I admit that when in the opening of this episode Kes told Neelix she was breaking things off I thought to myself, "about damn time." But of course it would be silly to assume the characters on this show are capable in any way of actually doing things that are obviously good for them so it is actually because she is being possessed by Vigo the Carpathian I mean some alien warlord guy. Once again proving how much more interesting Kes is than Neelix her mental powers come into play as does her relationship as a pupil of Tuvok's mental discipline. The whole body swapping villain trope is pretty played out in my opinion, but this stories gender swap at least makes it interesting. Maybe more than two seconds of the previous host being alive to establish who they were might have been nice, but whatever.
We open on the holodeck where Neelix has created a new recreation program but Paris and Kim find it kinda dull. Until they add some bikini clad ladies and a steel drum player that is. But then all senior officers are called to the bridge, they have come across a badly damaged ship with only three people left alive on board. All three make it over by one of the men dies on the operating table. Kes makes friends with the woman, the widow if the dead man, and even breaks up with Neelix when he tries to go on a date with her. The two survivors are happy to be returned to their planet but when a representative of the Autarch beams aboard Kes pulls out a gun and shoots the guy along with the transporter chief. Janeway gets knocked out and the three escape onto a shuttle that they also beam off the ship. We quickly learn that the dead guy transferred his mind into Kes and is using her along with her mental powers to try and take over his planet.
The son of the sitting Autarch beams over the Voyager which is good because his father is killed by Kes only a short while later and she siezes the title of Autarch and starts consolidating power. She is having problems keeping her old self put away though and keeps having headaches. Despite the son's insistence that Kes is gone they come up with a plan to send Tuvok down to put a neural inhibitor thing on Kes to drive the other mind out but her improving psychic abilities let her detect that he is there and she has him arrested. While interrogating him Tuvok manages to grab her and bring Kes back to the surface but the warlord pushes him away. Kes pushes ahead with her plans to consolidate power but is increasingly loses touch with reality. Janeway and company manage to mount a rescue attempt and despite the warlord fleeing into another body they manage to destroy him and put the son of the autarch into power.
Review: A solid episode with an standout performance by Jennifer Lien. Episodes like this make me wish we had more Kes episodes and fewer Neelix eps.
7 out of 10
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