Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.

DS9 Episode Synopsis: "Duet" **SPOILERS**
==========================================

Episode Number: 419
Air Date: 6/12/93

There are SPOILERS below! You have been warned.
Ye who enter here, all hope abandon of remaining unspoiled.

The show opens with business as usual in the Ops center of
Deep Space Nine. Dax and Kira chat idly about their 
escapades as children while attending to their duties. A 
communication is received from an incoming Kobheerian 
freighter; the ship is carrying a passenger in need of 
medical attention. The Kobheerian captain states that the 
individual suffers from a chronic condition called 
"Kalla-Nohra" Syndrome, and has run out of his medication. 
Kira reacts oddly when the disorder is named; not only does 
DSN's First Officer recognise it, but it seems to hold some 
unexplained meaning for her, one with strong feelings 
attached.
	Sisko has the ailing passenger beamed directly to the
infirmary as Dax alerts Bashir to the problem. Kira asks 
Sisko for permission to go down to the infirmary to meet 
the patient. She informs him that anyone suffering from 
Kalla-Nohra syndrome can have contracted it in only one 
way: by having been present for a mining accident in a 
forced-labor camp the Cardassians maintained during the 
Bajoran occupation, a place called Gallitepp. This camp, 
and the Bajorans who survived it, has become an important 
symbol to the Bajoran people -- and an even more important 
one to Kira herself.
	Kira arrives at the infirmary while Bashir is in the
process of tending to his new patient. But when Kira sees 
that the individual on the examining table is Cardassian, 
not Bajoran, her attitude of awed respect vanishes, to be 
replaced by emotions far more unpleasant. She stares at the 
Cardassian with loathing in her eyes, and summons Security 
to the infirmary.
	The Cardassian stares back at Kira as Bashir, puzzled, asks
her what the problem is. She tells him flatly that his 
patient is a criminal, at which the Cardassian jumps down 
from the table and runs out the door -- right into the arms 
of Odo and one of his deputies. Kira and Bashir follow the 
Cardassian out into the hall, where Kira demands his 
arrest. The Bajoran Major and the Cardassian face off, as 
the accused asks what charge is being held against him, 
implying that Kira is engaging in simple racial 
persecution. Kira replies by calling him a war criminal, 
and tells Bashir that if he wants to treat the Cardassian, 
he'll have to do it in his jail cell.
	Kira and Odo go to bring the matter to Sisko's attention.
Odo states that in spite of Kira's certainty, the 
Cardassian, whose name is Amon Marritza, is not listed by 
the Bajoran government as a war criminal. Sisko is 
distressed by this; in order to hold Marritza, something 
more than Kira's suspicions is required as evidence. Kira 
insists that if the Cardassian has Kalla-Nohra, he *must* 
have been at Gallitepp, to which Sisko replies that simply 
being there isn't necessarily a crime. This infuriates 
Kira, who bitterly describes the horrors of the Gallitepp 
camp that she witnessed when she helped liberate it. She 
seems inclined to hold every Cardassian present at 
Gallitepp responsible for every atrocity ever committed 
there. Sisko decides to go talk to the prisoner himself.
	Sisko politely questions Marritza in the security holding
cell; Marritza's replies are civil, but with an audible 
edge of condescension. Marritza claims that his disorder is 
not Kalla-Nohra syndrome, but a very similar condition 
called Puttrick's syndrome; Marritza says he's never been 
to Bajor. He worked as a lowly filing clerk during the war 
and lives on Korra Two now. A rather seedy Bajoran, Kainon, 
is being held in a different cell; he breaks into Sisko and 
Marritza's conversation to complain loudly about being kept 
in the same room with "one of *those*" -- in other words, a 
Cardassian. In Sisko's office, Bashir tells the commander 
that despite Marritza's assertions to the contrary, the 
Cardassian is definitely suffering from Kalla-Nohra 
syndrome, not Puttrick's, and that his research confirms 
Kira's statements that the only possible way Marritza could 
have contracted the condition was at Gallitepp. A 
thoughtful Sisko dismisses Bashir as a call arrives from 
the Bajoran Minister of State, Kaval. Kaval praises Sisko 
for his service to Bajor in capturing one of the criminals 
of Gallitepp; Sisko cautions the minister that the question 
of Marritza's identity and culpability in the matter are 
far from settled. Kaval suggests that the responsibility 
for the situation should rest with Kira, not Sisko; Sisko 
politely but firmly disagrees.
	On the Promenade, Sisko approaches Kira, who is sitting at
a dining table, and tells her that he has decided to turn 
the investigation of Marritza over to Odo -- it is his job, 
after all. Kira protests that Minister Kaval put her in 
charge of the case, and once again Sisko points out that 
that is his decision to make, not Minister Kaval's. The 
commander is adamant that the Cardassian will not be turned 
over to the Bajorans until real evidence of his guilt is 
discovered. He suggests that Kira is too close to the 
situation to be objective. Kira admits the truth of that, 
but pleads with Sisko, on the claim of friendship he made 
to her while on Jeraddo, to let her handle the matter 
anyway. "I owe it to them," she says, referring to the 
victims of Gallitepp. Sisko reluctantly gives in. The major 
arrives at the security office as Odo is releasing Kainon, 
the drunk and disorderly Bajoran who disrupted Sisko's talk 
with Marritza. On his way out, Kainon requests that Odo let 
him know when the Cardassian hangs.
	Odo tells Kira that he started a background check on
Marritza and found that he had in fact lived on Korra Two 
for the past five years, where he worked as an instructor 
in a military academy. Kira asks Odo to keep digging, and 
he agrees. Kira's interview with the prisoner begins with 
an exchange of unpleasantries, but the prisoner faces his 
accuser with cool self-possession. He again intimates that 
Kira's true motivation is a hate-driven desire to persecute 
all beings of his race. When Kira confronts Marritza with 
his lie about the nature of his disorder, the Cardassian 
admits to having been present at Gallitepp, but only as a 
lowly filing clerk. He boasts theatrically of his prowess 
in his job, saying that even the camp's commander, Gul 
Darheel, commended him on his work. "Well, there you are," 
