The Greatest Generation - Until Your Face is as Blue as Your Shirt (DS9 S4E24)

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

When a runabout with precious cargo sustains a banger, Bashir plays a cup and ball trick with Miles and Keiko’s unborn child. But when Quark gets a bad diagnosis, the Ferengis find themselves involved in yet another harebrained latinum scheme that could spell the end of Quark’s Bar. Is there some way Kira could save O’Brien a click? What does Brunt actually want to do with the pucks? Did Quark have an actionable religious epiphany? It’s the episode with the wall-eyed headboobs. Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets! Support the production of The Greatest Generation.

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 friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! The god of the universe, the end of the world. Commander Benjamin says great veterans will stop busy. Deep Space Nine. Welcome to the greatest generation.

Deep Space Nine. It's a Star Trek podcast. Quite a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryanaka. Adam, I have been thinking a little bit about our logo. Oh, yeah?

I love the logo that we had for our greatest gen contour. Uh-huh. And I, this is like an idea that hit me the other day that I've been wanting to run by you. What about if that's our podcast artwork, the greatest generation part of that with the beams of light around it, the multi-colored beams of light.

That's pretty cool. I do like that quite a bit. Because I know that a couple of, I think that the size of the artwork is supposed to double in size soon to be compliant with podcast standards. We want to be compliant, Ben. Yeah, so we're going to have to redo it one way or the other. And I did a bad job. Last time we changed our logo up.

Well, let's give you a chance at redemption. Here's the thing. Yeah, I wanted to know the thing. Whenever we change shows, we have changed the artwork. Is this a thing that will stay then as our artwork for greatest gen? Henceforth? I kind of like that idea because it's kind of like classic trick, but also really great looking.

And I think we're specific. God, I hope I'm not wrong about those, but like in the TNG days, where we specific about what show we were watching in the show notes? Yeah, I think so. I think it was just, I think now we have DS9 in the little parenthetical in the title. As long as we keep with the parentheticals, I think,

everything will be A, okay. One thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately is that we have almost actively made our show hard to find. We don't really have a website. We have just the default thing that our podcast hosting service provides. We don't do a great job of providing links to all the various podcasting apps. We don't answer emails.

We don't answer emails. We don't answer emails. We tend to ignore guest requests from other podcasts. Yeah. We're great. I'm trying to be better about it. You want to be a demand, Ben? I'm trying to be better about like doing more, doing more guest spots on other shows.

I want it to be special. When people find us or book us for things, you get to try really hard to book greatest gin, the bad boys of Star Trek podcasting. I mean, I don't know. I just want to be out there and like, you can't find us on Apple podcasts if you search for Star Trek. And I've been assured by the kind folks over there that's going to change pretty soon.

But we could, we could be doing a lot more to like actually attempt to grow the audience of this show. And like we put it all on our viewers asking them to recommend the show, asking them to rate and review. Yeah, it's about time we do something also. Yeah, that was kind of the thinking behind it. Like what if our graphics were nice to look at and consistent across several mediums?

What if we professionalized in any way? Right, so that's kind of what I've been thinking about lately. This being our main job. Because it has to be. Yeah, well, it sounds like we made some decisions just now. And that's good. The other thing I wanted to run by you, what about taking the show out on tour in the fall?

Sure, okay. You're into that. Can I persuade, what's it gonna take for me to put you in a fall tour today? The promise of not financial ruin. Can you promise me that, Ben? I think I can promise you that. I'm thinking we hit 10 cities.

We've been reliably at sell out-ish levels in the past past where we know we can cover our costs. And then five that we've either didn't visit last year or have always wanted to visit. You know, your proposal is flying straight in the face of my aforementioned need for scarcity. for scarcity. I know but the people want us at them. And once we're out on the road, we always love it, right? Ben, you love getting to meet the friends of the Soto. Because you're my friend, because you are my podcast and business partner, and because I would sue you, you cannot do this show live without me.

And so you can count on me. Hey, all you. On the other mic for a late fall greatest gen tour. How's that? That sounds really fun. One thing that I am really proud of from our previous tours. I didn't mean to turn the beginning this Marin into just a business meeting. Yeah, we haven't talked business in a while.

But we never do it off. It kind of feels like it being cross-examined, Ben. All right, well, you know, react to this however you want to, and I can edit it out if you don't want it in the show, but I was really proud of the fact that we made that we raised $10,000 for the National Center for Science Education. Yeah. And I want to do something for a charitable cause, this coming tour, assuming we do it.

And I want to, I don't know, I want to think about doing that with a little bit more intentionality than just like, hey, you can get something and we're going to give some of the money to charity. What can we do to enhance that part of what we're doing? Yeah, that sounds good to me. Do you have a specific idea in mind? Or is this just a something to be? I guess it's something to think about. If people have ideas, I would be curious to hear them,

because I think that like people have been really enthusiastic about helping us to support that, because I think like almost everybody in our audience would agree that science education is super important, but it's just been, it's felt tacked on to me in the past, and I like the idea of doing it, doing it better, you know, like always thinking about how everything in the show can be better. Wow, I guess I'm a little,

sorry to hear you say that, I was very proud of the work that we had done. I'm not dragging the work we've done. I'm just saying maybe there's room for improvement. I often take that as I often take that bad as I just demonstrated, you know? Like God, you just got a glimpse into every relationship I've ever had or will ever have.

