy outside disembarking is awesome. But there is never the cut back to the promenade and the dust bunny that rolls by. We cut over to Cardassia where I really feel like a Cardassian sunset should be the name of a drink. Really, I feel like they're having to turn up the beauty of Cardassia up to 10 now. of Cardassia up to 10 now, to counterbalance what it's going to look like in just a few hours. Yeah, the grainess needs to look different from normal later.

Right. Well, I guess a Cardassian sunset would have to be a canar-based drink. Is it just canar with a layer of grenadine and then a layer of orange juice? You pour the canar over the back of your bar spoon, and that way it doesn't mix with the other ingredients. I don't know, man. I think if you pour your canar over the back of a cardassian, you might break the internet. Those guys get spoons everywhere.

Yeah. You think a cardassian has a cum spoon instead of a cum gutter? What that is? Yeah, probably. The Codacom too. So, change leaders in the big sequence phase of her illness. She's sort of wearing like a feather boa of leaves in Dominion HQ. She and Dot Prawn and Wei Yun are working out the defense of Cardassia. Of course, they've all kind of like withdrawn to the borders of Dominion controlled space and are now kind of put it up a line of defense that You know they're worried about there's there's some weakness in the middle of the line

I love that like the the language of war Has not really changed over the centuries, right? Yeah, we're still talking about holding the line We're stock still talking about breaking through lines like that. Like it's a way for a contemporary audience person to understand more strategy and space, but I think we can agree that it kind of doesn't make sense. Yeah. Right? I always wonder how it would work in three dimensions, you know.

Like, it's one thing if it's the Civil War, and you've got a headdrow that you're gonna set troops up along one side of, and then defend that line as an onslaught comes towards you. But if it's about to starships in three dimensional space, like there's nothing to stop a bunch of fighters from going up and over. Yeah.

And except the strategy being described is like space getty's burick, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Change leaders like, I did this not for my defense of slavery but for state's rats. And way you know is like the founder is wise. Right.

Change leader is really psyched about working with thought-pron, who she thinks really takes care of business in a way that your Wei-Yun's and your other Kardashians don't seem to. Wei-Yun is a bit worried about his post-war situation. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results. Wei-Yun takes great umbrage with the idea of change leader promising a bunch of post-war territory to the brain. But Wei-Yun's got nothing to worry about, because change leaders just lie in.

Just lying through her flaky teeth. So you get thought-pron on the same page with her. Change leader has eaten the kale salad, and now everything she says is spoken through. Pretty flaky teeth. Yeah. Have the founders tried floss to fix their disease? If you're a changeling, can you just floss

through your entire head? I mean, you're never going to reach gum if you're a changeling, can you just floss through your entire head? I mean, you're never going to reach gum if you're a changeling. We never got to peak party trick with Odo, you know? Like you did a couple of things to show off. You did longhand that one time and that was it. Yeah. I'm physically unable to play any game that goes like, how long can you make it? unable to play any game that goes like how long can you make it. That's just not a game I'm ever going to be good at. Legate Broca comes in and somebody has spilled some tea that tomorrow may be alive and on Cardassia Prime. He may be alive.

Is this possible? Not just on Cardassia Prime, but here in the capital. And this prompts Change Leader to cite the title of one of the worst Elmore Leonard novels, Get Demar. And we smash cut right on over to these Cardassian streets where the fucking Gem Hadar cops are just hassling Garrarrick and demar yeah about some bullshit your papers please a jab is what everyone's

thinking when we see this scene play out but what the cops don't expect is Kira rolling up in a brine suit and both. Yeah, giving me real princess Leia in Star Wars 3 vibes. Or dead presidents vibes, I kind of got. Oh sure. Yeah. This scene, I was thinking a lot about Cardassia Prime. How did we not ever call it Cardi A? We know that Cardi B.

This is Cardi A. God, it... This is the last episode we're going to talk about Cardi B. This is Cardi A. God, it... This is the last episode we're gonna talk about Deep Space now. We're coming up with Cardi A now. What the fuck is wrong with us? I want to turn the pod card around and start over about... about season three, maybe. Should we George Lucas?

This podcast and change things in past episodes. So Kira flips up the face mask to her brain suit and her face looks like the hand from Mr. Deeds. Oh my God! It is totally frosted from being in there. It's destroyed something beautiful. I mean, there are costs to repping brain, you know? It's true.

So Kira having successfully saved their asses has made possible a meeting which we don't see to take place. Instead, we get an elliptical edit to after this meeting where we learn about all the allies they've gathered who are ready to sabotage all of the sensitive areas on Cardassia. These are civilians who are ready to throw their sabote

into the power stations and the other sensitive parts of the planet. Hence the word sabote. It's pretty exciting. I mean, it's a bit of a win for these guys who, in the last episodes, every single military element of the Cardassian resistance get crushed. But it seems like the people

are ready to rise up. For the first time in Cardassian history, it would seem. And Dymars has brokered this deal, so we're looking forward to it. Back with the Armada, the defiance feeling a little sluggish at speed. You know, sometimes when you're on a road trip, you can kind of feel when one of your wheels is out of balance, there's a little bit of a vibration in the steering. And O'Brien just cannot brook this kind of engineering. Yeah, well it's a ship, he's got to fix it. I think it's one of those things like with a with a new car You're not supposed to like really push the engine for the first However many number of miles get a break it in

So they're doing a lot of like on the fly like EPS diagnostic kind of techno babble Getting things fixed up and well, they're doing this. We just kind of cut around the bridge and catch up with people. Ezri and Worf have a little catch up about it's cool that I'm fucking Bashir now right? I mean you've been telling me to to fuck Bashir for episodes and episodes now are you are you actually cool with it? I am going to kill him. For Bishir to have to follow Wurf is like throwing a toothpick into a volcano, right? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Bangle the mind. Ben, did they change how the bridge of this class of starship is laid out now? Because I don't remember this kind of foreground background composition being possible on the earlier version of the defiant.

Like, all of the moments of this scene are very clearly like foreground background two shots with Ezri and Worf and then we get another one with O'Brien and Bashir and his ass-eating grin. And like, I just don't remember this being possible a season ago. Yeah, I guess it's been a while since we've been on this bridge, so I don't remember, but it did seem a little bit more dynamic. I mean, I think that they added the defiant to the show

for that reason. They felt like if they were going to go out and do adventures that the bridges of the runabouts just didn't offer enough visual interest, basically. No Star Trek series has ever hated its primary location, more than Deep Space Nine hated ops, right? This show fucking hates ops. Ops is not really in this episode. Like, we don't go to this, this goes off,

so we don't go to ops. It's like, fuck that place. We got one cool shot of it in the last episode, and we're done. Yeah. Another little vignette here in this scene is that Bashir is offering to move the Alamo model from O'Brien's quarters to his, which is pretty adventurous

move on his part. I mean, I'd say that's new relationship on hard mode, right? Like you just start seeing a woman and you're like, hey, by the way, my living room is gonna have a giant model train set in it going forward. You know what though? He's fucking smart because he's trying to get in before the grandfathered in door closures, right? Like he can't introduce Alamo play set in another month. He's got to do it now. Yeah, yeah. Like within 48 hours of the first of the first coitus is when you have to really make that stuff known.

As soon as the ship disembarked, he got an orderly to move the alabo into his apartment. Yeah. It's cool. It's cool. Maybe we'll spend more time at your place. That's fine with me. This is a scene where Cisco has his first profit vision of the episode. I feel like the the profits are a lot more direct now.

The profits tell Cisco that this is the last episode of Deep Space 9. The emissaries task is nearing completion. In so many words. Yeah. I say there may be some tempting writers room stuff in a documentary 20 years from now. Don't let that fool you. This is it. Right. in a documentary 20 years from now. Don't let that fool you, this is it.

Right, like this is still pretty vague, but like this is, this begins a process over the course of this episode where the profits converge, I'm just saying exactly what they mean finally. Well, I mean, they're counting the time code here too. Yeah, they give us a sense of how important the conquest of Cardassia is going to be to the

overall arc of the story. Spoiler alert, not very. And Cisco comes back and he comes back at Odo is like, Hey, man, what's going on with you? I wish one time in this series, they had shown us what it looks like for somebody else to be doing profit vision It would have been so great if we just stay on Odo. We don't even go with Cisco to the vision. Yeah, Odo's like hey Hey wake up. We're about to be in a battle. You need to be with it man. What the? What the fuck hey can somebody relieve him of duty? Oh my god The embarrassing part of any profit vision is the loss of bladder control. I was probably gonna come up sooner. I don't need it the bucket anymore, but you do.

Because when you exist out of time, embarrassment really isn't part of the equation, right? Yeah. You're both embarrassed and pre-embarassed at the same time. Yeah, the only thing that's linear is the stream of P. The profits see all been. But up until now, in the short term, Goldukot has seen nothing.

