In the twelfth episode of the sixth season of Deep Space Nine, I barely know how to describe this episode. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
I’m never gonna hear Morn speak, am I?
This is one of the weirdest episodes of Deep Space Nine, though I appreciate how much of this acts as a nod to the audience. Let’s say you happen to catch a re-run of this show and you didn’t know what it was. How could you possibly understand half of the jokes here? Morn has not spoken since he first appeared on Deep Space Nine, which means that everything that we learn about him comes from other people. The writers then take this idea to an extreme, then another extreme, and then soon, it becomes practically impossible to determine what was actually true about Morn’s life.
Right, because this episode opens WITH HIS DEATH. HE IS DEAD. It’s a shocking opening that also sets the tone for a rather bizarre episode. Who was Morn? How is he going to be remembered? Who’s lives did he touch while he was alive? If his memorial served a purpose here, it was to show the audience that Morn was everywhere. That he was decent friends with most of the people on the station. That he talked a lot (!!!!!!!). That people cared for him. Of course, the surrealism comes from the juxtaposition. How could that person be the same Morn as the one we saw week after week at Quark’s bar? The same one who never said a word and who only shrugged or nodded!
Over the course of “Who Mourns For Morn?”, my idea of Morn changed. A LOT. First, I learn that he was married for two years and that he slept in a hot tub full of mud. Then, I learned that he had “business partners” who weren’t exactly the most honest or trustworthy people imaginable. (One of whom spoke so strangely that I couldn’t place where I heard the accent they were imitating. I still can’t place it!) AND THEN HE’S A PRINCE WHO ABDICATED THE THRONE??? And he may have won the lottery?
This guessing game was a lot of fun, but I admit to not finding any of the newly-introduced characters – Kris, Nahsk, Larell, or Hain – to be all that interesting. They felt like facsimiles of noir tropes, but without any development beyond the obvious. Plus, it takes this episode so long to reveal the actual truth – that Morn and these people robbed a bank during a holiday – that once the group chemistry/dynamic is established, there’s no time to explore. That is what I was most interested in. How long had Morn been a thief? What was his rapport like with these people? What did they honestly think of him?
So yeah, this is a fun episode, one that gave me a whole lot more of Morn than I ever expected. It’s just a little hollow at times. I am glad, however, that Morn is not dead. Plus, I find it rather hilarious that Morn took advantage of Quark, not the other way around. About time that Quark got a taste of his own medicine. (Though, in the end, Morn still gives Quark 100 bars worth of latinum, so that’s pretty spectacular.)
The video for “Who Mourns for Morn?” Can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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