I liked how at the end Culber was shaken by the whole "being a host to another consciousness" experience and needed a minute to process it. Every time someone goes through a life-changing thing in Star Trek they're right as rain by the end of the episode. Like when Sisko hosted Joran Dax (the murder-ey one) he kept the feelings buried inside. I don't think it's a coincidence that some time later he poisoned the atmosphere of Solosos III because of something Eddington said about him on the internet.

Annotations for 5x03 up at: https://startrek.website/post/9099413

The performances here were exceptional all around.

Wilson Cruz's Jinaal immediately put me on edge, but he turned out to be a very interesting character. It's a shame we apparently won't get to see Jinaal inhabit Moll or L'ak.

I also came away really impressed with Ian Alexander. I haven't been overly invested in Adira and Gray's story, but this development of them as "two kids who moved to attend different schools" was well-executed, and fairly low-key.

Captain Commander Rayner continues to delight, and I'm glad they're allowing him to grow gradually, rather than having him learn his lesson all at once.

I guess we won't be seeing Nilsson again - I hope she's having a good time on Voyager.

Linus' scene reminded me of that gag on DBZA about that one guy (Cui) who "reproduced asexually"