The Delta Flyers - Honor Among Thieves

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell, and Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Honor Among Thieves, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman. Honor Among Thieves: An undercover operation turns personal for O’Brien when he befriends his criminal contact. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts,Tom Paynter, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, David Wei Liu, Nicki T, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Ryan Mahieu, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Tamara Evans, & Francis Our Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Trip Lives, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Heath K., Andrew Cano, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Jeff Allen, Londyn Henning & Risa EinsidlerAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, AJ Provance, Brian King, Maxine Soloway, E & John, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Sara Junius, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jason Eberl, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Lutz Krebs, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Cade Solsbery, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Leslie Ford, Jay Furness, Jim Poesl, Gabystar, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Brenton Tyler, Andrew Golden, Damien O’Donnell, Michael Bourguignon, Corey Evans, Patricia Welsch, Shannon Gregg Lucky, Ken Guthrie, Michelle Fox, Jeff Schmedinghoff, Kalena Rivera, & Justin Miller. Thank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out ElevenReader and use my code PODCAST for a great deal: https://elevenreader.io* Check out Quince and use my code TDF for a great deal: https://www.quince.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quirk, Dex, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Sherman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete and exciting version of this podcast. Please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. you won't regret it. All right. Hello there, gentlemen. Howdy, how are you?

Hello, hello, hello. Can I prevail upon you to make a little blurb while we're here today? Yeah, I love blurbs. Blurbit. I love blurbing. Oh, good. So if anyone is in Los Angeles and interested in studying with me for Shakespeare, anteas.org has a website up where you can enroll in my classes, starting in November.

Is it a Zoom class? No, that's why I realized, even as I, was speaking just now, I realized, oh, it's not a Zoom class, it's in person. But I did have, I think, one or two in my last class of people who may have come from Delta Flyers and signed up. Yeah. For those who are uninformed, can you spell Antias for everyone? Oh, thank you, Garrett. So it's a strange spelling because it's from the Greek. It's A as an apple, N is in Nancy, T is in Tom, A as an apple, He is in Egypt, U as in United, S as in Sam. Anteus.

Anteus. People say, well, Anteus and the mantra that we have, if it was Anteus, it would be you'd have to pay us, but it's Anteus, so come and see you. I like that. Well, good. Well, I hope it's a very successful class. I've heard from people that have taken your class, and they really love it. They learn so much. They have a great time.

You are indeed correct, Armin. And there were a couple of Delta Flyer listeners, Delta Flyers listeners who did join your class last time. And they told me about it. Thanks, Flyers. Flyers. Flyers, Unite. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I hope we had a good time. Shall we dive into our form of art, our poetic arts? As I've mentioned before, sometimes I use rhymes.com or whatever it is called to find my rhymes. And as I was looking for rhymes from my limerick, it started falling into what. what Terry does, that sort of free-flowing narrative verse. And I was like, well, I've never done that. I always go for Limerick. So I'll read my Limerick first, but I also have a second poem that is a free-flowing

narrative verse. All right, here we go. For the Limerick goes like this. There once was a Starfleet engineer who played his part and seemed very sincere. He followed the plan, did all that he can. So why did the right thing feel so wrong here? Oh, good. Thank you. Very efficient.

I realize my tense was wrong. He followed the plan, past tense, did all that he can, present tense. It should be could, but then can, you had to rhyme it. So I'm okay with that artistic license. I'm okay with that. All right. Well, with that imperfection, you get an additional poem today. This is rhyming narrative verse, thanks to Terry Farrell.

Let's hear it. It goes like this. Miles went undercover a Starfleet man to infiltrate the syndicate's dangerous clan. He earned Bilby's trust became part of the crew. But the deeper he went, the more their friendship grew. What started his duty became something more. Miles made a friend he had never expected before. Oh, excellent. Excellent.

Thank you. Thank you. Two poems for one. You know what, Robbie, it would not surprise me if you ended up making an announcement after, you know, a few more years saying, no longer will I direct. I am now a poet only. I feel like you can just go right into poetry. You're throwing it left and right. I love poetry. And by the way, this is not an ad, but I'm going to plug something that I discovered. So there's a writer, poet that I follow on the internet. And they mentioned this website called. called Opal that publishes poetry, but it also is a place that you can write poetry. And you may get in this journal. And so you pay sort of like a Patreon and you join this thing. And you get the quarterly magazine. This is Spring just came out. But I started writing poetry on Opel. And I love, I got my first quarterly. And yes, I love poetry. So I really enjoy it. And like I said, it's not an ad, but it's a great place if people are interested, amateur poets.

You want to write poetry and feel like maybe you'll get published like me. Opal is a cool place. When I was 11 years old, I wrote a poem, sent it in for a contest, and I won. Oh, you did? Published at 11. Oh, nice. And I think maybe the start of my writing career started then. Yeah.

What was your poem about, Armin, that won? In the year of 1948, it must have been a Jewish publication, Israel became a state and I can't remember the rest of it. Okay. But you won it, which is amazing. Wow. And Robbie, I have a very similar question that I had for Armand earlier. Yes.

