“The Darkness and the Light” is one of the most intriguing episodes of DS9 because of what it reveals about Kira’s character. Members of her old resistance cell are being killed off one by one. The assassin has an ax to grind with the cell and Kira in particular because he was collateral damage in one of their sneak attacks against the Cardassians. The thing is, she is grossly unapologetic for maiming the man. Hers is a cold reaction you do not see too often on television.The premise of the episode is based on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, aka Ten Little Indians. A murderer is picking off members of Kira’s Shakaar resistance cell and sending her a taunting countdown to mark each death. She is frustrated because her pregnancy is preventing her from going to Bajor and conducting the investigation herself.
She finally snaps when two of her friends hiding out o DS9 are killed. Stealing a list of Cardassian suspects, Kira heads off to hut them down, pregnant or not. She is ambushed and captured by prin, who turns out to be the murderer.
Ptin cleaned uniforms for a military officer responsible for killing fifteen Bajoras for not displaying the Cardassian flag outside their homes. The Skakkaar cell decided to plant a bomb at his home in revenge. Kira was ultimately responsible for the act which killed 23 people an maimed Prin. He wants them all to pay for harming the innocent.
But Kira is unapologetic. The Cardassians invaded her world, squandered the natural resources, and committed a genocide of 15 million people. None of them are innocent as far as she is concerned, even a butler with no military service. Prin considers her a criminal who must die for her crime. The thing is, they are both right and both wrong. Neither of them should have committed the acts they did. Neither one of them is a hero in any sense of the word. They are both terrorists and unapologetically so.
Contrast Kira’s attitude here with the one in “Duet” in which she realized there was such a thing as innocent bystanders. Prin negates any sympathy he might have had from Kira or the audience by murdering her friends. Or, if you want to be cynical about it, there truly are no innocent people in war.
Kira escapes by convincing Prin to spare the unborn child asan innocent. A medication she has been taking blocks out the sedative prin gave her, so she overpowers him when he suspects she is asleep. I am going to chalk Prin’s decision up as a subtle pro-life message because a similar scenario occurred on Battlestar Galactica years later. Both scripts were supervised by Ronald D. Moore.
“The Darkness and the Light” is a disturbing, but fascinating episode to watch. No one comes away unscathed or innocent. While the final exchange over the morality of war between Kira and Prin is the episode’s highlight, a closes cod is when Kira breaks down in the infirmary over her friends’ deaths. She has her back turned to Odo while relating astory about her first days in the Shakaar cell. The look on Odo’s face is one of pure, frustrated love as he cannot comfort her as a soul mate would. I many ways, it is more difficult to watch that scene than it is the climax.
On a final note, the story for “The Darkness and the Light” was conceived y Bryan Fuller. He only wrote two episodes of DS9, but it is interesting to note I cover one just days after his show Heroes is canceled by NBC.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
