This is the second classic Romulan episode of season three, and like “The Enemy” before it, it’s a terrific episode that makes excellent use of everything that is cool about the Romulans. Though it seems to get more attention from Trekdom in general than “The Enemy” (or so I perceive), I personally think that “The Enemy” is actually the better of the two—but that’s not to say that I don’t love this one, too! To do a quick weighing of the two episodes’ relative merits: this one features a story that’s simpler than that of “The Enemy,” but also more suspenseful and tense; “The Enemy” does more character stuff with the regulars, but “The Defector” features a guest character of unusual depth and interest; this one is more epic, “The Enemy” is more thought-provoking; this one cheats ever so slightly in order to dramatically spring a surprise on the audience at its climax, but it also gives us Picard’s classic remark about the Romulans: “It’s always a game of chess with them.” Plus, Picard and Data in the holodeck doing Shakespeare in the teaser! I’ve always loved the way this episode makes use of Henry V to amplify its themes (even if the scene in which Picard asks Data about how the crew is holding up—noting that he, unlike Henry V, can’t go among his troops in disguise—lacks something in plausibility; other than because the writer wants to reference Henry V, why would Picard pose this question to Data, of all people?).
I find myself without a ton to say about this one. The scene in which Data and Geordi discuss the role of intuition and instinct is very good, and I deeply approve of it. Data’s interactions with the defector are cool, too, not to mention a clever way of pushing the latter to take the next step and reveal his true identity. This then leads to the high point of the entire episode: the superb confrontation scene between Picard and Jarok in which the captain, refusing to apologize for his lack of trust, deflates the defector’s smug, frustrated martyr’s posture and gets him to see things for what they are. It’s a clash between two complex, believable characters in positions that impart perspectives that are fundamentally at odds with each other. Picard is magnificent—but at the same time, the episode never wavers from portraying Jarok sympathetically. Great, great scene. After it, the tension skyrockets into edge-of-the-seat territory. The resolution, of course, is (though I’m certainly not claiming to have predicted it when first I saw the episode, or anything) really the only one that would have worked: for Jarok to have been lying all along would have undercut everything that made the episode good, but for him to have been right would have made the ending too easy and sort of dull. For him to turn out to have been in earnest, but himself a victim of Romulan treachery—that works perfectly. Getting to see Tomolak again is also fun. As I hinted earlier, I do think the episode cheats a bit in order to spring the “Klingon reinforcements” surprise at the climax; granted, there are clues laid in, but why exactly are the arrangements made by Worf from somewhere other than the bridge? Not letting the audience in on what Picard has up his sleeve in this instance seems a bit cheap. Still, the coolness of the Enterprise being able to extricate itself from the Romulan trap thanks to having the Klingons on its side is fun, and makes the idea of the Klingon alliance more real than ever. All in all, a great episode.