O'Brien has accidentally killed Keiko's bonsai trees while she's been away on a five-day trip to Bajor. When he reunites with Keiko, she's casually chomping on chocolates and brushes off his concerns. Then she tells him that she's not actually Keiko but an incorporeal entity inhabiting Keiko's body and holding her hostage. If O'Brien doesn't do exactly as she says, she'll kill Keiko. To prove her point, she stops Keiko's heart for a moment before reviving herself. Shocked, O'Brien agrees to do whatever she says as long as it doesn't put the station or residents at risk.
All the entity wants O'Brien to do is alter some sensors. However, she has all of Keiko's knowledge and memories, so she knows that O'Brien is planning to tell his crewmates about his predicament and science up a solution at the first opportunity. She warns him that she can kill Keiko in a fraction of a second if he tries. O'Brien believes her and sets to doing her bidding. He gives out assignments to his swing shift, which includes Rom filling in from the night shift.
The entity wants to keep up appearances with the rest of the crew, so she forces O'Brien to attend the birthday party that Keiko had planned before leaving. The entity plays Keiko's role perfectly, while O'Brien is tense. Jake asks Keiko if she saw any Pah-wraiths in the Fire Caves of Bajor, and the entity dismisses them as legends. After accidentally breaking a glass in his fist, O'Brien catches the entity alone and reveals that he's finished her assignments. But the entity replies that those were just a test, and the real work will now commence. In the morning, she gives him a datapad with his new assignment.
O'Brien has been running through possible ways to escape his predicament but cannot come up with anything. With a look of sudden resolution, he spots Sisko and starts marching toward him but gets stopped when Keiko calls his name and hurls herself off the second floor of the promenade, causing O'Brien to rush to her side. In Sick Bay, the entity says it could tell that O'Brien was about to confess. It threatens both Keiko and Molly should O'Brien show any more resistance.
O'Brien folds and makes the changes required by the entity. Along the way, Rom bumps into him requesting more work, and O'Brien enlists his help in his assignment, telling the Ferengi that the changes are part of a secret mission and that even the highest station officers will pretend not to know about it. Rom agrees to keep the secret. But things go awry when Dax notices the changes that O'Brien has been making and realizes that a saboteur is involved. The whole command staff recruit O'Brien into identifying the saboteur, and O'Brien reluctantly accuses Rom, who's promptly thrown in the brig.
O'Brien scrambles the brig's sensors to meet with Rom, who asks the chief why he wants to use a chronitron blast to kill the Prophets in the wormhole, since that's the only explanation for the changes he's requested. Thunderstruck, O'Brien wonders who would want to kill the Prophets and mentions the Pah-wraiths. Rom, who has been educated on Bajoran legends by Leeta, explains that the Pah-wraiths were cast out from the Celestial Temple by the Prophets. Now with the full story, O'Brien figures out a course of action. When Odo confronts him, having figured out that he's the real saboteur, O'Brien simply decks him.
O'Brien meets with Keiko on a runabout and heads for the wormhole. On the cusp of victory, the Pah-wraith rejoices at its impending revenge, but O'Brien targets the chronitron blast on the runabout, killing the Pah-wraith inside of Keiko. She collapses but quickly revives in O'Brien's arms, herself again. After returning to the station and explaining what happened, the couple are finally able to return to their quarters, and Keiko thanks O'Brien for fighting so hard for her. Meanwhile, Rom arrives at Quark's for breakfast, happy to be promoted to the Day Shift for his efforts.
Tropes
- And I Must Scream: At the end of the episode, Keiko confides that she was awake and aware the whole time, but unable to do anything to stop the Pah-wraith from controlling her body. While she was terrified of the experience, she does tell Miles, "I don't ever want to forget how hard you fought for me."
- Artistic License – Medicine: After Keiko's fall from the second floor of the promenade, Bashir diagnoses her with a "hairline fracture of the right parietal lobe," which is part of her brain. Since the line in the script was "bone", this was probably a
Blooper on Alexander Siddig's part which was left in. - Book Ends: The episode opens with Rom getting the breakfast of choice for the night shift crewman. And ends with him getting the breakfast of choice for the day shift crewman.
