YMMV / Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 02 E 22 The Wire

• Fridge Brilliance:
  • The joke about the Cardassian repetitive epic is a dig at the kind of people who expect the same thing over and over again in their storytelling, aka, the kind of people who crapped all over DS9.
  • Garak's outright creepy demeanor in his first appearance is Characterization Marches On, but now there is a Watsonian explanation: he may have been particularly high that day.
  • During the Time-Passes Montage, Bashir can be seen ordering a drink from Garak's replicator. If we assume Tain bugged Garak's quarters (not exactly unlikely), that definitely explains how Tain knew what drink to offer Bashir.
• Genius Bonus: The notion of how a repetitive epic works only seems weird until you learn about One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez.
• Growing the Beard: This episode is a turning point for Julian Bashir, turning him from a perky Dogged Nice Guy and Upper-Class Twit to a Determinator who holds his commitment to treat a dying patient through all obstacles, even though the patient himself is doing everything he can think of to drive Julian away.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Garak and Bashir laugh at the idea of a war between Cardassia and the Klingon Empire. A year and a half later, it's a lot less funny.
• Heartwarming Moments: Very subtle, but it is still interesting to see Jabara, Bashir's Bajoran nurse, show the same level of concern as the good Doctor over their Cardassian patient.
• Ho Yay: This episode is repeatedly cited as a favorite for those who ship Bashir and Garak, the most popular slash ship (and one of the most popular ships period) in the DS9 fandom.
• Memetic Mutation: The ending scene exchange between Bashir and Garak, including the latter's famous "Especially the lies," is an exceptionally popular meme format among Star Trek fans.
• Strawman Has a Point: Bashir asks Odo if it's really legal for him to routinely monitor Quark's outbound calls, to which the constable replies "it's in the best interest of station security." Odo's attempt to sidestep Bashir's question isn't entirely without merit, as Quark is a shady individual who has compromised the station's security and endangered its inhabitants multiple times. In the last episode alone, he helped facilitate the sale of weapons to the Maquis and earlier this season, he was complicit in a plot that nearly killed Dax.