he says. "My secret's out, my crime laid bare. I await 
execution." "I hope we don't keep you waiting long," Kira 
replies.
	She goes on to question what a filing clerk could possibly
have taught at a military academy, and Marritza responds, 
"Filing." Kira asks if he witnessed the atrocities at 
Gallitepp which took place at Gul Darheel's command; 
Marritza's shocking reply is that no such atrocities 
occurred. To Kira's horrified disbelief, the Cardassian 
claims that all the deaths at Gallitepp were the result of 
mining accidents and fights among the Bajoran workers, 
nothing more. The brutalised bodies Kira witnessed at the 
time of the camp's liberation had been altered after death 
to make it seem like there had been deliberate torture and 
murder of the prisoners; the pretence was intended as 
psychological warfare on the part of the departing 
Cardassian forces, a tactic designed to reinforce the 
Bajoran people's view of themselves as helpless victims. 
Actual atrocities were not required, the Cardassian says, 
when manufactured ones would do just as well. Kira rejects 
his characterisation of her people as a craven race, 
pointing out their eventual success at freeing themselves 
of the Cardassians, but Marritza dismisses that, saying 
that the Cardassian departure from Bajor was not due to any 
weak resistance from the Bajorans, but was merely a 
political decision. Once again, he accuses Kira of hounding 
him for the sake of vengeance, not justice.
	In Sisko's office, the commander has a typical discussion
with Gul Dukat over the matter of their Cardassian 
prisoner, a conversation laced with thinly-veiled threats 
and hostility under a cover of civility. Gul Dukat 
indicates that the Cardassians are not pleased that one of 
their citizens is being detained without cause. Sisko 
side-steps the issue and requests Dukat's help in 
confirming Marritza's identity. Dukat refuses, suggesting 
that Sisko not let Bajoran attitudes interfere with 
Federation/Cardassian relations, and tells Sisko that if 
anything happens to Marritza on the station, the 
Cardassians will hold Sisko personally responsible.
	On the Promenade, Kira is staring out an observation port,
lost in thought, when Dax walks up. Dax asks Kira about 
her reactions to Marritza, and Kira admits that she feels a 
strong need to get some satisfaction from the Cardassians 
for what was allowed to happen at Gallitepp. Dax points out 
that if she gets the wrong man, it won't mean anything; and 
even if Marritza can be held responsible, simple vengeance 
isn't enough to satisfy anyone. Dax walks off, leaving a 
deeply shaken Kira behind.
	Later, in Ops, O'Brien, Dax, and O'Brien's Bajoran
assistant, Neela, have set up an image-enhancement system 
to analyse a picture the Cardassians sent them of the 
labour camp; such pictures are rare, as the Cardassians 
tried to destroy the evidence. Odo updates Sisko on his 
background investigations of Marritza, telling him that 
most of the Cardassian's statements check out; there was a 
file clerk named Amon Marritza at Gallitepp, and he did 
teach filing at the military academy on Korra Two. Sisko 
asks Kira what she'll do if the prisoner turns out to 
really be Amon Marritza, and Kira says she'll agree to let 
him go. But when the picture from the camp is viewed, the 
individual identified as Amon Marritza looks nothing like 
the Cardassian in the station's jail. The prisoner *does* 
look like a different Cardassian in the picture, however: 
one identified in the records as Gul Darheel, commander of 
the camp.
	Kira confronts the captive in the cell. She accuses him of
having killed the real Amon Marritza: "You'll pay for that 
death. And all the others you're responsible for." "I don't 
think I could pay for all of them, Major," he replies 
calmly. "There were so many. And you can only execute me 
once." Despite Kira's continued verbal assault, Darheel 
remains unruffled, even vaguely amused. He speaks 
contemptuously of the Bajoran's response to the Cardassian 
invasion, saying that they surrendered without even trying 
to fight. How can he be tried for "war crimes" when there 
was never a war? He tells Kira that her view of her people 
as fighters is an illusion. Kira, seething, defends her 
people as a peaceful race, bewildered by the casual cruelty 
of the Cardassian attack. Darheel offers to explain, but 
his "explanation" turns into a megalomaniacal tirade of 
violent intensity, in which he not only admits to the 
atrocities, but boasts of having ordered them, and of being 
proud of killing "Bajoran scum". "I was the best at what I 
did," Darheel says. "My accomplishments speak for 
themselves. Can you say the same? You and that little 
Shankar resistance cell you belonged to -- all you did was 
annoy Cardassians, while I was out *exterminating* 
Bajorans!"
	"You'll be sentenced to death," says a grim Kira.
	"It doesn't matter. Kill me, torture me, do whatever you
want -- the dead will still be dead. You've already lost, 
Major. You can never undo what I've accomplished."
	Kira storms out, unable to listen to any more. The
Cardassian continues to taunt her as she leaves, and once 
she's gone, a satisfied -- and not at all insane -- 
expression comes over his face.
	Odo walks into the security office where Kira is sitting in
silence, and hands her a drink. She tells him how Darheel 
bragged of what he did to the Bajorans, and how he 
belittled the efforts of her Shankar resistance group. Odo 
suggests she shouldn't be talking to Darheel about her 
past, and Kira replies that she didn't -- Darheel brought 
it up. Odo finds it odd that the commander of a forced 
labor camp should be sufficiently knowledgeable about the 
Bajoran resistance forces to know of Kira's history. Kira 
realises the truth in that and returns to speak with 
Darheel again, while Odo begins trying to trace any recent 
off world inquiries about Kira.
	When Kira asks Darheel how he knew she was with the
Shankar, he first tries to evade the question and distract 
her with more taunting, but then says he knew of her thanks 
to the brilliance of Amon Marritza's filing system. Kira 
isn't convinced. Darheel says he wants to ask Kira some 
questions for a change, but Kira isn't interested; she 
begins to walk away, until Darheel challenges her, "Are you 
afraid to hear them?"
	Odo steps out of the security office and finds a number of
cloaked Bajorans standing silently outside. Quark wanders 
up and asks who they are; Odo says that they are survivors 
of Gallitepp, waiting to hear about Darheel's fate.
