“Chimera” I the likeliest reason Ezri took center stage in “Field of Fire”’s criminal investigation. Odo shares the spotlight with Laas, another of the one hundred Changelings sent out to explore the galaxy. He does not approve of the Founders’’ war, but is not a big fan of “monoforms,” either. Odo’s bonding with lass reveals an uncomfortable secret about himself.Odo and O’Brien are traveling back to DS9 I a runabout when a Changeling, sensing Odo’s presence, sneaks on board and presents himself. O’Brien is naturally suspicious, but Laas agrees to go back to DS9 to have a medical tests prove he is not s Founder. They do, so he begins adjusting to life on the station.
Which is not easy. Laas grew up in much the same way as Odo, but he has become completely disgusted with monoforms and wants nothing to do with them. Whe he links with Odo, he learns he too, is not completely enamored with monoforms, either. If it were not for Kira, he would have gone back to the Great Lake and become a Founder.
This revelation is yet another point that helped ruin Odo for me in the latter bits of DS9. Starting with his traitorous actions with the Female Changeling in the first arc of the sixth season on up to his silly, implausible romance with Kira, Odo shifts away from the sympathetic, alienated character he was to the high school kid who becomes a jerk once he gets invited to the in crowd’s lunch table and starts banging the head cheerleader. All the interesting things about his character have been erased.
Odo was a fascinating character early on when he did not know in place in the grand scheme of things, when he carried a torch for Kira, but knew it could never amount to anything, when he was found his people, but could not be with them for his moral objections, when he developed a friendship with Garak even after he was tortured by him because it was more important they were kindred spirits…the list goes on. Odo definitely lost something in the final seasons. Lord, I miss the old him.
Lass takes jabs at Odo over his reluctance to shape shift in front of monoforms. He claims Odo is trying to win them over by pretending to not be a shape shifter as much as possible. If only Laas knew Odo’s lack of shape shifting was due to budget restrictions, we could have been spared the psychoanalysis.
Laas obviously touches a nerve, because Odo makes nothing but excuses for him as his shape shifting disrupts the normal flow of life on DS9. One incident leads to Laas killing a Klingon. He is arrested and held in custody while the Klingon Empire attempts his extradition.
Kira secretly frees him and sends him on his way with the idea Odo will join him later. The two can then happily frolic through space like Brokeback Galaxy or whatever she had in mind. Odo does meet with Lass at the rendevous point, but opts to go back to Kira. Awwww. Who can blame him?
“Chimera” brings up a couple continuity problems. One, when we first meet Lass, he ha changed shape into something that can comfortably survive in space. Why is it Odo was not able to do that when he and Weyoun were freezing to death in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River?” Two, Odo has been infected by the same virus that the Founders were introduced to. When he linked with lass, he infected him with it, too. Presumably, lass died sometime after “Chimera’ because there is no way he could have gotten the antidote or even knew it existed. What a downer.
Lass was played by J. G. Herttzler, who normally plays the recurring Klingon Gen. Martok.
“Chimera” is not a bad episode, but it does add to my personal disappointment with the direction of Odo’s character. It might have been more interesting if Odo had met another of the one hundred earlier I the series before he got bogged down with conflicting loyalties and romance with Kira. Their relationship would have been more interesting because Odo’s conflict would have been his loneliness versus his loyalty to friends rather than attachment to the Founders trying to kill everyone he knows and his unlikely romance with Kira.
Rating; *** (out of 5)
