Garak and Bashir are having lunch and arguing about Shakespeare. Bashir has work to do, so he ends the lunch early. Just moments after they part ways, an explosion rocks Garak's shop. Garak is injured but alive. In sick bay, Garak continues to insist that he has no idea why someone would want to kill a simple tailor like himself. Odo is sick of Garak's Blatant Lies and refusal to admit his past occupation as a spy, but he throws himself into investigating the assassination attempt nonetheless.
O'Brien discovers a pheromonic sensor in the wreckage of Garak's shop, which was obviously set to trigger the bomb once the only Cardassian on the station came within range. Odo states that Flaxians prefer such devices, so he does a little racial profiling and summons a recently arrived Flaxian for questioning. The Flaxian claims to be a simple merchant who was totally cleared of those murders charges on his record. Odo investigates the Flaxian's perfumes and starts mixing them together, provoking an alarmed reaction from the Flaxian. Odo accuses him of being an assassin who uses chemical mixtures to create poisons, but he has no proof that the Flaxian intended to kill Garak, so he keeps the man confined to the station long enough for O'Brien to plant a tracking device on his ship.
Odo prepares to track the Flaxian assassin in a runabout and finds Garak waiting for him to come with. They don't have much of a road trip together, because the Flaxian ship explodes as soon as it starts to jump to warp. Back on the station, the crew note that the explosion is a suspiciously Romulan tactic. A member of the Tal Shiar confirms that the Romulans did kill the Flaxian, but for totally unrelated reasons, swear to god. Odo then meets a Cardassian contact, who confirms that the Romulans did try to kill Garak, and he's the only survivor of a recent spate of assassinated former Obsidian Order spies.
Odo brings the news to Garak, who is amazed and somewhat pleased to learn that so many of his former rivals are now dead. Odo has had enough of Garak being tight-lipped on details, however, and reveals that he's figured out Garak's little ruse. Assassins don't usually vary their methods, and the Flaxian used poisons to do his killing, which means Garak must have blown up his own shop after spotting the Flaxian assassin to get Odo involved. The stunned Garak admits as much and reveals the thread that links him to the assassinated spies: They, like him, were all former associates of Enabran Tain, former head of the Obsidian Order. The pair prepare to rush off to Cardassia but get ambushed by Romulan warbirds.
Taken onboard the lead warbird, the pair are brought before none other than Enabran Tain himself. Tain reveals that the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order are teaming up for a joint first strike to destroy the Founders, cutting the head from the snake and neutralizing the Dominion in one fell swoop. Tain has also decided to take his old job back as head of the Obsidian Order, so the assassinations were intended to eliminate anyone who might complicate his ascension.
In a rare show of genuine emotion, Garak denies betraying Tain, at least not in his heart. Tain is surprised by Garak's earnestness and believes him. While Odo must remain a captive, Tain gives Garak the choice of either leaving a free man or joining him. Odo warns Garak that Tain has already exiled and tried to kill him, but Garak does not hesitate. He gives his old mentor a hearty handshake and proclaims, "I'm back!"
To be continued!
Tropes
- Affably Evil: Tain is, once again, almost avuncular in his breezy conversation in spite of being one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy.
- Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Happens In-Universe, when Garak believes the true Aesop of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" isn't "Don't lie", but rather "Don't tell the same lie twice".
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: When Garak learns that his former Obsidian Order buddies are dead, he says that he'd be celebrating if he weren't still in danger.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: The Yalosians' preferred atmosphere is thirty percent hydrogen fluoride. Which would indeed dissolve the carpet, but is also liable to dissolve absolutely everything else too, even glass.
- Batman Gambit: When Garak recognizes an assassin on the station and suspects he's the target, instead of just reporting him and asking for protection, he blows up his shop to start Odo on an investigation which will lead him to the assassin on his own. Odo does just that, but he also figures out what Garak did and is not happy about it.
- Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Sisko and Odo ask Garak who could have bombed his shop, and he plays his usual games with them.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The Yalosians (who don't appear on-screen) breathe an atmosphere that is definitely not M-class. So much for the carpets.
- Blatant Lies: The Flaxian assassin feigns ignorance about the deadly gas created from three perfumes that he stops Odo from mixing together.
- Subverted for once with Garak, who genuinely does not know who wants him killed. Odo surmises that Garak would invoke this trope if he really knew who wanted him dead.