Yeah. But when he walks back into Kaiwen's office, his site has been restored. Yeah. And he's walked in on Kaiwen finishing her studies of the coast emoji. Yeah. The coast emoji cliffs notes, and specuously tucked into a desk drawer in this scene.

Yeah, she's just cramming as hard as she can for her final presentation, the opening line of which is Marion Webster's Defined Evil as. The episode really goes on a tangent because Kai Wynn goes to the local Bejorn video store and tries to rent the movie version of Coast emotion and it's already been rented out. So what she does is like she kind of sneaks out at the computer and sees who rented it last. And then it sets up this entire scene where she's sitting on the couch of this strange family trying to share

popcorn with them Yeah, totally oblivious to what an imposition Kiwin is putting on them as if Kiwin could even Could be even more irritating than she already was Yeah, she's very hard to follow Kiwin not exactly angry to see Gold to Cut. She needs him to go to the fire caves with her. And this is presented as more of a business decision than a social outing at this point.

She still gets the skin crawlies, whenever she thinks about all the ways that she's banged him. Previously. whenever she thinks about all the ways that she's banged him previously. It's interesting, she's ready to welcome him back, but also not ready to ever forgive him. And he's like, hey, how come you haven't unleashed evil yet? As soon as my eyes were open and my sight was restored, I sort of expected to see a lot of evil

on these Missouri streets. And what are you waiting for? I was waiting for you. So they vow to go to the fire caves and let the coast emotion and all of the parrhoes out of jail. Number eight, come to a fort. Number eight, come to a fort. What are you doing? What are you doing? parrhoes out of jail.

This is a very familiar sort of conflict that Kayawin and Galducat are having. He's the guy on the family trip trying to make the world's biggest Dixie Cup sound like a good time. And she is just in the back of the station wagon asking if they're there yet. She's not up for this clearly. Like the physicality of it, I mean. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to go hiking in your vestments, you know? Yeah, her train is getting super dirty.

Yeah, she did like her official Chi footwear doesn't have a vibram soul. There's not a heavy lug on the Chi's footwear, that's for sure. The conflict of who is leading the tour is mirrored on Cardassia where the question of who is going to lead the offense for the dominion is being adjudicated here. The brain want to share the lead with the gemhadar and change leader is willing to entertain this possibility. It's touchy, right? And interesting that it is, because what we've learned about the Gemma Dhar is that on kind of a genetic level, they have loyalty built into them.

And that's not infallible, like we've seen defector Gemhadaar. But the majority of Gemma Dhar do seem to be kind of like blindly loyal to the founders. And there's an issue that is anticipated here that if we put the brain in charge of them, there may be a morale problem for the Gemmardar. That seems to be a call back way back to that episode where we got to hang out with that craft ship full of Gemmardar, right? Where you really got to experience the emotional nature of them in a brand new way.

Totally. The big thing that they want to do is send some reinforcements to the middle of their lines because the perimeter that they're making to defend against the unreshing fleet is a little bit patchy there. But before they can do that, the power cuts. Hence. What Wei-Yun describes is that almost every military installation on Cartier has been knocked out.

Cebeau are getting thrown in every single gear. The word. It's like everyone counts down and then throws their Cebeau at the same time. Yeah, yeah, it's like New Year's Eve, but for Cebeau. Cebeau comes. It's great momentarily until we learn that the reaction and throws their Sippo at the same time. Yeah, yeah, it's like New Year's Eve, but for Sippo. Sippo gosh. It's great momentarily until we learn that the reaction will be punishment to the people.

Yeah, the retribution will be brought down on civilians and like it broke as like cool. Doesn't matter to me, I'm just in this for the power. He sees himself separate from Cardassia like he it's almost like he doesn't even view himself as Cardassian in this context Yeah, and by saying that I mean he doesn't view himself as subject to this sort of punishment right? I mean and why would he be he's he's in with the founder He's really the Burke of this story, right? Yeah, totally

with the founder. He's really the Burke of this story, right? Yeah, totally. Do you have any idea what you've done here? What we learn in the basement on Cardassia with Kira Girok and Demar is that this coordinated power outage gives them 24 minutes to work, and that's not a lot of time. The power has been cut, but the TV hasn't been knocked out. When they turn it on, they find way in there waiting for them. And Kira's like, turn it up, turn it up.

Yeah. I should have killed that Florida jackal when I had the chance. When they do, they realize the consequences of this coordinated effort. The Dominion have vaporized a city in response. So two million dead. Yeah. Lakerian is gone. And apparently the final words of the city

fathers were, it's fun to do bad things. I mean, who knows if they were warned in such a way that gave them any time to smoke real cigarettes? many time to smoke real cigarettes. Well, never know. Everybody is Lakerian Strong on Cardassia now. Right. And Fidel Demar is ready to eat them. I love. This scene is unintentionally funny because

Williams on the screen saying this awful shit about the extermination of a city and the camera moves in on him. In something that is way past an ECU. Like, it basically cuts around his eyes and his mouth. That's how ECU it is. Yeah, it's ECU.

Right. It's the long push in, too, right? Like, it starts in a head and shoulders single of way you and explaining that this city has been raised and by the end of it, it's, it's close, but it hasn't cut. It's just, it's just a slow push in. And like, I love the idea of like the TV news cameraman that they brought into the fucking headquarters of the dominion on Cartier and said just like, okay, this is just like an announcement of some important information for the populace.

And it's a 30 second announcement. We want you to start on the wide and be as tight as you can possibly be on his face without cutting off his eyes or his mouth by the end. I love that we think of stuff like this because I had a job where I was shooting a live event where the big event happens and then we cut into the interview room and I was the interview room camera and you start with your two shot and you move in on your single after the interview or ask the question. And everyone's still while in your ear the producer the producer will be like, mind your headroom, because that's what a producer says.

I love the idea of a camop, like totally freelancing this, and seeing the drama of the situation, and going in further, and further, and a producer just like screaming in that camop's ear. What are you doing? Yeah, yeah. I wonder if they had to bring in a brain or a gemheader up because they knew that the news would be really upsetting

if it was a Cardassian camop or counter-argument. It was a Cardassian camop and he was like, well I'm gonna fuck this guy's frame up if he's gonna kill two million of my brethren. Camop's have a lot of power in situations like these. I love that in either case, neither of them would be qualified for that job. Like the gemettara was hatched. I don't know, like a bog to go to war. He doesn't have any idea what a zoom ring does.

Right, yeah. He's totally fucked up. And so does a cardacian. Yeah. So the plan and the basement at this point is to attack He's totally fucked up. And so does a cardacian. So the plan and the basement at this point is to attack Dominion HQ directly. What else can they do? Yeah, they say chop off the snake's head

and the rest of the body will die, which is also true of all other kinds of animals. Yeah, like what they don't do is that start trek thing of describing that three word animal. Yeah, like what they don't do is that star trick thing of of describing that three word animal. Like where are the animals from? Quality of animal, name of animal. Like that kind of star trick speaking.

Like, oh, yeah, that would be true, except for the the Tamarion Rage Bison would never die if you cut its head off. The headless Tamarion Rage Bison, maybe even more dangerous. We're gonna need some kind of explosives. I'll get right on it. Yeah so they they Val Roengay. It means a matter. And that's I mean like what a great motivation for for Delta Mar to be riding riding to war with. On the defiant Martak belt buckle and Cisco attempt to do a three-way call merge and Cisco begins with just talking to Martak.

And then he's like, all right, Martak, just give me a second, I'm gonna merge belt buckle in, but then like doesn't hit the button to do it. And so there's that pregnancy of the moment where it's just the two of them wondering where belt buckle is. And they do that thing where like do we have all three?

No. Oh, okay. Let me try again. I'm not sure if I hit it. And then you hit it and you're like, was there delay or did it not register that I tapped it? It's almost as awkward as talking about drinking a barrel of blood wine as if Admiral belt buckle isn't the

Frazier Crane of the group and would prefer to drink Sherry over the bodies of the vanquished. Should they get that opportunity? Yeah. The field of victory, something nice to look forward to. They're kind of the secreting this battle in a way. I could not get enough of what this was selling me. I want to see a space battle that's 20 minutes long. I mean, we get a lot of space battle and a lot. I mean, this is CG starship stuff, so they can go a lot crazier with it than they did in TNG.

Right. They're not just dropping a Lego Millennium Falcon onto another Millennium Falcon. Right. When you're digitized, you can do a lot of things. You can do a lot of things. And to their credit, they didn't just rest on their CG laurels. Like there is, there are an impressive number of cuts

to the interior of these ships that are getting blown up and like girders and practical explosion effects and stuff and and they're very inventive shots. Like I love the snorry cam like over the over the top of the little D shot where they they do a loop the loop and then take out a gem in our ship. That was great. Ben, what's in the saucer of a galaxy class ship on a mission like this? Is it empty? Why didn't they show a saucer-separated galaxy class? Can we see the battle bridge?

No, I'm afraid not. Just to have two points of fire, you know? Yeah. Like the saucer and licking its own shots and the StarDrive second section licking its own shots and the starter-eye second section licking its own shots, that would have been cool. It's such a tension between all of the feels that you get seeing a galaxy-class ship in this context.

