“Reunion” is written by: Thomas & Jo Perry, Ronald
D. Moore and Brannon Braga, from a story by: Drew Deighan and Thomas & Jo
Perry, and is directed by: Jonathan Frakes.
It was produced under production code 181, was the 7th episode
of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 81st episode
overall, and was broadcast on November 5, 1990.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
is asking a lot of its viewers with “Reunion”.
This is the first episode to pull together different aspects of story
and character arcs running through multiple seasons of the show into a single
episode. It also ends indicating that
the story arc is not complete, “Reunion” is just a regular episode, nestled in
the weekly release schedule. This is a
regular episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and it’s taking a bold
swing at doing serialized television at a time before that is the norm. The premise of the episode is K’Ehleyr,
played by Suzie Plakson, returning with Worf’s son, Alexander, all while K’mpec,
played by Charles Cooper, is dying and tasks Picard with overseeing the rituals
to declare a new Chancellor for the Klingon Empire. While Picard is the overseer of these rituals,
this is a Worf episode, Patrick Stewart as Picard being satisfied as the diplomat
and captain, making decisions to ensure that K’mpec’s murderer is revealed. Yes, K’mpec is slowly being murdered in the
setup, a slow acting poison that has no cure so we can have the episode plot
happen.
This is explicitly a sequel to “Sins of the Father”, the
script indicating until the very end that it is going to restore Worf’s honor, instead
ending with a pile of dead bodies in a bloody conflict, Worf with a black mark
on his record with the Federation and a new son living with his parents, and an
additional vow of revenge and restoration of honor. The episode further examines the honor system
of the Klingons as this out of date idea that is holding the culture and empire
back in the past. It’s partially why the
ending works as well as it does because Worf now has strong motivation to force
the change to happen within the empire.
Michael Dorn’s final scenes of the episode, especially the one opposite Stewart
as Picard, are particularly heartbreaking and some of his best work. The ending is a grave note, Picard is
stalwart that Worf made the wrong decisions in killing Duras in retaliation for
his murder of K’Ehleyr even if under Klingon customs he acted properly. Worf is perfectly content in continuing on
the Enterprise with this black mark on his own record.
K’Ehleyr’s death is presented wonderfully, Jonathan Frakes
is back in the director’s chair and the entire climax of the episode is just visually
dynamic. It’s threading a difficult
needle, there was very much a real possibility of this being a case of fridging
a female character. Her death is the
final act to get Worf to change, however, I would argue against this fitting in
traditional fridging as that is not the only thing that gets her killed. It’s tragedy, K’Ehleyr got too close to the
truth of Duras’ treachery in “Sins of the Father” after the episode was further
exploring her relationship with Worf.
Plakson and Dorn have this fantastic chemistry, continuing the opposing
views between the pair on Klingon culture, Worf’s dishonor, and their own relationship. Again this is an episode that indicates that
they are going to become essentially a married couple, this only being stopped this
time because of Worf’s expulsion from Klingon society. Worf does put far more stock in the system of
honor than K’Ehleyr does, the warrior code guides his every action right
through the end of the episode and while it takes until the final line of the
episode to acknowledge to Alexander that he is the boy’s father, he wishes his
son to follow the same code. K’Ehleyr’s status
as only half Klingon means that she is presented again as far more human and
flexible. Her attitude towards Worf’s
dishonor continues a thread that his parents began in “Family” of fully
accepting him without the need for the customs, but for who the man is at his
heart. Worf for his part in “The
Emissary” was in love with K’Ehleyr but here would not wish to dishonor her,
and by extension Alexander. It’s partially
why K’Ehleyr hid his son from him, she did not want Worf’s insistence on honor
to force them into a marriage because of a child, something the episode presents
as a noble decision, quite progressive for television in 1990.
The episode is also fascinating that it presents Worf
and K’Ehleyr’s different approaches to parenting Alexander as equally valid. While K’Ehleyr’s parenting style is mostly
off-screen, the episode devoting more time to Worf, it is one presented as
allowing Alexander to choose his own path and eventually come to terms with his
own identity as part Klingon and part human.
Worf, on the other hand, is arguably harsher as a parent, but much of
that is because he is struggling to come to terms with the fact he has a child. There is a scene early in the episode where
Alexander lashes out at other children on the Enterprise, nearly getting
violent, and Worf actually stops him because it would be dishonorable. One should not attack an opponent who is weak
enough as to not fight back, something that guides who Worf is as a person and
is where the episode goes to question the actions by the end. The script is good in leaving Alexander as a
supporting character, Star Trek as a franchise does have a problem with writing
child characters but here Alexander is allowed to be a particularly young child. Alexander is played by Jon Steuer and there
is a sense that it’s Jonathan Frakes’ direction that is getting him to give a
performance. It’s still the performance
of a child, the line delivery is given with fairly basic grasp of the emotional
context of the line, but it’s certainly better than other child performances on
this franchise. The performance is watchable
which at this point is as much as you can really ask.
Overall, “Reunion” is an episode that takes a little
bit of time to get going, not because it is lacking in material but because it
is letting the character revelations breathe and the character dynamics to
really sit with the viewer. This is an episode
that’s clearly setting something up for the future as a continuation of multiple
episodes’ story arcs which is a bold choice, the script giving enough information
and the performances enough emotion so newer viewers can pick up exactly where
things are going. This also means “Reunion”
works as a standalone episode with Klingon culture and Worf at the center of it
all, despite being from several different writers. Likely the final script is Ronald D. Moore
and Brannon Braga doing a final rewrite on the Perry’s initial script. Jonathan Frakes is a director who gets Michael
Dorn to give one of his absolute best performances thus far and the episode is
just an emotional rollercoaster. 9/10.
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