Top 20 Episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine #5: Duet

Today’s episode takes us all the way back to the first season. We open with a Cardassian arriving on the station. Now, Cardassians aren’t exactly the most well liked folks on DS9, but having one pass through the station is nothing out of the ordinary. What raises a red flag however is the fact that said Cardassian, Aamin Marritza, has a very rare disease, and the only way he could possibly have contracted it was to have been present at a mining explosion at a forced labor camp called Galitep. The occupation of Bajor was often compared to the holocaust, so, to contextualize, this Galitep could be compared to Auschwitz. Naturally, Major Kira, as a former resistance fighter during the occupation, isn’t exactly pleased to see a Cardassian who was at Galitep and immediately calls for his arrest, claiming his presence there is enough to declare him guilty of war crimes, to which the Bajoran government agrees. However, that’s not exactly good enough for Sisko so he agrees to throw him in the brig until his guilt or lack there of can be definitively proven.

As Kira interrogates Marritza, he admits to having been at Galitep, but claims he was just a filing clerk and had nothing to do with the atrocities committed at the camp. He’s proud of the work he did, and seems to hold his old boss, Gul Darhe’el, known to the Bajorans as The Butcher of Galitep, in very high esteem, but otherwise, he seems to be anything more than what he claims to be, until he accuses Kira of being more interested in vengeance than actual justice in a disconcertingly menacing tone.

As the interrogations continue, it becomes more and more apparent that Marritza is hiding something, and it’s not long before we learn what. Turns out,“Marritza” is actually Gul Darhe’el himself. Once his secret is revealed, Darhe’el no longer feels any need to pretend and starts loudly proclaiming his pride in the horrors he committed with sickening glee. Kira can only sit back and watch in horror as Darhe’el refers to mass genocide as “a days work.”

I’ve done my best to keep spoilers to a bare minimum throughout this countdown, but in order to convey the strength of this episode, I kind of have to spoil the big twist ending. See, this Cardassian isn’t Gul Darhe’el at all, he really is just Aamin Marritza, driven mad by the horrors he witnessed but could do nothing about. When Kira finally confronts him, Harris Yulin, who plays Marritza, delivers one of the single best performances in the show’s entire run as he desperately tries to maintain his façade, but finally cannot take it anymore as he breaks down in tears, tormented by the horrors he could do nothing to prevent and by the screams he could not silence no matter how much he covered his ears. Apparently, Marrtiza claimed to be Darhe’el as part of a plan to force the Cardassians to admit their crimes, knowing that his kind must be punished for what they have done. Seeing all this, Kira finally realizes that Marritza isn’t guilty of any atrocities because there was nothing he could have done to prevent them. Though he may be mad, he is still a good and noble man who, in many ways, was just as much a victim of the occupation as the Bajorans, and decides to let him go free. And yet, the episode ends in tragedy as a drunken Bajoran stabs Marritza to death, claiming that him being a Cardassian was reason enough for him to die, to which Kira, who had uttered that same sentiment at the beginning of the episode, now replies with “No, it’s not.”

This is an incredibly powerful episode featuring some incredible performances from both Nana Visitor and Harris Yulin. The subject matter is powerful and shows that the atrocities committed by the Cardassians during the occupation were not limited to the Bajorans, but also affected their own people. It is simply one of the best, not just for DS9, but for Star Trek as a whole.

We’ve seen what happens when we interrogate a madman pretending to be a monster, but what happens when the real monster behind the occupation is put on trial. We find out, next time.