Yeah. And all of the contextual knowledge that you have about why this shouldn't be possible. Right. And it's a show that chooses the former over the ladder. Like, I want to feel something seeing a bunch of enterprise D looking ships doing something like this. And it's okay if it doesn't make any sense.

I can get with that. Yeah. You think about the families on those ships, whether they knowingly signed up for this war. I mean, you see that hood class ship with its sauce or all ripped apart, like all of the wippets just like venting into space.

The bouncy castle explodes on contact with the vacuum. So sad. It's comfortable showing us hood class violence, but it doesn't show us any more Galaxy Class losses the way we got a couple of seasons ago, you know? Yeah, which always feels important, you know?

They, they, I feel like they really knew not to overuse blowing up a Galaxy Class and blowing one up in this scene, I think would have been appropriate. I think so too. Because we're talking about a third of our fleet has been decimated by the end of this scene. Yeah, it does not appear that the galaxy class is part of that third. No, we cut around a lot.

We cut back to Cardi A where in the cellar, the housekeeper lady gets a visit from a couple of Cardassians and a couple of Jim Hodars who are just kind of going door to door inspecting for Dammar problems. And they want to come down and look around in the cellar, Garrick and everyone have to put their bomb making equipment away and hide under the stairs. It's scary as hell because this gem-hidar interlocutor is so intimidating. He sits meela down and fills a giant tobacco pipe. And does this scene that the rest of the resistance has to watch through the floorboards of the basement.

And the tension of it is just exquisite. I'm here to help you. Would you confirm for me the exact members of the household and their names? Mela gets a really fun scene of crawling up Garek's ass about not eating enough before this. And so when she goes upstairs, that's intentional, right? Like, we don't know Milla hardly at all, except through what Garrett has told us about her and these few scenes of her

taking care of the group. But man, when she answers the door with that kind of fear, it sucks. It's sucks to see that because you have every reason to like her and every reason to fear for her. She's got, like, just that little, like, implication toward maternal energy makes it really painful when she gets pushed down the stairs. And that she's sweet on Demar and that you get the side of Demar that you never see before, like, the flirtatious Demar. I love every scene between Demar and Mila

because of that kind of like sweetness there that you just don't get in any other moment. We made fun of Demar earlier for being kind of a full-anderer, but it's very clear that just loves women, man. Platonic Philandering is super fun. Yeah, I guess Mila in the context of a guerimilla war to take back their planet as sort of his work wife. Right, exactly. And that's okay. But it's unfortunate that the cardacians above don't just push Milla down the stairs. They also push a couple of grenades down there too for good measure.

Yeah. Not the kind of grenades that would kill you if you're standing directly next to them as we learn. But no, they're the kind of, they're the kind of stun grenades that are meant to take back your enemies alive. Yeah. And so while the battle rages in space, while Bashir like patches up holes in O'Brien's body, while O'Brien stays at the controls and keeps working the starship. Hey man, that's his kayaking shoulder. Well, change leader and we'll argue over the fact

that they're not able to communicate with this fleet because long distance communications are still out. The Gemadar begin their interrogation of Dammar and Garrick and Kira. And what they decide is we're just going to summarily execute you here in this cellar. I've got to feel like the classic version of Cardassian execution is the version of a guillotine that's like a silverware drawer, right? Like construct what that looks like in your life. That's, that, like you set that up in the town square. Yeah, yeah.

Many centuries ago, and that's how they did it on Cardassia. Yeah, and Derek is like, oh, you're just gonna shoot us? Wow. This is the thing, man, because when your orders are to execute prisoners, you want, if you're the gem hadar, you want your cardacians to stand in front of you. Yeah. And they make the fatal mistake of allowing them to be behind. Yeah. And that's what ends up saving the group's life.

The cardacians shoot the gem hadars and they take off their chest plates and they've got Lakerian's strong t-shirts on underneath. Yeah. shoot the gem hadars and they take off their chest plates and they've got licarian strong t-shirts on underneath. Yeah it's big fun they're going to be okay I mean at least for now. And meanwhile up in the space battle the cardacian starships are kind of pulling the same move right? They too are standing behind the ticks. They too are in fact, Lakerian strong. It's big fun when they start shooting the ticks. And it's a triumphant moment once we get the realization of this. The timing couldn't be

better. It's the exact opposite feeling on Cardassia when they restore comms. And everyone in Dominion HQ realizes the side switching that's happened in orbit. I want the Kardashians exterminated. Another moment where I was looking at the Kardashians in the room and I was like, they should run or pull their guns out and try and save themselves or something. Broca, maybe one of the dumbest characters in all of Deep Space Nine.

Yeah. I won't miss him. He's got real like the last person to join the Trump cabinet vibes, you know. Yeah. He gets what's coming to him and she, change leader gets real angry when she learns that the, that their defense perimeter has been crushed and it's Cardassian betrayal at fault.

She goes full Kevin, Adam. When genocide is on the table, you really have to think of the next step and I don't think she's fully thought that through. Let me give you some advice to each leader. You can't come back from one of these, you know. It's gonna be with you for the rest of your life, but if you're gonna do it, you're right there to be Cardassians one moment and zero cardations the next. Otherwise, it's not gonna work. The only thing that get me through my own personal genus, which is the third of that one acre by one acre square of Malibu beachfront property

waiting for me and my beloved way for shun. The cup of tea that I near should have waiting for me when I recreated her and returned home after my instant of war. I have raked piles of leaves bigger than you change leaving Recoyle from my judgment You're lucky you're not a hoosnack. I'll put it that way you imagine yourself to be a god and I find that laughable Friend, they're laughable. Morning, morning, morning, morning, Steve, sweet, morning, morning, morning, Steve, you need everybody, morning, stop, have a tie.

On the defiant, everyone is psyched about the Dominion pullback. Thank God for the Kardashians, the day is ours. Oh! And it really introduces the question. This is a repetition of a type of question that they faced over the last few episodes. Are they satisfied with having won this battle or do they keep moving ahead in order to end

the war? Right. Do they take their loss of one-third of their ships or do they say, we gotta press the advantage and finish this thing off once and for all. When you play poker against someone for whom Genishide is the stakes, you better be ready to go all in. And what gets a cling on more pumped than the prospect of songs being sung about this day? That's it, that's the top of the mountain.

If you think that you're having a day that songs might one day be sung about this day. That's it, that's the top of the mountain. If you think that you're having a day that songs might one day be sung about, that's about as good a feeling as you can have. And that's what Marta is pushing here. Yeah. I love that he has the song confidence, you know, to present this in a straight face to people who don't have the same feelings.

W slash R slashar, slash G. The Songs. This is like... But no time. People will ask, what is that I've never heard of that song? I always sing, Cardassia, myself. People love my spoken word rendition of Rocket Man. Ha ha ha ha ha. So they agree, they put it to a vote. The Romulans don't get a vote this time, but I guess the Romulan flagship has been knocked

out at this point, so maybe that's why. Hey, I low-key do not think it's right that the Romulan part of their alliance is not involved in any of the strategy here. Yeah. Like, this should be a four-way call, and it's a three-way call, and I think it fucks over the Romulan's big time. Yeah.

Is it any wonder they don't trust the Federation? In any alliance, communication is the core. I mean, maybe they're just afraid of the Romulan's rage issues. The Romulan doesn't agree with them and loses the vote. I mean, it's like, what is he gonna do? Go on Twitter. So back at the fire caves, GolduCop rightly asks the question on all of our minds. Well this may sound naive, but I was expecting to see fire.

It just look like regular Star Trek caves, what gives? Seeing joy on Kiwin's face is maybe the most threatening expression that you could experience as an outsider. Yeah. Kiwin's smile in this moment is the kind of expression you'd see on Mitch McConnell while he watches a family freeze to death and a car they've been living in. And with good reason. The OU naive little PIP kind of expression on her face. Very, very, very scary.

She opens her, her big book and starts kind of incanting pot-raith nonsense. And what you don't get in the scenes up until here is how much of a pain in the ass it's gotta be to carry that god damn book through the caves for hours at a time right now wonder she was so tired i mean her clothes are all wrong and also she's slipping this book a leather pound book which you know is just getting sweaty in your palms the entire time yeah uh... gross as hell that like if if there is like an archivist or some kind of like,

you know, old book conservator back in the Kais mansion, they're gonna be so pissed off when they see the condition that the Necro-Pomacon comes back in. This is the case to be made for the Cliff's Notes Coast Immogine. Yeah. You know, you stick that thing in your back pocket or in a fold of your vestiments and Notes Coast Immogin. Yeah. You just stick that thing in your back pocket or in a fold of your vestments and you're good to go.

