Guys my heart constantly, CONSTANTLY breaks for Odo. It physically hurts.

Cross Fire: I feel like this episode was a little too much soap opera and not enough Bajoran politics. I’m very invested in their entrance to the federation. I think they did a very good job at portraying the hurt Odo felt. I kinda liked it when he lost his crap on his own quarters- that’s the passion I want to see from Odo and we’ve been missing it a little since the Dominion stuff picked up. But I want to go back to watching him pour that passion into saving lives. That was just so inspiring for me, I felt like I could watch it forever. I’ll admit I didn’t hate it when Quark had his heart to heart with Odo but I would have preferred it was another character. But when I tried to think of which other character I couldn’t because the only other person he’s close with is Kira (although he did mention kayaking with Miles once). And then I realized that’s the point... what happened to his pet star fleet officer? There was also a point here where I thought he was going to get along with Worf but then he flushed that down the toilet.

Return to Grace: alright guys, WHY IS EVERYONE ATTRACTED TO KIRA??? We have Odo, Vedec Bariel, the first minister dude, those guys in the resistance she was with when fighting vedec Winn (?), Julian in that episode where Troi’s mom brought out latent attraction, some others I’m definitely forgetting, and now Gal Dukat???! Dax is MUCH more dynamic and interesting to me. We still don’t know who Kira is outside of terrorist/resistance fighter. What does a date even look like for her? “So, tell me about your hobbies.” “Well, I’m really into dismantling oppressive governments.” “Oh, funny, I would have pinned you as a pottery type of girl.” I wonder if this is because they’re trying to paint Dax as hard to get, or because Dax’s love stories are rushed, short-lived and irresponsible, but seriously everybody falls in love with Kira. And where’s Julian actually falling in love with someone? I no longer believe it should be Jadzia, because I don’t think Jadzia could love someone like Julian. But I want the world for him.

But as far as the actual episode goes... meh. There was a much more interesting plot that could have happened here, and that I THOUGHT was happening, where Dukat would try to trick Kira into giving away the secrets Worf told her not to, while Kira was distracted by Dukat’s daughter. I also just hate when characters cause unnecessary loss of life with no consequences. I think Kira just had no sympathy for the Klingons, and agreed with Dukat that he did what he had to when he suggested that’s how her resistance fought. I believe in peace and diplomacy so much that it genuinely upsets me when a fictional character rejects those methods of conflict resolution. Are we keeping Dukat’s daughter? I think she could reveal a lot about Kira. And I was really proud of Kira when she said that this is who she was but not who she wanted to be. Now let’s just figure out who she actually is.