The Greatest Generation - You Went A to F U (DS9 S3E20)

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

When an attempt is made on Garak’s life, it’s not just tailoring paraphernalia that gets blown out into the open. But when the Cardassian spy stops dissembling and the Tal Shiar stops playing chess, the potential conflict takes on a Spaceball One sense of scale. Is Quark finally fulfilling his debt to society? How big a threat are the Romulans now that they can walk two abreast? Do the Star Trek caves have mattresses on the floor? It’s the one where Garak Jazz Hands take on an ominous overtone.

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. Welcome to the greatest generation, Deep Space Nine. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pryanaka. How you doing, Adam? Ben, it's the week between as one of our friends and songwriters puts it. This will be our first episode of 2019. Am I am I wrong? Yeah. Thank you, right? I'm right. When you said, yeah, I thought you were saying like, yeah, you're wrong. Like normal. Duh! It's very confusing. You know, like, in my household, whenever anyone answers a question with the word sure, it is a real fuck you to the question asker most of the time.

Do you want to get Thai food tonight? Yeah. Because as we both know, sure is neither affirmative nor negative. It's it's I don't give a shit. Yeah, and I'm potentially harboring some deep resentment of you. What what it really means is I don't give a shit about how the rest of the evening is going to go. That's fun. Everything after this point, you should just factor in, I'm not in the mood. Yeah, yeah, clearly. Yeah, end of the year 2018 really makes you think. I mean, it's weird to say because at least half of the people that listen to this show are not

like listening the week and episode comes out. So to those of you listening in 2020 or 2021, I'm sorry I even brought it up. A divided listenership cannot stand, Ben. I guess I don't know why we would separate them into groups of currents and past people. Do you think we should just take the episodes off the internet once they're a week old? Is that what you're proposing? I think that would be a career limiting move. That would be... Yeah.

I just don't understand what you're saying at all, I guess. Yeah, I don't know, just something I think about, I guess. Yeah. Feeling pretty introspective, Ben, I got pretty hammered at a karaoke bar last night. Oh, yeah, this was the work holiday party for not your work, but your wife's. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. It was a... It's fun to just tie one on as much as you possibly can in that kind of context. I had a packed with one of my wife's friends' husbands that went like, if one of us

bails, both of us will bail. And so when I arrived on the scene and saw he wasn't there, but his wife was, I knew I'd been double crossed. Oh man. Yeah, I was pretty fucked. That's dirty. Yeah, real dirty. Can't trust that guy anymore.

No, no. I liked him too. It's too bad, it's over. But you know what, a good friend of mine, when I was stealing with some betrayal in my own life once told me, I love it when my friends move sideways on me because then I know where they stand.

You know? Now, like, you know that this guy can't be trusted with an arrangement like that, go forward. It's true. You're not gonna get burned twice. Now I know. Who will be once? Shame on you. Don't get mad at him.

Just incorporate it into your understanding of the kind of character he has. And, and, you know, use that going forward. I would say maintain the friendship. Yeah, maintain the friendship knowing that I have this intel. He can't fucking, I mean, you know, and I, maybe he just, in a mindset to think about people

being tricky, given the subject matter of today's episode. But I mean, that's actually awesome, because you can have a great friendship with that person as long as you know that they're not to be trusted. Yeah. A foundation of deception and lies is a Great foundation valid is any other way to start a friendship. Yeah, I agree. You know what you're right, Ben I've been looking at this all wrong What happened last night was really a gift told you everything you need to know a gift that I had planned on returning

but now. Or regifting? See, because my instinct is for revenge and grudge holding. But now I'm not gonna do that. You always say that your instinct is for revenge and grudge holding. I don't know anybody that you've revenged yourself on or that you have a grudge with. That's because they're a friendly guy. You, they are no longer in my orbit.

You would never have cost to to cross their paths ever. God, it fucking terrifies me every time you say that though. Given how entangled we've made our own lives. I'm sure everything's going to work out fine, Ben. Nothing to worry about. I'm making a... Is that a threat or a promise, Adam? I'm making Garrick jazz hands over here. You gotta believe me.

Oh, man. Ben, I have no probable cause to dissolve our friendship. I'll give you some... Don't worry. I'll eventually find a way to give you probable cause. Unlike the cause in today's episode, Ben, which is of the improbable kind. Yeah.

God, just like staggering out of the blocks on this one. I didn't even, I honestly didn't even pick up what you were putting down at him. I, we had like 15 minutes of lag in between sitting down and starting to record and I managed to drink like half a glass of mezcal on that time. So, wow. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Would you like to join me in my mezcal party? Yeah, that sounds pretty good. I'm gonna know I'm gonna go do that right now. That'll make me feel better. You step away from the mic you fill up a glass and I'll introduce season 3 episode 20 improbable cause Do you realize how incredible this is? Ah!

Ah! Ah! No, of course you don't. We start with a scene that we get for maybe half of the DS9 episode to this season. Ha ha ha! It's meal time with Gary and Bashir. It's the Gary and Bashir lunchtime hang. I often start a a a notes session for an episode with the same format of titling and a section for

my Shimoda and all those things. I imagine the teleplay writers for this show are just starting with the opening scene undeleted every time. Gary can be sheer sit outside of Quarks, enjoying a meal. I thought it was interesting that they were outside of Quarks because in the episode with the Lethian that zapped Bashir, they were at the replamate and Quark kind of like hounded them about coming in and trying his new menu. We just introduced a new launchman at the bar.

