“Redemption” (4×26) & “Redemption II” (5×01)
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“Redemption”
Despite the nearly twenty intervening episodes, this two-parter picks up more or less where “Renunion” left off. With Worf having killed Duras, Gowron’s claim to lead the high council is seemingly uncontested. The Enterprise arrives at Qo’noS so that Picard can finish his duties as Arbiter of Succession at Gowron’s investiture ceremony. Worf hopes to appeal to the new leadership to clear his family’s name and so he and his brother can reclaim their father’s honor.
However, Gowron is an unpopular figure in much of the Klingon Empire. Duras’s sisters throw his succession into turmoil when they put forth their nephew — Duras’s illegitimate teenage son — to challenge Gowron’s claim.
As the interests of the Federation are increasingly at odds with their commitments to the Klingons, Picard and Worf are forced to take drastic actions in order to navigate their way through the brewing civil war.
This two-parter really takes advantage of the hiatus between seasons for its impact. When the first episode ends, Worf has resigned from Starfleet, the Klingon Empire has been plunged into civil war with Gowron badly outmanned and outgunned, and the shadowy Romulan woman is revealed to be Denise Crosby. The prospect of a radically different fifth season seems suddenly and unnervingly plausible.
“Redemption II”
When the second part kicks off, some time has passed. Worf is now the weapons officer aboard his brother’s ship, and Picard is desperately seeking the means to even the odds a bit for Gowron’s faction without intervening in the conflict directly.
If the first part was a story of palace intrigue, this is a war story with the Enterprise essentially serving as UN peacekeepers to keep the other parties involved honest. Still, the second half finds room for a few important human stories amidst the moves and countermoves.
My favorite is probably Data’s, who has a nice little civil rights story arc. There are certain responsibilities that come with being a trailblazer, and Data is acutely aware of them. As the first android serving in Starfleet, he knows that his actions and accomplishments will define what is possible for whatever androids might follow in the future. He knows Starfleet Command is unlikely to give him his own command, so he sees that Picard’s fleet — desperately short on senior officers — provides a unique opportunity to prove that an android can handle the responsibility.
His acting first officer’s prejudice toward androids confirms for him the necessity of this endeavor. And, unburdened by a human ego, Data pursues his objectives (and the assigned mission parameters) with dispassionate focus. I appreciated the way Brent Spiner incorporated aspects of Picard’s command demeanor into Captain Data: Data doesn’t have emotions, but he has seen how Picard’s tone of voice and bearing shape the bridge officers’ behavior. By the end of the episode, he has exposed the Romulans and documented what androids are capable of in a command role. And not just in Starfleet’s official record; those who served under him on the Sutherland will tell the story of what he did here.
I also found myself moved by the resolution to Worf’s dispute with Duras’s family. A Klingon warrior would have killed Toral without hesitation. But Worf isn’t just a Klingon warrior. He’s also Alexander’s father. And it’s the father in him that spares Toral’s life.
Impacts on Star Trek Continuity:
This two-parter represents some of the most serialized storytelling in televised Star Trek up until this time. It relies on the audience’s memory of a number of past episodes: “Yesterday’s Enterprise“, “Sins of the Father“, “Reunion“, and “The Mind’s Eye“. In that respect, it is ahead of its time and an important precursor to the kind of storytelling that DS9 would become known for.
It also complicates the elegant resolution to the predestination paradox in “Yesterday’s Enterprise“. In that episode, the Picard from the alternate timeline allowed his Tasha Yar to go back with the Enterprise-C because her certain death would close the causal loop. But in this episode we learn that the Tasha Yar from the alternate timeline didn’t in fact die aboard the Enterprise-C. Instead, the Romulans took her prisoner and forced her to trade sexual favors for the lives of her fellow POWs. The result of this forced arrangement was the mysterious shadowy Romulan woman from “The Mind’s Eye”. Commander Sela looks remarkably like her mother, except for her slightly pointy ears. The lack of cranial ridges may be attributable to her human mother, or perhaps in 2344 the southern Romulans without the cranial ridges were still in positions of power.
Guinan appears in both episodes, and I think she’s mainly there because she is the only character in Picard’s orbit that remembers the events of “Yesterday’s Enterprise“. That being said, I enjoyed her conversation with Worf in the first half. His self-seriousness is not a Klingon trait, it’s a Worf trait. And her efforts to coax him to loosen up a bit are mirrored by his brother’s efforts when they’re all driving after battle in the second part.
This episode establishes that women cannot serve on the Klingon high council, an obstacle that requires Duras’s sisters to bring their brother’s bastard out of the woodwork. But it seems inconsistent to what we’ve seen up until this point. We know that Klingon women are bigger and stronger than most human men, and there isn’t any evident gender differences aboard Klingon warships. Gowron had even offered K’Ehleyr a seat on the high council in “Reunion“, the previous story in this arc. And in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Azetbur succeeded her father as Chancellor and led the Klingon high council at least through the signing of the Khitomer Accords that established peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
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