For those who are just listening to us, can you spell Opel for those that are only listening? We saw it. O-P-O-L. O-P-O-L, yes. Yeah, if you want to look up Opel and you want to write some poetry or just see what you what they're doing. The website is O-P-O-L-D-S-P-A-C-E. It's not a dot-com or it's O-P-O-L-S-P-S-A-S-P-E.

I've never even heard of a dot-space before. Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. Very cool. I'm going to check it out. Thank you for that, Robbie. Here's my haiku for Honor Among Thieves. Secret Agent Chief He starts to feel for his mark. family comes first nice I love the haiku I love the hyacu the form of the hyacu

etymology okay three words in the title so we start with honor honor in the OED in the Oxford English dictionary is spelled of course with a U H-O-N-O-U R as opposed to the American version which is H-O-N-O-R it's from the old French of O N-E-O-O-O-O-O-R it's from the old French of honor, which is spelled O N-E-R, or honor, which is O N-U-R. The definition, of course, is a high respect, esteem or reverence accorded to exalted worth or rank, deferential admiration or approbation. Its first use in the English language was in 1375. The next word is among of the local revelation of a thing or thing. things to several surrounding objects with which it is grouped.

It is, of course, a preposition. And its first use is a little earlier than Honor. It was first used in 1,000 AD. The last word is thief. This one is a really interesting word. Thief. It's from the Old English spelled, ready for this, P-I-O-F. It's from the Teutonic and the Dutch and the Old High German.

The definition is one who takes portable property from another without that person's knowledge or consent of the latter, converting it to their own use. This one, however, this has got to be the earliest. This word was first used in 608. Wow. So it predates among by 400 years. It predates honor by 700 years. Well, that spelling of P-I-O-F, I'm just going to start calling, instead of a thief, I'm going to say,

hey, you pee-off is what I'm going to start saying. It almost sounds like Viking or something, that little Scandinavian. It is Teutonic, so it's very likely it's influenced by the Vikings, but certainly by the Germanic and it is from the old high German as well. And because it's old high German, it's Dutch, it's Teutonic, it's from that part of the world. Yeah. Interesting. We've got a couple more poems because I'm obsessed with poetry today.

So this first Patreon-submitted poetry winner is a haiku submitted by Steph Davies, and that is Miles on a Mission. Empathy conquers duty inherits Chester. Aw. The cat. Nice. Nice, Steph. We have another poem.

This is a Patreon submitted poetry, honorable mention. Rhyming narrative verse submitted by Jason Oaken. What honor lives? among the thieves, who kill as easy as they breathe. Trapped in a world none dare to leave, a coat of blood they all bequeath. How quickly lines begin to blur, when trust is built on shifting sand, the seeming lie begins to stir, devotion that was never planned. What matters most will still remain when death is all that fate can bring,

for families worth eternal pain. It is the most important thing. Jason, such a good job. What do we know about this story in this script? You know, I saw an Asian name when it said story by Philip Kim. Oh my gosh, it's Harry Kim's ancestor. Very interesting. I don't know Philip Kim, but he is who the story is by.

Teleplay by Renee Escheria and directed by Alan Eastman. And as I go through the guest stars, if anyone has any com, comments or anything about them. Please interrupt me. We have Michael Harney as Chadwick, which I thought, what a country club name they gave this guy. Chadwick. Next, we have Carlos Carrasco, not the baseball player, but the actor. Yes, but the actor. The actor is a close friend of mine or was in time. It's not that we've separated. I just haven't seen him for a long time. We did Richard II together, and we really bonded. He is a wonderfully, wonderfully, classically trained actor and I enjoy Carlos a great deal.

Wow. It says he's Panamanian. He's from Panama is what I saw when I was looking at people. He played Kroll. Carlos Krasto's Kroll and a friend of Armands. John Chandler played Flith, which every time I see it, I want to say filth, but it's not. It's Flith. John Chandler, one of the syndicate guys, Leland Crook,

as Gellon, Joseph Culp as Ramos, and Nick Tate as Bilby. I would like to see more of Nick Tate. I would too. I really liked him a lot. Yeah, he did a good job. Nick Tate, by the way,

Nick Tate was on one of my favorite science fiction shows, Space 1999. Oh! Nick Tate was a regular on that show. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, he's a wonderful actor. He does a great job in this episode. Does a great job.

And space 1999, no shade on Star Trek or DS9 or Voyager, any of the Star Trek. But when I was a kid, I loved Space 1999. Martin Landau, the visual effects were amazing. I just thought that was my favorite sci-fi show. My goodness. My goodness. Yeah. Okay.

Is Gailn on the guy that got shot that provided the disruptors? I think that's got to be him. He's the only other guy that had lines that I could think of. A little bit of trivia. Charles Hallahan was originally cast in the role of Liam Bilby, but sadly passed away several days before principal photography began. Nick Tate, who initially lost the role to Hallahan, agreed to do it in his memory. My goodness. Yeah, Charlie Hallahan was a part of the Matrix Repertory Company that I was a part of.

