The Kazon are beginning to wear Voyager down with relentless attacks, and redshirts are being lost at an alarming rate. At the funeral for a former Maquis engineer, Janeway is confronted by some of his shipmates, who are angry that Janeway isn't doing anything to appease the Kazon and make their lives easier. This is really the first time in the series that the Maquis point-of-view isn't just used as a strawman argument for the purpose of making the Starfleet course of action sound better. Janeway is dismissive at first, but Chakotay makes some strong points (like "yeah, there's probably a middle ground between giving the Kazon replicator technology or giving them the finger until they kill us all.") and she consents to putting out some feelers to the Kazon leadership (after consulting with Tuvok).
Now, since there's no way to negotiate with the Kazon as a whole, and any alliance with one faction would pit Voyager against others, this is a clear prime directive issue. Personally, though, it doesn't seem that, given the circumstances, if their priority is to survive, that they have much choice. At this point it is more about minimizing their impact. Initially, Neelix is sent to confer with a connection he has with one faction, while Voyager itself would open negotiations with Seska and Cullah. What?! That seems like a really odd choice. It has been recently made abundantly clear that Seska has a vendetta against you, why turn to her? The reasoning given seems to run along the lines of this being a "devil-you-know" situation, but I think that they just know too much.
Neelix isn't very successful at getting in touch with the Kazon, but he does return to Voyager in an armada of ships that appear to be Kazon. However, they're actually the property of the former slavers of the Kazon: the Trabe. The Trabe are weary of their war with the Kazon, whose subjugation they purport to regret and have turned over a new leaf. On top of that, they'd like Voyager's help to organize a peace conference with the Kazon with the goal of ending the decades of hostilites. It's a bit too tidy: now Janeway doesn't even need to violate the prime directive. It is well within the purview of a Federation captain to act as an intermediary in negotiations, so of course she seizes this opportunity.
In the meantime, the Maquis character who we met at the beginning starts to secretly make contact with the Kazon, hoping to... well, it isn't really clear what he hopes to accomplish, but he's being a shady bad guy. This thread is not resolved in this episode, so there's more to come, and maybe his motives and general plan will become more clear as things progress.
Turns out to not be so tidy afterall, as the Trabe were just using the Voyager to give them the credibility they'd need to bring all the Kazon leaders together and massacre them. Some good old political machinations at work here, I'm happy. Janeway figures out what's going on in the middle of the talks and saves the lives of all the Kazon, and gets furious at the Trabe leader and tells him off quite sternly. The ending is troublesome though. Janeway takes a moment at the end to have a big old "told ya so" moment with the senior staff; "look what happens when we break the prime directive? Now we're just as bad off as before, so let's not do that again." But really they never broke any rules, and did what any Starfleet crew would have in their place - sought peace through diplomatic negotiation. And how much can the Kazon actually be mad at her for saving their lives? This whole end note puts a sour taste in my mouth, like the writers were just using this episode to justify poor decisions in previous episodes - and then made an episode which ended up not proving their point at all.
Watchability: 4/5
Bottom Line: Ignore the ending, and you've got another great Kazon episode.
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