	Odo heads to the infirmary and requests Bashir's assistance
with his investigations. The check on inquiries about Kira 
revealed that two months ago, a request came in from Korra 
Two from one Amon Marritza; Odo asks Bashir to check on 
Marritza's past medical history.
	In the security office, Odo receives a call from Gul Dukat.
Dukat refuses Odo's request for access to the Cardassian 
files on Gul Darheel, saying that the information is 
irrelevant, as Gul Darheel is dead. Dukat himself attended 
the funeral, where Darheel was buried under one of the 
largest military monuments on Cardassia. Dukat wants to 
know why the Cardassian detainee hasn't been released yet; 
when Odo tells him that the man confessed to being Gul 
Darheel, Dukat is dumbfounded. Dukat says the man is lying, 
and Odo points out that if so, it's a lie that's going to 
get the prisoner executed. When Odo tells him about the 
picture, Dukat decides the whole thing must be a plot to 
embarrass the Cardassian Empire; Odo concedes the 
possibility, and suggests that if Dukat will let him access 
the files, he might be able to put an end to it. Dukat 
gives in, with poor grace.
	Back in the detention cell, Darheel and Kira are involved
in a heated exchange about her terrorist past. He 
questions her about all the innocent civilian Cardassians 
killed by the terrorism, and she defends herself, saying 
they were fighting to survive. Darheel says the Cardassians 
were also fighting for survival, the survival of their 
Empire, which needed Bajor's resources. "Everything I did 
was for the greater glory of Cardassia. And if you 
spineless scum had to be ground under, all the better." 
Darheel claims that his love for his homeland justified his 
actions.
	"Nothing justifies genocide," Kira replies.
	"What you call genocide," says Darheel, "I call a day's
work."
	Before a seething Kira can think of a reply to that, Odo
comes in and asks her to come speak with him. Outside, he 
tells her that according to the information he and Bashir 
have come up with, the man in that cell *wanted* to be 
caught.
	In Sisko's office, Odo presents the commander with a death
certificate for Gul Darheel, dated six years ago. Kira 
suspects a trick, and Sisko says he wouldn't put it past 
Gul Dukat. Odo then says that Gul Dukat's records showed 
that Gul Darheel never had Kalla-Nohra syndrome, while the 
prisoner definitely does. Again, Kira suspects some 
Cardassian subterfuge, but Odo's next bit of evidence is 
almost conclusive: the progress reports Gul Darheel filed 
from Gallitepp showed that he was off-planet at the time of 
the mining accident. The real Gul Darheel could not 
possibly have contracted Kalla-Nohra syndrome.
	Kira is shaken by the evidence, but clings to her belief in
the prisoner's guilt. Odo tells her that an inquiry into 
the last two weeks of the Cardassian's life showed that he 
had resigned his teaching post and put all of his affairs 
in order, which would seem to indicate he did not expect to 
return from his trip. Furthermore, he had specifically 
booked passage on a freighter already scheduled to stop at 
DS9, a Bajoran station -- very strange behaviour for a 
Cardassian war criminal, unless he planned to be caught. 
Kira refuses to back down, insisting that the prisoner must 
be sent to Bajor for trial, but Sisko will make no 
commitment to that. Kira desperately tells Sisko to go talk 
to the prisoner himself: "He was there! He did it! He'll 
tell you about it!"
	At that point, Dr. Bashir walks in. He reports that he has
checked out Amon Marritza's previous medical history, as 
Odo requested, and has found something strange. Shortly 
after arriving on Korra Two, Marritza began taking large 
doses of a skin regeneration drug, usually prescribed after 
plastic surgery. It seems the prisoner deliberately altered 
his appearance to look like Gul Darheel. Kira is stunned as 
she realises the truth.
	Kira makes one last visit to see the prisoner. Her manner
is quite different this time -- subdued, almost 
apologetic. The Cardassian tries his usual taunts, but Kira 
shrugs them off without comment. She asks him where he 
contracted Kalla-Nohra; he is startled by the question and 
says he got it at Gallitepp, of course. Kira tells him of 
the reports, and of the staff's discovery of his facial 
alterations; he tries to call Security and have her thrown 
out, but she persists with her questions, her voice rising. 
He tries to throw her off-balance with another vicious 
tirade detailing the brutality of the camp and his own 
pleasure in the carnage, but now Kira can see through his 
act. "You're Marritza, aren't you?" she asks.
	"Don't you know who I am? I'm your nemesis. I'm your
nightmare. I'm the Butcher of Gallitepp."
	"The Butcher of Gallitepp died six years ago. You're Amon
Marritza, his filing clerk."
	At that, the prisoner -- Amon Marritza -- breaks down into
tears. He tells Kira how he spent every night in the camp, 
under his bed, with his hands over his ears to shut out the 
screams of the Bajoran prisoners. He despises himself for 
his cowardice, his inability to do anything to stop what 
was going on; "And for that, Amon Marritza deserves to be 
dead."
	Kira reaches out and shuts off the security field and tells
Marritza she's letting him go. She approaches as he backs 
away, calling for Security. Kira absolves the Cardassian, 
telling him he was only one man, unable to do anything even 
if he had tried. Marritza protests, saying that it is necessary 
for him to go on trial as Gul Darheel for the camp 
commander's crimes, in order to force Cardassia to admit 
its guilt. "We all have to be punished. We're guilty, all 
of us. My death is necessary." Kira refuses to assist his 
guilt-driven suicide: "Enough good people have already 
died. I won't help kill another."
	Later, Kira and Odo escort the released Marritza to the
ship waiting to return him to Korra Two and his former 
life. Marritza is regretful that his subterfuge was 
uncovered; as Gul Darheel, his trial could have helped 
bring needed change to Cardassia. Kira tries to reassure 
him that he can still bring about change, without dying.
	They walk past Quark's, where Kainon, the Cardassian-hating
Bajoran is sitting. As they pass, he pulls a knife from 
somewhere and lunges for Marritza, plunging the blade deep 
in the Cardassian's back. Odo grabs Kainon, but too late; 
Marritza falls in Kira's arms. Kira bends over the fallen 
Cardassian, saying helplessly, "Why? He wasn't Darheel. 
*Why*?"
	"He was Cardassian," snarls Kainon. "That's reason enough."