Yeah. Hey, guess what, Ben? The Cliff's Notes version of the Coast Immogin, probably not gonna blind anyone to look at. Pretty safe to leave about the office. Yeah, and if your professor hasn't read the kind of like pre-packaged observations about what the meaning of the scene in question is, like you might actually come across as having

read the material when you talk about it in class. Right, exactly. Anyways, the paw rates show up. It gets pretty hot in her, so Kai-Win takes off her vest vestments and then lays one on Golducat right on the kisser before reading from the book again. Yeah, and as they As they embrace a Beloved recurring character shows up and says hey, I'm the evil version of that tablet from a couple episodes ago.

Welcome to the fire caves. I see you're waving my book over your head. Pretty dangerous if you ask me. With all this fire and an old dry book like that is a veritable tinder box. Safety first am I right? I was shocked. The Kiwin Kist Goldicot here. Yeah.

This is emblematic of how unhinged she's become. She will really do anything, and they seem very, very happy in the fact that they're about to unleash evil on the universe. The challenge on Cardassia is that the rebels don't know how to get into dominion HQ. And they're kind of chasing the clock is chasing them because the extermination is kind of underway at this point. Right. There's bangers being dropped on the cellar. Garic is talking about, you know, I thought I might retire in this house, but now it's going to be a heap of rebel

by tomorrow. Demar gestures to meel at the bottom of the stairs. I thought that might be going somewhere. Oh well, nothing's going to motivate Garic more than Rohingya. So they're going to head to the HQ where the Dominion war effort was being run out of. And they've built a bunch of bombs. We're given some contacts for what the remaining capacity to wage war is, because we cut to Orbit where just a devastatingly huge armada of

geminar ships and brain ships and those like orbital defense platforms that we saw several episodes ago are waiting for this unreshing Federation and Allies fleet. I love the sense of scale that we get here because like you can barely even see the tics, it's all super tics. Yeah. Ben, I'm digging into my broad right now and I really wish that you had some, I'm getting hammered. Wow, fuck man.

I've only had like two glasses of wine here When consumed properly as Sir Edmund Mailbar once wrote it can elevate the soul take it to the dome Ben All right, all right. I mean it'd be a shame to let this lovely bottle go to waste Maybe I'll get some bros. Maybe I should run and grab some hey run and grab some and I'll take the show from here Okay, I'll be right back. We'll do. The thing about the situation outside of Dominion HQ is the blast doors are made of a substance

that the bombs will have no effect on. And so, Gary can cure a start laughing at the absurdity of this predicament and everyone joins in in a way that made me think that they were being gassed what i miss uh... i took the viewers to the point where the rebels were outside the gates and they were laughing about their bombs not being a good match for the door.

Oh yeah. I don't know what it is about my film watching history that made me assume that they were being somehow nerve-gassed during this moment because the, wow. I think this scene works for a type of person who can see the absurdity of the moment and appreciate it and like enjoy the levity of The moments before a hopeless battle

But I had thought that maybe like the oxygen like a way of killing everyone on on Cardassia's is Removing the oxygen from the surface of the planet and they were slowly being suffocated or something Yeah, I did not I did not see this as contextual humor in the way that they might have meant it. I think that what maybe took you there was that Damar gets in on the fun. Yeah, and he's not fun. And he's been such a humorless character. Yeah, like up to this moment. Like it might be the first time we see him smile in the entire series. Do you think he banged one out with Meila

before this scene? And like that's what's loosened him up a little bit? Yeah, I'm wondering he was so uptight. He was so pent up. Yeah. What we're learning at this moment is not just that the rebels outside the wall may not be able to get in.

It's also how few people are left inside Dominion HQ to defend because the brain at this point are leaving to go fight in space. This is a scene that's like maybe the last best dick kicking that change leader is going to give way in on her way to the grave But like we're starting to understand that there's really not a lot of people left at this point Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think that the sheet of government would be just kind of left with a few like ultra loyal lackeys that are like Barely competent to execute the awesome power of the office that they occupy

I always thought it was suspicious that Broca took some rebels on a tour of Dominion HQ in the days before this right to sort of give him a lay of the land right why would Broca do that? It's like he's seen what they're posting on the internet, you know, right? He knows what they stand for. Why exactly? What is this other than giving them an opportunity to make a plan for what to do with their Flexcuffs. And this is the fatal flaw. This moment where where Broca needs to be executed, they don't think to do that inside the walls. They take them outside like so much trash. And with those doors open, that is the opening that the rebels need to storm in. And it is in this storm that Demar is shot and is killed.

Killed by one of those really painful gem and our weapons too, right? Like, I feel like the death of Demar is particularly brutal feeling. Remember his orders? We stopped for nothing. What a great job Casey Biggs did as Demar and the journey that his character took up until this point. It seemed extremely unlikely a couple of seasons ago that we would have given a shit about the death of Demar. And I think it's a credit to him and how his character was written

that there are some legitimate feels in this moment. I think it's a great moment in the series. Yeah, a truly awesome achievement. And I think part of the achievement is in the people making decisions about what is going to happen on the show writ large saying like, wow, like that guy, like we brought in to just be kind of like a bootlicking lackey for DuCott, but he did a really great job. Like let's, like, let's take that character and see where it can go and like letting your imagination fill out a character like that like let's it go let's his character go on a really interesting journey

It's got to be so exciting to both be a casting agent and to like Fit the right person into the right role and then be satisfied that you've done a good job. But also to see them take that ride of they were cast as a thing and then they get and then they get like double discovered, right? Totally. Casey Biggs got off the bus on the deep space 9 law and was discovered and was turned into DeMar.

But then he was turned into this Dammar after that. Yeah, yeah. There was a second bus inside the lot that he got off again. That got us here. Yeah. Two buses. Double bus Dammar.

That's what they call him. Pretty great moment for being a sad as it is. And it's Garek that takes point from here on out. And you know he's up for this. and it's Garrick that takes point from here on out. Yeah. And you know he's up for this. Go to Kotl to Kotl to Kotl to Kotl to Kotl to Kotl to Kotl to Kotl. So. They fire fight their way through HQ and make it to the Holy of Holies where they get

change leader and way you and at phaser point and are basically saying like call off your ships or we'll shoot you. It's a pretty big moment. Change leaders not gonna call off our ships. It's a phone moment when change leaders says no and get rick just shoots way you. Like do you feel like changing your mind now? Yeah, and she's like you idiot if you shoot me shoot me, I'm an explode. And everybody in here is going to die. Change leaders like you have no idea what sort of favor you did for me. That guy fucking sucked. And I hated him. Yeah. Why you only made it to eight

sad. Yeah. But he only made it that far. But Jeffrey Combs made it so much further into our hearts. Yeah hearts in the process. Just like this is the moment of the series where you're like, that's a wrap for Jeffrey Combs, everyone. And if you're a fan of the greatest generation, this is the moment where you give him a standing ovation. Totally. Just the greatest work here by Jeffrey Combs. I wish you hadn't done that. That was Weiwen's last clone.

So yeah, they're trying to make the case to change later. Like, this is it. We're here with the gun at your head, and you can end the war here now, and you should. And she turns this into a threat. Like, we're not ending the war. Like this, this was an all or nothing for us. And like any further advancement you make will come at the cost of 100% of the potential it could cost you.

And what I'm telling you is you winning will taste as bitter as radicchio. I mean, defeat. Radicchio, you know, the thing I'm somehow able to make up here on my body. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha It's a terrifying thing to consider. This idea that you may feel like you're doing the right thing, but the punishment coming back at you is going to be so costly. It may even mean your cancellation. Yeah, it's scary.

And this is tough. This is a thing that Kira communicates up to the defiant. What's your status? John, don't have the upper hand. This founder we have down here doesn't seem particularly interested in drawing down the offenses of the fleet. And if change leader doesn't do that, what she promises is gonna come true. And Odo sees this as an opportunity.

Maybe Odo can talk some sense into her. I'm legendarily good at diplomacy. Let me talk to her. I'm legendarily good at diplomacy. Let me talk to her. I'm a people person. People like me. That's the main thing about me. Odo. You don't want customers talking directly to engineers.

They don't have people skills like I do. Odo beams down and Kira's like, watch your back, Jack. And so Kira and Gera kind of watch Odo beams down and Kira is like, watch your back, Jack. And so Kira and Gera kind of watch Odo have this interaction with change leader. And change leader, true to her nature, is not going to capitulate. And what's interesting about this moment is that she gives voice to the reason a little bit better than she did before. She doesn't want her weakness in this moment to be an invitation to the destruction of the Great Link, which is just like sitting

there as a fetted pool waiting to be destroyed. She's like, I can be strong now as a deterrent for you destroying my people. And if I'm weak here, nothing's gonna stop you from dropping a couple of grenades into that pool and blowing up my spot. Yeah. And Garrick here is fantastic because he would rather shoot Odo than allow him to link with change leader. And it's Kira that tells Garrick to stand down.

But this is so, this moment is so fraught, Ben, because Odo is freelancing. Like he's not doing what they agreed that they were all going to do. Yeah. And I feel like deep down, Garrick is willing to shoot everyone in this room. I'm warning you, Odo.

