DS9 S02E08

In this installment:
(viewed Friday & Saturday, July 18-19)

Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S02E08 - "Necessary Evil"

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"Necessary Evil"

• Not that it's an especially interesting bit of trivia, but I do believe this is the only time that Quark personally visits Bajor during the course of the entire series.
• As Odo is recording his first official station security log, he scoffs at the human need to keep records and lists and so forth.  As an anal-retentive do-gooder (who, I guess, actually has no anus), you'd think he'd appreciate the value of meticulous record-keeping.
• While Quark and Rom attempt to break into Vaatrik Pallra's former shop on the Promenade to retrieve the strongbox for which she contracted with Quark, we get a glimpse of exactly how clever Rom is (much to the dismay of his brother):  He picks the super-special space lock in around 10 seconds, and has all of the tools they need to get the job done...thanks largely to how often Quark forgets to leave him access to the various locked doors and compartments at Quark's, and Rom has to break into those in order to serve customers.
• Compressed tetryon beam weapon?  That sounds nasty.
• 139th Rule of Acquisition:  "Wives serve, brothers inherit."
• "I've had my eye on you for a long time, Rom.  You're not as stupid as you look."
  
  "I am too!"
• This is the first of several flashback episodes that give us a glimpse of what Deep Space 9 (then called "Terok Nor") was like during the Carassian occupation of Bajor.
• This is also the first mention of Odo being coerced into performing the "Cardassian neck trick" by his handlers during his early years as a test subject after he was discovered floating in the Denorios Belt.  We'll never see Odo actually perform this "trick" during the run of the series.
• During their flashback conversation, Gul Dukat refers to the Cardassian state as the "Cardassian Empire".  Although the two terms are used interchangeably, the state is later and more frequently referred to by its correct name--the Cardassian Union.
  
  
  
  Emblem of the Cardassian Union
• The method Gul Dukat uses to convince Odo to assist him with the investigation of Vaatrik's murder is the same employed by real-life despots to convince people who are otherwise contemptuous of their brutal methods:  Remind them that their usual way of dealing with a problem is extreme violence (in this case, rounding up Bajorans at random and executing them to punish the whole group for the murder), and that if they help out they can save lives.  It's how many an otherwise-good person has been slowly morphed into a collaborator.
• When past Kira finishes her conversation with past Odo, she calls him "constable"--what was probably initially meant as a sideways insult eventually morphs into his unofficial title.
• Apparently in the 24th Century, you can still have your lights turned off if you don't pay your bills...at least on Bajor, that is.  I doubt that's a problem in the money-free, utopian Federation.
• "The Ferengi holds onto life like it's gold-pressed latinum."
• We learn in this episode that the currency of Bajor is called the "lita".
• Kira didn't kill the dude, she's a saboteur!  Dun dun DUNNNNN!
• How useless is that Bajoran security guy? 
  
  "Oh hey, just put these flowers in water."
  
  "Totally!  I'm absolutely a candystriper and not a friggin' security guard."
• Although I grow to like the character in time, I never get over my loathing for Rom's high-pitched distress scream.
• Or Kira totally did kill the dude.  Because nobody likes collaborators.
• "What you think of me...matters a lot."
  
  This episode is kind of the beginning of the "special relationship" between Odo and Kira, which will be the great "will they or won't they" romance of DS9.
  
  (Spoiler alert:  They totally do...eventually.  But don't hold your breath.)