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Character Spotlight: Odo

by Ames

The security chief of Deep Space Nine is a lot of things: a bird, a tripwire, a glass, a bag… The list goes on and on (though our favorite is usually when he’s a cute little rat), and all of them add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of his parts. In a world full of solids, Odo fills in that Outsider Character™ whose quest to shape his identity makes for a truly engaging character journey, though many stops along the way do dabble in fascism. But we love him anyway.

So kick back in your bucket and get ready to melt as your hosts at A Star to Steer Her By explore the many, many faces of Odo, even ones for which he can’t quite get the ears right. We’ve got our favorite moments and a whole bunch of times he messed up royally below and discussed this week on the podcast (jump to 1:05:53). Harumph!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

No one has ever seen me like this before We’ve brought up this one before in our fan-favorite Lwaxana Troi post, but it’s always worth dipping into again. Forever the tightass of the station, Odo lets himself be vulnerable with our hot Betazoid mama in “The Forsaken,” and it’s such a thing of beauty for these two polar opposite characters to show each other the hidden sides of themselves.

Do holograms dream of holographic sheep? We really liked the little hologram girl Taya in “Shadowplay” when we did our Children in Star Trek post, and apparently so does Odo! Who’d have thought that the station’s chief wallflower would have such a soft spot for kids? And then he sticks up for Taya and all of the holograms because, real or not, they still qualify as people to him.

You flatter me, sir, you flatter me! Last week, we marveled at how often Miles O’Brien gets to suffer across the series, and in “Tribunal,” Odo really does his darndest to keep the chief alive. By acting as nestor in the sham Cardassian trial, Odo at the very least slows down the inevitable enough for Sisko to reveal the corruption inherent in their awful, awful legal system. O’Brien’s lawyer sure wasn’t any help!

From one laboratory specimen to another Like he did with Taya in “Shadowplay,” Odo identifies with the Jem’Hadar child in “The Abandoned.” When he realizes that Starfleet is probably going to subject him to the same kinds of tests Odo underwent as a baby blob, he takes the kid under his wing to try to treat him more like a person. It doesn’t do much good, but at least Odo got to return him to his people.

You won’t be turning against them. They will have turned against you. We joke a lot on the podcast about how much of a fascist Odo can be. And he sure can, as you’ll see in the Worst Moments list, but he does a great job not succumbing to the draw of oppressing human rights in “Paradise Lost.” One of our favorite Evil Admirals, James Leyton, masterminds a military coup and Odo is there to work with Sisko to stop him in his tracks!

One raktajino, extra hot, two measures of kava Before Kira starts boringly pining after that dullard Shakaar in “Crossfire,” we get treated to some sweet scenes of Odo and her going about their morning briefings. And it’s downright adorable! Every morning, Odo replicates up a mug of raktajino just how Kira likes it and prepares for his chat with the major in a way that gets things off on the right foot. Cute!

Before I met her, my world was a much smaller place We have one more great Odo-Lwaxana moment to extol. It is just the tenderest, most selfless act for Odo to marry Lwaxana to get her and her baby out from under the rule of her Tavnian husband Jeyal in “The Muse.” When Odo declares all that Lwaxana has done for him and how she changed his life, we are amazed at how honest the speech is. Here’s to the happy couple!

Hardly the words of a Klingon Odo also proves to understand Klingon culture better than other Changelings (and probably some Klingons, for that matter!) in “Apocalypse Rising.” When Martok isn’t acting at all honorably about dispatching Gowron, Odo figures out that it’s Martok who’s the Changeling and exposes him to a crowd of the most honorable Klingons on Q’onos. And Gowron. Qapla’!

Well that’s fine with me, because I hate you too How could we complete a Best Moments list without mentioning his complex relationship with Quark? Their natural opposition and trademark snark make them excellent foils for each other, and though they claim the opposite in “The Ascent,” you can tell that under their sarcastic words, they really do love each other as they keep each other alive on the freezing mountain.

Now Mister Pyramid, here comes Mister Cube Watching Odo caring for the baby goo in “The Begotten” is downright adorable, but at the same time deeply sad. Odo reveals that he doesn’t want to see the baby poked and prodded like when Mora Pol was assigned to him, and he truly empathizes with the infant Changeling in a way that is so parental and personal. It makes the ending all the more heart wrenching.

You have my gratitude… and my blessing Speaking of heart-wrenching endings. Despite how much it troubles Odo that the Vorta all view him as some kind of god, Odo opts to try to help Weyoun 6 in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” as much as he can. And when Odo bestows the dying Weyoun with his blessing, it comes across as a kindness between people, regardless of whether he believes it or not.

