Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by David Livingston
Nutshell: I believe we've seen Klingon honor about 100 times now, but this brotherly tale is surprisingly poignant.
Worf's brother Kurn (Tony Todd) comes to DS9 to ask his older brother to kill him according to the Klingon Mauk-to'Vor ritual--allowing him to end his destroyed and dishonored life and enter an honored and dignified afterlife.
"Sons of Mogh," contrary to the stale superficiality that the previews suggested we were in for, is a well-written human story about purpose and duty, highlighting how the problems between the Klingons and the Federation are affecting individual lives--specifically those of the sons of Mogh.
Because of Worf's siding against Gowron in "Way of the Warrior," Kurn's once-honorable life in Klingon civilization has since been taken away. The family's land was seized by the government, the name stripped of title, and Kurn lost his seat on the High Council. He has become a man with no purpose nor allies. So Worf obliges his brother and plunges the knife into Kurn's chest. But Dax realizes what's going on and intervenes; Kurn is beamed to the infirmary in timed to be saved.
Sisko is not happy with Worf's attempted killing (I don't think I've seen the captain chew out an officer as severely as he does here). Murder, as Starfleet would likely see it, is not condoned in any form--despite cultural rituals and family beliefs. This leaves Kurn with a problem: He can no longer die with honor (suicide would not be an honorable death), and he has no place to go in life. Worf, trying to do the least he can do for his brother, helps Kurn get a job on Odo's security team. Given his warrior disciplines, Kurn proves adept at security--too bad he hates it.
Kurn, with his death wish, allows himself to get shot on the job. As a result, Odo fires him. ("A man with a death wish is a danger, not only to himself, but to the rest of his team," Odo says.) Kurn wakes up from his injury, cheerless to find himself not dead. Defeated, he yields to Worf: "You're the older brother. You tell me what to do and I'll do it. My life is in your hands."
Tony Todd, who delivered a wonderful performance in "The Visitor" earlier this season, delivers again as the brooding, dead-spirited Klingon. He has a quiet, low-key way about him that is effective in displaying how alone his character feels. Worf is able to give Kurn one more mission, which links to the episode's B-story, involving some mysterious explosions along the Bajoran space borders. When a Klingon ship is severely damaged by one of these explosions, Kira, commanding the Defiant, tows it back to DS9 for repairs. Meanwhile, Worf figures out that the explosions are tests of a minefield the Klingons have been laying out. Minefields are illegal, and would be a problem if the Klingons were to declare war on the Federation. DS9 and Bajor would be cut off by the Klingons.
Sisko wants the damaged ship secretly searched for the data of the mine locations. This is where Worf and Kurn come in. Posing as members of the damaged vessel's crew, they beam in and gather the data. But not before a botched confrontation with an officer aboard the ship that results in Kurn killing him, and Worf questioning whether his Klingon instincts have become dulled over the years.
In this respect, the episode is also a good Worf show. He begins to finally realize that because of the path he was forced to choose, he may never have the chance to return to the Empire. It's a personal tragedy considering what he went through to restore his honor way back in TNG's fourth season, only to have it destroyed again because of Gowron's hostile intentions. For that matter, "Sons of Mogh" also explores why Worf chose to oppose Gowron in the first place--not just because of his duty to the Federation, but his duty to the Empire. A war between the Federation and the Empire would likely have the Klingons on the losing side. So by protecting the peace, Worf protects everybody, but at a personal cost. This is good stuff.
Using the stolen data, Kira auto-destructs the Klingons' minefield. True, this B-story is hardly climactic, but like "Return to Grace," it's just another example of the Klingon presence starting to brew in a plausible manner--bigger things are likely to happen down the road, so for now this is perfectly adequate set-up material.
But Kurn is still a dead soul. In his own eyes, by siding with Worf and killing the Klingon officer, he has only dishonored himself further. Still, it's reassuring to see that Kurn understands why Worf has chosen the path with the Federation. But Kurn has nothing. He no longer belongs anywhere. This leads to Worf's and Dax's solution: Erasing Kurn's memory and giving him a new family and identity. This solution, unfortunately, just doesn't sit quite right in terms of the show. Granted, it does have an emotional impact concerning Worf (when the erased Kurn asks Worf if he is part of his family, Worf's response, "I have no family" really hits home), yet it seems too easy a solution for Kurn under the circumstances. It would have been more dramatic if the writers had come up with something a little less "sci-fi" and a little more dependent on a choice by Kurn. Is there really honor in abandoning one's identity? How is this different from killing oneself?
