Recap / Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 04 E 06 Rejoined

You know, that episode.

Dax is wowing Bashir and Quark with some sleight-of-hand when Sisko calls her to his office. Stone-faced, he informs her that the station is about to be visited by a science team including a certain joined Trill named Lenara Kahn. Rather than go on leave to avoid Lenara, Dax decides to stay. She joins the welcome party and meets the team: Hanor Pren, Lenara Kahn and Lenara's brother Bejal Otner. Dax and Lenara exchange stiff pleasantries about it being "a long time" before Lenara leaves for her quarters. When Kira looks at Dax askance, she explains that Lenara was once her wife.

Quark has it explained to him that Dax's former host Torias was married to Kahn's former host Nelani. Kira asks why the two symbionts can't get back together, and Bashir explains that it's highly taboo for symbionts to associate with loved ones from their former hosts. In fact, getting romantically involved with former lovers will get the offenders banished from Trill society, ensuring that the symbiont dies with them. Word gets out about the star-crossed lovers. During a welcome luncheon, Dax and Lenara break the ice with a brief conversation, noting how everyone is covertly watching them.

Dax helps out with the science team's mission of creating an opening in the space-time continuum. In the process, they recollect their different perspectives on their previous hosts' relationship. Getting warmer with each other, Dax invites Lenara to dinner and has Bashir chaperone. The poor doctor is left in silence as the two former lovers reminisce. Their flirting does not going unnoticed by the other two Trill. Bejal confronts Lenara, but she denies rekindling her relationship with Dax. Upset by the encounter, she returns to Dax, who suggests that they stop seeing each other, but they both agree that their feelings cannot be ignored. They share a passionate kiss before separating.

Dax consults Sisko, who strongly urges her not to pursue a romance with Lenara. Trill hosts are taught that they are merely a link in a chain and to place the symbiont's safety above all other concerns. The risk of exile is too great to justify a romance. Dax thanks Sisko for setting her straight. But when the science team's experiments backfire and put Lenara in danger, Dax bravely walks over a forcefield to rescue her. The lovers declare that they never want to risk losing each other.

Dax visits Lenara in sick bay, and Bejal thanks Dax for saving his sister before politely excusing himself. Dax congratulates Lenara on her achievements, even if they weren't what she was hoping for. She invites Lenara to continue her work on the station and get back together, consequences be damned. But Lenara has gotten cold feet and isn't sure she's ready to throw away everything for Dax. She says she needs time to think it over on Trill, though Dax tells her that if she leaves, she'll probably never return. Dax waits for Lenara on the promenade hoping that she will change her mind, but Lenara casts only one regretful glance back at her before departing, leaving a grief-stricken Dax alone.

