In the sixth episode of the fourth season of Deep Space Nine, IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AND NO ONE DIED AND YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS BACK AND I still have a lot of thoughts. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For extensive talk of homophobia and queerbaiting.
Let me start this way: this is a monumental episode, and I enjoyed it. I am going to drift into the ether while thinking about Jadzia and Lenara. I WILL BECOME A SPIRIT AND HAUNT THE WORLD, FLOATING UP TO EVERY TREK FAN FOREVER AND WHISPERING IN THEIR EAR, “Jadzia and Lenara belong together.â€Â I am fine with this being my legacy. “Rejoined†is like a beautiful sequel to “The Host†on The Next Generation in that it gives us CANONICAL BISEXUALITY in both of these characters. Canonical. You can’t take the kiss away. You can’t sanitize the fact that two women professed their love for each other and then KISSED, and my heart is going to explode.
And yet, NO ONE SHOULD BE SURPRISED THAT I HAVE COMPLICATED FEELINGS ABOUT THIS EPISODE. I can’t sit here and deny what a huge deal this is either! This episode aired just a week after my twelfth birthday. What sort of representation did I have at that point? I’d seen the news about Rock Hudson years earlier, and I remember my mother deciding to stop watching Roseanne because of that one episode where Mariel Hemingway kissed Roseanne. Ellen didn’t come out until less than two years later, and THAT was a huge, huge moment in pop culture. In the midst of a small assortment of gay/queer characters on television, Deep Space Nine aired a kiss between two women, never once had a single character express their disgust with two women falling in love with each other, and COMMITTED TO THE FACT THAT JADZIA LOVED LENARA.
That’s a big fucking deal, and I’m saying that nearly twenty-one years later. I know that part of the challenge in doing what I do comes from viewing things from a future standpoint, too! Not everything I know now or believe is something people had access to, and I don’t expect perfection from the past either. So I wanted to open this review by being honest about the meaning of this story. There’s a huge part of me that’s thankful that it happened and that I get to watch it now. (COULD YOU IMAGINE IF I’D SEEN THIS SHOW WHEN IT AIRED. It would have destroyed me.) At the same time, critical analysis involves picking apart stories to find meaning in them, whether that meaning is intended or not. It’s super obvious to me that there are two stories unfolding here. Jadzia must deal with the Trill taboo concerning re-association with someone a past symbiont had a relationship with. The subtext, though, is about the taboo of homosexual relationships.
At times, the dialogue is like a brick. Kira’s conversation with Julian felt like a giant neon sign with a flickering arrow pointing to her that said, “THIS IS ABOUT GAY PEOPLE, JUST SO YOU KNOW.†Still, I appreciate that more in hindsight, knowing that the show commits to this relationship… somewhat. I worried that Deep Space Nine would do what the past two Trek shows had done: include a metaphor for this kind of stigma, but then never show it. ALAS, THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. But it’s easy to see how much all the talk of the Trill taboo works as a real-world metaphor! That’s intentional, and it’s admirable.
Where it falls apart for me is in the details and the ultimate execution. For example: if this is all a metaphor for being gay/queer, then Sisko’s angry outburst towards Jadzia feels excessively uncomfortable. Additionally, the reason the Trill have this taboo is based on a philosophy that’s pretty sound, which is not to suggest that it should be accepted. But the Trill want one of their own to move on from each symbiont instead of obsessing over previous engagements or relationships. That kind of makes sense, even as an outsider to their culture, so it’s not that direct of a comparison with the real-world issue.
I don’t want to come off as greedy, either, when talking about what I wish this show would have done. I imagine that the writers and producers did what they could to get the kiss on the air, and I appreciate that. However, this episode still falls in line with a longstanding trope where LGBT or queer characters don’t get happiness. The ending to “Rejoined†is frustrating because the tragedy is all that the story becomes. And if Deep Space Nine never returns to Lenara, then this feels like a one-off, an unconnected story that has no real long-term meaning. There’s a pervasive myth/stereotype that LGBT/queer folks cannot maintain relationships, that our lives are fraught with conflict and drama, and that we don’t deserve happiness.
Did the show intend to spread this message? Of course not. DS9 is clearly trying to make a point about “taboo†relationships in relation to our own world, yet the format of the show and the limitations of time allow “Rejoined†to fall into a stereotype in the end. Plus, it’s just plain frustrating. It feels like the writers crafted this awesome relationship, Terry Farrell and Susanna Thompson absolutely kill it in these roles, and then WHOOPS WE CAN’T ACTUALLY KEEP THIS UP, so the whole thing is rapidly “resolved†so that everything can move on.
What I’m trying to say is this: I enjoyed this episode. I recognize its importance. And I know Star Trek can do better, given that it took them 358 aired episodes of its canon to finally give us a scene like this. (Oh, I counted.)
The video for “Rejoined†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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