Avery Brooks made his DS9 directorial debut with “The Abandoned.” He intended the story of an abandoned Jem’Hadar child to serve as an allegory for racial tension and gang violence. I can see hints of that, but I got much more about free will versus fate out of it. Calvinism strikes hard yet again, no?Quark buys a wrecked ship from one of his contacts and discovers an infant inside an incubator-like compartment. The infant grows rapidly and within a short period of time is roughly the equivalent of a sixteen year old human. It is at this point the crew realizes he is a Jem’Hadar. Fortunately, he recognizes Odo as a Founder. But even odo can barely keep the boy’s violent instincts under control.
Starfleet wants to take the boy for study, but Odo protests. He knows what it is like to be a sentient being, but studied as any old lab sample. Sisko agrees to delay handing him over so Odo can try to alter his nature. Not easy to do, of course. His violent tendencies are not only becoming more overt, but the withdrawal symptoms of Ketracel-white, a drug he has been genetically engineered to be dependent upon, are causing further irritation.
The Ketracel-white situation is conveniently alleviated when some is discovered among the ship’s wreckage. Chalk that up to the dramatic need to establish the Jem’Hadar addiction as a long running story element. The key conflict is odo attempting to broaden the kid’s horizons by first discovering if he has any other interests besides killing and then, in frustration, finding a way to get the indulge that urge in a holosuite. Kira tries to convince Odo this will not work. It is in the Jem’Hadar nature to kill.
Odo responds that it was in her nature to be a terrorist and within his to be a xenophobic Changeling. His mistake is in not drawing the distinction that his an Kira’s were learned behavior due to their circumstances. Kira had to fight for her freedom. Odo was influenced by the people around him, not by other Changelings. The Jem’Hadar are genetically bred to do what they do. No amount of nurture will change their nature. It is fate.
When he reaches this conclusion, he opts to take the kid back to the Gamma Quadrant. Sisko lets him go, realizing the situation was quickly going to evolve into kill or be killed if things carried on any further.
A couple interesting personal moments are slid in. First, Sisko meets and surprisingly likes Jake’s Dabo girl girlfriend. She brings out the artistic side in him. But more importantly, the subplot is a solid, healthy father-son interaction rather than the typical strained daddy issues that often plague television.
The second is growth in the Odo/Kira relationship--such that it is. Odo now has personal quarters instead of remaining in his bucket in the back of his office. With it, he is both exploring his Changeling self by becoming more comfortable with his malleable liquid ste and attempting to become more humanoid by living more like they do. It demonstrates his internal conflict. Now that he knows what his people are like, he has to side more with those the humanoids hate even though he does not feel a sense of belonging with them, either.
But the most poignant part is that odo takes a housewarming gift of flowers from Kira and plants them in his old bucket to symbolize their connection. Or at least what he perceives as their connection. He a few episodes, he will realize his love in unrequited and smash the bucket with the flowers inside.
Very poignant episode, even if I did not get the racial/gang violence message as was apparently intended.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