Goodbye Quark. So I guess marketing works. Yeah. Doesn't deed. For an episode that quark is not in, his reputation sure is. Oh shit, Doug. Didn't even notice that.

Yeah. Maybe he's serving time for some of the horrible crimes he's recently committed. We can only hope he's not walking the station a free man. Let's spend a little time talking here about how Bashir is a fast eater and I thought that the speculation about that that Garrick did was pretty fun thinking about humanity as a species that has lived in total abundance for generations and yet Bashir is eating like he's running out of time.

I really admire this about Garrick, his ability to level a judgment on a person or a situation that isn't taken in a table flipping his e-fit of a reaction. I think part of it is he delivers it so surgically that I feel like the other party most times Just has to admire it almost admire it to the to the degree that they wouldn't be upset upon hearing it Perhaps someone should do a study. He also like he just says so much shit and some of its bullshit some of it's the truth He's kind of the nini leaks of Of this show in a lot of ways. I don't think I get that reference. Oh, she's one of the real housewives of Atlanta, Adam.

God damn it. I was expecting something literary. Cool. You know, she's always, you know, just stirring the pot, always kind of overstating the truth in a way that riles people. But, you know, she also talks a lot of shit that's totally baseless, so it somehow works. I love the idea that the writers at this show, you know, dropping all of the Shakespeare references they can would eventually find that their great effort in 1995 was compared 23 years later to a reality show about rich wives. Cool. I got a very angry email from somebody at some point about my mentioning the existence

of those shes. Really? How to go? Basically, was saying like my partner watches those shows and I hate them and so I don't want to have to hear about them on a show about a show that I like. Boy, it doesn't sound like that's your problem at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, they don't exactly wrap their lunch up. Bashir just has something he urgently needs to get to. And he clears out of there. They bump into Major Kira briefly. And she's kind of occupying Bashir's time long enough for Gere character to slip away and into his office which promptly usblowed. As a matter of fact, Bashir knew him in primary, medical emergency on the promenade.

Yeah, it's a thimble is everywhere. Bashir? Yeah, the shrapnel of all the little needles coming out of their pin cushions. Blowing into the hallway. Just a claymore mine filled with those circular razor blade cutters. Bashir does something here that I really wanted to call attention to, which is like before the first pieces of debris even hit the ground. Bashir

has combaged the medical emergency in progress. Like he is Johnny on the fucking spot here. I liked that, but it also made me think about that Lethian episode again where when he's not in Six Bay, it's closed. Yeah. So who's he calling? Cut to the infirmary with that paper clock on the door He just does it for appearance. Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, the thing that that he and Kira were talking about was some Yolosians are coming to the station. They're trying to get the atmosphere right in their quarters I think Yolosians are like cool millennial aliens that do extreme shit because you only live once. I don't think so, Ben. Cool, yes, Anne. Ha ha ha ha.

I don't know why my mind went to Alborland there. Ha ha ha ha. That's a deep, deep callback. Well, you know, it's hard to extricate Alborland from YOLO, you know, in most people's minds. What is that? Did I go A to C there? Is that what that was? You went A to F U.

Didn't mean to make a field that way. It's okay. Let's that way. It's okay. Let's move on. It's the miscal talking. It turns out that this bomb that went off in the in the tailoring store was a species triggered bomb. It, uh, like smells for pheromones or something, and it smelled nasty cardassian walk in there, went off.

This is a type of bomb favored by a species called flaxians. Yeah, flaxians known for for a cloth made out of aliens called linden alien. The flaxseens are into that smoothie lifestyle, Ben. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's great. You can eat it and wear it. You know, when they make love, they shoot flaxseeds. Dumb. Yeah, you're mentioning the ferromagnetic sensor, Dan, and I think this is a pretty fun start-track technology. Like the bomb sniffing bomb.

Yeah, it smelled garrick. Didn't like what it smelled. It went off. Centres so often, unregarded and start trick. We talk about it all the time. The abandoned, ship full of dead bodies

that no one regards the smell of. What a cardassian here. May or may not smell. Smell like? I wish Odo mentioned something about that. Like, boy, the pharomonic sensor must not have had to work that hard. Because Garek smells like shit all the time. Maybe this episode is trying to do some work to write that wrong because later on Odo talks

about how he doesn't even have a sense of smell. Yeah. Anyways, they get a beat on this on this flax hand and they're like, all right, well, we're gonna pull this guy in and interview him. You know, he's posing as like a traveling salesman. Yeah. They bring him into like an interrogation room. Is the interrogation room just the conference room that they typically have McLaughlin groups in?

Is your walk? Yeah, it is this wardrobe place it. This flat sassin comes with a box of samples. It's pretty great. That'll be a bright green unpainted plastic in the roommates toy of this character. Right. Julia's fun bit of business though.

How it opens up and it's got mirrors inside and stuff. Yeah, and it's full of, he's a fine perfumer. And Odo is shopping for a friend. A lady friend? Exactly. Presumably major here, but he doesn't say. He's too much of a gentleman. He's taking the flaxian through the different sense

he might be interested in and having him describe them. And he gets to a point where he's like, oh, maybe I'll mix some of these. So he's mixing a floral perfume and a musky perfume. And he's about to add one that's described as spicy. And this guy like sticks his hand in between the dropper and the peachy dish. Maybe we could add a drop of this as well. I really don't think they would go well together.