	"No," says Kira. "It's not."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved, 
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.


Hawthorne's Deeply Spaced Review: "Duet"
----------------------------------------

Well, here it is at last: my review of Duet, to be shortly
followed by my review of "In the Hands of the Prophets". 
Sorry it's so late, but I was out for a good part of a week 
with a nasty stomach bug (I'm better now) and then got busy 
with job hunting, and then briefly lost track of my 
videotapes of the episodes and had to relocate them before 
I could proceed (they'd been accidentally loaned to a 
friend -- it's all your fault, Kate.) Anyway, that's it for 
my lame excuses: now, on with the review. Note that I have 
completely avoided reading any Net discussion or other 
reviews of either of these episodes, so if I'm repeating 
things that have been hashed to death on the Net already, I 
apologise in advance.

One-sentence opinion summary: Wow. Now *that's* gritty. 

ART: "I don't get it...why didn't the Jews at least *try*
to resist?" VLADEK: "It wasn't so easy like you think. 
Everyone was so starving and frightened and tired they 
couldn't believe even what's in front of their eyes. And 
the Jews lived always with hope. They hoped the Russians 
can come before the German bullet arrived from the gun into 
their heads..."

ART: "But why didn't they try to take just *one* Nazi with
them?"

VLADEK: "In some spots people *did* fight...but you can
kill maybe one German before they kill fast a hundred from 
you. Then it's everyone dead...and this way it was also 
everyone dead, nu?"

-- Art Spiegelman, "Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began"

	"They win anyway," Tris snapped. "Nothing we do within
this circle will result in any net change. We're still 
prisoners, whatever we do...We're *beaten*. We're *taken*. 
There's nobody left *out there*. We're here forever, and 
you'd better start getting used to the idea. " "I've heard 
that song before," said Miles. "Use your head. If they 
meant to keep you forever, they could have incinerated you 
at the start, and saved the considerable expense of 
operating this camp. No. It's your minds they want. You're 
here because you were Marilac's best and brightest, the 
hardest fighters, the strongest, the baddest, the most 
dangerous. The ones any potential resisters to the 
occupation would look to for leadership. It's the 
Cetagandans' plan to break you, and then return you to your 
world like little inoculated infections, counselling 
surrender to your people.
	"When *this* is killed," he touched her forehead, oh, so
lightly, "then the Cetagandans have nothing more to fear 
from this," one finger on her fist, "and you will all go 
free. To a world whose horizon will encircle you just like 
this dome, and just as inescapably. The war's not over. You 
are *here* because the Cetagandans are still waiting for 
the surrender of Fallow Core."

-- "The Borders of Infinity", Lois McMaster Bujold

I'm going to start off this review by saying what I'm *not*
going to talk about: I'm not going to try and suppose 
which ethnic or religious groups were being alluded to in 
this episode, and I'm not going to try and draw any broad 
allegories to analogous real-life situations. I probably 
*will* make specific references to the Nazi concentration 
camps during the Holocaust for the purpose of illustration, 
but I'm very much aware that the Holocaust is not the only 
example of this kind of thing either historically or in the 
present day -- it's just the worst one and the best 
documented. I'd draw examples from the Serbian camps, or 
the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein, or any of 
several dozen less publicised but equally brutal situations 
except that I'm just not that familiar with them. So please 
don't get on my case.

As a side note, if anyone is interested in reading an
absolutely masterful and deeply affecting account of life 
in a Nazi concentration camp, I can't recommend highly 
enough the book from which my first quote was drawn, 
"Maus", parts I and II, by Art Spiegelman. Don't be put off 
by the fact that it's done in comic book form; keep an open 
mind and try it. The second volume won a special Pulitzer 
Prize in 1992, so I'm not the only one who likes it.

So, now that the disclaimers and plugs are out of the way,
what did I think of the episode?

Well, I thought it was the best thing they've done since
"Past Prologue", and I find it interesting that both that 
episode and this one dealt heavily with the implications of 
Kira's terrorist past. I also thought it intriguing that 
these two strong Kira stories were both written by women, 
although the teleplay for "Duet" was done by Peter Allan 
Fields, and certainly the very strong script is at least as 
responsible for the episode's success as the story 
underlying it. It wasn't perfect -- I haven't seen a DS9 
episode yet that was, though "Past Prologue" came darned 
close -- but it had many, many things going for it, 
including a strong story that was worth caring about, an 
excellent script with some dialogue that was so on the mark 
I couldn't bear to synopsise the episode without including 
it, a stunning performance by the main guest star, and a 
real, believable conflict in one of the main characters 
that was handled with a sure touch in the story and 
portrayed with some very nice acting (for the most part) by 
Nana Visitor. The story and script were strong enough and 
handled well enough that carping about some plot problems 
seems almost petty -- but hey, I'm a reviewer, being petty 
is part of the job description ;-)

I'll start with commentary on the central themes and points
of the show, which were ones that have, of course, been 
dealt with before in a variety of mediums, but which in my 
opinion can stand to be examined over and over again since 
they continue to be as relevant to the human experience now 
as they have been for thousands of years. When a great 
wrong has been done, to one person or to an entire race, 
what can anyone do to make up for it? You can always kill 
the perpetrators; you can even torture them to death if you 
can bring yourself to do it. Maybe they even "deserve" to 
die that way. But in the end, all you have is one more dead 
body to burn or bury. Nothing has been changed. The dead 
are still dead. All you are left with is the assurance that 
the responsible dead won't be around to repeat their acts, 
which is possibly worth something, but there will always be 
new villains springing up to take their place. Maybe if 
you're strongly religious you can believe that by killing 
them you've sent them to some eternal damnation, but you 
can't know that for sure (besides, according to most 
Christian sects God's mercy is supposed to be limitless). 
And if by some horrible chance you should get the wrong 
person, and torture to death some innocent, well...welcome 
to the ranks of the villains. The only true way to "win" 
anything back from such a situation is to survive, and not 
only survive, but survive whole. If the survivors let 
themselves be killed after the fact, or let themselves be 
twisted and corrupted by bitterness and despair, then the 
villains still have their victory.