Just a light criticism being like horribly defended by me. Yeah. Believe me when I say I'm coming from a place of pride myself, I'm just wondering if there's anything we can do to increase our impact and our positive effect in the world. Well, I like the idea and I know we will because it is a priority for the both of us. like usually we are highly dismissive of feedback on ways we could be better, but I think I would gladly open up the floor to the Friends of Disodo about what folks think we could and should be doing W-slash-R-slash-T charitable efforts with a future tour. Here's what I'll say to the friends of DeSoto, choose a leader and representative.

I do not want to hear from all of you. It's too much. Yeah, yeah, the, the cacophony can be tough to sift through. Yeah, go through Bill Tilly. And Bill Tilly will give us the card that represents the charitable. Oh man, I love this. Sorry Bill, sorry to give you work Bill,

but this is just how it's gotta be. Yeah, that's how we'll know what's official. It'll be Bill Tilly official. Well Adam, do you wanna get into the official greatest generation episode of season 4 episode 24? Certainly, dude, and it's called Body Parts. Do you realize how it kind of all this seems? No, of course you don't.

And it's directed by Avery Brooks. We know this because Avery Brooks is really not in this episode. Yeah, he takes a great big back seat. The pylons have been repaired on the station at him. The first thing I noticed was we started a nice wide shot showing all six pylons in perfect working order. You can tell which one was the broken pylon because there's some scarification around that part.

There's one of those super Mario brothers band-ains on it. Yeah. Keko is off station and where we are as a viewer is on station experiencing the angst of a Miles Edward O' opa-ion during. I never should have let it go. She's in the G-quad doing some adventurous stuff. I'm certain Dr. Bashir and Major Cure are taking good care of your wife.

And he's not nuts about the adventurousness of his wife, given the fact that she is pregnant. He is a bit of a helicopter husband in a way that he is not a helicopter parent about Molly. He doesn't want anything bad to happen to Kiko during her pregnancy and I kind of wondered if that had to do with disaster. Yeah. You know, that's a great point. They don't explicitly connect it back but it was that episode where he is isolated on

the bridge, trying to solve problems with Troy and Ensen Rowe. Yeah. Well, Worf is down in 10-forward, delivering his baby. Right. I've seen this a few times with friends of ours with unborn children, like there is great care taken of the container, like almost more care of the container

than the child after it's born, you know? Right, like wow Mark, you suddenly seem to really do it on your wife. Yeah, wow, what's up? What's up with you caring about her opinion about things? It's like you found a whole new way to express your disrespect for her. But that is a very brief moment.

And then we are down in- Neither have I have a friend named Mark by the way. This is a fictional mark. Yeah, I don't know anybody named Mark. And I wouldn't associate with anyone named Mark if I had an opportunity to. Especially Mark with the C, those are the worst. Oh yeah, except for my cartooning teacher when I was a kid.

Hmm. Oh did you? Who was a Mark with a C? Did you take? Did you take the art test brochure? Was it was Mark the guy in those commercials? If you like to play a rock with a pencil, chances are you have the basic interest needed to help you become a serious

Art stood no I went to a an art summer camp and there was a cartoon class that you could take the guy's name was Mark and he was like in retrospect a you know 29 year old Nerd who liked the draw superheroes in his notebook and he'd got he got a great gig teaching kids how to draw comic strips. I'll tell you who Summer Camp cartoon counselor Mark's least favorite student was the one who introduced himself as Wesley. That is the camp that that took place at. How did I get that right? The only, I can remember two comic strips I worked on in that class. One was about the Ninja Turtles beating up Saddam Hussein.

And the other was a, you know, the, my parents always have never have any fun as a kid. That's fun. Come on. Like like geopolitical war. Was it your head? You should have a little kid in summer camp, man. You should save your dunk for this second comic strip

Adam. Because my parents always had a subscription to the New Yorker when I was growing up. And a classic New Yorker comic format is guy like like hobo on a deserted island, you know? Like one palm tree with one or two guys leaning against it. It's like every 10 New Yorkers for my entire childhood had one such single frame comic in it. And I came up with a strip that was the same idea, except for it was the palm trees that were the characters.

No castaways marooned on this island, but there was one cut up cool palm tree that wore sunglasses and then another nerdy square palm tree, the straight man palm tree. And they just have like little brief interactions nerdy square palm tree, the straight man palm tree. And they just have like little brief interactions with each other, little amusing interactions. I imagined as like a nine year old

that I was gonna start submitting these to the New Yorker and getting published. Was cartoon camp counselor Mark suddenly interested in having a private conference with your parents? It was like, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, I have terrible news about your son. He is displaying all the signs of someone who needs a lot of help. He needs to be taken out of regular school immediately. I'm ready to give him a nuclear wedgie.

And I'm camp counselor Mark. Our buddy John Adams has started to get comics published in the New Yorker, you have noticed. He did the tour poster for the Primateura simulation tour. That's right. He's very talented. The great chief O'Brien at work, comic strip. And when I saw that he was routinely getting published

in the New Yorker, I was consumed with jealousy. I looked back at all of the decisions I'd made in my life. I thought, I honestly thought back to a conversation I had with my mom leaving school one day when I was like in middle school. And it had been a long time since I'd taken a formal comic drawing class and Told her like I think you're really kind of foreclosing on a great career

I could be having in in comic drawing by not arranging for me to have after school comic drawing instruction I'm sure you were very persuasive been You know it would make a great New Yorker cartoon that John Adams could draw? Is that island with the palm trees? And then it's your bloated corpse that is washed up on the shore. And the palm trees are like looking at each other and looking at you. And they're like, what am I thinking now, asshole? Jesus. Yeah, that's a rather clever jab at inter-opis politics, don't you think?

Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. Wow. They're resentful that I put thoughts in their heads. These palm trees. I wish that I knew that Captain John Luke Picard, the middle school Benjamin R. Harrison. Every story you tell just adds more color and vibrancy. It was a strange kid. To the image I have in my head of him.

I wonder if having had a sibling would have normalled me out. I mean, it didn't do much for me in the normalcy department, I mean. Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe I would have still been a total weirdo. Anyways, we cut down to Quark's bar. Quark is in very high spirits. He offers to make Ram a snail juice on the house. Ram is, of course, in his Bedurin workmen uniform. And Quirk is back from a long trip back to Ferengenar.

Saw their mom, cut some deals. It's gonna make some exciting profits, et cetera, et cetera. And got diagnosed with some bad disease. I'm dying! Dorik syndrome. Yeah, and not to be confused with Dor bad disease. I'm dying! Dork syndrome. Yeah, not to be confused with dork syndrome. I totally thought he said dork. I have dork syndrome.

Which is what you and I have, clearly. Yeah, but that's incurable. There's got to be a term for this. The term used when someone has been told that they don't have long to live and they almost pivot into, like or like some sort of like happy resignation. That's got to be a way sometimes, right? It's kind of a it's one of those one of those surprising reactions that in retrospect is

very on brand. Right. But yeah, Quirk announces he's gonna die and it's one of those like record scratch everyone in the bar turns around and looks at it moments. What are you all looking at? Haven't you ever seen a dying man before? You never know how you're gonna take that kind of news. And sometimes I think about how I would, you know? And I hope I take it like Quark does here. With a plum? Yeah. Like he almost, he sort of becomes his best self. He's nice to his brother. He's generous to people at the bar. It's, it's fleeting, right?

Like it's not, it's not like, it's not like he's gonna be like that for the remaining week he has to walk around. But yeah, and that's the, that's the inciting incident, right? This Doric syndrome is going to set in in between six and seven days is how long he has to live. And so it's not a lot of time to get his stuff in order. So I guess the reason that he's happy is that Doric syndrome is pretty rare. So it's like hitting the disease lotto.

Right. And that's something Quark is down for. Yeah. And because the Ferengi sell their Kermaine pucks, like this is one last chance to make some profits before he dies. I thought it was really interesting how long the scene is because it's, I mean, we get like 30 or 45 seconds with the chief and everybody up in ops

and then aside from the minute and a half of title sequence, the first like eight minutes of the episode take place in Quark's bar and it's just a conversation between him and Rah Ram about this situation. Right. And Quark pivots from his mania of being almost like happy, like happily manic about his circumstance, to being really introspective about his legacy. Like he's a guy who sees a lot of his life as being unfinished and a lot of it is being a failure. He looks back at his life with almost like disgust. Oh, nobody.

For all the espousing, forangi values he does, he does not feel like he has achieved those values. Right. When we come back to Ops, a damaged runabout emerges. It's the vulga and it has been heavily damaged. Unfortunately, this is the runabout that Kira and Kiko and Dr. Bashir are inside. And Kira and Kiko's injuries are so bad that they are beamed directly to the infirmary. With Bashir, and Obrayan runs down to the infirmary to see not Bashir or Kiko but Kira.

She is on a bio bed and she's got a pretty nasty bruise on the side of her face that's getting treated but she seems to be fine and she says Kiko is still in surgery like her injuries were pretty severe but she's gonna be okay like nobody's worried about her not making it. However, chief. And Gregor's. How do you know? And she pulls her linens down and shows off her big belly. She basic instincts, O'Brien here.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Kira has a great capacity for the dramatic and that is not appreciated in a hospital context. She buries the lead pretty hard here. Yeah. Like, now is not the time to save what happened to the baby for the end. Like, save the baby's okay and then say how?

That's a good friend move. It's not like something happened to the baby and then I'm going to look off in a distance for a moment. This should not be clickbait. No, baby is okay. You won't believe how. Here it needs to save O'Brien a click here for sure. Save him a click. Yeah. Wow. So they switch containers. Yeah, we get a little briefing session where the doctor is explaining this to the chief primarily, but Cisco is standing there. And this is another moment where they're like, Oh, Brian should be like, I don't care about the asteroid. Like I really like we can

save the asteroid hitting the shuttle for later. Tell me why my baby isn't Kira. You could tell Captain Cisco about that. I'll tell you're fucking blue in the face. Until your face is as blue as your shirt. But what I want to know right now is why the fuck my wife isn't pregnant anymore, but Kira is. And the the the.

The Pusprion's like, I know the coffee's good. I made it. I go and buy the good stuff because Kiko by Scarbich. I wrote this scene so that I could be both misogynistic and racist, but it's a character. So it's not really me, but it is me because I wrote this scene. I feel like Captain Cisco is there in a weird kind of comic relief. Yeah, he's genuinely funny in this scene.

He is, and I think he gives us permission as if you were to not take this seriously either. But the bottom line is it worked, right? It lets a lot of the stakes tension out of the episode in a way that I think is good for the episode ultimately. I think so too, because I don't wanna worry about an unborn baby in a Star Trek show like this, you know? Especially when it's one of the other stories

as a Ferengy centric episode, like that is a bad mix. Well, isn't the poop on this episode that it was kind of like they had to figure out a way for Cure to be pregnant all of a sudden. Yeah. And then our visa tour was actually pregnant this season. And so they had some story that they could play with and some sci-fi context to be missed with.

So they they did this. But like making that a super scary is everyone going to make it kind of story is not really what it's called for by the A and B stories in this episode. So. If Dax were on the shuttle and not Kira, could the baby have shared Dax's belly with an ankylis or ankylis or or is there no room in there. I don't think that the ankylis or isn't hurt you to this. No, I know that but like would get like a she's got like a marsupial pouch, right? But would Dax also take on the personality of the unborn child. I don't think so. Would there be a weird kind of schizophrenia happening?

