Mini Review #138: Star Trek Ds9 4x14/4x14 "Sons of Mogh" and "Bar Association" (Patreon)

Two more great episodes today on DS9! Sons of Mogh was a very interesting Worf episode where his brother Kurn, played by the man Tony Todd, comes to DS9 and begs Worf to kill him. Not only was the straddling of lines between the Klingon world and Federation values a cool part of the episode, but the presentation of Klingon depression was tragic. Seeing Kurn feel so deeply that he needed to die spoke a lot to just how insane Klingon culture is. Because of what Worf did in the Season 4 premiere, Kurn was ejected from the Council and all land and titles stripped from the House of Mogh. Kurn's progression of wanting death also fluctuated within the episode. It started out as something for honour. As a last stand as a warrior with nothing to lose. But by the end of the episode, Kurn's death wish had just become about dying. With or without honour, Kurn just wanted to die. And he got his wish in a way. Watching Worf try to deal with his brother, and in a way himself, was very interesting. Worf at first insists on helping Kurn and actually does stab the guy in an attempt to kill him. But there is a shift in the episode where Worf realizes that he is no longer Klingon, or at least does not subscribe to the values of being Klingon enough to ever re-join Klingon society. So this all culminates with the decision Worf takes to erase Kurn's memory in order for him to start a fresh life away from the dishonour. While it was a tough decision for Worf because Kurn is his brother, I also felt like it represented Worf's final push away from Klingon society. With Kurn gone, Worf his pretty much nothing left that attached himself to the Empire. Oh yeah, there were also mines in this episode. Why where the Klingons being so sneaky about that??

Bar Association was a ROM EPISODE YEAH! I love that he is getting his own episodes now he deserves it. The episode deals with Rom forming a... a... sorry this word is hard to say one second... a union. There I said it. It was really fun to watch him stand up for what he felt was right as well as stand up for his fellow co-workers against the evil boss known as Quark. He gave some good speeches, and showed just how far he has come from that bumbling, screaming buffoon from the first season. There were also some great interactions between Quark and Rom as well. Quark obviously does care for Rom in a way but he not only has a hard time expressing it, he doesn't understand Rom as well. He can't understand why Rom would want to form a union, or side with Moogie, or not only desire profits and that confusion can turn to anger a lot of the time. But Rom kind of set things straight in this episode and basically told Quark off about their relationship and how Quark treats him... it was great to watch! Finally, Rom got all of his demands but decided to finally quit the bar to pursue engineering (yay!!!) and seeing how happy his face was when he said that made my day. He'll be a great engineer!!