Broken Link

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Garak plays, of all things, matchmaker. He introduces Constable Odo to cafe owner Chalan Aroya in the hopes that they will hit it off. Instead, the moment she leaves the room, Odo has horrible cramps and never sees her again. This is often the result of nerd flirting. Be warned!

Bashir's wild guesses as to the cause of this illness include changeling puberty or menopause. Stalling for time when the constable turns to liquid, the doctor pours him into a giant ice cube tray.

Gowron, officially insulted by the Federation's timid requests that the Klingons please return the Cardassian colonies and stop killing everything, also demands the Federation give back Archanis IV, ceded to the Feds 100 years ago. Gowron thinks they might have left some change under the couches... so, yeah. Give it back or die.

The Defiant tries to find the Founders to beg for Odo's cure. Bashir uses the term 'Dominion Air Space'. Shouldn't that be 'Dominion Space Space'?

Garak insists on coming along to ask the Dominion if they took any Cardassian prisoners during the Pasting at the Omarion Nebula. Sisko agrees on condition that Garak keeps Odo's mind occupied. Eagerly, Garak claims to have been an embassy gardener on Romulus. "So many Romulan dignitaries died unexpectedly that year."

Odo's illness was forced upon him as a summons. For killing one of his own kind, Odo is to enter the Great Link and be judged.

Left unattended, Garak tries to obliterate the Founder's world. Worf must beat him down to keep his fingers off the trigger. Curiously, the tailor's sentence for attempted genocide is six months in a holding cell. Imagine if he'd removed tags from mattresses. They'd still be executing his descendants.

Now to Odo. They've done far worse than kill him. They've hurt him. And they wish to go on hurting him. Indignity of indignities, Odo's been transformed into a human. With fingernails and an epiglottis and everything. Thanks to tasteful leg positioning, I can't be sure, but I think that Aroya gal may have run off too quickly!

Unrelated to Odo's new junk, the Klingons declare war. Between all the hubbub and endocrine systems it slipped Odo's mind that Gowron is a changeling.

"Broken Link" sees Odo join the lonely company of Garak, Worf and Quark as an exile. (Maybe if Kira and Dax broke a taboo they could join the alien exiles club, too!  Maybe a sexy taboo... Bajorans seem like a people with more taboos than you can shake a stick at, it's surprising they haven't already found an excuse to kick Kira out. Like for having a married man's baby!)