I don't know. I'm glad they didn't go in that direction. I think that's what I'm saying. Too complicated. Yeah, and O'Brien is like writing for Keko. She wants her baby back, baby back, baby back. And the doctor says, oh no, that's not possible because.

Because baby back ribs at Chili's are a limited time offer. Right. Yeah, it's a limited time offer and it's such a vascular situation that it would just be traumatic for both baby and mother and potentially dangerous. This is as graphic as the episode gets in terms of like the what it takes to swap rooms and the way that they did. It sounds like a fairly standard beam out beam in situation outside of this conversation. Yeah, but yeah, the deal is that Kira is going to have to carry this baby to term and nothing anybody can do about that now. To be quite honest about it, that is an apparel. I'm fucking an apparel.

Mr. Bucket, I have to refer to better when it states. Oh, I don't use the bucket anymore. Back with Quark, he is anxiously watching the puck market. Like, you and I used to read Reddit comments after shows were published. Like, like, he's excited to see what people say and then crushed when he finally does. He is disappointed early on when there aren't many bids and then he's incredulous that there

is a high bidder which he immediately tabs as being wrong because the high bid is exactly what ROMs life savings are. That's an insultingly low offer. ROM has bid his maximum, which, you're not supposed to do it in an auction, right? You don't open with your max. No. Another bid comes in and it's for 500 bars

of gold press Latinum for the 52 discs of Quark's body. We've never gotten a Latinum exchange rate before now. Right. And that exchange rate as described by Ram and Quark's body. We've never gotten a Latin exchange rate before now. Right. And that exchange rate as described by Rahman Quark, our 500 bars equals 10,000 strips equals 1 million slips. And we've seen all of these in scenes before, like we know what they look like. I don't know if I know what they look like exactly. Yeah.

I feel like I've seen things that I thought were bars and then somebody refers to them by another name. I don't know. You're just checking Twitter while you're watching these apps, huh? Yeah, I want to see if somebody said something mean about our podcast. That's noble work you're doing, Ben. Quark declares the action closed and he gets a great big pile of money for his trouble. The idea that you could sell your desiccated cramines

before dying and then enjoy the profit of that sale is fascinating to me. Like I kind of wanted this episode to turn into a Brewster's Millions type thing where like, how does Quark spend the money? Everybody! Anybody want to go to lunch? I'm buying! Is it crazy or what? Well, it seems like one of those like, Liberty Mutual term life kind of situations where

Quark is worried about leaving a bunch of debts to his loved ones. Like, funerals are expensive. It's so hard nowadays with all the gangs and rap music. What about robots? And so, like part of it is that he has like a bunch of debts to settle. He's got a bunch of predatory reverse mortgages. They off. Right.

Yeah, he needs to buy back the bulk of equity in his house before he dies so that Ram has something, anything. But, yeah, this puts him in pretty high spirits because he's, you know, he knows he's going to die, but he's going to die in the black. He's not going to be leaving debts behind for his loved ones to deal with. It took me my whole life. But I'm going to die a winner. for his loved ones to deal with. It took me my whole life. But I'm gonna die a winner. And this bubble has popped almost immediately, right?

Like, because the next scene is them just like, walk around the bar, like talking about how great this pile of money is. And but she's just kind of like, like the Countess in Peewee's playhouse, like poking his head in the like half door and going like, Oh, Peewee! You're not going to defeat your mortality from that terrible illness. Okay, goodbye.

Here's the thing about giving someone medical news. Is that if you are giving them the news, don't you mean, no, they call news. Whether or not you're telling them that their condition is mortal or that they're going to live, I think you need to give either of those an equal amount of seriousness. You don't just drive by the bar

like Bashir does on his way to another thing. You gotta set him down. The thing that strains your duality here is that Bashir got this, got this communication from the doctor that Quarxa on Ferengenar. Like, hey, he doesn't actually have Doric syndrome.

I made a mistake. Yeah. And Bashir does not familiarize himself with what that is before he goes and tells Quarxa news. That's a bad look, Bashir. Like, no. Awful hip avialation by Dr. Bashir here by basically screaming at a cross Quarxa bar. course and news. That's a bad look, but she's also awful hip

avialation by Dr. Bishir here by basically screaming at a cross quorks bar. Right. Yeah, everybody gets to know. Yeah. The dilemma in the episode becomes brunt FCA. The the second Jeffrey comes appearance in a row. this season. And he has arrived on the station to make good on his purchase, because he is the mysterious buyer who offered up a small fortune for the desiccated remains of Quark. And he expects to be furnished with those remains within six days. This is not the first time we've seen Jeffrey Combs. It's not the first time we've seen Jeffrey Combs as Brunt, but I feel like this is the first time we've seen Jeffrey Combs as Brunt

as Heath Ledger's Joker. There is something really unhinged about Brunt in this episode and it made me think so much about Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. There's like, and especially because of Brunt's relationship with Ferengy culture, as it is similar to the Joker's relationship with society, right? Yeah, and I think it's really unfortunate because I don't wanna like take anything away from Jeffrey Counds, but it really sucks that he just copied Heath Ledger like that. That is not what I'm saying at all, Ben.

I'm saying I really appreciated Jeffrey Comes's work here. I thought he was like 10 out of 10 in threat level. He was really good. Yeah, I wondered if it is because he's like off duty. He's here in a private capacity as brunch the man, not as brunch the controller of some kind of. This is brunch when he gets home from work and takes off his shoes. He let his hair down.