A wonderful actor. When I perform at the Matrix, you have to look down the center aisle often. and at the end of the center aisle is a picture of Charlie Hallehan. Wow. A good friend to many actors from the Matrix Theater. Next bit of trivia. Philip Kim's original idea for this episode was a comic story involving Jake, saving the life of the daughter of the Orion syndicates leader.

Well, that's so far off of the actual plot. That's a very different, yeah. And instead, they just left. Jake out of the episode. Yeah, I don't think Sirak got the, he definitely got the short end of the stick on this one. My goodness. Unless he was playing Chester, you know. Yes.

If Chester was a speaking cat, maybe he could have done some, you know, V-O for that. All right. The next bit of trivia, the syndicate itself had previously been mentioned in the episode, The Ascent. I remember that, yeah. Where it planted a bomb on and crippled the runabout to carrying cork and Odo, a trial where Quark was scheduled to testify against it. And in the episode, a simple investigation where ERISA is working as an undercover agent in an attempt to infiltrate it. So a couple of references to the syndicate, but never really any stories focusing on the syndicate until now.

I remember when they mentioned the Orion Syndicate in earlier episodes. And I was like, they're talking about this thing. Did I miss something? Like, you know, it's interesting now to finally see kind of some of the behind the scenes of the Orion syndicate. I think this was a great idea. It is kudos to our writing staff that nothing has ever wasted, nothing, nothing has ever forgotten. If it's mentioned somewhere, it can crop up again and be expanded upon. They were very good about that. They were very good about it. Agreed. Well, I now, I mean, watching this episode, I started thinking about, My goodness, there could be a whole series or a movie similar to the film The Untouchables, where you have the Orion Syndicate as the mafia organization and then Starfleet Section 31

or Starfleet intelligence as sort of, you know, the FBI sort of trying to attract things. Great idea. Garrett, let's develop it. Let's do this, Robbie. Let's do this, let's do it, people. It would be super fun. I think that's it for trivia. Yeah, that's it for trivia. Let's dive into this story.

Well, we start off in a very dark tavern. As I was watching this the first time, I watched for like 10 seconds and I paused it. I'm like, is the TV broken? Like, it's so dark. I literally had to shut the curtains and the shades and everything. So I was like, it's really dark. I turned to me and I said, what's going on with this episode? Why can't I see anything?

Yeah, it was very dark. It was very dark. I did. I do want to mention this opening shot of the industrial. Planet, Farious Prime, classic Dan Curry wide establishing shot, and we see them a few times in this episode. But it's a combination of technique.

Some of it's painted, its hand-painted art that Dan Curry has done. Some of it is moving, you know, elements, but he combines different stuff into the... He combines like elements of 2D animation into 3D animation and makes it feel so. alive. It was really great. He even had like a little person moving in the window of one of the

buildings. And I remember Dan Curry was on Chuck with me, uh, did our visual effects on Chuck for most of the run. And Dan used that same trick on Chuck when we would set scenes in, you know, places we couldn't afford to go. He'd shoot background actors on green screen and then shrink them down and put them in the windows of building. So it looked like it was a 3D shot, but it was really just a 2D painting or photograph or something, and he'd turn it into a moving thing. So it was great. So amazing.

So it starts with a mat painting. And then after that, he starts doing his little... He starts adding moving elements, you know, people or the floating trains going by, things like that. Birds flying through the air. And it's very effective.

I have a question, Armin, or I have a comment. It's possible the Bioshock game designers were watching this episode and had... It's sort of an influence or something where they thought, hey, this is kind of the look. It's possible. It's possible. It's possible. Yeah.

We go out of that establishing shot of Ferrius Prime into this bar. The first thing I noticed was the ceiling fan. I was like, it just made me laugh. Like, they've got computers and chips in their brains and replicators, but they still have a ceiling fan. But doesn't that give you, I mean, I'm sure that the patois of this particular episode is film noir. And it seems to me that if we look at Casablanca, we'll see several shots of ceiling fans. Yes.

It's in reference to that. Yes, it's in the genre of kind of a gum shoe, you know, crime-solving thing. I did not catch a fan. A ceiling fan. I just was like, it's the future. I think they've got, I don't need that. Great air movement without a, you know, a bladed fan on the ceiling. Anyway, we go inside the bar.

There's a background guy. They're playing cards or something. The background guy has a tube, and he keeps sniffing out of it. Yeah, yeah. And he's really agitated. And I was like, is that some illegal powdered substance that we're imitating? I think that's what we were supposed to think, you know? God bless Mr. Eastman for putting that in there, whether or not it was in the script or not.

