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Past Prologue: (from Netflix) Dr. Bashir is excited to meet Garak, the last Cardassian aboard Deep Space Nine and a rumoured spy.
Oh, you know I’m gonna be feral about this episode.
We open on Bashir sitting alone in Quark’s, and a new man in a tunic slowly creeping up behind him while smiling beatifically. I’m utterly obsessed with the way that Garak glances around while coming up behind Bashir, something he had to walk around an empty chair to do, so that he could brush against his back and make a slight spectacle, and the way that Bashir, upon realising who’s talking to him, just stares up at him with his mouth agape and his eyes wide.
When Garak says he’s a Cardassian by birth, obviously, Julian’s gaze flits down to his chest; when Garak sits across from Julian at the table and leans forward, Julian leans slightly forward toward him himself, as much as he gets flustered by the bouquet on the table.
And the way that Garak says, What a thoughtful young man, how nice that we’ve met, and we see Julian turn, looking about for a waiter, clearing his throat, putting up his hand uselessly, shyly, because he finds he hasn’t quite got the voice to call for a waiter, and he doesn’t want to draw a great deal of attention to the situation, and he’s flustered, because even when he looks away, turns his head, Garak’s eyes remained utterly focused on him.
And in bringing up that Garak is a spy, he keeps avoiding eye contact — he looks around, he looks down at the table, he glances up to meet Garak’s gaze and then looks away again, repeatedly. I have a lot of feelings about how Julian maintains, and frequently doesn’t maintain — and especially doesn’t notice other people breaking — eye contact for autistic reasons, but in this scene the way that he fidgets and avoids it so particularly is blatant in a way I just adore.
BASHIR: You know, some people say that you remained on DS9 as the eyes and ears of your fellow Cardassians.
GARAK: You don’t say! Doctor… You’re not intimating that I’m some sort of spy, are you?
BASHIR: I wouldn’t know, sir.
GARAK: Ah, an open mind — the essence of intellect! You may also know that I have a clothing shop nearby, so if you should require any apparel or simply wish, as I do, for a bit of enjoyable company now and then, I’m at your disposal, Doctor.
BASHIR: You’re very kind, Mr Garak.
GARAK: Oh, it’s just Garak. Plain, simple… Garak.
BASHIR: Garak.
Ah, this scene. This scene, this scene, this scene.
I love and adore everything about Garak and the way that Robinson plays him — the way that he puts such focused emphasis on every other word, underlines them just with the shift in tone and the movement of his eyeridges, the way that he always smiles with his teeth on his show, the way that he widens and narrows his eyes.
I just think it’s incredible that when previously seeing Cardassians — whether it’s Dukat or any of his soldiers in Emissary or any of the other Cardassians in TNG — we’re used to seeing them hold quite a solid, unchanging affect. Cardassian smiles were frequently smaller and subtle, often close-lipped, and Cardassians were typically physically intimidating: even when they’re not tall, all prioritise wide shoulders that allow for emphasis of their neck and shoulder ridges and broad chest contrasting a narrow waist, keep their chins high and their arms at their sides, their shoulders back. The expressions we commonly see on Cardassian faces are ones of anger, and when we’re not looking at anger, we’re looking at smugness and superiority — even Cardassians who are friendly, such as the soldiers who attempt to chat with Miles O’Brien when asking questions in The Wounded (TNG S4E12) or the Cardassian informant who’s feeding information to the Federation in Lower Decks (TNG S7E15), often do so in ways that are quiet, reserved, respectful.
Garak is anything but reserved.
Garak is bright and dazzling, he’s flamboyant and flirtatious, he intimates things extremely obviously and blatantly, he throws out compliments all over the place, and while we know later on that he’s perfectly capable of being threatening even while beaming the way that he does, here, he doesn’t say anything threatening at all.
The only thing he’s threatening Julian with is a very good time, and I have to wonder how many of Julian’s specific fantasies that Garak is bringing to life in this moment without even knowing.