This is Brunt after a couple of slug juices. The problem is there's no going back on a deal. A deal is a deal. A contract is a contract is a contract. And if, like, and Brunt is in a unique position via his employment at the FCA of like really making life hell for Quark if he does not fulfill this contract. But I also got the idea that he kind of wanted to do some sick shit with corkspucks. Yeah, yeah, he just wanted to like clap his nuts with them.

Yeah, or like jack off while a woman in a high heeled shoe stepped on one or something like that. Or like like clap them together like the sound of horse hooves and from like the beginning of Monty Python Yeah, you use them as as tableware at a great big dinner party for all his friends. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they'd make great coasters Snail juice on a coaster Is that a good Bruntum? I don't even really know he sounds like. Yeah, brunt just goes full Patrick Bateman. The punishment for breaking a contract is severe and that is all family assets are sold to the lowest bidder and your family, all of your family is humiliated and outcast by all for Rengue. it would be a terrible consequence. And this really, this really scares Quark.

I listened to an interview on Terry Gross recently that was a lady who had been a Jehovah witness and she had left the faith. And the cost of apostasy being that like nobody that participates in the faith is allowed to have any contact with you. And this really felt like that. Like the, yeah, it feels like the the the price of violating a contract in Franky society is a kin to leaving a cult like everybody you'd know Well, we'll shun you right and and they will be punished also like even though they didn't do anything Religions doing it for the right reasons We cut back and forth like away from the story and into the Miles and Keko O'Brien story. I mean, basically what happens there is that they are feeling awkward about the Kira container and because they want to be with her all the time,

they feel separated from their baby because she's elsewhere and like Kiko is barely able to walk. So she's like, her recovery seems difficult and painful. And like, not only is she in physical pain, but she's in this mental anguish of like a day ago, I had a baby in me. We still have that baby, but the baby's somewhere else and with someone else.

I thought it was amazing that they wrote an episode with something as intense as that happening to one of their characters. And she does not appear in the episode until 15 minutes in. The one third mark through the episode. And it's a very brief scene. It's like a 30-second scene between her and Miles just like going like, hey, glad you're feeling a little bit better. You'll be up on your feet by tomorrow. And then we cut back to it for the briefest glimpses throughout the episode. The Quark story is so A story in this and what's happening with Keko, which

is incredibly intense and an incredibly emotionally fraught set of ideas. the idea of, like you say, like the, like, we still have this baby, but it's not where it's supposed to be. Is an incredibly painful and surprising idea, like, and like a really interesting sci-fi idea. And something that I felt like they could have explored 10 times as much as they did. There's an interesting asymmetry in this, what I guess we could call like this deep sea story, because like all of the pain is visited upon the O'Brien's, but curious surrogacy is not by choice. Right. It's a massive imposition.

And she never betrays that, ever. She is always totally gay. And I wonder if there was ever a thought in registering her discomfort about her situation too. Like, I've thought halfway through this episode that the O'Brien's were gonna hug her to death. And like, and like sort of lany the situation a little bit. And like, make it uncomfortable for Kira

so that Kira would like push away. But that never happens. Like, like, she's invited in and she remains. Yeah, she's, she's surprisingly game for, for this. And I'm super impressed with her as a person. Yeah. For being like that. And I wondered if they, I don't know, like I don't, her character, it kind of reads for her character, but it also kind of like you could see her going totally the opposite direction, like

really resenting the burden that has been placed on her, just because of like a freak circumstance of when they had an accident and her particular biology meaning that they can't unburden her of the baby any earlier than normal. I really like the episode. And by saying that, I'm also saying, like, I'm getting this episode off the hook for that, because this almost isn't this episode's job to retcon Kira's feelings about having a child. It, this could have been done over the last four seasons where Kira's too much of a work

of holic. We know that about her. Like, she's too busy to ever consider having a kid. It could have been a thing that was introduced with her relationship with Shikar. Maybe Shikar really wants kids, and Kira isn't so sure. Like a stitcher too of dialogue buried a season or two ago. Does the work that this episode doesn't have to?

And this episode chooses not to. Yeah, the choices that this episode doesn't have to? And this episode chooses not to. Yeah, the choices that are made here are really interesting. And I thought, you know, for as interesting as the core story is, and I think it is interesting, I felt like you could switch the ratio of how much screen time is given to each, and I would have been happier as a viewer.

Right. Yeah. Brunt is just a force of nature in this episode and he is making Quark's life hell. So much so that Quark has resorted to some creative thinking about his circumstances, knowing that he cannot necessarily get out of his contract and knowing that Brunt is expecting him to die, he goes,

he goes to the one person on the station who works in this space. And that's Garrick. Plain simple. Yeah. Quark is privy to Garrick's previous life in a way that seems to be, seems to come as a bit of a surprise to Garrick, that Quark would like to retain Garrick's services of an assassin. Right. And Ron believes that it is to assassinate Brunt, but it's Quirk that is asking for something a little different. He wants Garrick to assassinate him, suicide by Garrick. Right. We get a couple of scenes of like what that might be like where, you know,

Garek, you know, like snaps Quark's neck and drops in face first into a plate full of food. Quark comes out of a dressing room with like a knife in his back. Garek's like, no, that's not gonna work. He goes back in and then like... Rob and Garek are sitting on the sati. Yeah. Derek shoots him with a phaser. Now this isn't gonna work. Gorg goes back in.

