O’Brien and Bashir are captured by Jem’Hadar looking for a way to escape their addiction.
The setup takes a while, but the final conflict between Bashir’s desire to heal and O’Brien’s pragmatic survival plan is a nice piece of conflict. The Jem’Hadar setting doesn’t work quite as well as we don’t know them well enough, so it’s hard to even know how much the commander of the unit is changing. I fear this will get quickly swept under the carpet, rather than represent a more interesting medium-term challenge for the two character’s relationship.
As for the B-plot – the entire plot rests on Odo being so annoyed that he chooses to let his case get ruined rather than simply tell Worf ‘I’m doing undercover work, please stay away’. It’s infuriating, as it relies on the cast being idiots rather than, as in the main story, building conflict out of character.
386 down, 351 to go.