Talk about a Great Link! Though Odo’s relationship with Kira Nerys started out squicky, as you’ll see in a moment, you can’t help rooting for them. And when Odo chooses being with this solid over someone of his own kind in “Chimera,” it feels like a big win. Odo may not be able to link with Nerys, but the equivalent he whips up in the closing scene is visually stunning and emotionally cathartic.

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Worst moments

Elementary, my dear: I obviously did it! First and foremost, Odo’s first duty is to justice and he just can’t help himself from solving a good mystery. So in “A Man Alone,” he keeps accidentally proving that he committed the murder of Ibudan all along, even though he didn’t. After all, Occam’s razor teaches us that the most obvious answer is probably that Changelings are behind it.

Taking his bucket and going home If I had a nickel for every time Odo quit his chief of security job in a huff… well I’d have two nickels but it’s still weird it happened twice. First in “Move Along Home” when Odo has a little tantrum when Primmin comes onboard and then AGAIN when Eddington comes onboard in “The Search.” Odo, I have no idea how old you actually are, but grow the hell up!

Untie my hands before you start to blame me Let’s just clump all our “Odo is a fascist” moments into this example. In “The Maquis,” Odo makes it clear that he wishes he were given unbridled power in order to keep the station safe, but of course that comes at the expense of civil rights. When he states that Terok Nor was safer under Cardassian occupation, you see just how little he initially cares for the people he’s protecting.

So happy together… except for Jadzia When Odo merges with Curzon during Jadzia’s zhian’tara in “Facets,” what we get is just an asshole who doesn’t want to reabsorb back into the symbiont, leaving Dax feeling incomplete. And while a lot of that is Curzon’s fault, Odo is a part of Curzodo, and he claims that this is how they both want it to be. He entirely fails to consider Jadzia’s personhood. What a selfish jerk.

Solids and liquids just don’t blend It’s never a good look for a guy to get personally offended when a girl doesn’t like him, but Odo shows us a master class in incel behavior in “Crossfire” when Kira’s relationship with Shakaar gets serious. Dude, she’s just not into you. There’s no reason to go ballistic in your quarters and break all our hearts by destroying the plant that Kira had gotten you as a quarters-warming gift.

You don’t even belong here. I do. Try as he might, Odo cannot undo the mistake he made that gets revealed in “Things Past” because this isn’t actually a time travel episode. The Shyamalan twist of this episode is that it was all Odo’s fault that three Bajorans had gotten executed seven years prior because the constable was too lazy to do his damn job and see that they were innocent all along.

This is what increased security looks like? 90% of the time, Odo’s infatuation with security goes above and beyond what should be reasonable. And yet, when a serial killer is murdering off Kira’s friends in “The Darkness and the Light,” he doesn’t notice when a) Furel and Lupaza sneak onto the station, b) they get blown to smithereens, and c) Kira absconds with his list of suspects. You’re losing your touch, Odo!

What’s a nice woman like you doing with a dataport? We gave Geordi stink for getting romantically involved with the woman he was investigating in “Aquiel.” We gave Julian stink for all the patients he grossly seduces. And you’d better believe we’re going to give Odo stink for banging the woman in witness protection he was supposed to be protecting in “A Simple Investigation.” Dude! Gross! That is so not okay!

Tell Kira I want her to know it was me! An alternate timeline Odo gets away with blinking out an entire society of people – the descendants of his friends, no less! – to stop Kira from getting killed. What’s even more screwed up is that our Kira would have preferred dying so this planet of living, breathing people could continue existing in “Children of Time,” but Gaian Odo could only think of how it affects him.

Solids just wouldn’t understand Odo gets tempted by the Female Changeling at the top of season six of the show, and it’s agonizing to watch him totally get suckered in by her dangling the Great Link over him all the time. In “Behind the Lines,” he’s so busy linking with her while his friends in the resistance need him that it foils their plans and gets Rom captured.

Turn her no into a yes! I rag on “His Way” a lot, and for good reason! It rewards toxic masculinity by giving Odo what he always wanted after Vic has tricked him and Kira into a date. It’s not all on Vic though! Odo valiantly refuses to get involved with Lola Crystal, but he is more than okay with wooing one that was supposed to be like the real thing! That’s not romantic, guys. That’s creepy.

Anyone can always steal a shuttlecraft! We already gave O’Brien stink for releasing feral Molly into the wild last week, and we’ll probably do it again when we get to our Keiko spotlight, but when it comes to “Time’s Orphan,” Odo’s hands are dirty too! When one of his security goons catches the O’Briens stealing a shuttle, Odo just lets them go. Where’s your sense of justice this week, constable?

— And that’s all the security footage we have this week from the station. Keep following us here as we shine the spotlight on Odo’s better half next week – the magnificent Ferengi himself: Quark! You can also keep following along with our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts, harumph with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and watch out for rats! They might be Changelings!

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