Oh, that music cue. Yeah. And Gorg really resists every option for getting killed. But you know, murder beggars can't be method choosers, Adam. Indeed. There's something that happens this scene that happens in the whole episode between Quark and Rom, is that Quark frames his circumstances as like idealistic

and Rom only looks at this in terms of the emotional. This is true to both of their characters, this conflict. Right. It feels very lived in. Quark is entirely focused on the kind of like dollars and cents of every situation he's in. Right. Right. And when he winds up arranging with Garrick is that he's going to be killed in a way that

will come as a complete surprise. He is not going to know ahead of time the when or the how. And this just winds up putting him in a terrible headspace because he's just sneaking around like jumping in fright at his own shadow, you know, flicking on the lights in his apartment and ducking. And he winds up having a terrible dream where he imagines he is waking up in the

Ferengy heaven, which is the divine treasury where all he has to do is bribe his way past the bircer or something and he'll be able to presumably, I don't know, fuck 70 virgins or whatever. presumably, I don't know, fuck 70 virgins or whatever. Yeah, the guy who greets him is Grand Negas Gint. And Gint was the first Grand Negas and the author of the rules of acquisition. So this is, this is meeting a celebrity for Quark. But unfortunately, this in the dream state, Gint looks like Rob. Yeah, and Cork does not realize he's having a dream. Initially, he just, he assumes that he's in fact dead and that Garek is great at his job. Speaking of great at your job as a makeup artist,

you know you're making walleye head boobs when you're putting on the loaf, make grandbacus gint, right? Right. You can't take your eyes off of them. I wondered if this was the same loaf that they put on Zach. I don't remember him having these head boobs. I feel like Zach has head boobs too. They're so pendulous.

Also in this dream is brunt and like a lot of dreams that start out nice and end as nightmares, uh, brunt begins to show like the third time in the episode. Brunt is, you know how I got these to hear? You're like, come on, man, you keep changing the story. What are we to believe? Brunt chokes quark at the end of this dream and then quark wakes up with his own hands around his throat. Yeah.

I think we've all woken up in that condition, right? Yeah, I mean, uh, have a chokes dream. Anybody looks into the kind of jack off sesh that I'm in do. Pretty dark. The upshot of the dream is that the rules of acquisition are not are not laws. The cold is more what you call guidelines, the natural rules.

Oh, interesting that an almost religious text could be just sort of informational and that literal law. Open for interpretation. Huh. Cool. What if saved us a lot of trouble and death to have known that? This is gonna come as a complete shock to a lot of people.

But yeah, the price of breaking the rules remains the same, right? Like, Brent can still do all the things he's threatened to do. Is Quark taking this as a vision that he can then prostilitize after this episode, I wonder? You just need someone's permission, so I'm giving it to you. This is effectively a massive bombshell to the Firingy way of life. Like, I wonder, I wonder to what degree this

as a lasting impression on on Quirk and the Society. It's hard to know, right? Like, there's a part of him that is very happy to receive this because he feels it helps him make the personal decision that apostasy is better than death. But like, one problem I have with this episode is it doesn't really resolve the stakes that it sets up for itself. And it's in the same way

that the the bar association did like, like the retribution that Brent threatened in that episode and in this episode is like, this is gonna happen to everybody you know, like you're never gonna be able to do any work with other Ferangis, your mother will be out on the street, like this, the fallout of this will be wide ranging and will hurt people in a way that you will

not be able to soften the blow. And I don't think anything that happens in this episode leads us to believe that that is not in fact true because court goes to to brunt after this and is like, Hey, listen, I am not gonna be honoring the contract. I've got your money back for you here plus interest. Another loser in a long line of fake Frankies. And Brent flips out, like he goes fucking ape on Quark. No, Frankie made you business with that man. Yeah, and closes his bar.

Yeah. Loudly. He slaps the scarlet letter on the wall and like announces to everybody there that it's over. And Quark agrees it's over. He like tells everybody to leave. Pretty sad moment. More.

More. More. More. More. More. Steve, sweet. More. More. More. Steve, everybody, stop. Hammer time.

We sort of ping pong emotionally between this and the O'Brien's, because like the button on the O'Brien's story is that Aunt Naree's has agreed to live with the O'Brien's in a guest bedroom. It's like almost not a story. Yeah. Like it's just almost not a story. Yeah. Like it's just a series of things that happen. And it's also very up episode two. I want to say this is like almost 15 minutes from the end

because the button on the actual episode is all quark centric. Yeah. I mean, I think that's perceptual. I think it's like real runtime wise. It's like five minutes from the end. Yeah. Yeah. But like, it feels like, okay, like, so what happened is they beamed the baby out of Keko and Indicira, there's no way to unring that bell.

The O'Brien's are a little bit sad about it, but like have Kira over for dinner, and the resolution is she's going to move in with them and tell the baby is born. Right. All of the drama is just in take-o and Miles's fears surrounding it. And those fears being asswaged. Right. Nothing to worry about guys. Care is going to be super cool about this. I mean, I wonder if this isn't setting up for some conflicts down the road. It doesn't seem like they would be a good match roommate-wise,

but we'll see. We shall see. I also wonder, like, does this persist into the next season? Because this is the second to last episode of this season. Right. So presumably they're going on summer break, which would be the time that the Navisator

needs to have her baby. Yeah, potentially. Or not, I don't know. I don't know. It must be so fucking annoying as an actress, if you want to have a kid to like try and line up your pregnancy with a time that is not gonna be hugely disruptive to your work. Like, I mean, it's annoying enough for women with careers that are like nine to five jobs,

but when you're a lead character on a TV show like this, like trying to like nail summer break for when you have your baby has got to just be like such a nightmare. Yeah, it was actually Iris, even bears wife who came up with the idea of instead of shooting around Nanavisator's belly or like covering up Gates McVaddon with a with like a doctor's robe like they did in TNG. Like it was Laura Bear who was like, hey, Ira, you know, like you could just come up with a story solution to this problem. You're making a science fiction television show. Yeah, and so Ira's Stephen Bear like credits his wife for the idea of making this work and I think it was a great idea. That is a solid idea.