I think a lot about why Garak picks, of all the people on the station, Julian Bashir as his new friend — he knows that Kira and Odo wouldn’t want anything to do with him, he can probably glean that Sisko has no interest in making friends, ditto O’Brien, and that Dax wouldn’t be so… malleable.
But I’m sure he’s heard about Bashir in the gossip on the station: Bashir who’s handsome and eager and a little air-headed, Bashir who wants to be a hero and wants to make his name here on the frontier, Bashir who is young and foolish and flirts with all the girls but gets flustered when some of them flirt back, especially those who are older or more experienced than he is — and yet Bashir, who in a medical situation, is a clean and focused commander, an expert in his field, unshakable and hyper competent. For Garak, I think there’s a specific appeal in Julian purely because he’s handsome and young, even without strategy being considered, even before thinking of him being a member of the command crew and also able to be manipulative.
Garak is lonely, and he feels like a failure, an outcast — here’s this twink who’ll think he’s the most exciting thing imaginable, who’ll find him impressive and perhaps a little scary, who’ll look at Garak and think that he’s an adventure and an impossible delight, and for Garak’s ego, I’m sure that’s a real balm.
But for Julian…
Julian Bashir, the augment, who all his life has been telling lies, and expects to tell lies forevermore; Julian Bashir, who’s always a little uncertain and wary of looking too impressive or being too sensitive or showing that he’s too strong or too skilled in certain areas, just in case it reveals what he is; Julian Bashir, who idolises James Bond, a British double agent who goes far and wide and everyone finds him wonderful and sexy and impressive, but no one truly knows who he is, because James Bond is always somehow undercover, even when he’s across the table from his closest friends.
I think Julian’s spy fetish is the most understandable thing in the world, for someone who will always be keeping his real identity secret from everyone he meets, as far as he knows, especially because the biggest thing about Bond is the way that he tells people secrets all the time, reveals things all the time, to distract from the things he doesn’t want to reveal — he’s so bold, so obvious, so confident, in all he does!
Of course that’s sexy. Of course he idolises him, in foreign lands amongst foreign people, bedding exotic women, keeping his state secret from the people he spies on and keeping much of himself secret from his own state, because he truly can’t trust anybody, and relies on constant movement and adventure to ensure how unbreakable his shell is.
And, boom, here comes Garak.
A man. An older man, an experienced man, out here on the edge of the Federation, with all these things Julian knows nothing about. A Cardassian — forbidden, taboo, dangerous, exciting. Friendly and open and grinning and flirting with Julian, complimenting Julian, and a spy, a spy! And he doesn’t say he isn’t a spy, either — he’s very expressive, and reacts to Julian asking the question, but never denies it.
And he’s chosen Julian as… What? What can Julian hope to be, in Garak’s eyes, this sexy spy who’s come to flirt with him? Does he want to bed Julian? Does he want to lift information from him? Does he want to spy on him? Kill him? Does he… suspect?
How could he suspect?
It’s invigorating, impossibly exciting, to be chosen, to be picked, to be the center of attention, and it’s so utterly overwhelming that Julian stammers and he gets flustered and he’s so excited, and then Garak steps behind him for a second time and puts his hands on Julian’s shoulders.
The way his eyes go wide and the way he glances at Garak’s hand and his breath hitches and he’s so overwhelmed and turned on and I! Die!
BASHIR: He was making contact with me! With me, of all people!
He’s just so excited and his mind is running a mile a minute about finding Garak out, and God, the way that everyone just responds with amusement and/or irritation as Julian literally sprints and bounces around Ops, because they just think he’s on one of his usual dramatics, because he’s young and ridiculous and so OTT, and I just love it.
And also, Tahna Los, the resistance fighter, requests political asylum after being beamed off of his ship whilst being pursued by Cardassians — I promise I will also talk about Los and the resistance in this, it’s just that, as you can understand, I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about Bashir and Garak.
