For the Cause

See Also: 'For the Cause' Episode Guide

When Sisko embarks on a mission to investigate his lover Kasidy Yates, whom circumstantial evidence indicate may be a member of the Maquis, Lieutenant Eddington knocks Major Kira out of commission and takes over the station, using it to transfer a huge shipment of weapons to the rebels. Returning, Sisko learns that Yates had orders to distract him while Eddington engineered the arms exchange; he sends his lover to prison while a gleeful, contemptuous Eddington warns Sisko that Starfleet has no idea how big their Maquis problems really are.

Analysis:

This was another episode where the actors outshone the material - particularly the supporting cast. I thought for a few moments that DS9 was actually going to get back to its political roots and make a statement, and that we would learn something about the Maquis in the new era of peace with Cardassia.

No such luck - instead, most of the screen time was squandered on a space chase and predictable sabotage plot. Sisko didn't look quite as stupid as he should have, but that's mostly because the story contrived to make Odo look even more gullible, and Kira... well, I'm getting so that I don't even get upset when she gets the stuffing kicked out of her. It's hard to fight back wearing high-heeled boots.

I've never been a fan of Kasidy Yates, yet I found myself rooting for her through most of the episode. I thought we were going to learn the reasons why I never saw any chemistry between her and Sisko - namely, that her secret agenda was a lot more important than her love life. I wanted her to be a spy, I wanted to know that the Maquis meant to her and what Sisko could learn from her. But she was more an absence than a presence, talked about more than talked to. She used feminine wiles in the most typical ways - it figures that we finally got a bedroom scene between her and Ben in what's probably going to be her last episode.

At the end, there could have been real drama - Kasidy declaring that she never loved Ben and was only using him for the cause, or Kasidy declaring that she always loved him but the colonists were too important for her to ignore. Even Kasidy holding her head high and refusing to say one word would have been effective. Instead, we got a standard feminine television cop-out: "My politics aren't important, I just had to see you one more time!" Will we EVER find out what she believes in, apart from free love? Sisko should have been grateful to her for making it so easy for him to write her off as a bimbo.

Eddington's final speech was delivered with passion and verve, the complete opposite of whom we've known him to be for a year... but again, we got now explanation of the why and wherefores! I want to know what these two people were doing with the outlaws, what their goals were, where they felt that the Federation had failed them. Tell me something about the Maquis that I don't already know! Instead, the show focused on Sisko's reactions - and not even the best performance by Brooks can cover up gaps in the plot like "For the Cause" left.