I didn’t remember this episode being so early in the season. In fact, can distinctly remember seeing some other early episodes, I must have missed this one and caught it later on a rerun. See, this is the episode that pissed me off, and I didn’t care about the show anymore because of it. I totally went all in for Babylon 5 after watching this one. I apologize for the wall of text format this one is.
Live watch / plot
Hmm, maybe this is not the episode I’m thinking of. So we have Quark and a Bajoran woman plotting some sort of heist. He used to smuggle goods to her during the occupation. She was apparently prime suspect in her husband’s murder some years back, but Odo wasn’t able to convict her. Once Quark leaves, a suspicious guy comes out of the shadows, then we have the intro.
After the break, we have Odo doing the stardate and log, apparently we’re getting a day in the life of security. Now Quark and Rom got into action on the heist, in which we learn the Rom has learned to unlock Quark’s security door to his storeroom in 10 seconds. And his vault! They obtain whatever it was they were looking for, and take it back to Quark’s place. Inside a case, there is a piece of paper with Bajoran names on it. Quark asks Rom to get him an imager, meanwhile the suspicious guy comes in. This is in the middle of the night and the bar is closed, so I guess he broke in. He takes the paper and shoots Quark, apparently killed as Rom states so when he finds him. Bashir is called in and rushes Quark off to the infirmary. He’s not completely dead yet, but may be dying. Odo immediately suspects Rom, quoting Rule of Acquisition #139: Wives serve, brothers inherit. I wouldn’t have expected Odo to be quoting the rules, but it’s not surprising that he knows them. LOL, Odo says Rom isn’t as stupid as he looks. This has been a strange recharacterization of Rom in this episode. Normally I’d have said it was a ploy by Odo, but Rom was good at the breaking in.
Under Odo’s pressure, Rom reveals that the intruder stole a list of Bajoran names, they they found in the storeroom that was put there back when it was the chemist’s shop when the Cardassians ran the place. Odo opens the door and we flash back to around that time when the murder occurred, and presumably the list, that presumably has some connection to the murder, was hidden.
He enters and inside is Gul Dukat. The station is lit with drab bluish lighting, probably both as a symbol of this being Odo’s memory and to give an oppressive feel to the Cardassians who are running the place. Gul Dukat first met Odo when Odo was basically used as a circus freak to entertain with his “Cardassian neck trick.” Gul Dukat tasks Odo to solve a murder. This does seem like the episode I’m thinking of. We find out the Odo doesn’t use chemicals, when the shopkeeper’s wife asks if he’s been there before. She is the Bajoran that Quark was getting the list for, and the murder Odo was tasked to solve was that of her husband, the incident referenced at the beginning of the episode. The shopkeeper’s wife was oddly not crying when she heard about his death, and reveals that he was having an affair, and suspects the other woman was the murderer. She doesn’t know the name, but can point her out. The shopkeeper, Vatrick, and his wife don’t live in the community quarters, but have a private room. The unspoken implication is that they are of some extra value to the Cardassians to get the better treatment. I wouldn’t have caught that the first time I saw it, but remembering the episode as I think I do, I picked up on that detail. She then points out Kira as the suspect, and we flash back to “present” day where Kira approaches Odo and wonders if the list had something to do with Vatrick. In the voice over to get us back up to speed, Odo mentions that the murder was 5 years ago, and he’s still dedicated to solving the murder. Quark is still alive, clinging to life and Rom is trying to remember the names on the list. He remembers something like “Chesso.” Odo asks Kira about it, but she doesn’t remember the name, Odo explains that he knew she was innocent of the crime. Back to 5 years ago. Odo interviews Kira. Some intersting but unelicdating things are revealed. Back to “present” day. Odo is interviewing Vatrick’s widow. She states that she doesn’t know anything about the list, but it is revealed that she has come into some money recently to pay the power bill. Quark is still unconscious, and hopefully recovering. Kira seems to have found Chesso for Odo, but Chesso just died the night before. Odo is treating it as a homicide and they’re stationing security to protect Quark. Odo still suspects the Vatrick woman. Back to 5 years ago. Odo and Quark have their first meeting, and Odo learns that Kira paid Quark for an alibi. This episode is well scripted and acted. Odo talks to Sisko and Dax, revealing that he’s found the list, by the fact that the Vatrick woman’s communication logs showing calls to a set of people she hadn’t contacted until two days ago, and they all deposited 100,000 Bajoran Litas into her bank account in the last 26 hours. She’s blackmailing them. The suspicion is that they were working with the Cardassians, hence them having that much money, and something to be blackmailed over. Suspicious guy apparently overhears this. Odo says he’s always known the “justice” trick, but is beginning to have doubts. Back to 5 years ago. Kira says she needed an alibi because she sabotaged some mining equipment, but I’m a bit confused as to how the space station is a mine. Back in the “present” day, suspicious guy attempts to finish the job of killing Quark, and Rom inadvertently saves his brother’s life. It’s a funny moment when he realizes it and freaks out because that means he’s not getting the bar. They arrest suspicious guy and the Vatrick woman, who says that Odo will never be able to prove she killed her husband, because she didn’t, to which Odo replies, “I know.” The show has given us clues that he now suspects Kira, or perhaps he’s known for some time. Kira follows him into his office to ask when he figured it out. And he just fucking lets her go. What a shitty ending.
Final Grade B+
As entertainment in and of itself, this episode is pretty good by itself, however it destroyed the character of Odo for me, who was absolutely my favorite character due to his commitment to justice, and I swore off the show after watching it, as I couldn’t excuse nor trust Odo ever again. I definitely saw some other episodes before this one, so I must have caught it later in a rerun. I’ll just have to excise this episode from my head canon to continue on and see how things play out.