- Call-Back:
- We finally learn what the Obsidian Order was up to in the Orias system (which Tom Riker tried to invade in "Defiant"): building Tain's secret attack fleet.
- Odo's Mysterious Informant brings up the Cardassian neck trick, which Odo doesn't do anymore.
- Characterization Marches On: Mila isn't yet the Servile Snarker we'll meet when she's reintroduced at the end of the series. It's justified, though, given this is the first time she and Garak have spoken in years and both people are clearly emotionally overwhelmed. Likewise, Tain has suddenly gone MIA and Mila's worried about him. Once Mila returns at the end of the series, then the snark comes out.
- Consummate Liar: Garak, of course. When Bashir tells him the fable of the boy who cried wolf, and asks what he thinks the moral is:Garak: Never tell the same lie twice.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sisko asks Garak if the explosion could have something to do with his exile. Garak's response?"I seriously doubt the Finance Ministry would try to have me killed for failure to pay my taxes."
- Description Cut: When Garak suggests questioning the notorious secretive Romulans if they were involved in the Flaxian ship explosion:Sisko: I don't expect the Romulans to be entirely forthcoming.
cut to
Romulan: Yes, we destroyed the Flaxian's ship. - Enemy Mine: The Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order have teamed up to fight the Dominion.
- Fat Bastard: Garak observes that Tain's let himself go in his retirement.
- Fake Assassination: Elim Garak suspects someone else is targeting him, so he blows up his own tailor shop in order to draw Odo in to investigate it.
- Fantastic Slur: Garak referring to Tain's "pointed-eared friends." Tain compliments the tactic of trying to expose his loyalties.
- Foreshadowing:
- Garak pouts that Caesar in Shakespeare's play is unrealistically dumb for not recognizing an assassination plot before the knife is in his back. It eventually becomes clear that Garak has already spotted and pre-empted an impending assassination attempt.
- In their discussion on "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", Bashir says that if you keep telling lies no-one will believe you if you're telling the truth. Although Garak mocks this Aesop, this sets up The Reveal that he bombed his own shop out of fear that Odo wouldn't believe him otherwise.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Garak plants a bomb in his tailor shop, and leaves evidence pointing to a Flaxian assassin as the culprit. It turns out, there is a Flaxian assassin on the station, and he is planning to kill Garak, but he hadn't made the attempt on Garak's life yet, so Garak made sure to pre-empt it with one of his own to draw Odo's attention.
- He Knows Too Much: Why Tain had his former associates eliminated.
- If I Do Not Return: Garak has fun with this:Garak: If you go into my quarters, and examine the bulkhead next to the replicator, you'll notice there's a false panel. Behind that panel is a compartment containing an isolinear rod. If I'm not back in seventy-eight hours, I want you to take that rod... and eat it.
Bashir: Eat it? You're joking.
Garak: Yes, Doctor. I am. - If I Wanted You Dead...: Variant. Garak idly wonders if Kira's responsible for the bombings, only for Odo to point out if she wanted him dead, he would be. Garak acknowledges this as being perfectly true.
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: The Romulans perform an extra-legal assassination on the Flaxian, then state they were within their rights to do so (as he had been sentenced to death in absentia) despite the Flaxian being in the jurisdiction of a different sovereign power.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Odo's informant tells him that there were five former operatives of the order who had died on the same day that Garak's shop was bombed.Odo: Five operatives were killed yesterday?Informant: Killed? No. Three died from natural causes. The other two perished in accidents.
- The explosion in Garak's shop at first appears to be a ruptured plasma conduit, but Odo and O'Brien quickly figure out it was caused by an explosive device made to look that way. Sisko even name drops this trope. Subverted in that Garak actually wanted Odo to recognize it as a murder plot; he only made it look like someone was trying to Make It Look Like an Accident, while at the same time leaving just enough evidence so that Odo would figure out that it wasn't.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: The bombing of Garak's shop leads to the revelation that the Romulan and Cardassian Secret Police are attempting to eradicate the Founders. Given the revelation later in the episode that Garak blew up his own shop, this counts as an Invoked Trope.
- Motive Misidentification: A variation with the Cardassian military. Since they're unaware of the Obsidian Order's secret alliance with the Tal Shiar, they don't know why there's been unusual Romulan activity along the Cardassian border in recent weeks. They instead conclude an invasion may be imminent (and are ready), but they're baffled as to why the Romulans would try and invade the Union here and now.