How would you describe your preferred fragrance, Ben? Would you say musky or spicy or floral? I would say none at all. Yeah. I'm a very sensitive nose and I really just don't care for an artificial scent at all. You and me both, man. I don't like it.

I feel very lucky that my wife couldn't take or leave them because if she really wanted to wear them, it would be a tricky thing. Yeah. I can't even deal with a dryer sheet scent. Yeah. Like I need an unscented dryer sheet. Yeah. I had a roommate back in the day when I lived in Brooklyn who he would put on like body

spray and he would be in his room with the door closed and I would be in my room with the door closed, like clear on the other side of the house and he would put that stuff on and I would start sneezing in my room. Wow. Before I even smell it. That stuff is bad. Yeah, I don't dig it.

I mean, you know, I tell you the reason for people. I understand that it's like a big turn on for some people or whatever, but it was never for me. I had a brief period in like middle school where I thought I was supposed to be into Cologne. I think a lot of people fall in that trap, dude. Yeah. Who's fault is that? Is that dad's fault? Like yeah, like somebody should have pulled me aside and been like, this is not really a thing. Yeah, there was a time to get out in front of that.

Yeah. I mean, I remember my mom telling me about like some boyfriend of hers that had some particular cologne that he wore. So I must have thought it was cool. So I must have thought it was cool and she must have thought it was cool. She must have thought she was friends with you to be telling you about her boyfriends. What the hell?

What is that about, Ben? I don't know, man. Like she just allowed to have a life before she met my father. She just openly talks about the great smelling man she knew before your dad. My parents were both married before they met and married each other. I did not know that.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So, uh... Good for them. Yeah, they lived an entire life before I came around. It's hard for me to imagine my own life before you came around.

Yeah, I know, right? That satisfies a deep, solipsistic need in my head to be the only important thing in anyone's life. Yeah. You know, as an only child, thank you for saying that. You got it, Ben. Garrett Kands over here. Gold to it, Ben. Gareth Kahn's over here. Gold to cotton. The cup.

Gold to cotton. So this flexion guy is not for sure the SS and what they're pretty sure. And so they low jack his car and they allow him to think he's getting off the station without being arrested. And the idea is that Odo is going to tail his ship with a runabout. And when it gets to the runabout to start the tail,

who is there but Garrick? And Garrick is excited about going on a road trip. Garrick has his small bagpact. Is that ready to go? Right. Pretty fun. And, I mean, for an episode that talks about how Garrick never leaves the station, Garrick is on, like, ready to go in this episode.

And I can think back on a few other times he's left the station. So I don't get it. This is a pretty low tech bit of manipulation he deploys here because he's just filibustering. Like, he's not doing anything super smart to be able to go on this trip. He's like, you know, Odo, you're just taking too much time trying to get me off the runabout. We should really be chasing that flagship ship about now, right? If we don't get started soon, he's going to get out of range. And every second you're sitting here talking to me, he's getting away.

So even though Odo could change himself into a slide that whisks him off of the run about at any moment, he does not. Or it could just expand to fill the space and push gear it out. Yeah, exactly. Which I'd kind of like to see, actually. Yeah. This poor flaxian and his ship explodes upon going to warp, so while they do begin this pursuit, it doesn't get very far.

Road trip over. Yeah, kind of a bummer, right? It's like getting a flat tire before you leave town. Yeah. It's not good. Fucking sex. It sounds like every family road trip of my childhood. A lot of car problems at him. They got a post game, this explosion, and they do so in the wardrobe with a McLoughlin group.

Issue 2! And around the table is Dax O'Brien, Cisco, Odo, and Garrick. He's invited to the group, that's fun. Do you stop acting like you're the number one f***ing guy in this group, man? I'm the number one guy in this group. He's not quite around the table. He's like, off-staring, fairly dumbfounded, out the window, and they're really puzzled about

who might have tried to kill him. They have some indication that there was a Romulan device used in the explosion. So maybe the Romulans had something to do with offing the flaxian. But the observation, Odo makes is that because Garek is not dissembling and trying to obscure the truth or throw them off the scent, this might be the first time he actually doesn't have any idea what's going on. Hmm. Yeah, it's weird how they make Eric stand after the side. You'd never do that to Clarence Page. I don't know who Clarence Page is. He's the one who's not Pat Buchanan or Eleanor Clifft. There's Clarence and then there's like more zekerman, right? Yeah, yeah, you know, don't think, don't, doesn't that fourth chair rotate?

Yeah. Yeah. My point is, none of them are standing. I think that was also your point. Bits, bits, bits. They blow in a call to the Romulans and this Romulan lady they talk to basically answers all of the questions they ask with clear concise answers. And you know, says like, yeah, we killed that flaxian guy.

He disappeared in a poof of flaxseed dust. I know, it's hard. It was dumb when we did it before. Why do you live that pain? Share your pain, Ben. Share it with me. Each man hides a secret pain. Must be exposed. You're right about how helpful this Romulan is.