But, yeah, it made it look like a nefarious place. Yeah. A hundred percent. We pan around this room. It was a nice pan, by the way. I like that camera shot. Yeah, he did a lot. lot of good. He did a lot of good. Yeah. A lot of good stuff. It reveals Miles at the bar. And then behind

him, we see some bad guys in the corner. That is Bill B. and his gang, Flith and Kroll. And they're talking about a shipment of merchandise that's gone wrong. And Ramos is going to be very angry. I did make a note that Kroll's costume looks like an enterprise uniform. Oh. The blue. Good call there, Robbie. Right. Yes. Yeah.

Kroll's outfit looked like an enterprise costume. I just like in the script, Robbie, it flith and then it says non-human. And then Kroll, it says very non-human. That's right. Very funny. Yes, but Miles is undercover as a character

will learn named Connolly, but he's watching them from the bar. I couldn't help thinking Conley. Connolly is a very famous film noir writer. I mean, he's the writer for Bosch. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. So I thought, oh, maybe it's acknowledgement of him as well. I bet it could be. I would not doubt that. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well, um, Flith goes over to, uh, the bar's comm booth. And he starts to access the com booth.

And they're basically trying to steal a free meal, a free lunch by charging it to a government account. When we see Miles sort of push the button of some device. A little red light comes on. And this kind of electrical shock comes out of the booth where he's trying to steal the food and shocks him. And Miles runs over and says, no, no, don't touch him. You know, he's connected. He'll get hurt. But he stops this thing.

Miles stops it. Then he offers to repair the damaged equipment. So he is immediately useful to these guys. We can tell he's undercover. He's playing a game here. He's doing something. Yeah. I want to know why the bartender didn't say anything.

I know. Ever. Ever. Yeah. He ends up being an assassin later, and he never says anything. By the way, Robbie, it was Kroll, the more alien looking heavy. Oh, it was Kroll. Right.

That's right. Yeah. It wasn't Flith. Right. You're right. I just like saying Flith. I know. It's such a cool way.

Flith. So obviously Miles is undercover doing something. Did you like him? His little 5 o'clock shadow on Miles, did you? It looked a little bippily. It looked like makeup to me. So you're right. You know, they probably suggested some hair and stuff like that, stubble.

And knowing Column, he probably said, no. No, just draw something on and that'll be sufficient. Or Armin. Spong and do the stipple. I was going to say, Armin, he could have grown it out a couple of days. but because Colum is lighter in his hair color, his beard color probably was too, you know what I'm saying?

It came in kind of light. And in that dark scene, they were thinking, oh, my gosh, that doesn't even read. And someone came in stippled little black, you know. The problem with Cullum throwing anything out is a little bit more complicated than that. Really?

Is that he was always doing more than one project at one time. So, yes, he could ruin something out for Deep Space Nine, but how would that have affected? the film he was shooting in Ireland or England or someplace. Makes sense. So after the spike, what happens is that gets the attention to Bilby. Bilby comes over and sees that O'Brien is the one who stops the spiking from happening. And clearly, Crowell does this thing in order to sort of cheat the system.

And spiking is something where I guess either it's automated or it's part of the security where you're trying to catch people trying to pilfer from the system. O'Brien stops it. Bilby thinks, hey, this is great. Why don't you try to fix the interface? Yeah, exactly. Fix this interface. Bring it back tomorrow.

I'll all, you know, polished and ready to go. And O'Brien goes, okay, no problem. And then we jump to the alley. Yeah. And we do learn in that. Bilby says, I've seen you around here the last few weeks. You're always tinkering around with something. So we know he's been here a while.

Yes. He's been on this mission for a little while. So now we go into an alley. It's a very clandestine meeting. I do love the music here. I thought the orchestra was great. The thriller kind of music, it just set the scene nicely.

And a real contrast to that very tense bar that we were just in. And the smoke was very cool. That very first shot, kind of the camera moving right through the smoke as it follows Chadwick. Right. And also the wonder shot that goes from Chadwick to a Brian coming out of the shadows.

Yeah. I thought that was a lovely shot. Alan did a great job here. I'm surprised this is his only episode of DS9 because I thought he did a really good job. Is that something you looked up? I thought he did another one. I thought he only did one. Huh.

He did our show. Oh, that's why I'm confusing it for this. Oh, Alan Eastman did a few on our show. Okay. Yeah, I think he only did one of DS9, yeah. Right. And also, it is of note. We never know the name of Chadwick until the very last scene where we see him.

Then he says, because that's why I was so shocked. I go, your name is Chadwick this entire time? I did not know. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, but really nice blocking, moving around. O'Brien meets Chadwick. You know, we learned that he's reporting to Starfleet intelligence. They've put him on this mission, and he explains how he's finally made contact.

with the syndicate. And we do learn in this scene that five undercover agents have been killed already. So that's what Miles is doing. He's undercover here. So this is a very risky job assignment for him. One thing that's important in this scene is that we learn that O'Brien's mission is to identify the syndicate's Starfleet informant. So there's somebody in Starfleet who's feeding information to the Orion Syndicate. And that's his job. That's Miles' job. Yes, exactly. We do jump to ops after this scene, and because the chief is undercover, everything that the chief

usually works on or fixes on DS9 is now breaking down. So we see a scene where a cork and Odo show up to talk to Major Kira about the issues that they're having. I love this shot, by the way, the reveal, like bringing Odo and then, handing off to a background actor who leads us to Quark, and then Quark pulls this back into the two-shot. Really well done that opening. Yeah. Odo is concerned about internal security sensors that are malfunctioning. Quark is concerned about a fire suppression system in the bar, affecting him serving these flaming cocktails that are very popular.