And astonishingly, Garrick is willing to watch Odo link with another woman. Odo cucks Kira here, super hard. Yeah, it's messed up. The last indignity for a Colonel Kira as a character. Yeah, Odo presents himself as a cure for the leafy greens that change leader is suffering from. And like I feel like we predicted in episode or two ago, linking

is the cure. And once she's cured, change leaders is willing to stand down her fleet. Her whole demeanor changes when they come out of that. It's very interesting. Like she is healthier and also more rational. One of the things that we learn about linking is that it is such a fast forwarding of any conversation or agreement that you can have. You exchange so much information in that moment that when changed leader is all of a sudden willing to stand down the fleet and stand trial

and accept the consequences for what she's done. I want to know what also. Yeah. Ready to go to the great link to cure his people and is choosing jumping into the pool over his relationship with Kira. Like this happens instantaneously. It's kind of the thing we talked about before,

like that they sue for peace by saying we will provide the cure in that event. And also, like she's gonna stand trial, but to be deprived of what all transpired between them. When they linked, could she tell that he had the capacity to cure her, but he was withholding it until she made that agreement? I mean, I just wanna know how you deal with somebody

that could ruin your life when you know that there's a conflict between you in a way that gets them to kind of see things from your perspective. I mean, I would give anything to have that kind of insight At this moment in time. Yeah, it's it's that ramp in RC Pro Am that you hit that just like propels your your story car forward Yeah, like ordinarily this between two pro-am that you hit that just like propels your your story car forward. Yeah. Like ordinarily this between two corporeal characters this would have taken scenes and scenes to establish but we're already there. That's like that's like two episodes that they didn't have to produce at the end of season seven.

Right. And on and outside of the base on the streets of Cardassia, it's a victory drinks time. Marthock drinks with Admiral Beltbuckle and Cisco, who disrespect him royally by pouring out their drinks. I think it's Admiral Beltbuckle who's more relieved to do this than Ben Cisco. Yeah. Who hates this stuff?

Yeah, but seriously, like the dude just poured you a drink of what he said was like the finest wine available in all of Kronos history, and you're fucking dumping it on the floor, at least offer it back to him. Be like, hey, I'm done the mood for a drink, and I know that this stuff is really special. What do you want me to do with this?

The only person I would ever permit to pour out my finest liquor is my wife. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Part of the rich dance of marriage where she constantly humiliates me in public, and I go jackoff about it in a corner later. Ha ha. Plenty of places to jack off on the streets of Cardassia. Where no one is alive to watch me do it.

800 million civilian deaths, and I have the place to myself to make a toaster strut all of the burning streets of this planet. The greatest challenge for me as a warrior is to deposit my seed on something that is not a cardassian corpse. Do you think you gotta go too handed when you're a Klingon, don't you? Oh, pumping on both. There is no European style or American style. It's both passenger seat and driver seat. Wow. That's steering the Master Bittori car, isn't it? Yeah. Klingons never switch sides of the bed. Oh, they sure don't. After, like, we get a sense of the death in this scene with Martak and Bell buckle and

Cisco, but we get the statistical analysis back in the control center where Bashir and Garrick are wrapping 800 million dead. And like, they've got a ticker board, like you see it in the airport. And it's still flapping. The numbers are rocketing up. We haven't gotten a Bashir Garek scene in ages. And I know that this moment is sort of depending on our nostalgia for that.

I wish this was more of a quality of this show than something it forgot a season ago. This show really shows Bashir O'Brien over Bashir, Garek, a while back. And it didn't need to make that decision. It could have been both. Right. And I think that this scene felt like it was good

to have closure on this relationship, but I also was like, why would Bashir and Garek be the two people left in the control room of all people? Yeah, I mean, Bashir should be at O'Brien's bedside, attending to his many wounds. You know, some may say that we've gotten just what we deserved. Back in the fire caves, we've got a lot of action taking place. That action includes Kywin, Kai Wynne poisoning

Gouldou Kott. She gives, she's, she's, she's, she pours a, a chalice of wine. It sort of seems like, uh, she's about to do like Bajurian communion or something. And, uh, when it's hot, it can be nice to break out some chilled wine, you know, very refreshing. Well, I am. They pour one out for silver. No, that was sweet. Well, she's about to take the first sip and then she's like, no, you take it.

And he drinks it and passes her the remainder, which in a way that mirrors what Cisco and Beltbuckle did to, did to Mar Ah, did Dimartock. She pours that one out for the homies. And unlike what Beltbuckle and Sisko did to Dimartock, Ducat realizes that that wine was poison. Very confusing. That was not the good stuff.

Yeah. How about Kai-Win? Sacrificing Ducat on the altar of the Paw Rathes. Bucked up. Pretty wild. I offer you this life as nourishment. So the war is over. Yeah, we get an armistice signing on Deep Space 9

at an event at the ward room and Bellbuckle speechifies this moment in a way that I feel like is a pretty unwelcome. He's like citing earlier people who are accepting unconditional surrenders from their defeated adversaries and change leader clearly humiliated and you know ready to go stand trial for her war crimes hands off the articles of surrender, which are in a like plastic laminate, like a book report that you turn in in ninth grade. With that, that fun plastic like binding, that slide over.

Yeah. Always so satisfying to nail that. There are 30 minutes left in this episode. I couldn't believe that. And I was shocked nail that. Yeah. There are 30 minutes left in this episode. I couldn't believe that. And I was shocked by that. When I hit pause and I checked the time code, I was like, what are we going to do for the next half an hour? Find out how quickly DuCott's body burns up

in that cave. The first thing we find out is that Wurf is going to become a diplomat. I am not a diplomat. Right, we get a lot of good buys. We get Ezri and Wurf talking about a party that's going to happen later on at VIX. Yeah. And one of the things they argue about isn't why she's wearing her combat badge right on her uniform line for some reason?

He's like, no, do more like Carl Hudson would. You know, putting your combat low gives you another six inches of camera height. Let's just go in Martaq and Beltbuckle appear to make an offer to Worf. Be the Federation Ambassador to Kronos. Yeah. He initially refuses by saying the obvious

that he is not good at diplomacy. He's still picking glass out of his back. Yeah. But the case is made that like Mar-Toc is not a politician, but he's now the chancellor. Nobody makes the case that wouldn't like Mar-Toc is not a politician, but he's now the the chancellor. Nobody makes the case that wouldn't it be like kind of a weird conflict of interest for the federations ambassador to Kronos B in the same house as the chancellor of Kronos? Maybe like if Ivanka Trump was Russia's ambassador to the United States.

It's a great call and And especially like Esri's there watching this happen. And Esri is the one character on the show who's given voice to the strange hypocrisy of Klingon politics. Right. Like she could in the moment call that out. And she doesn't. Yeah. Congratulations, word. Odo and Kira have to break up then. And Odo is presenting it as a sacrifice worth making to keep her safe. And Kirazal, can I drive? Because that this is what Odo is saying. He's got to go link up with a great link. If we're going to break up, I want to, I want wanna help send you off in style.

This has got to be so irritating to O'Brien and Wurf who were planning on the party at VIX being a good by party to them, you know, for their job choices, their future job pursuits. But now it's a three-way goodbye party for O'Brien, Odo and Wurf. It's a real getting engaged at a wedding, you know. It's like, come on.

Totally is. What the hell are you doing? Stealing the thunder of our cool party. We get a very long Vic Fontaine song singing the way you look tonight. We get some very long, we get long lingering camera passes of our favorite characters during the scene. Quark even enjoying himself. Cassidy is not too sick to attend the party, notably. She's at the bar even.

I mean, it's morning sickness, right? Yeah. She must be drinking a synth-a-hal martini there. She's drinking the sparkling cider at the party. And that is the end of the episode, Ben. Oh shit! What is a sea story to wrap up, isn't there? That was the feeling that I had at the end of this scene was like, oh there's still cave stuff happening. Yeah, yeah. Because it has been a long-ass time since we've been in the cave. I feel like that cave, we went away from it 10 minutes ago in episode time and it's time to go back. And it's like, when we go back, it's like,

how much time has transpired here? Like have you guys been in this cave for a week or have you guys been doing incantations over the book for hours? Not even you guys, it's just Kai win, right? We need some passage of time stuff here. Like a beard has begun to form on gold to cut. On his corpse. Even though he's dead, he's grown a beard.

Let me tell you something, Ben, the best beard I'll ever grow is his corpse. Yeah. The idea was that that Ducat was a sacrifice to the pyreth. And they take her up on this offer and one of the farts comes over and enters into his chest. And we see his eyes open and he's got those like bright red Jake eyes from from when Jake went evil and We cut away and cut back and

DuCott has his loaf back when he says my balls. They're back to being scaly. Can you picture it? I'm back, baby at the same time Cisco's been at Vic Fontaine's and he has an epiphany. Yeah, he's got to go to the fire caves He's got to do this alone. There's business yet to be done and so he does a very Unveable thing at any party. He ghosts it. Yeah, he gives it the old profit goodbye. The only person he explains himself to is a significant other, but even she gets ditched at this party. Yeah.