- Mysterious Informant: Odo meets with one who stays in the shadows to hide his altered appearance. Through him, Odo learns about the "accidental" deaths of the other Obsidian Order agents.
- Noodle Incident: Odo's informant makes reference again to him doing the "Cardassian neck trick".
- Oh, Crap!: Garak's reaction when Odo figures out that he blew up his own shop.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- How Odo can tell when Garak is being honest about not knowing the true reason for something: Cause he doesn't start spitting out a web of lies to disguise the truth on the spot.
- Garak breaks down in uncharacteristic emotion when proclaiming that he never betrayed Tain, to the point that Tain believes him and offers him his old job back.
- The Reveal: The fleet the Obsidian Order was secretly constructing back in "Defiant" was being built for an invasion. Thomas Riker and the Maquis simply got the intended target wrong: It wasn't being built to invade the DMZ at all, but instead to launch an assault on the Great Link.
- Riddle for the Ages: Who was the informant Odo spoke with?
- Shame If Something Happened: When Odo says that he certainly wouldn't tell Garak if there was one person in the universe he cared about, Garak smiles and says it's a wise decision. (Ironically, the person Odo cares about most is Kira, one of the few people who Garak seems to believe is capable of killing him.)
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The episode opens with Garak and Bashir discussing Julius Caesar, with Garak taking umbrage that a great military leader could not recognize an assassination plot right under his nose.
- Signature Style: A plot point. This is part of how Odo realizes it wasn't the Flaxian who bombed Garak's shop. Their suspect's a poisoner and Odo knows from experience that assassins don't like to vary their methods.
- Space Clothes: Lampshaded by Odo who, investigating whether or not the Romulans are trying to kill Garak, suggests that they should appreciate a decent tailor.
- Spotting the Thread: Odo realizes the bomb in Garak's shop doesn't fit the suspected assassin's M.O.; the assassin utilizes inhaled poisons from perfumes.
- Suddenly Shouting: Odo begins outright screaming at Garak once he finally runs out of patience with the Cardassian's constant fibbing.
- There Are No Coincidences: Lampshaded when Odo and his Mysterious Informant discuss how many operatives from the Obsidian Order suffered "unfortunate incidents" in one day.Odo: Quite a coincidence.
Informant: If you believe in coincidence. - Tracking Device: O'Brien puts one on the Flaxian's ship. It turns out to be far less useful than he intended, as the ship explodes before it gets anywhere.
- Tranquil Fury: Garak, when Odo hits a little too close to home wondering just why Garak is so hell-bent on getting to Enabrain Tain. He never raises his voice, but his Facial Dialogue and the vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech make it clear that Odo touched a nerve.
- Varying Competency Alibi: The plot is set off when somebody bombs Garak's clothing shop. When Odo questions Garak on who might want him dead, he suggests Major Kira. Odo scoffs at this and tells him to take it seriously. A good call, given that the bomber turns out to be Garak himself.
- Garak: I am serious: I don't think she likes me.
Odo: She doesn't. But if she wanted you dead, you would be.
Garak: You do have a point.
- Villain Respect: Even after mentoring him and knowing Garak better than anyone else in the Union, Tain is still floored by Garak's admission that he, not the Flaxian, blew up his own shop (to get Odo involved). He commends Garak for his originality.
- Wham Line:Odo: I've had enough of your dissembling, Garak! I am not Doctor Bashir and we are not sparring amiably over lunch! Now you dragged me into this investigation, and you are now going to cooperate!
Garak: Dragged you in? I don't know what you're talking—
Odo: YOU BLEW UP YOUR OWN SHOP, GARAK!
Garak: (Stunned Silence) - Wham Shot: Garak and Odo are captured by the Romulans, brought into a room on one of their warbirds—and Enabran Tain is sitting there like he owns the place.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In-Universe. Garak finds "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"'s ending to be a little graphic for children.
- You Have Failed Me: Odo briefly speculates that the Romulans hired the Flaxian to kill Garak and then killed him when he failed. (Although he neglects a slightly more obvious explanation - the Romulans were always planning to kill the Flaxian, whether he succeeded in assassinating Garak or not.)