She's not covering up anything at all. She cops to killing the sky. She also looks different from most other Romulans been, and I don't think it's because she's tell she are. They changed the Romulan uniforms this episode. They sure did. They're much less broad of shoulder. They're still pretty like squared off on the shoulders, but they can walk to a breast now down a any hallway. And I think

for a long time that's been a problem. Yeah. I wonder if their cat baskets change. We can't tell from this shot. No. But yeah, so this is sort of a dead end, and they're like, well, fuck, I mean, there was an explosion on the Promenade, so like a crime has been committed here, and we need to figure out who did it and why. The confounding thing is that they just only know so much about Garrick and can't really

trust anything that they think they know. So Odo offers to go reach out to an obsidian order contact of his. And a number of times in this episode and the episode that follows, these runabouts are just given away whenever they're asked for, like a frequency we're not used to. This this a scare sight, I'm bad. Let's what I'm trying to say. It's also something that we've seen like Kira have to go to Beiju or on a commercial flight recently. So yeah, maybe now that they have the defiant though, they're just like, yeah, fuck the runabouts. Yeah. What's neat about this trip that Odo takes is that he lands on this moon,

which is clearly the Star Trek cave that we've seen a million times. But Avery Brooks directs this episode, and there are some perspectives in this cave that feel fresh and new. Yeah. So good job by him, like shooting tilted downward from up high. I thought it was a really great look. A bit fracy. Yeah. It's some interesting vignettes around this, the

secret contact that Odo has there. And the handheld camera work, which really makes it horror film feeling very, very freaky. like he's been watched. Yeah. Do you get the sense that this contact lives there or they, they agreed to meet here? It feels a lot like in conspiracy when Picard meets those other captains on that, on that asteroid. Yeah, I like that. This is some greeting old friend. A lot is implied by this conversation,

you know, like that, that this, this Cardassian really owes Odo for something and that's why he's giving him this information. The information he's giving him is that there are, there's a big, Romulan, a lot of Romulan troop movements being detected on the Cardassian border that are quite concerning to the Cardassians. And also that Garek wasn't the only former Obsidian Order operative to have had attempts made on their life in the most recent time period. Five other people lost their lives in various ways, determined to be accidents

or dying of illness, but suspicious that they would all go at once. So it looks like Gerek is actually one of six and the other five bought it. Pretty great reference you had toward conspiracy here because this is sort of an intelligence banger that gets dropped on Odo here. Big stuff. Yeah, it'd be like being told that there were nubbin bugs. Come have a look. I think I'll summon my science officer. Also like it makes this the way this scene is shot also serves to make Odo the character feel small, right? Like you've got the contact above him at all times. You've got the shot from above looking below at him. It's really like there's a visual language here that serves to make him feel smaller

than what is being described as this big puzzle that he doesn't yet understand. You are investigating a very insignificant piece of a much larger puzzle. He gets thrown a computer pad with the names of the other cardacians that died on it. How many times do you think they did that take? I was thinking about how difficult it had to be because the contact throws it from the dark. Right. And Odo has to catch it as it comes into the light. There's no way to know how many times they did this,

but it had to be quite a few, I think. It's like shooting racket sports. High degree of difficulty. Uh huh. That makes me wonder, like did they have like a heap of mattresses on the floor in between the two of them in case the prop fell? Or do they have 25 of the computer pad just in case?

I think that's super smart. That thing is going to break if it hits the ground and you don't see the ground below Odo's feet, so I think they totally mattress that thing down. That's fun. It's fun to imagine all the stuff on set that's. Yeah, just out of frame. Yeah, because I think I read somewhere that they shot DS9 so that it could eventually be upres to HD

and the full 16-9 aspect ratio. Oh. So it's always interesting when you're watching a show, like you to just imagine, you know, beyond the edges of your television, all of the things that are in frame. And watching this show, there's those two black bars on the side that I just try to imagine like more scene on either side. But, uh, but yeah, we never, I don't think we're ever going to get to see it. No. This is an episode that particularly makes me want to get that HD remaster. Yeah, you really want to see that mattress, don't you?

I have to reverse back to my dead state. I don't use the bucket anymore. Odo heads back to the station and shows these names to Garrick, who is gobsmacked initially to find out that these people are dead, or at least puts on a good show. He's a little bit joyous in his gab's magnification. I think I don't think he I don't think this is red on him as necessarily bad news. Did you get that feeling? No, he says he would he would

have a party if he wasn't terrified. Yeah. Yeah, it's a kind of a win. But this is when Odo reveals that he knows that Garrett bombed his own shop. So this is when Odo reveals that he knows that Garek bombed his own shop. So this scene turns around pretty quickly. It turns out the bombing was a cry for help. As bombings often are, all of these contacts on this list been were associated with Inabrentane.

Ankylisor. And this is a name that we've heard before. This is a name that we've heard before. This is a... The man that we've met before. This is Garyxold Boss. He's the ham and a sweater looking guy that used to be pretty high up in the Obsidian Order. I love the description of him as being the retired head

of the Obsidian Order and the only one that lived long enough to actually retire. Yeah. There's certain implied bad assay in that, which I really like. Do you like that? Kind of informs the way he is attitudeally, you know? Yeah. Otto is pretty pissed at this point because this is some pretty high level cloak and dagger shit and

it would have all just gone right past him if Garrick hadn't set the explosion. Yeah, but it becomes clear that Garrick kind of put this all in motion because he thought that deep space nine and by extension Starfleet needed to know about something that is going on and hard to know about something that is going on and hard to know how much understanding he has of what is going on, but it's obviously very concerning to him. I mean, much like the crying wolf story from earlier in the episode, you can understand Garrick not just going to Odo needing help because he knows he wouldn't necessarily be believed

if he were to do that. If you lie all the time, nobody's going to believe you, even when you're telling the truth. He needed to blow up his shop. That was really the only thing you could do to get his attention. And I love the idea that Garic has a totally different moral understanding of the boy who cried or wolf than everybody else. Yeah. Are you sure that's the point Doctor? Of course. What else could it be? That you should never tell the same lie twice. That's such good writing. Yeah. Yeah it is. They blow

in a FaceTime call to Mela, this is Tane's housekeeper Which seems like a really clear and present danger-esque kind of espionage like who is gonna know about The drug dealer's activities better than the housekeeper. The machine is still on Milla Yeah, but the problem is she's super scared because a nobler isn't home. Yeah, he is, uh, he is left town and she basically puts it on Let's go on it now! They ask Cisco for runabouts like eight times in this episode. Yeah, he's like, yeah, just, you know, take whichever. That paper works gonna be a pain in the ass though. If you're gonna rent a runabout, just take it for the whole day. Yeah, but maybe it's one of those like, you know, like the little blue cars that they have here in LA.