Very funny. Which you mentioned, Armin, you mentioned, you're like, you wouldn't believe how much people pay for some alcohol, burning alcohol. something and I was like yeah you're right you're right about that people pay so much extra for nothing more than just lighting the alcohol on fire right it's the show it's the show they're paying for yes um Bashir also shows up and of course Kira guesses let me guess malfunction in the infirmary Bashir says how did you know at this point the turbo lift comes up and doesn't come all the way up it's sort of very funny warfen and dachs are in there that's the way it normally worked, by the way.

Oh, really? It just kind of jerky like that. It was always a very jerky ride. So it never smooth. It doesn't look that way in the final product, but oftentimes in rehearsal, it was, it was I don't think it ever stopped midway, but what it does in this shot, but it was a jerky right. Well, what impressed me the most, we have Worf and Dax inside there, and they're talking about Warf saying there's something wrong with a turbillift, but the most impressive part was Terry

Farrell using her arms and her triceps to pop herself out of the turbo left. I thought that was very athletic of her. She had been, because we went to the gym together, not together, but at the same time, she was very powerful. Oh, yes. Brian had trained her very well. Clearly. And then she's the one that helps Wharf out of there, which is great. So everything is falling apart on the station without the chief. And that was a little hard to, you know, get my head around. I agree. I was like, I mean, we've seen dozens of people working for O'Brien, including Rom, including Nog, and other people who actually during the course of the run of the show who've had lines, and they weren't killed off.

So why is it that O'Brien is the only person that can fix this stuff? Yeah, I mean, they make the station... It's a little over the top. Yeah, the station is this broken-down jalopy is what it is, and that's not the case. And also, Armand, I did not like Quark's line. He must have left my idiot brother in charge because it's already been established that your brother is a Wunderkind. I mean, he knows everything. So if anything, he is the perfect person to be left in charge of the station.

That line seemed looped to me, too. Really? I don't. It did. It was off camera. I can't remember. I can't remember. Okay.

Maybe. Yeah. Again, it just seemed like the writer's. forgot about how much they have lauded the capabilities of your brother, and now you have that line, which is sort of demeaning in a way. So it was weird to me. I am looking to see if that line about ROM was... Is in the original script? Yeah. Okay. It was looped. It's not in the original script. Woo-hoo! There you go. Good for you. Good for you. Good catch, Robbie. Even to your point, Garrett, even more odd that they would add that line. Hello? With...

In hindsight, they should already know that. You're right. Well, the next scene is we go in the captain's office and Bashir is very worried about O'Brien, asked Cisco what he's doing. And Cisco just won't talk about it, refuses to reveal what O'Brien's location is, but he does assure Bashir that the chief will be fine. He can take care of himself as well as anyone I know, Cisco says. This is the only Cisco scene, right? Yes. Yeah. I was going to say, everyone got a nice little vacation. during this episode, except for obviously Cullen.

Except for Cid. Yeah, and Cullen, of course. Yeah, Sid a little bit. Sid actually had a little bit more to do than the rest of the state. That's right. Yeah. I wish he had more to do. We'll talk about that in the bonus material, but I had some thoughts about that.

We go to the tavern next, and Billby's there. Kroll, Flith is there. They're playing cards. When O'Brien comes in, he's got this equipment. He's repaired it. And he is now basically establishing himself as a very useful fix-it man. And Bilby's impressed. He thinks, you know, maybe he could join the Orion Syndicate.

You know, he notices he's aware that that Miles has been down in his luck, going through some hard times. Bilby says, I might ask myself how a tinker living in one room in a Janami Street managed to fix such a complicated piece of hardware so quickly. So he's looked into him already. He's already looked into him. So he knows he's down and out. He's done his research. Bilby says, I know a lot about you, maybe more than you want me to know, but come with me. And he takes him back to his apartment where he introduces O'Brien to his home life.

He's got his beloved cat Chester there. Bilby offers some of his wife's cake. I like when Miles takes a bite of it and Bilby's not watching it. He's like, oh, this is horrible. But he's pretending that it's really good initially, which I thought was a funny little bit. We learned that Bilby's family all live in New Sydney, which I thought was interesting. On this planet that they have an Australian city name. I found that strange, too, about the New Sydney.

And for a moment, I thought, well, is Nick Tate Australian? No, that's not right. It seemed oddly Earth-centric and specific to Earth. And I didn't think the Orion Syndicate was like an Earth organization. It was more of a, I don't know. I don't think it is an Earth organization, though. Then why is it in New Sydney? That's on another planet, though.