Not even his son gets a, I'm outy. Back on the fire caves, Goldicott is gloating at Kaiwen over his new circumstances. And it sounds like what's going gonna happen is a pretty bad time. Like fire and flame everywhere, like across the galaxy. It's not gonna be good, but enter Ben Sisko from stage, right? He's packing. But what he's packing is no match for the finger guns that go to

Katz and Cisco's fists don't work either. It was like it really felt like Ripley versus Darth Vader here. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's doing like like you know mind tricks where people fly across the room and guns fly out of people's hands. Controlls the world with his mind. Kai Wynn in her own right attempts to throw the book into a fire and a very fun, like, practical camera move, where Kai Wynn holds the book over her head, a grip clearly grabbed it out of her hands

and then like, she brings her hands back down empty. I love that moment so much. I know. I for sure would have been the PA that was there were like, hey Ben, do you want to grab the book? Yeah. That's Louise Flutcher, famous actor. Do you want to grab the book out of her hands? It makes a ton of sense contextually. Like she's thinking that burning the book is going to fix the problem, but it's in that moment that Golducat kind of snaps his fingers, the books in his hands now. It's just too easy.

And Kai-Win is punished for this moment. She sentenced to burning alive. It's burning alive, but it looks like relatively quick and painless for burning alive. It seems like an equivalent amount of suffering for what she's done. Yeah, and let's just talk about like what a fucking amazing villain Louise Fletcher created in Kiwain. Like, I think a character that we've known for the entire series basically, and always a really compelling baddie for this show.

She belongs on Mount Villainmore for all of Star Trek. Totally. I think she's up on the mountain. She's amazing. And that's what makes her death full of mixed feelings to me that I don't think that I would have expected. Yeah. Like the greatness of her performance offsets to me that I don't think that I would have expected. The greatness of her performance offsets

the evilness of character in a way that gives me a sense of like grudging respect for the way she goes out. And that's I think how you know you've created a compelling character. If you can fill the viewer with that kind of conflict during their death, I think you've done a good job. Like I think that there is a real almost Aristotelian catharsis in her,

like not even being the apex bad guy. Like there's a point in this episode where she says, like I'm putting, I'm like, I'm leaving behind years of hypocrisy and embracing the power-aids. And it's like, that is true. You have been a total hypocrite, wrapping yourself in the close of the righteous and moral, when in fact you are a totally self-serving power-hungry

bad guy. And then the humiliation of that character not being the final like like she's trying to become the end boss basically the entire series and she can't become the end boss because dukat's the end boss. It is the true end boss that Cisco takes a ride on down into the flames. Galdacot, holding onto the book, is a target for Cisco's leap. And so Cisco takes them into the flames where both Galdacot and the book get cooked. And in the moment after Cisco wakes up in that liminal white space of the afterlife.

Sarah is there and she gestures behind Bence's go to the mission accomplished banner that unfurls. The emissary has completed this task. She's like, you're a prophet now. Yeah. She is as easy to understand as a prophet has ever been on this series, telling him, like, speaking in sentences that humans can understand. On Deep Space 9 in the wardrobe, Warfin' Ezri and Dr. Bashir are kind of breaking this news to

Castileates that they have not been able to recover a body from Bejure and the fire caves. And as Odo works on Jake in the same way, the feeling is that Ben Sisko is dead. Yeah. And Cassidy can feel it herself, something bad has happened. And it's in this moment of bad feelings that Cassidy is pulled into this liminal space. And Sisko is their deGreader. It's the celestial temple. Yeah. Ben, he tells her the bad news.

He can't go home and she can't stay here because this is the sorrow that the prophets warned them both about. Sisko took a new job. Yeah. Without consulting her, the hours are kind of demanding. But also, it's kind of a make-my-own-hour situation. Like working in the celestial temple has some advantages. Right.

He's going to be honest about that, but also the downsides. They have a lot of strict rules about bringing your own personal items and decorations, primarily. Yeah. It's going to be a lot of time spent in this white space. She's kind of, you know, making an attempt to talk them out of it. She can tell he's really into it. And then, you know, she looks across the white space and sees Sarah kind of glowering at

her from one of the corners. And she's like, oh, I see what's going on here. You finally turned on me because your mother never liked me. Let me ask you something. Do you think the show made an intentional choice not to have Cassidy very pregnant in this scene to let Benzisco off the hook? Because I think this scene hits very differently if Cassidy shows up about ready to give birth. And Ben Sisko saying what he's saying here about like, I've got my own mission baby.

And that mission may be tomorrow and it may be yesterday. You're just going to have to get on my program. I think it is so much more painful if Cassidy is close to giving birth to their child than it is right here where it's not even, it's not made to be a physical confrontation and the way that it could be. It's interesting because one thing I read about this episode is that Avery Brooks did not like the way they wrote the scene initially because it was Cisco is staying in the temple forever. Right. And what he said to the showrunner and the co-writer was, listen, like, you're going to have us end this series with a black father leaving a pregnant mother in the lurch. And that's pretty tough. And that being depicted as this like

a scent to heaven moment, and I don't really want that to be the end of this character, and to their credit, they re-wrote it, and they re-wrote it in very profite terms. He says, I might be back in a year or yesterday. Right, I wish you could get away with that in real life. You know what? And it's not just Cassidy who gets left holding the baby, but it's Jake. Jake doesn't even

get to have closure with his dad. No, because Cassidy is back in the ward room and she has to tell Jake where she was. And Jake, for some reason Jake, the characters throughout the series who's always been the one who's given voice to the concern about the prophet stealing his father is never given a moment to reconcile those feelings. Ever. It isn't even like, even if he'd had a scene

to talk to Cassidy about it, I feel like they would have done more to honor his character than they did here. I wonder if this series did the math on the episode that we've been pilloried over the one where he's an old man writing the stories and like he saves his father's life through time and space. Like did this show consider that the de facto conclusion

to the Jake and his father relationship in a way that that carried the water for this moment? I don't know if that's fair. I don't know. Anyways, for some reason, Ben does not talk to Jake. And we return to the word room with just Cassidy and are left to wonder.

We never know how hurt Jake is by this. Or not. You know, like it may be something that he's had a long enough time to prepare for I mean he's a fucking quarter profit you know so it's true maybe he'll maybe he'll join his dad eventually he can enter the celestial temple without having to show his passport without having to show his passport. Yeah, he goes through the quick line at Celestial Temple, Emigrations and Custom. Morning, morning, morning,

Steve, sweet, morning, morning, Morning, morning, We get a lot of vignettes from here on out. Yeah, there's a clip show with no device, essentially. I was happy to see Miles O'Brien and family move out while utilizing a moving company to do so. When he finds the little toy soldier on the on the floor, did you notice that the music played a little bit of the soldier boy to the war has come? I do. That was great.

I definitely. That's a TNG callback in the music. I love that. It's awesome. Warf takes one last look at his own clips and none of those clips include Jadziya Dax. Oh, weird. Because Terry Farrell, rightfully I would say, did not grant permission to the show to use her imagery in this episode. The feelings were still so raw about how she left. Good on the actors' union for having that kind of control in the contracts of on-screen

performers, because she got fucked over and the fact that she had some control over how they treated her after that is such a testament to collective bargaining. It is unfortunate in the context of these characters and the show that Wurf's clip show package does not include Jeddiodax. Instead we get Ezri waving goodbye from the top rail before we cut to. They should have said like, hey, Jerry, we'll give you $100,000.

We fucked up. Like, can we use your clips? They didn't have the budget. Like that's actually in the show notes. Like Terry Ferrell's agent had a number that the show was unwilling to pay. Oh man, can you imagine? And they made it a financial choice.

Like Rick Burman on one side of a desk and Terry Ferrell's agent on the other side writing something on a post it and folding it in half and sliding it across the desk. I wonder what the differences between a clip and a framed picture, because we've gotten framed wedding picture before for this utility, but to not even see Jadziya Dax is such a great omission to this clip package for Warp that it makes it hard to accept.

this clip package for Warp that it makes it hard to accept. Yeah, it does. It was, it was, I was really sad not to see her because she was a great character. And, and I was happy to see Ezri because I think that Nicole DeBourre made a really compelling character in the limited time that she had. And in the thankless circumstances that she had. I really agree, especially I feel like her early episodes were a challenge and she was able to through force of will make her character compelling and interesting in a way that I really admired by the end of the series. It is really terrific.

Odo keeps his clip shows in a bucket. They're mostly of Kira, and that's why he gives that bucket to her. What we don't know is what's gonna happen to the calder sculpture in his apartment. I mean, do you just disassemble that and move it out the door? Was that beamed in originally?