You know, there's little like electric cars that you can take for an afternoon. Whatever. Not familiar with those, no, that's a thing. Yeah, it's like, I think it's like car to go is in other cities. There's little stations with like five of the same little media like this.

Like the car charging up. Yeah, we got that in Seattle under a different name, but yeah, those are cool. Yeah, I think it's, I think that they're named by the city or something like that. So Odo and Garek, Reserve, are run about and they head off to the Cardassian border because that's where they believe in a Britannian safehouse to be. Yeah, the Unifra system is where they're going to go. And right before they leave, Bashir runs into Garrick in the hallway and Garrick pulls a bit on Bashir. He suggests that Bashir go into the bombed out remains of his store and

like go behind a secret panel and take an isolene rod out of a hiding place and eat it. Just kidding. It's just bits. Oh, I do with bits, bits, bits. You think Bashir would have eaten that rod had had he carried the bit all the way out to its natural conclusion? I know. I mean, it seems like long enough that it would be pretty painful to eat, you know? Yeah.

And I don't think he would metabolize it. Maybe if you pierced the outside and got to the honey inside. You want to be sure that any rod eating is purely consensual. Doesn't seem like Bashir is that interested in this. No. Yeah, I mean, maybe they wanted to have it be crammed up your ass or something like that, but that they couldn't because of television. In route to the safe house, Garrick and Odo have a really interesting conversation

wherein Odo surmises that Garrick owes Tane something and that would be the only compulsion for Garrick to risk his life to save him from whatever danger he's fleeing. You owe him something. Ha! A logical deduction. And Garrick just flips the conversational table over right on top of Odo and is like, what would you even know about caring about anyone else at all? Like you're kind of a fucking hypocrite.

What could you possibly know about what I guess you and I could call human nature, but like the idea that anyone could care about anyone else is ridiculous. It's so interesting, because Odo is really close to activating some signs of humanity from Garrick. Yeah. And Garrick is almost like offended by the idea of it. Yeah. For Odo to accuse Garrick of caring and Garrick knowing the Odo's incapable of that,

it's like so. It almost goes past being hurtful because it's so true. Yeah. Truths that are that harsh, I think most of the time go without being said because they're so hurtful to reveal. Even if all parties know them to be true, right?

That's what makes this scene so interesting to me. It's like everyone in the room knows the truth of it, but no one would ever say that in polite company, you know? It also kind of reveals that they're both very similar to each other. Yeah. Like the thing, like the connections that they have or something that they both consider to be something that they need to conceal from everybody else. Right. They don't get too far past this conversation before a giant Romulan warbird

de-clokes right above the runabout. Yeah, this is an amazing, just the feeling of this shot was so fun. I love it. I miss this ship. It's one of the best looking ships, I think. It's a great ship. It's really fun to feel the scale of it, which is not always available, especially when it's nose-to-nose with the Enterprise, which seems to be roughly the same size.

But seeing it, I mean, it's like a star destroyer pulling a hammerhead cruiser into its shuttle bay or whatever it is. It's really a space ball one sense of scale. And it seems like they can't get a distress signal out and they're getting pulled in by a tractor beam. Why are we still on these boards here? Yeah, they get pulled on to this rimeolenship and they walk around a corner into an office

and there is an obrantine. Garrick fat shames him almost immediately. Well, you always did have a keen sense of fashion, but you seem to have let it go along with your once-trim figure. Like, Jesus, Garek. That's an interesting choice. Yeah, not the dearly departed boss.

Not what you would necessarily say to that person. Now. This is a scene that I think is emblematic of another thing that Avery Brooks does as a director. In this episode is that he gives the gift of a long, unbroken scene to his actors. He does that here with both Tane, but especially Garrick. They stay on this wider shot, and they allow him to speak without cutting away in a way that's, I think, unique to Avery Brooks's sense of direction.

It's very fun and stagy, and it's all about one-upsmanship. Yeah. And, you know, there are moments where Garek is winning the scene. There are moments where Tain is winning the scene. There's a couple of moments where Odo is winning the scene. But what comes out is that this is a big team up on behalf of the Kardashians and Romulans. And now because of the Intel dump that Starfleet gave the Romulans, they know where the founders are. And they've put together a 20 star ship task force to go basically genocide the founders of the Dominion. Take them off the board. It's a pretty fun callback to both the episode

where the Federation is compelled to share all of their gem had our intelligence with the Romulans that we now know was shared with the Cardassians, but also all of those ships that were being built in the Aria system that were momentarily revealed in a different episode. Like, now we know what those were for. These are the Obsidian Orders ships, and they're part of this, and they've got cloaking devices like they're doing dirt. Another thing that we find out in the scene is the cat basket is retained as part of the Romulan uniform,

even though the rest of it got some tactical redesigns. Yeah, you're not gonna redesign that cat basket's perfect as is. I just, I wanna see somebody catch that on a door like knock their disruptor across the room and it actually goes off and punches a hole in the hole. There's a reason why on a Romulan ship you don't get any of those door handles that stick out with an arm or a lever, like they're all the round kind. That way your basket doesn't get stuck on it.