They live on, I think he's. Ferrius, they're on Ferrius right now. His family is on a whole other planet. Probably, probably. And he is, Billby is human. He is, so I'm guessing. Is that track at all? That helps a lot.

Thank you, Gary. That solves that. That does solve that. Yeah. It does solve it. Yeah. Yeah. He is the only human that we see in the syndicate.

Even Raymond. Isn't Ramis an alien too? Ramis has some weird stuff on his face, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. In fact, I wonder if it's interesting.

I hadn't thought about that, but Bilby's hanging out with a lot of alien types. And in a way, Miles is human. And, you know, he kind of can connect with him in a way. Here's a human down and out like me. I always had bad luck because Billby talks about that later on. He does. He's never had good luck. No, that's something they missed.

They should have played that up a little. The camaraderie from human to human, right? There should have been something there. Yeah, we earthers need to stay together or something like that, whatever. Something, yeah, yeah, right? I really, I get you. I see what you're going through. Same thing for me.

I felt alone. Yes. You know, the only human out here. Yeah. Yeah, that would have helped a lot. Billby does mention that he pays his monthly fare, which Miles is like, fair. What is that? And basically it's his, I guess, his big, the big.

His Vig, yeah, his obligation to the syndicate to be part of this criminal organization. He's got to pay a percentage of his earnings to his direct superior. So it's almost like MLM, multi-level marketing in a way. That's what it combined with the mafia. Yeah, pyramid scheme and mafia organization. But he says to Miles, you know, you can be part of this, too, if you play your cards right. They move from business to more to family. O'Brien starts to see Billby as like three-dimensional person.

He sees how much he loves his family. He's got a photo of his family there. I do like the beat between them where he kind of asked him about that cake from his wife. He goes, do you really like this? And he's like, it's too dry. And it's the first person to actually. To be honest. To be honest, yeah.

So then more bonding between these two. There's a line in here that paid off. later for me says something about you too could be lucky. I think Bill B believes that, as he says at the end of the episode, that his luck had changed. Yeah. And you two could be lucky. Yeah. I like that. It's not possible, but Ira years later went on to do a movie called Lucky. Really? Oh, really? He's executive producer and writer. Yeah. He says at the very end of the scene, he said, what do you make of that, Chester, talking to the cat? I finally found an honest man, must be my lucky day. There you go. Yeah. And we as the audience now, no, buddy, it's not your lucky day. He's

an undercover agent. Yeah, the most unlucky day. Now, depending on the casting of that character, that could have been, you know, a really sort of nefarious line reading, but because they got Nick Tate, um, who has a, just an immediate kindness to him, even though he's playing a, a syndicate person. A mafia guy. Yeah. We sort of feel badly for him. At least I did. Yes.

I did too. For him that he's mistaken Miles for the real thing. Exactly. So it was inadvertent, it was inadvertent, but it worked well for the story in a way. Charlie would not have brought that real sort of humanity. He's a wonderful actor, but that is in his forte. Who wasn't his forte? Okay.

Yeah. No, I liked Nick a lot. I found, and I was surprised when I looked up his IMDB to see, that he hadn't had more big series regular roles. Space 1999 was the biggest, the most episodes that he had, of any show he had ever done. But he's so charming and warm and, you know, interesting. I was surprised.

And I'm going to say something very prejudicial. It's because of his height. Take it from me. His height? Because he's short. He's a short. Short of stature. Okay.

Yeah, maybe. I know that's, Gary, I know that's a surprise. Take it from someone who's also challenged that way. Okay. They don't hire short actors all the time for good roles like this. I mean, yes, for comic roles, I suppose. But this is not a comic role. This is a really genuine human role.

Humane. Robbie, did you recognize him right off the bat from Space 1999 when the first cast screen? No, I had to go. No, I had to go look at his IMDB. But once I really liked him a lot That's why I went digging a little deeper And I was so happy to see

I was like, oh, my show My childhood show When I was 10 years old, I love that show Yeah Is Nick Tate still alive? Did you see that as well? He is, okay Yeah, Nick is from what I found out, yes

78, I think Got it And I was surprised that I had never run into him Off camera That I am too That I've never worked with him I've never, you know, because this is an actor that I should have known, that I should know. Right.

Yeah, I would have guessed my instinct was that you ran in the same circles, that you would know each other. Yeah, that we would audition or, and maybe we did. Maybe we were in the same audition rooms, but my head was somewhere else, I guess. Yeah. Were you a chatter in the audition room? No, no, that's part. I wasn't either.

No, no. I would find a corner and stay in the corner until they called my name. Back when they used to have lots of. people showing up in person for auditions. And you see a lot of the same faces over and over again. There were two types of people. There were the type of people that would walk around the corner down the hall to everybody and know everybody and they would just be chatting. Oh my gosh, how are you? I saw you on this and I saw you on that. What's going on? Did you finish that thing? It was that, those chatters. And then there was the people like me, or it sounds like you, Armin,

who would find the furthest seat away and just sit down. And try to concentrate. And try to concentrate. Hey, Gary, you know what I did this morning? What? I use an app called 11 Reader to listen to a script while I drove to work, a script that I'm prepping to direct. So you uploaded a PDF to the app and you were able to hear it while you're driving. That's a game changer, Robbie.