So from my point of view, that's part of what this episode
was trying to say. The Cardassians may not have succeeded 
in completely destroying Bajor or her people, but unless 
Bajor recovers and its people manage to unlearn some of the 
harsh lessons they were taught by the occupation, in a 
certain sense the Cardassians have still destroyed them. 
This is not to say that they should be unchanged by what 
they went through -- just that it's important that they 
learn lessons of courage and wisdom and not hatred and 
vengeance. In Kira, I saw a microcosm of what her whole 
planet is struggling with: how to come out of such a 
terrible event as the occupation whole, not only in body 
but in spirit as well. We're already seen a little of this 
struggle in "Battle Lines", in Kira's difficulty in 
accepting her own potential for violence; here we see it 
even more clearly because while violence has some positive 
uses, hatred doesn't. In "Duet" Kira came very close to 
allowing her rage and desire for vengeance to blind her to 
a truth she didn't want to see, and in her blindness nearly 
helped kill an innocent person. In essence, she came close 
to stepping over the edge and becoming a villain herself. 
It's an unfortunately common pattern: The Croats ally with 
the Nazis to kill the Serbs in World War II, and now some 
fifty years later the Serbs are murdering and imprisoning 
Croats; Saddam Hussein gasses the Kurds, and the Kurds 
retaliate with terrorism in Iraq and around the world; the 
Israelis, the victims of the Holocaust, now oppress the 
Palestinians in turn. It's the quintessential vicious 
circle. I very much appreciated "Duet" for the fact that it 
showed this vicious circle in a humanistic light -- how can 
anyone not sympathise with Kira's desire for satisfaction? 
-- and yet showed what it almost led her to. And for 
showing, as well, at least one Bajoran realising that even 
justified hatred is still hatred, still wrong, and then 
trying to break the circle and possibly make a pathway out 
for both her own people and their Cardassian oppressors. 
It's a hopeful message, in spite of the ending which makes 
it clear that such a path will not be at all easy to 
travel. It's also clear that without the support of the 
rest of the staff, Kira might well have been denied the 
chance to face and deal with the damage that she was doing 
to herself by hanging on to the past. The past should not 
be forgotten, especially such a terrible past as Bajor's, 
but at some point things have to move on, and I think this 
episode did a very good job of saying just that.

I also feel that this episode was one of the few times
where DS9 has lived up to its stated intention of being 
grittier than TNG -- and with absolutely minimal violence, 
which is even more impressive. This episode was full of 
difficult questions without easy answers or neat happy 
endings, and dealt with some very dark, raw emotions in a 
powerful and (generally) understated way. This fits my 
definition of a gritty story much more than one with a lot 
of gratuitous explosions or series regulars being framed 
for murder, and I appreciated it. I have come down hard on 
a few DS9 episodes for failing to get deeply enough into 
the meat of the story, and I am pleased and impressed to 
see one where they didn't back off at all, but instead dug 
down and carried through to the end. Although I enjoy the 
occasional fluff piece like "Move Along Home", there is no 
question that episodes like "Duet" have much more of an 
impact and infinitely more emotional staying power.

As far as plot goes, I was happy with it while I was
watching it the first time -- riveted to the screen, in 
fact, trying to figure out what exactly was going on -- but 
on rewatching it I started to have a number of questions. 
The central implausibility is also the one most central to 
the plotline, namely that Amon Marritza could impersonate 
Gul Darheel successfully enough to almost fool the 
Bajorans. I would have thought, given Kira's (and Bajor's) 
obsession with Gallitepp, that the death of the camp 
commander would have been a *big* news item on Bajor. Even 
if their information sources were controlled by the 
Cardassians, every underground has ways of getting the 
news. That the Bajorans could have been ignorant of 
Darheel's death for six whole years strains my disbelief. 
It would have washed better if they had gotten the reports 
of Darheel's death, but if the death was somewhat 
mysterious, leading to the Bajorans suspecting that Darheel 
had only faked his own demise to evade Bajoran assassins. 
Also, while I probably wouldn't recognise, say, Josef 
Mengele or any of the major Nuremburg offenders, I'd bet 
that any Jewish person who was an adult from that time 
period *would*, as would anyone involved in the German 
military. And yet supposedly Marritza worked at a *military 
academy*, where Darheel would probably be studied, and wore 
Darheel's face for five years without anyone commenting on 
it?? I don't believe it for a second. (Again, if Marritza 
had been *really* clever, he'd have undergone *two* rounds 
of plastic surgery; one to make him look like Darheel, and 
then another one a while later to make it look like 
Darheel* had plastic surgery to hide his identity.) And why 
did the DS9 staff go to all the trouble of obtaining 
(possibly falsified) Cardassian photographs from Gallitepp 
when there were living survivors within easy reach? 
Wouldn't it have made more sense to bring them in and see 
if they could identify the Cardassian? Also, the ending 
bothered me a bit. While I think I see what they were 
getting at dramatically, it just didn't work for me. Okay, 
so Marritza got stabbed. The infirmary is *right there*, 
for crying out loud; the first thing Kira should have done 
was shout for help and it would have been there in seconds, 
and given the level of the Federation's medical science 
Marritza almost certainly could have been saved. I mean, 
you could argue that he survived the attack and we just 
weren't shown it, except that the implication was plainly 
that Marritza had been killed.