Yeah. Round kind is far superior. I feel like we see more of the inside of Aramil and Warbird in this episode than maybe we ever have in any episode of Star Trek. Seriously, it's like an enterprise D amount of internal sets it seems like. Yeah, yeah, a lot going on here.

We understand that Tane has been kind of cleaning up on the loose ends of his career leading up to this, which is why the hit list was created. And anybody that had any leverage on him or knowledge of him got eliminated. It seems like Tain's presence on the ship as the tip of this first strike sword would indicate how unnecessary that might be though.

Like once they take the fleet to the other side, like what harm could those people do? I had, well I had questions about that. That's true. I mean, I, I wondered what Garrick knew when he blew up his shop, when he decided to blow up his shop, because if he knew it had something to do with pain and it seems like he might have, then this makes sense. Right? But there's also some stuff in this scene,

you know, at some point, Tain says, should I send somebody else to kill you? And Garek is like, oh no, I actually did the attempted killing on myself. It's just surprising to Tane. I don't know exactly. But it's satisfying. Like, I zodo.

It's that, it's, yeah, it's weird because it kind of undercuts what Tane's capabilities are. Yeah. Well, at the same time, surfing a story purpose. But I want Tane to seem like he's like impossibly diabolical at this point. I don't know. It's hard to view him as 10 out of 10 diabolical as long as Garek cares about him. And Garek is there to save him.

That's his reason for being there. And Garek's a little hurt that he'd been lumped in with the others on that hit list. I never betrayed you. Yeah, and it's his presence to save Tane that kind of flips Tane's plan around and Garrick actually gets offered a seat at the table. You can walk out that door or join me. Yeah, when that chair is pulled out, he takes it.

Like he's ready to rejoin the obsidian order. And that means like he's in on this plan and the plan is basically go, like take this genocide fleet into dominion space, kill the founders planet. And, you know, there will probably be a backlash. But the cardacians and Romulans, even if they're, you know, the mainstream parts of their governments weren't necessarily on board for this will be stuck defending themselves at this point. So it will be war. In every chain, you know, I would have helped if you would only asked as someone who is easily able to affect a genus head.

I mean, come on, I'm just sitting here in Malibu. I don't really have much to do these days. Now that my suspension of disbelief has been ruined by that bastard Captain Picard and I'm unable to imagine that my wife Roshan is really my wife Roshan. The illusion being broken, I'm just looking for anything to do. I'm trying to get out and socialize more. If that means doing genocide, I will set my conscience aside. I know for a fact you know where Delta round a four is. It's not her different. I would take just getting lunch with you on a weekly basis.

It seems like that's something your people are into. And, you know, I am honestly just reaching out in the void for somebody, anybody. You know, I'm not much of a haggler, really. I don't like to go to car dealerships and whatnot, but I'll tell you this. I would gennicide the Jim Hadar for half of the cost of all these ships that you just built. I mean, just as a starting port. It's not you I hate car dealer. What you made me become. Is that something? With a handshake and a smile, Garex back on team obsidian Order and we get a to be continued.

Yeah, it's handshake with Odo looking horrified in the background to be continued. Odo is kind of in a pickle at this point. Like, it's hard to recall a character in this much danger. And yet with his particular set of skills, also like he is very powerful and very dangerous but he is also very far from home it would be cool if he just killed everyone in the room right then and just like impersonated tains voice on the on the radio and it's like like we're heading back you know Roll credits

Roll credits. His method for killing everyone in the room is like cartoonishly gross. Like he does that thing that he should have done in the runabout where he just gets big and squishes everyone against the wall. Then he just heads back to the station like not to worry commander. I've got it all sorted out Yeah, you really don't want to be coming back. He doesn't leave you in his power the way he should Did you like the episode Ben? I did it. It was really fun and dynamic and it does a nice job of drawing on seeds that were planted flex-like in previous episodes. But without, you know, I don't feel you need to have watched those previous episodes.

No. It kind of works by itself, but also is more fun in the context of those having existed. They managed to call that back without using a Don't You See line of dialogue, which is nice. Yeah, yeah. This is a break from the Don't You See episodes that we've had pretty fast and furious so far this season. Yeah. So, yeah, I liked it, and I like how evil the evil plan is that they've found themselves stumbling into. Yeah, I agree with you. I also like the episode, and I think it is for the scale of that plan that I really like it.

Like the idea of a fleet of ships going through the wormhole to fuck shit up. That is a tantalizing proposition. And I low key him into any episode where Garyx, the featured character, so that combination's pretty nice. I saw a film recently called Charlie Verrick. I tell you about this. Now, it's a Walter Matthew like bank heist film.

And Andrew Robinson is one of his accomplices in the Bank Heist. Wow. It's really fun. Sounds great. Not to see it. 1973 film. Where can we see it?

I just watched it on Amazon. You can get it on, I mean, you have to probably pay like a rent dollar or something. Cool. But our friend Jesse Thorne recommended it to me after Elliot Kaylen from the Flop house recommended it to him and can't recommend it highly enough it's a fun it's fun to see Andrew Robinson not in loaf you know just but but he plays like I similarly dangerous feeling guy hmm so it was a lot of fun. I have to check it out.

