I know I have seen this episode before, but mostly for the pivotal scene at the end. Even having seen it before the reveal of the cloaked Klingon warships surrounding the Romulans is one of those moments I live for. The actor playing the defecting admiral does a really good job, honestly a fair bit better than the recurring character of captain Tomalak who I swear Picard pronounces tomahawk. This episode manages to keep increasing the level of tension until the very end. Even the hidden object Jarok kept in his boot pays off at the very end of the episode while making the audience think maybe they can't trust him much earlier.
The episode opens with Data performing a scene from Henry V in which the king has disguised himself as a common soldier to discover what his men really think about the battle he is about to lead them into. This has the bonus of letting Patrick Stewart perform a few lines from the play in the course of the episode and I am ALWAYS ok with that. Picard and Data both rush to the bridge when the Enterprise receives a message from the Federation that a ship has been detected rushing towards the Romulan neutral zone and that sensors confirm it is a small scout ship. The Enterprise rushes in and finds a scout ship in the neutral zone fleeing from a Bird of Prey that is shooting at it aggressively. After the scout enter Federation territory Picard has the Enterprise shields extended around the scout and the one occupant beamed aboard.
The man on the scout ship demands to see the captain immediately despite his serious injuries. He tells Picard that the Romulans are preparing to start a war with the Federation and have established a large outpost in a strategic planet in the neutral zone. The question is now whether they can trust him. All signs initially point to no: the Bird of Prey slowed down after shooting the scout ship rather than closing and destroying it, Troi determines the Romulan is lying when interogated, and despite being a traitor he refuses to give the Federation any information that might help in the war when it comes. Only Geordi seems to trust him. Picard gives Worf the job of contacting other nearby allies to come the Enterprises aid if necessary. When time is growing short the Romulan reveals he is not a low ranking officer but instead Admiral Jarok who was responsible for the deaths of many Federation citizens in a Romulan raid years earlier. This makes Picard trust him even less, but in the end Jarok gives him valuable information which convinces Picard.
In the end Picard decides he must trust Jarok, especially since a probe from the Enterprise seems to indicate that there is subspace radio traffic coming from the planet in question. They cross into the neutral zone and find the planet empty. Jarok can only figure that he was being tested and fed lies that he Romulans were about to attack. Just as they prepare to leave two Romulan Birds' of Prey decloak and open fire on the Enterprise. They are just firing warning shots though and quickly hail. It is captain Tomalak again and he demands the Enterprise surrender or be destroyed. So Picard has Worf signal the 3 to 5 Klingon Birds of Prey that are surrounding the Romulans to decloak. Tomalak thinks better of it and gets the hell out of there as does the Enterprise. In the end they find Jarok has used the small object in his boot shown earlier to commit suicide leaving a letter to his family.
Review: This episode does a great job of capturing cold war tension of an incident like the Cuban missile crisis in a way that works great in the Trek universe. This is a tight episode and probably my favorite so far this season. Not quite a Borg attack, but pretty darn close!
8 out of 10
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