Furthermore, I remain unconvinced that Marritza's plan
would have had the effect on Cardassian/Bajoran relations 
he was after. If he'd gotten up on the stand as Gul 
Darheel, you can bet the Cardassians would be there in 
minutes with proof that the real Darheel was dead, and 
would have claimed that Marritza was a Bajoran 
spy/sympathiser/brainwashed victim trying to make Cardassia 
look bad through fabricated stories of atrocities. I think 
Bajor would come out of such a trial with a serious black 
eye for putting the wrong man on trial, *especially* if 
they managed to execute him before it was revealed! If I 
were the Cardassian high command, and I found out they had 
the wrong man on trial, I'd be very inclined to let the 
Bajorans execute him, and *then* present proof that they 
killed an impostor. It would be a real public relations 
problem for Bajor, and would cause any further stories of 
the atrocities at Gallitepp to be less credible. That's 
pretty much exactly the opposite of the effect Marritza was 
after. (Or, if you want to be *really* paranoid, of the 
effect Marritza *claimed* he was after. Maybe the whole 
thing really as a Cardassian plot...Naahh.) Mind you, it 
doesn't weaken the story to have Marritza's plan be less 
than sound, but it certainly makes Marritza look less than 
clever. (Good-hearted, maybe, but not amazingly bright...)

As a side note to the plot, it struck me on rewatching that
there's something a bit odd about the time scale given in 
this episode for the operation of the Gallitepp camp. 
Either the camp was liberated by Kira's resistance group 
well before the Cardassian pullout, in which case the 
commander of the camp would have a *very* good reason to 
remember Kira's group, or the camp was run by someone other 
than Gul Darheel for at least its last six years. Remember, 
the Cardassians just left Bajor, but Gul Darheel has been 
dead for six years and probably was not commanding the camp 
when he died or the camp survivors would certainly have 
known of it. Or possibly the Cardassians voluntarily shut 
down the camp before the pullout, which is the most 
interesting possibility. Could it be that even some of the 
Cardassian high command were disgusted by what went on at 
Gallitepp? Yes, I know Darheel was given a medal for 
distinguished service, which seems to imply approval, but 
it's never said he got the award for running the camp, and 
besides, he could have been of a politically powerful 
family and gotten the award through nepotism rather than 
because most of Cardassia approved of the way the camp was 
being run -- if they even knew. It seems to me that this 
latter interpretation could lead to the idea that places 
like Gallitepp were the extreme worst case under the 
occupation, and things were not generally that brutal (not 
good, necessarily, but not like that.) This is not any sort 
of implied apology for the Cardassians, mind you, just the 
thought that perhaps a lot of what happened on Bajor was in 
fact inspired by politics, and a need for Bajor's 
resources, and not simply out of a general Cardassian love 
of killing and cruelty. And yes, it does make a difference, 
not to the victims of places like Gallitepp, but to what it 
implies about the Cardassian Empire. I would like to know 
more about Cardassia and the structure of the Empire -- for 
instance, is there an Emperor, and if so, who is it? -- and 
more about the other planets in the Empire and the races 
living there. I understand that showing us Cardassia in a 
more sympathetic light might lead to them being made to 
seem nicey-nice, or at least honourable, like the Klingons, 
but I feel it should be possible to make them a believable 
and realistic culture without removing their ability to be 
menacing and reducing their status as bad guys. As long as 
they remain straw villains, they'll never be all that 
interesting, and that is another good thing "Duet" did -- 
showed us a different sort of Cardassian. ("Past Prologue" 
did this too, with Plain and Simple Garak.)

I admit to being a little bugged by Kira's talk of sending 
Marritza back to change Cardassia from within, just because 
it sounds too much like Spock's attempts to stir revolution 
in the Romulan Empire. It's entirely possible that the 
Cardassian Empire isn't such a terrible place to live, 
provided you aren't Bajoran. It wouldn't be hard to believe 
that the Cardassians became vicious in their handling of 
Bajor because of the Bajoran terrorist actions, much the 
way Israel is getting pretty nasty dealing with 
Palestinians for the same reason. An occupied planet 
without an active resistance might not suffer so much. The 
Roman Empire survived hundreds of years, after all, and did 
a lot of good things within the borders of the countries it 
conquered (built roads and aqueducts and so forth). Empires 
aren't necessarily evil by definition. I would believe that 
justice demands Cardassia face up to what it did to Bajor, 
but it's just too easy to say that the Empire is by 
definition rotten in all things and in all ways.

In terms of character, the focus in this episode was so
strongly on Kira that most of the other regulars were 
barely to be seen. Even so, there were a few interesting 
things there which are worth commenting on, so I'll deal 
with those first so as to get them out of the way before I 
dive into a (probably lengthy) discussion of Kira.

Sisko, of course, got the most time after Kira, and what he
got was understated but quite nice. So far I've liked 
Sisko best when I have seen him trying to deal with the 
difficult types who surround him on DS9; in addition to 
having a rather rough-edged crew to ride herd on (at least 
as compared to the Enterprise gang), he's trapped between 
the Cardassians on one side and the Bajorans on the other, 
and of the two it looks as if the Bajorans, the 
Federation's supposed allies, are being the bigger problem. 
Sisko was civil to both Marritza and Gul Dukat, even when 
Dukat was being provocative, and he also managed to prevent 
the united attempt of the Bajoran administrator, Karal, and 
Kira to usurp his authority in the matter. It is much more 
difficult to operate effectively under these conditions 
than it is to command the Enterprise with a talented and 
tested crew composed entirely of your own staunchly loyal 
people. Sisko struck a good balance between being 
sympathetic to the concerns of both the Bajorans and the 
Cardassians and not allowing either of their agendas in the 
matter to influence his own. He also showed good instincts 
in not wanting to let Kira handle the investigation (more 
on this when I talk about Kira) but was willing to stand up 
to the promise of friendship he made to her earlier and 
give her a chance. Again, it's a nice balance between 
addressing the practicalities of the situation and making 
some room for the personal concerns of the individuals 
involved.

Odo gets to play detective again, and once again shows why
he's so highly regarded as a security chief; not to run 
down TNG or anything, but I'd take Odo over Worf any day. 
It's also interesting to note that he seems to be coming to 
rely on Bashir a fair bit as a useful source of information 
for his investigations. Odo also dealt very well with Gul 
Dukat, making it obvious how he managed to survive as 
security chief when the station was run by the Cardassians, 
and showing that he can put his knowledge of Cardassian 
psychology to good use in dealing with them. (He should be 
a good source of information for Sisko on this point, 
actually, although admittedly Odo hasn't shown much 
practical grasp of *human* psychology so far, so maybe 
not.) Dax got to act as the voice of wisdom and experience, 
which is entirely fitting; she also knew where to go to 
find Kira and was aware that the major needed some talking 
to. Quark and O'Brien got throwaway bits, and Jake wasn't 
around at all.