- Brick Joke: Rom promises that if he's caught, he won't even reveal his own name (which everyone knows anyway). Later Odo grumbles that after being arrested, Rom refused even to give his name.
- Brought Down to Normal: O'Brien lays out Odo with a single sucker punch when the latter finally catches on to what he's doing. Yet another reason for Odo to miss being a Changeling.
- Chekhov's Gun: Remember those fire caves that Jake wanted to see in Season 1? We finally learn what's in them.
- Deal with the Devil: The Pah-wraith forces O'Brien into this—saying he'll get Keiko back if he performs a series of tasks.
- Demonic Possession: If you consider the Wormhole Aliens spirits, anyway.
- Didn't See That Coming: The Pah-wraith possessing Keiko goes to meet O'Brien in the runabout to go to the wormhole, even though O'Brien has figured out what it is and what it wants. It doesn't pick up that this means O'Brien has figured out how to outsmart it.
- The Dog Bites Back: After everything the Pah-wraith puts him through in this episode, O'Brien gets the last laugh by destroying it with the very weapon it sought to kill the Prophets with.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Later episodes would show that those possessed by the Pah-wraiths get Red Eyes, Take Warning. Of course, this Pah-wraith may have suppressed that in order to blend in. The Pah-wraith in this episode is also Faux Affably Evil and very coldly calculating, whereas subsequent episodes show that the Pah-wraiths are Large Hams and Always Chaotic Evil.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Rom reveals to O'Brien that the system modifications they're doing is to turn the station into a chroniton array to fire at the wormhole, that such a beam would likely be lethal to the Prophets, and some relevant Bajoran lore, O'Brien is quickly able to piece together that the entity controlling Keiko is a Pah-wraith who wants to destroy the Prophets, as well as a third option to his dilemma.
- Exact Words: O'Brien lets the Pah-wraith know that he knows what it's up to, but he doesn't care about the conflict between the Prophets and Pah-Wraiths; he just wants his wife back. The Pah-wraith thinks this means that he's done as the Pah-wraith asked. Instead, the chroniton array O'Brien has just finished targets the runabout instead of the wormhole, driving out the Pah-wraith possessing Keiko—getting Miles his wife back in the process.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Pah-wraith is remarkably cheerful and casual for an Eldritch Abomination, and pours on the charm for O'Brien, but it never hesitates to remind him that bad things will happen if he doesn't behave. Keiko also believes it wouldn't have spared either of them if it succeeded.
- A Glass in the Hand: O'Brien is compelled to act normally at a party. The stress becomes too much for him when the Pah-wraith shows mock-affection for his daughter, and he shatters his whiskey glass.
- Hard-Work Montage: When O'Brien and Rom really get down to business.
- Hidden Depths: We'd heard from Nog before that Rom was a mechanical genius (in defiance of Odo's assessment that Rom was an idiot who "couldn't fix a straw if it was bent", which really testifies to how well-hidden his depths are) but this episode was the first one where we got to see how damn good he really is.
- Hired to Hunt Himself: O'Brien is asked by Sisko if he knows of anyone who is capable of doing all these adjustments to the station.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Pah-wraith controlling Keiko has O'Brien reconfigure the station to fire a chroniton beam at the wormhole, which will destroy the Prophets. However, since O'Brien has learned a quick bit of Bajoran mythology from Rom, he knows that the same beam is also lethal to the Pah-wraith itself, and fires the beam at their runabout instead, destroying it.
- I Have Your Wife: This "O'Brien Must Suffer" episode has a twist — instead of directly targeting the Chief, the Pah-wraith takes control of Keiko. For a family man like O'Brien, that's far worse.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog:
- Rather than help O'Brien tell Keiko that her plants died while she was away, Bashir claims that he has to be in the infirmary performing an operation.O'Brien: On who?
Bashir: I'll find someone. - Followed by Molly retreating from the scene.