You gotta beam it out. It's like when you walk around New York and you see like those places where obviously like you drop a hook to bring up a sofa and throw a window. I don't know how Odo put together his furniture. They may have come flat pack, but most of that flat pack furniture you can't disassemble as easily as you put it together. I would say of all of the characters who get the clip show package, Quark is given the shortest shrift because all of his memories are of other people doing their things. And for as much as an anti-hero as Quark was, Quark had his moments on the show.

And the moments they chose to show in this clip package didn't really feel like they belonged to him. And I think of all of the vignettes in this moment. This was the part that maybe didn't hit his hard for me. It made me feel bad for Arman Shimmerman and all the great work that he'd done on the show up until now. I wonder if that's informed by the choices they made to sort of wrap up the affairs of the Ferengy in the previous episode. Yeah, because if you'll notice, Ram is not part of any of these clips.

Yeah. The Pantheon F Angus that we met in this series weren't really a part of it. So it's really just him. And, and yeah, I agree that they kind of, I mean, like the show, if the show had any sense of humor about itself, it would show like, Alamorene in this, you know, like, come on, like give us those ridiculous, like give us the quirk going to the planet

with all the like mussely strong men with the red and white faces. I fully agree. You know? Yeah. Admit that you're corny. Yeah, those are the moments that are absent here. Yeah.

Jake and Cassidy get a moment that gives us the suggestion of what their domestic life is going to be going forward. Like, it would appear as though they're going to live together. And Jake's real is just of all of the fashions that he's had to endure wearing over the years. And maybe he'll go live in the house on the land that his dad bought. Yeah.

Maybe, I don't know. That part is left very unresolved. Yeah, they show him taking the roof off of his dad's dollhouse and throwing out all the furniture and putting in kind of more mid-century, kind of contemporary, kind of cool looking stuff. They're like, yeah, this like obviously like my dad's style is a little different from mine.

So I'm gonna kind of re-imagine what what my domestic situation might look like while he's off hanging out with this profit friends or whatever. There's a special chair made for scout massages. Kira and Odo head out and they get like one last goodbye from Quark in the hallway. Quark and Odo do ends of a spectrum who nonetheless love each other. That man loves me. I really love that there's so much verbal jousting

between Odo and Quark, and the scene between Bashir and O'Brien is wordless. Yeah. I love that contrast so much. Yeah, the friendship that Odo and Quark had was entirely about that kind of combat. And we know what the friendship that O'Brien and Bersier had was about, and it was just about two cool dudes

that loved each other. So Kira has driven Odo out to the salt and sea, where his final mission is to turn that liquid from green to red. And he does one last O auto trick before he does. You always said I looked good in a tuxedo. I think it's interesting that Kira holds out both of her hands and kind of a bowl shape.

And he drops a finger into that bowl. And it's like, here's something to remember me by. One for the road, Kira. And it's like a finger that turns into two rabbit ear-shaped fingers and kind of a string of pearls around a cylinder. Yeah. Then he wades into the lake and turns around and goes gold. You know they considered the Terminator to thumbs up.

There are no bad ideas in the writers room. I am positive that that was on the whiteboard at some point. What is the final gesture of Odo going into the pool? That's on the list. You can't tell me that it isn't. I always said it looked a little bit more distinct because the color that they picked for disease lake is like a dark green that doesn't look that different from the dark gold that he turns it into. And I really wanted it to

look like dumping chemicals into an algae filled swimming pool where it just it just like shorts it out. Kira the moment she materializes on that island, she'd be like, oh, God. Oh, this is bad. Yeah. It should have been a flake lake. It should have been a flake lake.

Back on Deep Space 9, Nag reports to Kira now, who is the new occupant of Cisco's office. A Cisco who is left his baseball behind, which in any other context would mean that he plans to come back. Yeah. Which is an interesting, liminal space to leave the series. It could be next year, it could be yesterday. Yeah. It could be yesterday. Yeah, Bashir and Ezri make plans for later. They're kind of one of the two remaining characters

in this setting. The Alamo is off limits as a place to make plans though. But there is a program that Bashir proposes based on the movie Troy that Ezri might enjoy. And Ezri Dax is like, I heard that movie fucking sucks. Like, why would I ever want to do that on the Hollis? As a matter of fact, the director's couch is quite compelling. For butts. And we get one last look at Morn, who court gives some hair growing tonic to

you. And Kira confronts Quark about taking bets on who the new Kai will be. Seems like if you bar gambling at Quarks, that's a lot of the fun of being at Quarks. Being made illegal. And not a good look for Kira, I would say. I was disappointed to see this. To be honest. But she pulls out of her steep descent by comforting Jake a little bit who is standing by the Jonathan Freak's Memorial Leaning window, bumping out.

And we get the Jonathan Freak's Memorial pull out from Deep Space 9 shot. Last shot of the series, a long, long pull out of Deep Space 9 with some kind of nebula in the background. And that is the end of Deep Space 9. That's it! Did you like this episode, Ben? I really did. I think that it is a uniquely hard thing to do. Think about all the movies that have three acts and the first and second act are great and the third act is like, man, it's not great,

but I like the first two thirds of it enough that I'm gonna give the whole movie a pass. And, you know, 93 minutes or whatever this is to end your seven season series is not a lot of time and I think that what I admire about this is how much in its own direction it went. It did not feel like the end of TNG at all. It didn't feel like it felt like it needed to follow in the footsteps of TNG at all. And I think that they did a great job of knowing how to conclude stories where they needed to be concluded

and leave ambiguity and openness where it needed to be left. Like we can use our imaginations to think about what all this means for these characters. And you know, I think that if I have a main misgiving about the whole deal, it's that war is not the thing, I think Star Trek is best at grappling with as a subject. And the Dominion War is such a huge part of Deep Space Nine, and such a huge part of the end of Deep Space Nine, that it's hard to think about Deep Space Nine without thinking about

war. And I think that they do a great job with that, but I also kind of prefer my Star Trek to be a little bit more optimistic in general. So if I have a larger knock against it, it's that they set themselves up for completing this as the triumphant end to a huge war. But that being said, this doesn't feel like celebrating a victory, you know. And the one scene that they had set up for that was belt buckle and Zizgo and Martok drinking on the surface of Cardier. That scene could have been 10 minutes long to me. Yeah.

It could have been, but I like that it doesn't feel right to them. It's true to their natures. Right. So overall, I think this is a really strong end to a very strong series, and I am so glad we got to watch all of this. I think there's two ways to approach this episode. It's as an episode or it's as a goodbye to the series. And I think it's unfortunate that the end of Star Trek,

the next generation is gonna be the thing that, at the time, this finale was measured against, because what made Picard's last scene with this crew on next gen so powerful was that he had grown into that moment of being able to articulate his appreciation of his friends and of his crew. And I think what was so much fun about this crew is also what made that challenge so much more difficult in its finale. This crew has always been able to articulate its love for each other. And so there was never a moment during this ending where you were like, you reached that catharsis of my God, like someone finally was able to say the thing that they wanted to say. Someone was finally able to express the emotion that they've kept bottled up. So while I feel like as an episode it is great and as a conclusion to

the war it's a story that's able to told. It did not reach into my chest and hurt me in the way that I know Star Trek is able to do up until this point. And I wish it were able to do that. And I don't know why it couldn't. And I have no suggestions for ideas for how it could have done that because I'm kind of a moving target emotionally. But like all I can tell you is that the end of Star Trek, the next generation,

is difficult for me to watch because It is able to To affect me the way that this finale was not The end of Star Trek the next generation did not need to lean on a clip show To conclude itself. I don't believe deep space and I needed to do that either Yeah, and I wonder why it chose that path. Especially when they knew that they couldn't do it right, if they couldn't have Terry Farrell in it, right at different.

I am in 100% agreement with you. The moment they knew they couldn't actually conclude it, that in a way that included everyone that had helped tell the story, they should have chose a different path. I mean, I don't know how do you rewrite that. You need the unhired X-Men to write that ending. Yeah. I think, to me, it feels like the perfect ending to this series, but its imperfections are why

TNG is my star trek over Deep Space Nine. Yeah. And that's not a judgment on people where Deep Space Nine is their star trek, you know? Like, it's just that that is, that just kind of falls right outside of my area of preference. There's a greater emotional distance between the viewer and these characters Then there is on Star Trek the next generation Yeah, and I think that is an objective statement. I think that is true And I think that's the reason why this doesn't hit us hard Well, you know what else is an objective statement?

Adam is that there are a couple of priority one messages waiting for the two of us on the other side of this delightful music cue. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. A supplement on it? A supplement. A supplement. Yes, extra.

The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Who are the lucky friends of DeSoto who got priority one messages on the finale of Deep Space 9? Ben are our first priority one messages of a promotional nature. The message goes like this, not again, is a brand new podcast by two parents who over-analyze and critique all the shows and movies. Their three-year-old makes them rewatch endlessly, such as Finding Nemo, My Neighbor, Tattoro, and Go! Go, Corey Carson. We're just getting started, so that we'd go to FOD for support since we're

a greatest gen fans. Listeners need not be parents or previous viewers of the Shows and Movies to enjoy, not again. You can follow them at not again, pod on Twitter or on Facebook, they're not again with Alan and Rebecca. So search for the podcast not again with an exclamation point on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It sounds like a fun experience of watching media with your small children. Yeah, the parents descending into madness because their kids make them watch the same thing over and over again is it's a real light motif in my life. Every parent's couple we know has that, that book that their kids make them read over and over again or that, or that TV show that their kids make them watch over and over again, or that TV show that their kids make them watch over and over again.

