The Homecoming (DS9) – The Secrets of Star Trek

A legend built on a lie. Or is it?

DS9’s second season opens with “The Homecoming,” the first episode of Star Trek’s first real three-parter, and a story that could only exist on Deep Space Nine. **Dom Bettinelli**, **Jimmy Akin**, and **Fr. Jason Tyler** break it all down.

**Major Kira** learns that **Li Nalas**, the legendary Bajoran resistance hero, is alive and imprisoned on Cardassia IV. She borrows a runabout, brings Chief O’Brien along for the ride, and pulls off a brazen rescue involving an improvised infiltration ruse that immediately raises questions about their prior experience together. Li Nalas arrives back on DS9 to a hero’s welcome, and almost immediately tries to flee on a freight ship.

His secret: the legend isn’t real. He killed an unarmed, embarrassed Cardassian who was bathing in a stream, and never corrected the story that grew up around it. His friends built a myth; the myth built a movement. Sisko tells him it doesn’t matter. Bajor needs a symbol, not a man. The panel notes the episode’s one missed beat: Sisko is the Emissary, a symbol himself. That parallel never gets drawn out loud.

Meanwhile, **the Circle** — a Bajoran supremacist group under the slogan “Bajor for the Bajorans” — escalates from graffiti to something uglier. They break into Quark’s bar and brand him on the forehead. The panel reads this clearly: it’s the equivalent of cross-burning, a targeted act meant to drive non-Bajorans out. The Circle vanishes from the series after this three-parter, which the panel considers one of DS9’s more significant missed opportunities.

A quieter moment lands the hardest. Jake’s date cancels because her father won’t allow her to date a human. Sisko walks in, asks about the evening, and Jake tells him. Sisko’s response — “I’m sorry you’ve become a victim of these things. You don’t deserve it. Nobody does” — is delivered with total restraint. The panel notes that Avery Brooks and Cirroc Lofton being Black adds a layer to that scene that white actors couldn’t carry in the same way.

**Frank Langella** plays Minister Jaro Essa uncredited, a favor to his Star Trek fan kids. **Richard Beymer** (Tony in West Side Story, Ben Horne in Twin Peaks) plays Li Nalas.

And for the first time in DS9’s run: Morn doesn’t appear. The panel wants to know how he gets paid for episodes he skips.

https://youtu.be/e5Ov_QE0zRU

Direct Link to the Episode.

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