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| Odo gets information from a secretive informant. |
THE PLOT
Garak is not badly injured when a bomb goes off in his shop. Unfortunately for Odo, he's also not particularly cooperative with the investigation. Odo doggedly focuses on the evidence, tracing the bomb to a suspected Flaxian assassin. But when the would-be killer leaves the station, his ship blows up, taking both the Flaxian and any proof along with it!
Which leaves Odo with no recourse other than to work with Garak, a man he does not trust, as he puts himself into the middle of a plot far larger than he could have imagined...
CHARACTERS
Commander Sisko: His tolerance for Garak's eternal slipperiness all but vanishes in the face of an explosion which could have resulted in the deaths of innocents. He pushes both Garak and Odo for answers. But he remains adept at testing the limits of the Starfleet envelope. When Odo tells him that he has "resources" to draw on to find some leads, Sisko gives him the requested runabout and asks no questions, so as to avoid knowing anything that might conflict with Starfleet's rigid code.
Odo: "I am not Dr. Bashir, and we are not sparring amiably over lunch!" The moment in which Odo finally snaps at Garak is finely calculated to make the viewers sit up in their seats. Odo is genuinely angry, and Rene Auberjonois puts such a note of harshness in his voice that almost anyone other than Garak would probably respond with instant terror. This episode reminds us what a good investigator Odo is. He traps the Flaxian effectively in a matter of minutes. He also sees through Garak to a surprising degree, his judgment not clouded by the sentimentality with which Dr. Bashir always regards him.
Garak: I love Garak's interpretation of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. To him, the lesson of the tale isn't that you should not lie; it's that you should "never tell the same lie twice." As much fun as it is to watch Garak interact with Bashir, it's a joy to see him working closely with Odo. The dynamic is entirely different. With Bashir, Garak's barbs are always tempered by affection. Save for when he was in agony, Garak always holds back from actually attacking Bashir while making his caustic observations of the universe. With Odo, he shows no such courtesy, countering the constable's attempts to examine his motives with some sharp, harsh observations of his own.
THOUGHTS
One of the benefits of Deep Space 9's genuine ensemble nature is that the show is almost continuously presenting us with new character combinations. In the last episode, we saw Sisko and O'Brien working as a team, something only one other episode really attempted. This episode teams up Odo and Garak. Since the characters are so well-drawn, each new character mix can't help but bring out new sides, which enhances the richness of the overall series.
Improbable Cause is Part One of a two-parter, its storyline about the assassination attempt on Garak acting as setup. Getting into the larger story in this way works well. By putting a character we know and like into jeopardy, writer Rene Echevarria gives a more personal stake to the larger canvas. We aren't just watching the political machinations of the Romulans and Cardassians; we're watching this chess game through the prism of Garak's role in it, whether that role might end up being sacrificed pawn or something more akin to a knight or bishop.
The episode acts as an effective followup to last season's The Wire. That episode introduced Enebran Tain (Paul Dooley), the former head of the Obsidian Order, and showed us his relationship with Garak. This episode puts those elements back in the foreground, dropping a few more pieces of information about Garak. We still aren't told exactly what it was that he did to "betray" Tain, but we know that it is something Tain cannot forgive.
Avery Brooks directs again, and he quickly washes away memories of his one bad episode as director. He wrings atmosphere out of scenes in Garak's destroyed shop. There's also a particularly well-made scene in which Odo gets information from a Deep Throat-like Cardassian informant. The scene is full of shadows, with Odo never laying eyes on his informant. Several shots of the conversation see Odo standing near camera, with the informant a shadowy figure both above and behind the constable. Very visual, and very effective.
The episode ends with a scene that, on paper, would seem a curious cliffhanger. We get a very long dialogue scene, with Garak and Tain talking mostly around the actual content of their conversation. The tone of voice is conversational throughout - no shouting or histrionics. Their conversation ends with a deal and a handshake, with the image of the handshake ending the episode.
But though it's a long, talky scene, it's also a compelling one. Thanks to the larger context established throughout late Season Two and early Season Three, we understand the stakes of what Tain is discussing. Meanwhile, the performances of Andrew Robinson, Paul Dooley, and Rene Auberjonois are so good that there are multiple layers of meaning and threat even in the midst of pleasant conversation.
A terrific first episode, in any case, and I look forward to watching the conclusion.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
Previous Episode: Through the Looking Glass
Next Episode: The Die Is Cast
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