GUL DANAR: He is Kohn-Ma. He has committed heinous crimes against the Cardassian people…
I really appreciate how Deep Space Nine doesn’t shy away from the faults in lines of defence and nationalism for Bajor and the Bajorans — Kira repeatedly talks about wanting to repatriate different splinter groups, and while she’s obviously more radical than most in the provisional government, she wants both people far more radical than her and them and those who are far less so to be provided voices in fighting for Bajor.
Kira’s inner conflict as a Bajoran, and her desire for complete sovereignty and independence that requires accepting a certain amount of Federation assistance — and therefore interference — is such a complex thread as the series goes on and on, but it’s introduced in its subtlety here, I think.
Tahna Los expresses that he’s had enough of killing and that he’s not sure what exactly they’re fighting for compared to before; especially because the Federation often has very stringent ideas of morality and what’s right and wrong even when people are backed into a corner, especially those who are victims of torture, and like…
Crime and punishment, in the direct aftermath of such a violent, genocidal, and utterly reprehensible Occupation, is hard to reestablish as it was before — what’s terrorism? What’s self-defence? How long ago does a crime have to have been for it to have been crime versus self-defence? Does an attack on the Federation or another Bajoran ship have the same capacity for being defended as an attack on the Cardassian Empire?
It’s interesting how Sisko presents himself as a neutral party and a facilitator in terms of granting Tahna Los’ asylum, because of how it will look if the Federation hands Tahna Los over to the Cardassians, and then expresses to Danar that if he wants Tahna he can negotiate directly with the Bajorans themselves, which of course, the Cardassians don’t want to do.
And for Kira, guh!
The way that she thinks of the long-term despite how it hurts her: she cares about safeguarding Bajor’s claim to the wormhole and ensuring they can make use of the continued commerce and new ships that come through, and although that means sacrificing Bajor’s sovereignty in the immediate present, it does mean that so long as they weather through, Bajor will be far more equipped to remain self-sufficient in future.
And Kira is right — for now, without the Federation presence, Bajor would be defenceless to fight off the Cardassian fleet and would lose the benefits they currently get from the wormhole, not to mention put themselves at risk of Cardassian invasion again; even if they managed to retain their command over the wormhole and Deep Space Nine without Federation help, they lack the resources to continue that indefinitely, lack sufficient arable land and food supply, lack weapons, lack significant economic power within the sector.
They couldn’t survive independently — if they weren’t relying on the Federation and weren’t invaded again by Cardassians, they’d likely be forced to rely on loans or some other economic assistance from the Ferengi Empire or a similar non-Federation power, and even if that didn’t mean direct interference or a sacrifice of governmental agency, it would mean levees and recouped debts that would no doubt cut the knees out from Bajor’s burgeoning economy before it could bloom.
But when men like Tahna Los, when Bajorans still with the Maquis, the Kohn-Ma, or any other still-running resistance cells look back to Bajor and see the provisional government that wants to imagine peace is the way to solve everything when as far as those fighters see it, peace was what led the Occupation to last for so long; when they see the Federation occupying what ought be a Bajoran space station and what ought be Bajoran commands; when they see Bajor relying once again on a super power that only wants from them what it can consume, that may well mine Bajor for its few resources and benefits?
Of course that stings. Of course it hurts. Of course it seems not markedly different from the Cardassians — especially when the Cardassians, too, claimed their occupation was instituted out of charity and out of a desire to help the poor Bajoran people.
Lursa and B’Etor’s titty windows in their armour are so unnecessary and ridiculous, I have never seen a Klingon with armour like that. Dreadful! I love how Odo’s solution is immediately to lock them up and hand them over to the Klingons, though — “Cardassian rule may have been oppressive, but at least it was simple.” Odo!