As for the guest stars and their characters -- well, I'm
open-mouthed in admiration over the job done by Harris 
Yulin as Amon Marritza. His performance was first rate, 
both as Marritza himself and as Marritza pretending to be 
the maniacal "Gul Darheel". Even during his first tirade, 
there was something about the delivery that made me think 
that something else was going on; I'm impressed that the 
actor managed to bring that through so clearly. I also am 
very impressed with the way the character was written; 
Marritza may not have done a perfect job in planning his 
scheme, but he certainly carried it out well. He knew 
exactly who he was after -- Kira -- and what he needed to 
do to push her buttons. Yulin also somehow managed to give 
the impression that much of the ranting he did as "Gul 
Darheel" were direct quotes of things Marritza actually 
heard while working under the man, which made it even worse 
to listen to on rewatching, thinking that there had been a 
Cardassian who truly held those opinions. Furthermore, I 
also got the impression that Marritza was nearly as 
disgusted with the actions of Kira and her terrorists as he 
was with Darheel's behaviour; he wasn't just condemning the 
cruelty of his own people, he was condemning the vicious 
acts committed by *both* sides of the conflict.

Marc Alaimo did his usual fine, oily job as Gul Dukat. I'm
finding that I appreciate Dukat as a recurring villain; 
he' s not just a stupid vicious tyrant, he's cunning and 
effective. Dukat wasn't actually trying to hide anything in 
the matter; he really was just trying to get one of his 
people freed. Nevertheless, he went out of his way to make 
as much trouble for the station as possible, given the 
opening, just for the principle of the thing; this also 
nicely confused the issue, as for a while I figured Dukat 
was in on the plan, whatever it might turn out to be. 
Furthermore, he was willing to back down and co-operate 
when it was in Cardassia's best interests, even though it 
galled him. Given the strength of the character and of the 
portrayal, I hope we continue to see Gul Dukat popping up 
every now and then to make trouble.

I was unfortunately less impressed with the final major
guest star, Tony Rizzoli as Kainon, the bigoted Bajoran 
who stabbed Marritza. Kainon came off as a paper-thin 
throwaway character. It may not be entirely the actor's 
fault, as I thought the character's motivation stunk. While 
I see the point the writers were trying to make, I think it 
would have been a lot stronger had the attacker been one of 
the survivors of Gallitepp or a relative of one of them. 
Yes, it's a trifle clich, but it makes for much better 
closure than to have Marritza stabbed by some random petty 
crook Bajoran with a membership in the Bajoran version of 
the Ku Klux Klan. It would be also more poignant that way, 
as the audience could again sympathise with the attacker's 
motivation while still seeing the resulting damage; I doubt 
anyone felt any sympathy for Kainon, the random bigot. As a 
final point, having it be one of the survivors would 
explain what the scene outside Odo's office with the 
Gallitepp victims was for, which otherwise seems to have 
little point to it.

So what about Kira?

Kira got some really effective screen time in this episode,
and Nana Visitor did quite a good job with it, for the 
most part. I was very pleased to see Kira being angry and 
stubborn *without* screaming or being strident; it was a 
big improvement. I'm still not entirely happy with the 
Kira-gets-choked-up scene with Sisko; I continue to think 
that Kira gets teary-eyed far too easily for someone with a 
terrorist background. Having Kira breaking down or riding 
the edge of breaking down so much is a big mistake, I 
think; had they held off, they could have written a really 
striking episode in the second season showing Kira really 
breaking down and bawling for the first time, but they blew 
their chance.

We also got to see a main character actually *change* in a
major, visible way in this episode, which was something of 
a shock. (Can they *do* that on Trek?? ;-) At the start of 
the episode, she clearly intended to hold every Cardassian 
at Gallitepp equally responsible for what happened there; 
by the end she has come to realise that just being present 
doesn't make a person guilty. She has also had to reaffirm her commitment to Bajor's future by letting go of some of 
the horrors of the past, and it seems that from her final 
comments to Marritza before he was killed that she has 
become open to the possibility of a true peace between 
Bajor and Cardassia in the future (not the near future, 
perhaps, but eventually). She has also learned the 
important lesson that anger and hatred, even righteous 
anger and justified hatred, if indulged, leave the former 
victims little better than the villains.

One very interesting, and rather subtle, character point
that struck me while thinking about this episode is Kira's 
reaction to "Gul Darheel's portrayal of her people as 
weaklings who couldn't -- or wouldn't -- fight the 
Cardassians for Bajor. I think it entirely possible that a 
lot of Kira's confrontational attitude could stem from deep 
feelings of guilt and helplessness over how completely her 
people were ground down by the Cardassians, and her hidden 
conviction that if the Bajorans had stood up and fought, 
they could have freed themselves. (This applies to Ensign 
Ro, too, as far as I'm concerned.) When she told Marritza, 
"You were only one person; you couldn't do anything," she 
was in a very real sense absolving not only Marritza, but 
herself and her people as well. There is a very real and 
very damaging tendency for victims of violence to blame 
themselves for what happened, and I think that this episode 
implies that it's that which lies at the root of a good 
portion of Kira's character.

The way that Kira dealt with the issue of the investigation
into Marritza's true identity was also very revelatory. 
First, she called Sisko's bluff, if bluff it was, on the 
comments he made in "Progress" about his friendship with 
her; given that I felt at the time that he was presuming 
too much on too short an acquaintance, I felt that her 
comment was entirely appropriate (though kind of hitting 
below the belt.) It's not enough for Sisko to claim 
friendship; he has to do something to show it, and to his 
credit, he came through, even though it wasn't necessarily 
the best idea. Not only was it a good characterisation bit 
for both of them, it also showed a sense of continuity that 
Trek often lacks, which I very much appreciated.

