Deanna doesn't get enough credit for her support of Beverly in "The Host"
Just rewatched this episode. It is most notable for establishing the Trill in a way that is contrary to the way they are portrayed in DS9.
For those unfamiliar with the episode, Beverly falls in love with a joined Trill named Odan who, due to an unprovoked shuttle attack, must abandon his host (whom Beverly came to know and love) and join temporarily with the body of William Riker, who volunteers willingly so that Odan may survive.
This episode is not often discussed outside of the Trill connection. I feel that it suffers retroactively from the vitriol that we all exhibit for "Sub Rosa," a notoriously bad episode which also features Beverly Crusher's romantic exploits with unattainable men.
However, this episode raises some interesting questions that warrant discussion. How much of our love for others is ultimately derived from their physical beings? Can we separate our love for people from their physical forms?
As engaging as those questions may be, I made this post to discuss how impressed I was with Deanna's willingness to support Beverly when she was in doubt and despair. Here is some dialogue they share in Ten-Forward:
CRUSHER: Oh, Deanna, I loved Odan. I'm sure of it. I had no doubts, no fears, but what it was I loved? His eyes? His hands? His mouth? They're gone. If that was all it was, I should mourn him and go on. But it was more than that. I felt completely free with him. Unguarded. At ease with myself. There were so many things that made him special to me. Where are they? Are they still here, alive in Will Riker? I look at Will and I see someone I've known for years. A kind of brother. But inside, is he really Odan? Help me, please.
TROI: What do your feelings tell you?
CRUSHER: I feel his pull. It's very powerful. I wish he'd never come on this ship.
TROI: Don't wish that, Beverly. You can't be open to love if you don't risk pain.
CRUSHER: I don't care. I'd give anything not to feel the way I do now. He's here, isn't he?
TROI: Look at him.
CRUSHER: I don't want to look at him. Talk to me. Just keep talking to me.
TROI: The first man I ever loved was my father. He was strong and tall. He carried me when the ground was muddy. He chased away the monsters that hid under my bed at night. And he sang to me, and kept me safe. And he went away. What I wouldn't give to hear those songs again. To feel his arms protect me. I never will, but I can still feel his warmth and his love as though he were here with me. If you can feel those things from the man we know as Will Riker, accept them. Accept the love.
I added the bolded emphasis. Watching this scene, I was struck by Troi's immediate willingness to subject herself to seeing the body of Will Riker, her Imzadi, the love of her life, being fully in love and engaged with Dr. Crusher, her respected colleague and friend.
I doubt that many others in Trek would have been so quick to support Beverly given the personal expense. Imagine B'Elanna saying that about someone occupying Tom Paris' body, or Odo saying that about Kira. If anything, it further cements in my mind that the crew of the Enterprise-D, and perhaps other deep space long-term exploration ships, was selected in part for their ability to encourage and support one another in nearly all things.
It makes me wonder if that conversation would have happened after Odan had implanted in a woman's body as happens in the end of the episode. Made today, I don't doubt that Troi would have encouraged Beverly just as she did before, but I'm not sure if the world's television audience was ready for that in 1991.
Regardless, it really impressed me that Troi was willing to put herself through such an ordeal to help her friend.
Posted Oct 6, 2019, 12:27 AM UTC
A lot of it probably comes from the different nature of the Trill in that episode. The hosts seem more like an empty shell, which is very different from how we later see Jadzia and Ezri. So it’s likely that Deanna could no longer feel Riker’s emotions in the same way and therefore was cool with it. The physical form would mean a lot less to an empath.
Also,in the series, she almost always gave off a genuine sense of having moved on from him anyway, despite the fact that she sort of hassled him about leaving in the first episode and tried to have the sex while infected in the second episode.
That's true. In "The Host," it is perceived that Odan's actions are entirely his own, while later in DS9 there arises the idea that Trills are more blended together, with their actions deriving from both the host and the symbiont personalities. Deanna was perhaps comfortable with the Trill as they are in this episode where there is no question that Will Riker's choices and desires do not factor into things at all.
Riker is not a typical Trill host. Perhaps native Trill are more like peers with their hosts, rather than shells.