One thing we have to check out right about now Ben is our priority one message. You want to see what we got in the box? I suppose so. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. I need a supplement on this. A supplement? A supplement. A supplement.

Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, our first priority one message is of a personal nature. It's from Mathaholic, and it's to Chief Hazard. Goes like this. On our 18th anniversary of friendship and 15th-ish of marriage, I donated to quote charity, unquote, in your name.

From the good old days of buying pirated Korean Star Trek activities, pre-netflix, to stealing all my oatmeal, to send a gift to the greatest gen, I wouldn't share my nerd obsession with anyone else. Love you. Thanks for being the Riker to my Troy. SS DGM. SS DGM. Yeah. It sounds like one of those high school yearbook codes, right? Yeah. That means something obviously sexual. Yeah. Chief Hazard and Matha Hollack have been friends for 18 years been. Yeah, that's Josh Hazard, right? Yeah, from Hazlabs. Yeah. Stolen oatmeal is

what I didn't know I had received there. It's almost as bad as stolen valor. Almost been. Our second priority one message is from plevim. What? And it is for Razz. Ben, we haven't gotten one of these in a long time. Oh, that used to be like the main way we made a living. Yeah, I kind of thought that they had run into financial troubles. I was worried for a while. Good to hear that Razz and Povim are both solvent.

They came to our mini-amplist show in texidos and top hats. They seem like they're doing pretty good. They really do. I was happy to see them there. Always a treat. Message goes like this, Ben, do you remember burning palettes on the shores of Lake Michigan? Pfft. Pfft.

Your funeral pyre will be just like that except you'll be screaming. Pfft. Pfft. God damn. Fuck you, Razz. Pfft. Jesus Christ, Plavim. I got violent.

Yeah. Plavim doesn't mess around. Fuck no. Damn. You do not want to make an enemy of Plavim. I got violent. Yeah. Flavime doesn't mess around. Fuck no, damn. You do not want to make an enemy of Flavime. That's for sure. Never trust a man that's rich in flax or ink. Well, if you're rich in either, you can take it on over to maximumfund.org slash jumbo tron or messages of the threatening and personal nature are $100 and the non-threatening and commercial nature are

200 and both of which are just a great great way to help fund the ongoing production of this show. Thanks guys. Thank you. guys. 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 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 got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. You got stupid with Judy Greer. And Camille Nangeani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

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And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they have such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain. Got us about 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 it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it,

got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, I really did.

It's fairly early on in the episode though. It's when Odo and Sisko are talking to the female Talshiar person on the FaceTime. Yeah. And they just get through talking to her. And then they do that thing where as soon as they turn off the FaceTime, Odo takes a shot at the Romulan tailoring. That this was something that you noticed? Like,

Did you think somebody in the writer's room saw the new Romulan uniforms and wanted to dunk on it? I kind of feel that way. Like if you did not notice that they were in different costuming, Odo highlights that here in this scene. And I thought that was great. Like people very rarely make fun of other people's appearances

in Star Trek just in general. And this seems like an episode pretty full of that kind of cut, like both with Odo cutting down the costuming and with Garrick hacking away at that meat that is a nobrientains belly is the implication that he's being sarcastic and he said he's saying that they're badly tailored uniforms or is he saying given how great their new uniforms are they would like a tailor they they obviously are friends to the tailoring community.

I mean, I would never seek to besmirch the great tailoring community that constitutes more than half of our listenership been. So I think I better remain neutral. But that's like, it's a confusing construction of the line. It is. Yeah. I mean, I interpreted it as a cut because that is just what I am. That's what I do. You interpret almost everything as a cut. Yeah. Yeah. If someone isn't physically handing you a present, you walk away from every interaction going like, God, what an asshole.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's Kirk accepting glasses in a book for his 40th birthday. He knows that's a cut. Fuck you, Dr. McCoy. It's saying I'm old. What have I you been? These gag gifts, fuck you. I've got a gift for you. I've got a gift for you. Zip. My drink from Oda is in fact that Romulan Talshiar lady. Whoa, from that scene. Yeah, from that scene. You know, always a game

of chess with them, except for when you're talking to this lady who just puts it all out there and places zero chess. She doesn't feel like playing games. She's tired of it. She's got other shit to do. She says so at the end of the conversation. Do you think that like because she's in the spy agency, it's like she's come full circle and she's just super upfront about everything?

Like she got so dissembling and evasive that she came back around to just saying, exactly what she means when she says it. You know what, if the Romulans, as a matter of policy, decided to change abruptly into a truth-telling manner of politics, I think it would take years for Starfleet to figure it out. Like they would hide into knots over how to interpret things.

That's sort of a great bit of spy craft if they chose to do it that way. Right. Yeah, you would never know what to think. And then they switch back. Oh yeah, we're back to being chess players again. Yeah. Pretty shrewd. Wow. It's you never know when you're playing chess with the Romulans. That's what the new saying would be. Sometimes you're just playing tic-tac-toe. Sometimes you're sitting on a patio with the Romulans. Yeah.

Not even playing a board game at all. Yeah, you're just watching the day go by. Ben, what are we watching for the next episode? I imagine it is the second of this two-parter. It is an episode called season three, episode 21. The die is cast. I wish that was the title of the episodes. Like that, it included season number.