Yeah, it's incredible. You can upload your own content like PDFs, docs, you know, fan fiction, whatever you want. Or you can listen to bestselling audiobooks with super realistic voice. It was incredible. I had Bert Reynolds read my script. How would you compare this to other reading apps that are out there? Oh, I've tried them. I've tried the other apps. And you can pay 15 bucks a month. You get one credit, one book, or you could use 11 reader where they've got over 200,000 premium titles. They've got all the best sellers. You know, they've got a free plan that packs incredible value

and an ultra subscription for only $11 a month. So you start with a free 10 hours of your own content, or you can upgrade to Ultra for $11 a month and unlock. unlimited uploads plus 20 hours of premium audio books every month that's amazing 11 bucks it sounds like you're getting more and you're paying less than the others yes and you get bert reynolds to read to you hey who's going to argue with that check out 11 reader use promo code podcast that's p o d c a s t and get your first two months for only one dollar okay so we go back out to the alley again very nice Warner. Alan Eastman did a great job in this scene. Miles gets the parts that he needs to fix that device. He gets those from Chadwick. And he asked Chadwick if he can see his family. Could he talk to

his wife? Yeah. Let her know he's okay. And Chadwick says, no, not yet. We can't risk it. Sorry. And so Miles goes back to work to his mission. Inside the tavern, the very dark, Tavern. Miles gives them these disruptors that he's fixed, the weapons, these clinging on disruptors that he's fixed. And Bilby asks where he got the parts. He gets really angry with him. It kind of surprised me in this moment. Like grabs him by the collar. And Miles lies and said he stole them. And Bilby thinks he's protecting him. He's like, oh, you didn't tell me you stole them in case you got caught, then I'd be clean. Bill B tells his buddies, he said, did you hear that? He's willing to protect me if he gets caught.

Try as hard as I may. I can't imagine either of you willing to do that. Billby's just getting sucked into this fantasy in a way that Miles is his, you know, this great guy and this good friend. Billby ends this scene by saying, I think it's time we did something about the way you look. We cut to a nice transition. Alan Eastman tilts up off of Miles crossing his feet, you know, in some shining. shoes and tilting up this fancy outfit that Miles is wearing, which by the way, we never see the shoes that we wear on the show.

Yes, that's right. That's right. So it was nice to see the shoes. We hardly ever see feet on people, sometimes in a wide shot. I know actors who will, if the shot is tight and you can't see their feet, they'll wear like slippers. I think Tim Russ used to do that. Tim, he was famous, even on our set for wearing slippers.

We tilt up off the shoes. We see this fancy green suit. We see the bartender who never speaks in the background here. And Yint, an alien named Yint, arrives. And I have a question, how does he eat with that piece of rubber in front of his mouth? Or how does he, you know, kiss his wife, good night? I don't understand that makeup. Armand, do you recall there's an episode of DS9 where an alien with a very similar prosthetic that came all the way down from the nose to the chin covering the mouth, yeah. He was in an episode where I think it might have been with your character where he was...

Yes, I think so too. Yeah, he's playing sort of a heavy in that as well. Was it the same alien makeup or similar? Very similar. It had that same piece that came all the way down. I think weren't they... What are the name, Nasrazians? The people, the guys thrown darts at themselves?

I think that. Oh, no, those are Gnosticans, but Nossacken, yeah, but that, but this was a whole different Nosskins had crazy hair that came out. This, this was literally, I've seen the same little piece on DS9. You can't blame Michael, you know, how many aliens. He's done. Yes. He's going to have to repeat stuff every now and then. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so Yint, this alien that has the rubber over his mouth, comes in, and Bilby says he wants his money back, because

these disruptors didn't work. And Yint, this alien, goes, oh, well, they worked when I gave him to you. And Bilby pushes a couple of buttons, shoots him in the leg. Yeah. And then he's like, oh, I guess they're working now. You're right. Yeah. And after he shoots him in the leg, he tells this alien, you know what could have happened

to me if Ramis got three useless disruptors? He would have killed me. So he kills him. He kills him, yeah. O'Brien does try to stop him, though. He knows what's about to have. I don't think he tried. I think he was concerned, but I don't think he tried.

Oh, yeah. I think we saw in his face that this was disturbing. Yes. But didn't really make an effort. Why should he? It would have been very hard to explain. It could have blown his cover, yeah. Okay, well, he protested then without physically trying to stop.