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Tropes

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Invoked Trope when Lenara leaves for the Trill homeworld to force herself to break off the relationship.
• Bait-and-Switch: Sisko warns Dax that Lenara Kahn is on the Trill science team, and gives her the opportunity to go on leave during this time. The conversation makes it look like Lenara is someone who has a grudge against Dax, but it turns out she's Dax's ex and Sisko is just trying to make things easy for the Old Man, knowing Trill norms.
• Big Damn Kiss: And good lord, do they tease it for a while.
• Bittersweet Ending: Dax saves Lenara's life, but Lenara still can't bring herself to commit to such a taboo relationship, and Dax can only watch and weep as Lenara leaves with the science team.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Dax claims she's never let relationships from her previous lives interfere with her life as Jadzia... ignoring when she went on trial for possible murder as Curzon and volunteered for a Klingon revenge mission.
  • Dax cheerfully assures Sisko she's fine about her upcoming meeting with Lenara. Sisko wordlessly turns her commbadge the right way up, because she's pinned it on upside-down.
  • When Lenara says she just needs time to think things over on Trill, Dax knows full well that if Lenara leaves, she has no intention of coming back.
• Comically Serious: When asked what Klingons dreamed of, Worf mentions "things that would send shivers down your spine" stating it would best if they didn't know. Kira can't tell if he was joking or not.
• Commonality Connection: Dax and Lenara have more in common now than their previous hosts did, as they're both scientists.
• Containment Field: Dax rescues Lenara by projecting a forcefield over the plasma leak, then walking across it and dragging her into a Jeffries tube just before the air in Engineering is vented into space to contain the fire.
• Discount Lesbians: Dax and Lenara's original marriage was heterosexual, so their continuing romance isn't technically a lesbian relationship.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Oh boy, yes. The DVD features have quite a few people talking about how much joy they took in walking right up to the line of Rick Berman's ban on homosexual material. Technically, Dax and Lenara are simply resuming a previous heterosexual relationship, but the audience can never forget that they're actually seeing two women acting out a romance.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Despite having his own crush on Dax, Bashir acts as The Beard for what he knows full well is just an excuse for Dax and Lenara to have dinner together. When he's called away by a medical emergency, Lenara notes what a good friend he is to play along.
• Excuse Plot: The experiment that Lenara and her team are conducting on DS9 is just an excuse to get Dax and Lenara together. You'd think that a science ship would be better equipped for their work than a warship like the Defiant, not to mention that doing their work literally anywhere else in the Federation would avoid the risk of violating the reassociation taboo.
• Fate Worse than Death: The punishment for rekindling romantic relationships from a previous host's life is permanent exile from Trill. Which means no new host for the symbiont when the current host dies. In the end, Lenara isn't willing to go through with it.
• Forbidden Love: "Reassociation", e.g. rekindling a romantic relationship that the past host was involved in.
  Bashir: ... the whole point of joining is for the symbiont to accumulate experiences from the span of many lifetimes. In order to move on from host to host, the symbiont has to learn to let go of the past, let go of parents, siblings, children, even spouses.
• Friendship Moment: When Dax comes to him for advice, Sisko bluntly argues against reassociating with Lenara because of the severe consequences, but makes it clear at the end that he will back her no matter what her decision.
  Dax: I have lived seven lifetimes, and I have never had a friend quite like you. (they hug)
• Gender Vocabulary Slip:
  Dax: Well, Torias used to be insensitive at times. But you have to admit, Nilani did do her share of overreacting.
  Lenara: That's because you were a pilot and it made me nervous...made her nervous. (beat) Torias being a pilot made Nilani nervous. (Held Gaze before they realise what's happening and break eye contact) I've never had quite this much trouble sorting out my feelings from those of a past host.
• Holding Hands: Dr. Pren isn't happy when he sees Lenara and Dax doing this during their dinner date. Lenara's brother downplays the implications when Pren tells him, but it soon becomes a case of Everyone Can See It.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Invoked, as the episode adds more and more lesbian subtext until it's... uh, text.
• Ironic Echo: Noting how everyone at the party is eyeing them, Lenara jokes that they should "throw ourselves at each other, profess our undying love for each other and complete disregard for Trill society." Dax gives the same line to Sisko after realising she's still in love with Lenara, noting that the joke isn't so funny now.
• Just Friends: Lenara/Dax according to Lenara when her brother questions her about it. No one buys it, least of all Lenara and Dax.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Quark trying to sort out the complications of Trill host-symbiote relationships. It gives him a headache.
• Little Sister Instinct: Bejal talks Lenara out of staying with Dax.
• Long Last Look: Dax watches from the Promenade's upper walkway as the Trills leave. Lenara turns for a last look at her... then walks out the door.
• Love Cannot Overcome: After Dax saves her life, Lenara says she doesn't want to lose her again. When she has time to think about it however, she changes her mind.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Colm Meaney was unavailable for most of the episode's filming dates, including the scene where Dax rescues Lenara from the plasma fire. This has the somewhat odd result of Eddington essentially filling the role of chief engineer for most of the episode, despite being a security officer rather than a member of engineering.
• My Greatest Failure: Dax's previous host Torias ignored his wife's warning and got killed in a shuttle accident, leaving her a widow. Three hosts later, 'Torias' still regrets this.
• Not a Date: Dax asks Lenara to join her at a dinner she's having with Bashir. The next scene shows her asking Bashir to cancel a prior appointment so he can play along. The scene after that has Bashir looking glum and bored as Dax and Lenara chat happily away.
• Persona Non Grata: Trills take the taboo of "Reassociation" very seriously, with any joined Trill found guilty of it being sentenced to exile. In addition to the Trill being barred from returning to their homeworld, this would also mean that their symbiont would not be passed on to a new host when its current host dies, with its potentially centuries worth of cumulative memories and knowledge being subsequently lost. Because Trill society values their symbionts so much, this is a taboo very few would dare commit.
• Planar Shockwave: When the second test wormhole explodes, it releases one. Which, naturally, happens to be on the right plane to hit the Defiant.
• Rescue Romance: Just after Dax is told she needs to be absolutely certain as to her feelings for Lenara, she's nearly killed in an engine room accident and Dax risks her life to save her.
• Series Continuity Error: The taboo about reassociation was never mentioned when Odan fell in love with Beverly Crusher and wanted to continue the relationship despite moving to another host. Then again, Odan was portrayed as significantly different from the Trills Deep Space Nine viewers would be familiar with, and there is likely also a difference when two joined Trill are involved rather than a Trill and a human.
• Speculative Fiction LGBT: Reassociation with a past lover is a social taboo among Trills because it's regarded as "unnatural". Combined with Dax's New Old Flame having a woman as her current host, the relation to how homosexuals are regarded is obvious.
  Kira: I don't understand how two people who've fallen in love, and made a life together, can be forced to just walk away from each other ... because of a taboo?
• Status Quo Is God: Lenara leaves at the end of the episode rather than pursue an illegitimate relationship.
• Technobabble: Loads of this as the Excuse Plot involves Starfleet engineers and a Trill science team working together.
  Bejal: After we launch our target drone, the Defiant will have to generate a subspace tensor matrix in the twenty five to thirty thousand Cochrane range. Then the drone will send out a magneton pulse which should react with the matrix to create an opening in the space-time continuum.
  Eddington: How long will we have to keep generating the matrix?
  Pren: Two minutes, maybe less. Once the wormhole forms, we can shut down the tensor matrix.
  O'Brien: We'll have to reroute the pre-ignition plasma from the impulse deck down to the auxiliary intake to get that much power. But I think we can do it.
• Third Wheel: Poor Bashir gets dragged along on a Not a Date with Dax and Lenara. They barely even notice he's there.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: This becomes obvious the moment Dax leans over Lenara's shoulder to check out the readings on her LCARS panel.
• What Have We Ear?: The episode opens with Dax demonstrating her sleight of hand tricks for Quark and Bashir, ending with pulling a bar of latinum out of Quark's ear. Quark assumes she just used a teleporter. Later Bashir does the same trick, causing another Ferengi to peek in Quark's ear to see if there's any more latinum in there.