Alan and Rebecca are like, please do this with us. We don't want to be alone. It's less a promotional priority on message and more a call for help. Yeah. Yeah. But that sounds like a delightful podcast. And thank you for supporting our show and congrats on your new podcast guys! Our next P1 is from David and it's to Louis and it goes like this. Happy 30th birthday!

There's a good chance you'll hear this way after your actual birthday. Time makes fools of us all. Who would have thought all those years ago at camp? We'd still be geeking out together over Star Trek and a Star Trek podcast. Given how dorky we were, it probably wasn't that surprising. Here's to more years of sharing memes. And David asked for any Ferengi centric episode in sending this message to Louis and I would say that this uh this is the last episode for a long time that might qualify. Yeah that's fair. Are there no Ferengi on Star Trek Voyager? There it so do you remember the barzan wormhole episode of TNG? Yes.

And those, and those fringes that go through the wormhole? There's an episode where we catch up with those guys in Voyager. That is great. I'm looking forward to it. But I don't know if that's season one or like season seven, you know? I'm psyched about that. Yeah, so thank you for everyone who left a priority one message. Please head to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron if you'd like to send one of your own. That would be great.

We would really appreciate it. And we're booked up at least through, I think the first three quarters of the year are mostly spoken for. So think well in advance. If you've got a time sensitive P1, think well in advance. And gosh, we just, it's so cool to look at all of these, all of these P1s in this spreadsheet.

And know that, it's a problem we're grateful for. It really is. Thank you so much to everyone. And thanks for sticking with us through an entire season of Star Trek and booking P1s for our future. This is one of those inflection points where I'm like, well, maybe this is it for us. Maybe when we're done with Debspace 9, nobody cares about our podcast anymore. And I'm looking at a mountain of evidence that says, no, people will still keep listening.

Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? When I think about characters in this final episode or two, depending on how you look at it, it's hard not to find more affection for anyone besides Milla, who's just there to care, right? Yeah. She's got her own life upstairs, we don't know what that's like. We don't know what that's like outside of her confrontation with the the gem had guards. And we don't know how how put out she must have been when her sex dungeon had to be taken over as quote unquote a seller by some rebels or whatever. Completely agree. Yeah.

I could have used the Mugi treatment with Miele on Deep Space 9, as I just ever frame for the series because I found her so compelling and neat as a character. So because I will never get that opportunity again, I'm going to make her my drunk Shimoda. What about you, Ben? I drink Shimoda is Worf, because I think that we should probably talk a little bit about Michael Dorn, and the fact that this is the last Worf episode of Star Trek, as far as we know, there may be some worth in upcoming Star Trek

Cole and Picard, which I really look forward to. And I think that worth as a character really saw his stockfall in Deep Space 9 in a big way. And I think that like the conclusion for him didn't feel quite as grand as the way he was brought on to this series. It's almost as if they assume his character will live on almost immediately. Totally. We don't really need to wind things up for Wurf because the Wurf series is obviously right around the corner. Right. And I think that Michael Dorn took everything that was written for this character and gave so much to it. Like from season one of TNG to season seven of Deep Space Nine, whether it was well written or not, put so much English on that baseball, like he fucking acted the hell out of war for better or for worse.

You and I have not held back on our many criticisms of the character, but I don't think we have ever been anything less than really appreciative of what he brought to it in spite of what he was given. Michael Dorn has done great work. Amazing, like, series slash franchise defining work. And he gets my Drunk Shemota on this episode because when they have a conversation with the group about where the O'Brien's might set up shop when they move to earth, Worf says the word Minsk like 15 times. And it made me laugh more every time he said it.

And I think that as appreciators of comedy, you and I have not given Michael Dorn enough credit for how funny he can be. Like he is so funny in that scene. He knew exactly how to play that and how to be as funny as possible with it. And like, God, Michael Dorn, what a fucking gift to Sargerick, he has been.

Agreed. I like that your final Shimoda for Deep Space 9 was that. 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 already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.

Oh, rats. Hey, hey, hey, oh, 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've got to get on the art. It's about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity.

Hey, oh, sorry, 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 Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that.

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Only Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Got that got that. Go, press, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock,

like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like

a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, rock, like rock, like a rock, rock, like a rock, doing a full series rewatch are we? No, we don't have to do that. We don't have time. I thought we were just going to go right into Voyager. I know we were going to do a middle app. Well, we did it in between TNG and deep space 9 where we did like our mount armists and our mount nuck more. Oh, we should definitely do that. Let's do, let's do that then. I didn't remember that we had. So it sounds like we're going to do a middle episode, a connective tissue episode between DS9 and Voyager

where we recognize some of the achievements of DSB9. Talk about DSB9 as a series instead of episode by episode. Before we're ready to kick off our brand new greatest generation series of podcasts about Star Trek Voyager. Yeah, I'm looking forward to all of that. And you know, this is a very transitional time in so many ways for us as podcasters. And we really appreciate everybody that has started with and stuck with us over all of these years and all of these episodes.

I mean, we're like, I think this is episode 351 of this show. Kind of a crazy thing to think of. We do our best to say thanks at the end of every episode we do, but I think at the end of a series it might be a better time to just say thanks to everyone who's enjoyed the show or said a nice thing about it up until now everyone who supported the show the supporters of the show make it possible for Ben and I to keep doing it Yeah, and everyone who has, like, joked around with us on the internet and sent us funny Star Trek stuff, like, it's just, what a joy to get to do this. As a main thing I think about every week, like it has brought so much fun and delight into my life and

helped me reconnect with a thing that has been a lifelong love of mine on like this whole new level. And being friends with the friends of Disoto has been such a blessing. It's one thing for you and I to like record and make the show, but it is another thing for the friends of Disoto to build and continue to strengthen the fan community that that surrounds us and that surrounds each other. Yeah. Like all of the friendships that have come out of this, like friendships that we may

never even find out about because they happened on the internet in a way that, you know, it just wasn't visible to us. It's so fucking cool. Like it's so cool to think about all of all of you and all of the like love that you have for Star Trek and all of the love that you have for each other and hey I raised my glass like my my last glass of these bubbly bubbly wines to all of you. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to

Two Entire Star Trek series with us. And we'll be back with you next week with the series wrap-up of Deep Space 9. And we got a couple of thank yous to get out of the way on top of that if you can believe it. We got to thank our buddy Adam Ragusia who is Toiling in the dungeon on new music for the show

to reflect the the new Star Trek Voyager reality we are moving into and I saw there was a thread on the greatest Gen sub-reddit recently where people were talking about just how much fun the DS9 Interstitial music has been and and like like people have real Like serious funness for it that I totally respect because When Adam Ragusea sent us that music when we first were starting on D-Face 9 it was like stuck in my head for weeks and weeks. Yeah, I mean one of the gifts of this show has been being able to build relationships with

people like Adam Ragusea, like Bill Tilly, like everyone who seeks to make a contribution to it for no other reason than loving it, than thinking that it has a value, that thinking that it's a fun thing to be a part of. Yeah. It's amazing, because you and I know how much work it is to do this every week and it's a lot and to see how many people put in an effort into making sure that it's cared for and fed in all of the many ways that it is. It's an amazing thing to experience. It really is. I'll never take that for granted.

Yeah. We got to shout out the card daddy Bill Tilly, the official social media maven of the greatest generation. Follow the social media accounts at greatest trek on Instagram and Twitter. He makes those really, really fun to follow. greatest trek on Instagram and Twitter. He makes those really, really fun to follow. And he also makes hilarious trading cards based on every episode. We may be in for a hologram card after the end of Dave Phase 9. I will be delighted to find out if one emerges. There's always very exciting to open up an encounter. Yeah, and thank you to all of you who have supported the show in all of the ways you do. We really, really appreciate every single one of you.

Thank you for listening. Everyone who's ever sent us a gift to open on the show. Everyone who's ever sent us a cameo from the Navisitor. Everyone just, which is more than a few of you. Everyone who's ever come to a live show. Everyone who's ever booked a live show for us. Yeah. Thank you for everything.

We're really excited to come back and talk about the next Star Trek series with you, Star Trek Voyager. Couldn't be more excited. And with that, we'll leave that kitchen next time. With another great recap of Star Trek Deep Space 9. And an episode of the greatest generation that uses that opportunity to just talk more than you think about Jake Sisco. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound.

Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound.

Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. Make a sound. This isn't wine! It's tequila and five alive in those little marshmallows you put in cocoa. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

Artists don't? Audient supported.