Behind every great man Adam is a woman who hates that man. Behind every great man, Adam is a woman who hates that man. The true button on this episode takes place in Quarks and the bar has been emptied out of all the furniture and the fixtures, Quarks sitting ostensibly destitute on the stairwell. Wearing a shirt that he needs to ship to Brunt tomorrow. Yeah, and it's Rom who's sort of soothing him by saying that even though you've lost everything, he's proud of him. And that doesn't console Quark very much, but he doesn't get a long time to wallow because Bashir enters with a case of bottles and then Dex enters with a case of glasses and Cisco enters with a bunch of bottles and then decks enters with a case of glasses.

And Cisco enters with a bunch of extra furniture. It's a real I am Spartacus moment here, Ben from the crew of DS9. It would appear as though the bar can remain with the help of everyone's contributions. Yeah, you know, Quark, a man who has solved illegal weapons and sold the station out in Neuverable Times, tried to arrange for his brother's death, gets bailed out by the humans. A generous humanitarian gesture. He's going to get to keep having a bar. I guess you won't have forangi waiters anymore.

This episode does everything it can to make you forget about all those things though. Like the music pivots into theme song adjacency. Every, like the mood of it is so giving. The words that ROM says are all about like, you know, quark, maybe your possessions aren't physical things, maybe your assets are your friends. Like, on a lot of other shows,

they would not be able to walk this line. And you would get a cavity from how sweet it is. But instead, it just obfuscates all of the awful things that quark has done up until now, because you're looking this through the lens of all of these good people. It's like gratitude, retcon, you know? It's a weird magic trick, but I think it's effective. I think it's effective too, and it makes Quark not the chaos agent that he is anymore in some ways, but, but like leaves the door open for him's like

reverting to that. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, nothing, it's nothing he did to like, earn this generosity. It's just, it's just like everybody else is a, is a really good person on this nation. Yeah. And like there is a brief moment where you can see him accepting the generosity, but, uh, but you can tell it is brief. Would Rom be okay, no matter what happens here, because he has a career separate from for argue society. I think he would. I think so too. I wonder if quark would be motivated to join Starfleet or

or the Bejorins in order to in order to be able to live, you know. Yeah, I don't know. Lots of questions, but maybe the biggest question of all, Ben, is did you like this episode? I did like the episode. Like I said, I kind of wish that it was episode. I did like the episode. Like I said, I kind of wish that it was the inverse of this episode where the B was the A and the A was the B. I mean, I think that like when you're looking at an Avery Brooks episode, what you're looking for is emotional truth. Right. And that is all over this damn thing. Indeed. Yeah. And and and well executed. So. Yeah, I wonder to what degree it's Avery Brooks that really brought out the Jeffrey croat, the Jeffrey combs in brunt, right?

Yeah, that's a that's a great call. Yeah, because Avery Brooks is not afraid to get wild. Right. He is portraying a character and comes, goes way further outside the lines than he has in previous outings. Yeah. Boy, imagine being an actor and getting that kind of encouragement. I think you can really draw a line between the two here.

Yeah. I really like the episode two, Ben. And I agree with you totally on the transposition of the A and the B story. I think that would have been interesting, but I wonder, God, we only have one episode left in this season, right? And I hope we get more Kira conflict about her being a surrogate, to be honest. I hope there's some time for that in our finale.

I like finding a little bit more about Quark and what his line is, right? Because he has been like a chaos agent from the start and a person that didn't seem like he had one as lines go. So I thought that was an interesting reveal for him, that there was a line he wouldn't cross. Right. Well, Adam, a line I always like crossing is into the priority one inbox. Do you want to head in there with me and see what we got? Oh, I've already crossed over. I'm already there.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. You need a supplement on top. A supplement on top? A supplement. A supplement. the to Star Trek, the greatest generation, Guthrie and Ivory, your family, your friends, and your world. I love each of these things, and I can't wait for the next thing we discover together. I may be a retired astronaut, but I'm glad I'm yours. Ah!

That is a very, very sweet message. Yeah. I wonder who Guthrie and Ivory are. I feel like they could be like pets or siblings or friends. I guess siblings or friends would be covered by family and friends, which are listed after Guthrie and Iver. So maybe the air pets, I don't know. But a very touching message from heaven to what?

Like Starship Troopers, I would like to know more. Ben our second priority one message is from TK421. Oh, no. You know what, if this parenthetical wasn't here, I would think that this person was talking about Boogie Knight and the stereo modification that fuck Whoa tries to try to sell in the super stereo world store, right? Uh-huh, you just you're just not gonna get that base without the tk421 modification Yeah, this message is for you and me and all trekkies everywhere and the message goes like this By now you've destroyed the Millennium Falcon.

Mmm, I've not yet. Ha ha ha. Oops. In parentheses it says Vader and then nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I am more of a Star Wars fan. What? Star Wars fans do not have a sense of humor and generally are kind of the worst. Yeah, it's a toxic fandom if there was one. Very self-aware. Good amount of insight here by TK421.

