159. Covenant

Summary

After a discussion with Odo, Julian and Ezri about faith, Kira is visited by Vedek Falla, an old friend from the occupation. He gives her a small crystal and she is immediately transported away to Empok Nor, where she is greeted by a colony of the Pagh-Wraith cult and their master...Dukat. He explains that he is the Pagh-Wraith's new Emissary and he is worshiping the true prophets, and that they (and he, naturally) want her to be part of it. She is, of course, incredulous and furious...but when the cultists (including Falla) prevent her from shooting Dukat she must acknowledge that their devotion to him is real. He tries in vain to get her to understand his commitment to them and goes on and on about their sense of community and his love for his followers but she's having none of it. They are interrupted by the news that one of the cult members is in labor...she and her husband were the first to be given permission by Dukat to conceive. The child, however, is half-Cardassian. Dukat convinces the followers that it's a miracle, a sign from the Pagh-Wraiths. Kira can't believe they're buying it...her suspicions seem justified when Dukat, in a secret meeting with the new mother (whose child he fathered, of course), locks her in an airlock and opens the door. She is rescued in time by Kira and Falla but the followers' faith is unwavering even in the face of Kira's outraged insistence that Dukat is a fraud. In his quarters Dukat prays for guidance, and the next day calls a meeting to announce that the Pagh-Wraiths want the cult to join them but without their corporeal bodies. They'll all commit suicide with tablets of an Obsidian Order drug that reduces the bodies to dust within a few hours. Kira escapes her locked room in time to interrupt the ceremony, where Dukat is about to swallow his pill. It is knocked from his hand but the followers become suspicious when he scrabbles madly to find the same exact pill and won't take a different one. They realize that his pill was non-lethal and he would have let them all die while he escaped...and no one would ever have known that his body wasn't there. The cultists turn on him and he beams himself away...except Falla, who takes the pill anyway.

Analysis

The first real disappointment of the season, "Covenant" is a big bundle of character hypocrisy, religious cliches and the continued descent of Dukat from interesting, enigmatic villain to stereotyped madman. Kira says in the teaser that she wouldn't care what religion Odo followed as long as he got something out of it, yet she can't stomach the cultists following the Pagh-Wraiths even though they're getting something out of it. I guess it's all right for her fella but not for her fellow Bajorans. Dukat's pleadings for her to "open her heart" to him get tiresome after about three seconds and he and Kira have scene after scene that are basically mildly reconfigured versions of the same scene. The followers are sheep, nothing more, and their blind devotion to Dukat is rendered completely ridiculous and meaningless by the way they turn on him in a heartbeat. If this was supposed to make Dukat a scarier villain, it didn't work. It just made him more laughable and even less threatening. If this was an extension of his developing madness as shown in Waltz and Tears of the Prophets, it didn't make much sense. First he wanted Sisko's respect. Then he wanted to destroy Sisko..which was somehow supposed to be accomplished by collapsing the wormhole. Now he wants to follow Pagh-Wraiths and amass crowds of doting Bajoran worshipers? This guy's got more secret desires than Walter Mitty. He can't decide what he wants or how he's going to behave, therefore we can't decide how to react to him...so we don't react at all. He's rapidly becoming a very uninteresting character. As for Kira, she is remarkably close-minded throughout the episode. I have no idea why she should care so much if some Bajorans worship Pagh-Wraiths, but that is probably my own liberal bias talking. I believe one should respect everyone's religious choices even if they disagree with my own...views Kira evidently does not share. I think the episode would have been much stronger if the experience had caused some doubt about her own views to creep in.

Overall, pretty damn dull and ineffective.

Rating: 3.5

Memorable Quote:

Dukat: Your hair. You changed it.
Kira: Your ear. You pierced it.

"Some things can't be forgiven." --Kira

Classic Scene:

The one scene that was somewhat disturbing was the sight of Dukat managing to convince a crowd of followers that a half-Cardassian child was a miracle, despite the existence of a much simpler explanation.

Sexually Slanted Line 'O the Episode:

"I have been touched by the hand of a god." --Dukat. Well, so has Kira...literally. :-)

The O/K Status Report

There's a sweet (to use Ezri's word) scene in the teaser in which Odo expresses the wish that he were a believer so he could go to temple with Kira. She says she'd love that, but you gotta have faith, my brother! Otherwise the relationship is strangely absent. I would have personally expected a little more in the way of showing the DS9 crew's search for their missing first officer...and I feel personally cheated that we didn't get a nice reunion scene. Damn. Special Alerts

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