"Improbable Cause"
Throughout this episode, I was looking for connections. To what had come before, what comes after, what happens to the side, and any type of metaphors.
When Garak and Bashir are talking about Shakespear's Julius Ceasar, Garak is highly critical of Shakespear and says that it was so predictable that Brutus would betray Ceasar that he could tell in the first act. Garak's main critique is that Ceasar couldn't see what was right in front of him. This comes back at the end of the episode when Garak can't see what's right in front of him when Enabran Tain offers him a position back at his side when Tain says he has no intention of going back into retirement.
Julius Ceasar isn't the only literary reference, there's also The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Bashir telling Garak that if someone keeps lying, no one will believe them even if they're telling the truth. I love when Garak spins it and says the real lesson is to never tell the same lie twice.
Odo is a great detective who pays attention to all the details. Odo deduces a Flaxian tried to have Garak killed but he also deduced that Garak took advantage of the Flaxian trying to have him killed. Garak was trying to stay ahead of Odo and, by getting Odo involved, he thought he could take control of the inevitable investigation. This was a weakness on Garak's part. He should've known that Odo would piece everything together and see right through all of his manipulation. My favorite scene in the entire episode is when Odo finally calls Garak out on his shit.
Another thing that Garak couldn't see was the possibility of Enabran Tain wanting to come out of retirement. Because he couldn't see it, he couldn't see that Tain would want to kill off anyone who could provide intelligence on him, including Garak.
As Odo is trying to see what he can find out about Garak and Tain's past relationship, it seems like he's on the track to finding out that Garak is Tain's son. It's not a conclusion I came to in 1995 when this episode aired and, two years later, in "In Puragtory's Shadow", I thought they were lying. I guess I would've been one of the villagers who wouldn't believe the boy who cried "Wolf!", though now I can see it in retrospect.
It was a masterstroke to have Odo use a contact from his Terok Nor days when trying to obtain more information about who really tried to have Garak killed. His Cardassian contact was appropriately mysterious and, given when this was made, it felt a little bit like DS9 was channeling The X-Files. Except The X-Files would've let all the questions about "something larger at play" linger in the background for several episodes and even seasons at a time. Here, we find out the plot within the same episode...
The Obsidian Order teaming up with the Tal'Shiar. Makes perfect sense. The Cardassian and Romulan Intelligence Agencies teaming up to stop the Dominion by eliminating the Founders. Something that Section 31 would try later on as well, through different means. Despite what I said in my April Fool's post about the Romulans never wanting to make the first move, the Tal'Shiar was always more willing to make a move than Romulan Imperial Fleet. A no better example of which can be seen in TNG's "Face of the Enemy".
When the episode ends and Garak agrees to join Tain, I think he does so not just because Tain is his father and he wants acceptance from him, but because he wants an escape from exile. He tried to make the best of his exile, but he always hated it. That's made perfectly clear to me in "The Wire". He doesn't care that Tain tried to have him killed, he wants back to his old life. Which, again, makes it hard to see what's clearly right in front of him.
Overall, this is a very well put together and thought-out episode. But it's set-up and missing a certain spark that I know will come in the next one. So, I give it a 9.
EDITED TO ADD: Just imagine the fight that would've broken out between Chang and Garak over Spakespear. "And let's slip THE DOGS OF WAR!!!!"