A message and if you were to destroy a Star Trek Lego model, which would you pick? And an apprentice that says if Star Trek was popular enough to have Lego models, nice burn their TK421. Oh yeah. I think it would be the D. If there was a comparable Enterprise D Lego model on the market, we would have bought it and built it and destroyed it. For me, my answer would be the Dyson sphere, which would be a two billion brick Lego model, taking Benjamin R. Harrison roughly 14 years to complete. Because you just never want to get around to actually doing this. You would need an airplane hanger to build it. Would Pretty amazing. I think that would be my pick. Great question. I love questions in

the P1 feed. Good job TK421. Yeah. If you'd like to ask us a question or send somebody a message, you can head over to maximumfund.org slash jumbo tron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message and we really appreciate the folks who do it. 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 Sherry Reembarishment 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 Sherry Reembarishment 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 ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.

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 neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this arc. We've got to get on the arc.

It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey oh sorry sorry are you Noah? Yeah I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and 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? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. That got that gold press like that, that got that gold press like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, like that, if I could surgically remove a piece of it small enough to make like a conventional shimata. But that scene at Garrick's, we skipped past a part of it that was crucial. And that is Garrick is in there helping mourn when Quark locks in. Garrick is helping mourn with a pair of pants. And specifically, he has strengthened the crotch of those pants.

Yeah. In the store, Garrick mentions that it's that it's sturdy enough, you know, for for some hardcore bar stooling, the kind that that mourn is known to do. But I think you and I know the truth. Van is that you need a strengthened crotch in your pants when you were carrying around the hammer. a strengthened crotch in your pants when you were carrying around the hammer. So for that reason, I'm going to give Garrick my, my Shimoda, like he's covering for Morn's big dick here. As if everyone on the station doesn't know that. He's observing HIPAA regulations much more carefully than the doctor. Indeed.

What about you, Ben? I got to give it to Cisco for the Cisco for the bits he's doing in that McLaughlin group. Is your wand! Really is. The joke of like there were only two people present and Bushier picks the correct one to be the uterus in which the baby goes to is fucking hysterical.

He's great in this scene. I laughed out loud when he said that. He can't say no to himself as a director like... No! Strong choice! Cosigned! Every Brooks is doing it! I love that.

Well, we'll met every Brooks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we are meeting the season finale of Deep Space 9 season four next week, Ben. What are we gonna see there? At his season four episode 25 broken link. Odo is forced to return to the home world of his people

and face judgment for killing one of his own. Wow. So he is going home. Forced. You can't force Odo to do anything, I don't think can you he's gonna break out of those chains No prison can hold him no prison can hold him. I'll spill it right out. Yeah Wow Well, we can't slither out of watching the episode Ben

But can we slither into a different way of watching it? It's a good question, and we are currently on Square 29 of the Game of Buttholes the Will of the Profits. That's of course the board game that we play every week at Gach.biz slash game. Few scores ahead is a measure of a man, and other than that, all clean squares. So I'm gonna go ahead and roll. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Tula! Did I win? Harvey! I rolled a three. So we are on square 32 now.

All right. And uh, 32 is a regular old episode. We are a couple squares away from a measure of a man and a couple more away from a canar with the mar. So next roll is pretty exciting, fairly high stakes next time. Wow. For this time, next week's episode, regular ass episode, nothing to worry about.

Now, nothing to worry about at all. We won't do anything to fuck it up. Nope. So, I think that pretty much does it for today. If you enjoy the greatest generation who'd like to support what we do, we make that easy. We have a whole website about that. It's called maximumfund.org slash donate.

And we're a listener-supported show. So if you'd like to contribute on a monthly basis, you head there, pick a level that works for you. The minimum level is five bucks a month, and that gets you a ton of great bonus content. We are always putting out bonus content, and I'm proud of all of the bonus episodes we've done for the greatest generation and I think you will enjoy them. I know I do. God, it's almost getting to that late part of the year where we drop a weird special ep into that feed.

As we do regularly. That might happen soon. I got to thank Adam Rukusia for styling all of the great music for our program. He of course makes the theme song and interstitial music built on the jig of Dark Materia. Dark Materia's music being the source material for Greatest Gen. Yeah. Check out Adam Ragusia's YouTube channel where he'll teach you how to cook. Two good reasons not to leave Twitter are JJ Lendle and Bill Tilly.

They both make things out of the shows that we make. JJ Lendle makes movie quality posters that he releases on Saturday or Sunday before the Monday episodes drop and Bill Tilly creates new jokes out of the jokes that we tell on the greatest generation and turns them into collectible cards which are fantastic. You can find him on Twitter at Bill Tilly 1973 and at J.J. Lendel for J.J. Lendel. Two great reasons to leave Twitter are me and Adam. I want their at Benjamin A. J.J. Lendel for J.J. Lendel. Two great reasons to leave Twitter are me and Adam. I won their at Benjamin A.H.R. and Adam's on their at Cut for Time. You can also join all of the Facebook and Reddit groups.

And there's probably a Discord. There's the wikia where people are with very fine detail cataloging every episode of this show and every joke we tell. Every slip up, either of us makes. Catalogged forever. Check out the other great podcast on MaximumFund.org, including our shows, The Greatest Discovery, and Friendly Fire. I personally think this offseason of Greatest Discovery has been the best one we've done. I think it's been awesome. We've been having a great time over there, so I give that a listen.

And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and an episode of The Greatest Generation Deep Space 9, which takes a dip in that golden pool that pool needs a filter you know we're getting back in that pool right Ben it's gonna be so gross looking forward to it's so it's so syrupy you know what is Otto's home planet just called the Kitty Pool? You know what the planet founders needs and that golden pool is one of those ink dies that reacts to urine.

Does that whole lake would be blue if that were the case? Yeah, they're fucking up. We're there on planet founders Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so.

Make it so. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artists owned, audience supported.