- Rather than help O'Brien tell Keiko that her plants died while she was away, Bashir claims that he has to be in the infirmary performing an operation.
- Innocuously Important Episode: The first appearance of the Pah-wraiths, who go on to be a lot more than just another Monster of the Week.
- Ironic Birthday: Just to make things even harder on O'Brien. Not that anyone else knows that anything is wrong.
- Leave No Witnesses: Keiko is sure that the Pah-wraith planned on killing both her and O'Brien once its mission was achieved in spite of its promises to the contrary.
- Not Herself: Keiko casually gobbles down chocolates and brushes off O'Brien's concerns about her dead bonsai trees upon being reunited with her husband, signaling to the audience, if not her husband, that there's something off about her. However, the Pah-wraith is perfectly capable of doing a spot-on impression of Keiko when necessary.
- Out-Gambitted: The Pah-wraith, once Rom helps O'Brien figure out what's going on.
- Recycled Premise: The TNG episode "Power Play" had an evil spirit possessing Miles and threatening Keiko and infant Molly. This time, Keiko gets possessed and threatens Miles and Molly.
- Sadistic Choice: O'Brien spends the episode struggling with this: help a dangerous alien (whose goal is revealed to be to kill the Prophets) or lose his beloved wife. Fortunately, he finds a way to Take a Third Option — make the chroniton beam as instructed, but turn it on the Pah-wraith.
- Scotty Time: O'Brien says he can finish the work in thirty six hours. The Pah-wraith gives him thirteen. He succeeds with Rom's help. A Justified example, as not only does O'Brien have every reason to be trying to stall as much as possible, but even taking his highballing into account, having Rom on his side would double his productivity.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Bashir and Molly have the good sense to make themselves scarce when they realize someone will need to explain to Keiko why her beloved plants are dead.
- Smarter Than You Look: Rom begins to show his true talents, now that he decided to stop trying to be a "good Ferengi", caring about nothing but profit. Rom finishes his tasks long before his shift is over, so he approaches O'Brien for more to do; O'Brien puts him to work on some modifications to the station's deflector array that the Pah-wraith gave him. Rom instantly puts it together saying "Why are we trying to kill the wormhole aliens?"
- Spanner in the Works:
- Jadzia's habit of studying some spacial phenomena when she can't sleep led her to find the entire array has been put out of place, nearly exposing the full extent of the possessed Keiko's plan.
- Rom's revelation that the chroniton emitter would kill the wormhole aliens, plus his knowledge of Bajoran folklore and theology from his conversations with Leeta ("She says I'm a good listener.") gives O'Brien the clue he needs to save Keiko from the Pah-wraith.
- Stepford Smiler: The possession coincides with O'Brien's birthday, so he has to act like everything's fine during the party.
- Technobabble: O'Brien pulls some on Odo when confronted about everything he's been up to. Odo doesn't buy any of it.
- The Tell: As his wife, Keiko has noticed that her husband has a small facial cue when he's about to ask a question. As the Pah-wraith possessing her has all her knowledge, it notices too.
- Tempting Fate: O'Brien dreads having to tell Keiko that he failed to take proper care of her plants. Well, "Keiko" doesn't care about that—prompting a relieved O'Brien to say everything's fine. Then he learns that everything is most definitely not fine.
- Undying Loyalty: Rom to O'Brien, even when O'Brien admits he's not actually doing a top-secret project for Starfleet. O'Brien repays him for it in the end with a promotion.
- The Unreveal: O'Brien asks why the entity has possessed Keiko rather than O'Brien himself. It's about to tell him when Bashir arrives, interrupting them. The topic doesn't come up again.
- Wham Line: From Rom of all people:Rom: The new frequency of the deflector grid is set to turn the station into a massive chroniton array aimed directly at the wormhole. So I just wanted to know... why are we trying to kill the wormhole aliens?
- Would Hurt a Child: The Pah-wraith warns O'Brien to behave by "accidentally" pulling on Molly's hair.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Keiko notes in the coda that she is certain the thing in her wouldn't have allowed either O'Brien live to tell what happened.