As for Kira's handling of the investigation itself -- well,
in my opinion, Sisko was exactly right to doubt her 
ability to deal fairly with the prisoner, because she did 
not in fact manage to do so. Her comment early on about "It 
may not be policy, it may not even be legal, but it's 
*right*!" showed a level of fanaticism dangerous in someone 
in Kira's sensitive position. And as for the investigation 
itself, all of the real work was still done by Odo (with 
help from Bashir), and the crucial insight that something 
odd was going on was provided by him as well. Clearly, Odo 
should have been handling the matter, but equally clearly, 
he was willing to support Kira in her attempt to face the 
prisoner and what he symbolised to her. In addition, toward 
the end, Kira still clung stubbornly to her belief that the 
prisoner was Gul Darheel, even in the face of mounting 
evidence to the contrary. Had she in fact been handling the 
investigation entirely on her own, Marritza would probably 
have wound up on Bajor on the executioner's block. I don't, 
however, consider this a *problem* with the story -- 
instead, as I've said in other reviews, I like the fact 
that the DS9 crew are allowed to be fallible. I also liked 
the fact that the rest of the crew were careful of Kira's 
feelings at the same time that they tried to keep her from 
making a grave error.

It's interesting to me how Kira seems to see everything
connected with her planet in terms of *symbols* -- she 
keeps saying things like "The Kai's always been a symbol of 
hope", and "The survivors of Gallitepp have been a symbol 
for Bajor of the evils of the Cardassian occupation" 
(that's a paraphrase.) I wonder if the Bajorans in general 
are a very symbol oriented culture, or if this is just the 
way Kira deals with things. I don't actually approve of it 
in any case (not that anyone asked me ;-) because I think 
it's a mistake to try to deal with living beings as 
symbols; people are people, not icons, and should be 
treated as such. (When you start treating people as icons 
you get ridiculous situations like people getting on 
Michael Jordan's case because he enjoys gambling. Big deal! 
I enjoy gambling too, especially slot machines. That 
doesn't make me an addict or in any way evil -- and in 
Jordan's case it doesn't affect his ability to play 
basketball. It's total silliness.)

To a certain extent, Kira's behaviour reinforced the view I
have of the station's personnel as people who were 
assigned here when this place was a minor, dead-end post, 
and now have found themselves in a situation that in many 
ways they aren't suited for. Although they're a talented 
bunch, they're not the creme-de-la-creme like the 
Enterprise crew; they're a group of imperfect people trying 
to make the best of an imperfect universe, and I like it a 
*lot*.

The one thing I wasn't entirely happy with in the way
Kira's character was drawn in this episode was how fast 
and complete her turnaround was at the end. I can see her 
letting him go, no problem; I just can't see her getting 
all, well....*mushy* over him. So he's not Darheel -- that 
doesn't make him a saint. Remember, Marritza's a good 
actor; it would be reasonable to me that she would still 
treat him with residual anger and mistrust. After all, he 
did try to use her and deliberately played on her emotions 
to manipulate her. Her sudden esteem for Marritza, which 
approached veneration almost, just didn't ring true. I'd 
have preferred something more subdued. In an episode that 
was beautifully understated for much of the hour, this bit 
stuck out unpleasantly. (In fact, combined with the death 
of Marritza at the hands of Kainon, it almost makes the 
ending...well...maudlin.)
 
As a final note, I wonder a bit if some parts of "Duet"
weren't inspired by the real life story of one John 
Demjanyuk (spelling of the last name is certainly wrong, 
sorry.) Demjanyuk was a naturalised American citizen who in 
1986 was extradited to Israel to be tried for war crimes; 
there was some evidence that Demjanyuk was the a camp guard 
at Dachau known as "Ivan the Terrible", who was guilty of 
some truly vicious atrocities. However, there is also some 
evidence that while Demjanyuk did in fact change his name 
from Ivan to John, and was in fact a concentration camp 
guard during the war, that he was a guard at Sobibor, not 
Dachau, and so may not in fact be Ivan the Terrible. 
Demjanyuk has since been tried, found guilty, and sentenced 
to execution in Israel; he is appealing. When I first 
viewed this story on "60 Minutes", I was particularly 
struck by one person who was interviewed who basically said 
that being a camp guard at Sobibor was bad enough that 
Demjanyuk should be executed anyway, whether or not he is 
in fact Ivan the Terrible. As far as I know there's still 
no absolutely definite proof of the man's true identity.

Short Takes:
============

-- They didn't include an official spelling for the name of
Kira's resistance group in the press release, so I spelled 
it the way it sounded: Shankar. As in Naren Shankar, a Trek 
writer and the show's science consultant. Now he's got both 
a planet and a terrorist organisation named after him.

-- When Kira was staring out the window on the Promenade,
just before Dax walked up, an interesting looking alien 
went by. He had pointed ears and a gold and black outfit. I 
could *swear* I've seen that alien, or one very much like 
it, somewhere before, and not on Trek. Maybe in an old 
B-movie. Does anyone know from where?

-- In the crowd scene outside Odo's office, with the camp
survivors, we saw the first black Bajoran I can remember 
seeing. Good. Maybe someone picked up on the Net's comments 
that the vast majority of the humanoid aliens seen on Trek 
seem to be Caucasian under the latex.

-- The Bajorans are really into this capital punishment
thing, it seems. How does the Federation feel about that? 
I got the distinct impression they weren't big on it as a 
means of punishment. Wasn't it said, way back in the Cage, 
that the only Federation law that carried the death penalty 
if broken was General Order Four (I think), the one 
prohibiting contact with Talos IV? It's especially 
incongruous that such a "peaceful people", as Kira 
characterised her race, have socially sanctioned murder in 
their legal system. (This isn't a political statement, 
honestly; just a comment.)

-- The stabbing incident at the end was given away in the
previews. Boo hiss! They really should stop that. 
 

Next week: The Scopes trial comes to DS9.

Copyright 1993, Jennifer A. Hawthorne. All rights reserved,
but I'm not stuffy about it as long as you don't go overboard.