I love how Julian creeps up on Garak and calls him Mr Garak and Garak just has to put his finger up to make him adjust — and the way that Garak says Julian will be improving his evening by sitting down! It’s so cute.
Especially because Julian’s just so excited about Garak’s obviously and blatantly “encoded” language, talking about Lursa and B’Etor’s clothing and saying their outfits are worth paying close attention to, but he has no idea how to join in and respond. I just feel so much affection for how Julian is simultaneously desperately eager to engage with Garak as a spy, but is also very much out of his depth and not sure how to proceed, especially because no one else will take him seriously.
The conflict between Sisko and Kira is so interesting in the way that Kira expresses her gratitude for Sisko’s support, but Sisko at the same time scolds her for going over his head to Starfleet. It’s a complicated situation, and it’s hard to be sure of where their loyalties lie specifically for each of them? And I really like how we see that tension move and develop.
The way that Garak’s smile drops and we see a full snarl on his face when one of the Klingons lunges for him before he puts his grin back up again — it’s so good to see that falter and how quickly he puts his guard up again, especially in terms of how Garak jumps to renegotiating once us again.
He’s so physically expressive, with his hands and his body and his expressions, and I love how much the Klingons hate it and are caught off-guard by it in one way and another.
The way that Julian’s facial expression slowly morphs into one of uncertainty and horror when Garak approaches him with seriousness and focus is such a delight. He’s obviously feeling more confident when he addresses him as “Plain, simple Garak,” and has probably rehearsed their next meeting in his head a few times, but Garak catches him on the back foot again and suddenly he’s speechless and uncertain just like before.
GARAK: There’s a time for levity, my young friend, and a time for genuine concern. The arrival on this station, for instance, of those two Kohn-Ma terrorists.
BASHIR: Terrorists? What are they doing here?
GARAK: I’m not entirely sure. But together, we might have some success at finding out.
BASHIR: Garak, I’m a doctor, not a —
GARAK: And once you do have the appropriate answer, I’m sure you’ll know what to do with it.
BASHIR: I really must be getting along now —
The way that Bashir basically tries to bail because this is too much for him to cope with and he doesn’t know how to deal is incredible, especially when he says that he’s a doctor, not a [spy], and he feels so out of his depth even though he’s intrigued, and then…
And then Garak changes tact, goes back to code, says he wants to measure Julian for a new suit.
And Julian Bashir, being his sweet little autistic self, takes him completely literally.
I love to pieces how Bashir goes to Sisko to ask his guidance on what to say and what to do, and how Sisko takes him seriously now but gently says that things can’t always be conducted or communicated directly.
And guh, the way that Kira goes to Odo for comfort and guidance, because Odo understands. He’s not Bajoran, no, but he’s not Federation either, and he’s been on Deep Space Nine for so long and he knows her — knows more about her than she knows — and he cares about her! He wants to offer her comfort and tell her things will be okay and guide her as much as she can, but he also…
Nudges her to Sisko because he knows Sisko will help.
I really like how the Kohn-Ma and Tahna Los’ loyalties are shown because of how he seeks to ally and is then betrayed by the Klingon women — not because they’re trying to help him, but because of how they reveal that he has all the components of a dangerous explosive.
And just like that, when Tahna Los tells Kira what he’s been given represents Bajoran independence, he confirms the damage he’s ready to do — confirms his loyalty to the Kohn-Ma and his willingness to cause destruction.
I wonder if Kira feels guilt later on for having explained to Tahna Los how crucial the wormhole is to the future of the Bajoran economy as they develop and go forward — if she hadn’t explained and outlined it to him, would he have sought to target the wormhole with his explosive? Was that his original plan, or was it a segue he made after liaising with Kira?
I just ache seeing the pain in Kira’s face when he calls her a traitor, it just… Ah.
I do think it’s a shame that there’s no tie-up to Julian and Garak’s dynamic, especially because he then disappears entirely for the rest of the season, but… Ah, well. Can’t have everything.