Objections to the ending aside, this show does a wonderful job of reevaluating Worf's position on DS9. It shows the kinds of sacrifices and consequences that make him an unsung hero. It also shows how the breakdown of the Klingon/Federation treaty has repercussions, without the obviousness of violence and death.
Previous episode: Return to Grace
Next episode: Bar Association
Section Index
What I found interesting upon rewatching this was that it seemed as if Kurn wasn't given the option to abandon his identity. He passes out, Dax suggests a third option, and the next thing we see him, he's unconscious on the operating table. Given the time it must have taken for Worf to contact his father's friend and for the friend to arrive, it seems unlikely that Kurn was unconscious for the entire time, as presented, one wonders.
The only other thing to stick out to me was the shot of Kurn toward the end, taking a swig from his bottle and then clumsily pointing a disruptor at his head. It didn't work; no doubt it was intended to be a poignant look at how far Kurn had fallen, but it felt almost comic, as if to say, "Whoops, here's Kurn about to botch another suicide." The way I envision the shot is a tighter close-up, starting with the bottle, slowly panning left to Kurn's face, then having the disruptor come shakily into frame.
Sisko refused to condone ritual murder, therefore it's inconceivable that he would have condoned an involuntary brainwipe. Erasing an individual's personal identity is tantamount to psychological murder. If ritual murder doesn't fly as an expression of cultural diversity in Starfleet, then neither does this mind erasure. I don't care if Kurn was already having suicidal thoughts. To throw the man's personal agency out the window, "kill" him, and then rationalize it by saying he was considering suicide anyway... that's just messed up.
Even supposing that Kurn would have agreed to undergo this dishonorable "mind death", I don't understand the ethics of it. Assisted suicide by knife and assisted suicide by mindwipe are either both permissible or both immoral. If there is something unethical about the first case -- enough to send Sisko into a tizzy and Worf into brooding introspection -- then surely the second case is just as wrong.
Also, Bashir's willingness to perform the procedure is equally appalling. Here is a man who once fought tooth and nail for Vedic Bareil's right to quality of life in "Life Support". In that episode, Julian refused to kill Bareil's humanity and "spark of life" by replacing his brain with positronic implants. In "Hippocratic Oath", Julian also defended his personal principle of helping anyone in distress, even enemy Jem'Hadar. But here, we are supposed to believe that the doctor would aid and abet Worf's (or Dax's) plan to wipe Kurn out of existence? You've gotta be kidding me.
Blergh. This episode is *clearly* not a shining moment in Trek history.
Oh wait, someone stole my idea for STIX: Insurrection.
Even now, assisted suicide is becoming increasingly an option; the idea that 400 years from now, in a Federation of innumerable cultures, Sisko can just blithely order Worf to obey his cultural traditions, without appeal to anyone, is utter garbage.
TNG's "Ethics" already did this plot, and Picard correctly stated that the question of assisted suicide was ultimately Worf's, and everyone else would have to accept his choice. We followed Riker as he wrestled with his personal opposition (and his attempts to have Picard do exactly what Sisko does here), before deciding that it is Worf's choice, though he refuses to help.
Even damn Janeway got this right in VOY's "Death Wish".
"Sons of Mogh" reads like Republican propaganda for the Schiavo case, with Sisko as the heroic Tom DeLay, courageously meddling in somebody's private affairs.
However, I had no problem with Sisko's position. "The Emissary" was all we needed to see to know that Sisko was not going to be Picard. "The Way of the Warrior" established that Sisko was going to treat Worf as an officer first, and a Klingon second. Picard was an aloof cultural relativist. Sisko is, almost above all, a family man. Like it or not, what he did was in keeping with his character, and also made sense with the backdrop of the Khitomer Accords having been recently shredded.
While it becomes purely apocryphal speculation, it's also reasonable to assume that Worf finds Kurn after the war and plays some role in his life, maybe even revealing that he is his brother. In this case not only has Kurn's life been spared, justifying the ending, but a semblance of his honor would be restored as well.
In any case, Todd's performance here was almost as memorable as his turn in "The Visitor", which obviously is saying something. This episode needed less "action" in the closing acts, and a much tighter focus on the emotional and cultural gravity of the final decision. As poorly executed as the final act was in terms of plot, I have always been moved by Worf's final line. Acting didn't just save this episode, it made it something special, warts and all.