In the episode number. Yeah. On the eve of a Romulan cardacian attack against the dominion, Garrick may have to prove his loyalty to his former mentor by eliminating Odot. Eliminating him. Like taking a shit of him. Is this something to do with his first name?

You eliminating him, like making him more like himself? Ooh. In, in an episode just full of the shittiest wordplay. How dare you. That is the most fragrant. Oh, God dammit. I respect it though. I hope it stays in.

I'm not gonna edit that out. It's your show. Keep it all in. Except all of my fuck-ups, take those out. You wanna see if we're recapping this episode in any particular way, Ben? I do, I'm getting my board game set out here. I made a Guck.biz-slash game.

Always a board game at the end of a greatest gen episode. Indeed. I love this game because you can look at the great artwork by Philippe Sobriero. And this was all coded up for us by our friend Craig Anderson. It swears up and down that the that the random number generator in the automated dice roll is real, but it has rolled us just a series of ones, lately, so many ones. We are on square 51 right now, and we could hit a quarks bar.

We could also hit a looking at each other during, depending on how this goes at them. Pretty exciting, Stephahead. I hope financially we don't hit the looking at each other during that could pose a big problem. We're going to need more razz and plevium-powered priority-one messages. The problem with that square is that we're almost always going to be booking those tickets on a very last-minute basis if we hit it. So it's an expensive square to hit. I'm hoping for another one. I'm just going to say that. Put it off is my vote. Wow.

You're required to learn as you play. Roll. OK. I'm going to shake in these days in my hand. These two days that somehow serve the function of one. You ready for this, Adam? Yeah, hit it. Oh, man, I have rolled a three and we have landed on Quarx Ball.

I love her! I love her! I love her! I love her! I love her! I love her! I love her! I love her! I love her! I! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! I'll just after this I'll go buy myself a pork chop cook it up and watch a terrible movie. Ben, I might have to propose something a little unorthodox, which is an asymmetrical quarks bar. Wow. Because mine is home, we do have plans later and I really can't be quarksed up for that. Oh man. So I would propose this. If we were to do this in such a way where you were the only one at the bar and I was keeping

your company there, you could drop that on me at any point wherein I would be so low quirksing. So I mean, I think for this to be fair, I can drop it on you at any point in any upcoming episode, whatever the square we land on is. Right, that would be correct. I have a rain check on you. I can dangle over your head.

It's like when you're a kid and you can't afford to give gifts, so you give coupons. We're like, we're like doing short. Yeah, exactly. Take the trash out without griping about it. So what I'm giving you is a coupon redeemable on a square that you see fit. What do you, what do you say?

Would that be fair? Or does that harm the, the spirit of this thing? I think it's perfectly fair. I mean, I'm sure you'll get a ton of shit on the internet about it. But, you deserve it. Much shit as I would be getting, should I go into this evening, corks step.

In person shit is much more harmful than internet shit. So. That's what I'm saying. I can mute the internet. I'll agree to your terms, Adam. And I will give you a reprieve on the next episode. You will be making a loan. I will be easy sipping something.

Yeah, I'll make more of an effort than you will. Mescal wise. Always do. Uh, well, Adam, do you want to shut this bad boy down? Now that we know what we're going to be watching and how we're going to be watching it. We can't do so without thanking a few of our favorite people, Ben. I want to thank Adam Ragusia, who makes all the theme music for this show.

And Dark Materia, who made the original theme music for this show. Yeah, Dark Materia, wherever you are out there, it's been years since we've been in touch. How many times maybe? Yeah. Thanks again. Wherever you are out there. It's been years since we've been in touch. Maybe yeah Thanks again and I hope you're doing great wherever you are. Yeah, gotta thank Bill Tilly our card daddy Bill Tilly 1973 on Twitter. He's making cards for every episode Great cards even not just cards, the best cards. Yeah.

We should thank JJ Lendle who's been making amazing one or T's Esk movie posters for each episode of Deep Space 9. We've been watching it. Yeah. He's been putting those up and promoting the show as part of his tweets. That's really cool. and we really appreciate that. I'm seeing lots of cast members faving his tweets, which is really cool. Like I saw Renee O'Berge-en-Wah, put a fave star on a recent one.

That was really cool. It's really fun to see that like, unbeknownst to those people, they are liking something associated with us, even if they have no idea of our existence. That's neat, right? It's a garrick-like level deception. I really want to thank everyone who's gone to MaximumFund.org slash Donate and have started the Year-Off right by supporting Greatest Gen at the $5 level. I've noticed an uptick in support recently and that excites me greatly. I'm hoping to go into 2019 strong.

So keep it up, please. And thank you. And for those supporters, if it's not out already, pretty soon our big crossover episode with the Flap House about Star Trek 5 will be in the donor feed There's also Scads and scads of other donor episodes that you only get if you are at the $5 a month and up level that Flop house crossover rep in is so funny. Yeah, I am really excited for people to hear it those guys the greatest It was so fun to do that with them

I I want to do more I got like tired jaw from laughing doing it And then when I had to QA the episode I got tired jaw from laughing just listening to it you hardly had any strength left to blow me afterwards I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. to bring out the sweet and the real monster blow jobs. You don't appreciate them if you don't get an average blow job every go off. Well, on that note, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Drake Deep Space 9 and another episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9 that blows up every piece on the U.S. It's an infant line. Get it! You'll know the God of the U.S. It's an infant line. Make it sound. Make it sound.

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