Yeah, yeah. All right. So the next scene, we go back to Bilby's apartment. There's thunder and lightning outside. And Bilby's getting a little, a little remnant. reminiscent, but a little thoughtful. He's having some deep thoughts. And we get a nice closer, by the way of Chester. We do. But during this opening monologue, I kept thinking, is this is just him talking to himself? Because we see Chester. We hear Bilby's beginning of this speech. We don't see

O'Brien until he moves. He takes his jacket off and the camera moves. It takes a while before we see Miles. Yes, yes. Interesting way of shooting it, for sure. Yeah. But he says, you know, I wish I could could leave this life, this criminal life sometimes, but he can't. No, he can't leave it. So we give Bill Be a conscience. Yeah. Yes. Which makes him more amenable to the viewer. Yeah. Well, I think like you said, Armin, I like the charm this actor had. I think the character was written very sympathetically and very three-dimensionally. So yeah, I think the audience is feeling a lot like Miles in this episode. Like, this is a good guy. He's not a bad. guy. Right. He mentions his daughter's birthday in this. So you really start to feel like Miles and

Bill Be are becoming real friends. And doesn't Miles ask him, well, why don't you give up this life? And he says I'm too old to start over. Yes. That's right. Yep. And then Bilby kind of, it slips out that they have people everywhere, even in Starfleet. And that's O'Brien's mission is to figure this out. Right. So he asks, you know, he says, wow, Starfleet, really? Um, And Miles even says, well, maybe he's a double agent. And Billby's like, double agent, no. Then why would they give us the name of all the undercover operatives? Which was a little worrisome because Miles is an undercover operative right now.

So you're like, wait a minute. This could go back. It's one of the faults in the script right there. I thought, you know, this guy would be smart enough not to do that to, even if it's somebody he trusted or was beginning to trust. it's a little too early to spill out all this information. Yeah. Well, if this was a real professional criminal, he would not let his guard down as easily as he does with Miles. It happens pretty quickly.

But this explains a lot, though. The five Starfleet intelligence agents who were killed, now we know why is because of this information that's leaked. And now we know why? Because my whole question is, why would they go to O'Brien? And now we know, because if you go within the organization, that name will be known. But if you find someone who is not part of intelligence, which is what Chief O'Brien is, then you're safe. And we do learn that Ramos met this Starfleet operative

when he was vacationing on RISA last year. And the Starfleet person was in charge of the weather control system there. Ramos offered him a lot of money to make it stop raining. So now they know who this Starfleet agent is. is this is going to be pretty easy. So to me, I was like, oh, well, then Miles's thing is done here. We're done. Which felt like a pretty easy wrap up. And, you know, I wasn't sure where the story was going to go after this. But he's got the information he needs. That was his assignment. I also like the throwback of the one episode we did see with Riza. There was that issue with the

weather control system. If you remember that, that was the whole part of the plot. lot. And so that throwback kind of tracks here as well. And they ratchet up the anxiety again by him getting a phone call saying Ramos wants to see you. Yes, exactly. So you think Miles is done. We think our story's over. But as dramatic timing would have it, a phone call comes in. Dun, da, da, da, da, da, Ramis wants to see Bilby immediately. Miles is even like, wait, it's the middle of the night. Really? Yeah. Yep. What could it be about? So we cut to the tavern and the barman is there. We see three people beam in. One is very alien. They're all in, you know, black suits. These, these Orion syndicate. Man and black. Yeah, men in black. Yeah. But Ramos arrives with a Vorta. There's a Vorta with him. The plot thickens. Yes. He reveals that the Orion Syndicate is secretly working with the dominion.

Like this, the presence of Avorta there says a lot. It explains a lot. I had fault with this was that it's too early for Avorta. You know, they're beaming into a bar. They don't know how many people are in the bar. The fact that they're revealing the fact that they're a part of the Dominion just seemed shoddy. It feels like, I mean, maybe I'm showing my hand too early, but it seems like the writing of this jumps around a lot.

without really covering an emotional arc in as deep away as it can, it jumps around with stuff like that, like you're saying there. Like, Armin, with a vorto just beaming in out of nowhere, it feels like Miles should be the one sort of driving this stuff happening, you know. That's right. And we find out later in the scene, you know, don't tell anybody that a vorder was with us. So if you want to keep that a secret, Don't bring him in.

Don't beam him in. But if it had been Miles driving it, Miles had a suspicion that they might be working with the Vorda. And he lured the Vorda there. Well, tell your boss, tell Riemus that, you know, if the Vorder comes, maybe they can. I don't know. It should have been driven by Miles more, is my point. It does put us on a new tract, which was who we wanted to find out who killed the five intelligence stations. Now all of a sudden there's a new mystery here.

Why are they working with a dominion? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But it just felt it felt clunky to me, the way that these things sort of landed. But I, okay, I know you guys have problems with this, but for me, it was very important to see this Vorda because now this whole time I kept thinking, is this just an homage to Casablanca, some, you know, film noir? and an outlier episode, which doesn't have anything to do with the rest of DS9.

But now we see how, I guess, how much the Dominion is invested in messing up the alliance or the Starfleet. Yeah, the alliance between the Klingons and Starfleet and how much they want to orchestrate and really try to cause issues without really knowing that they're causing issues in those areas. So it, to me, it was added an extra layer, which I thought, oh, okay, well, now this episode makes sense, which made me rated higher, actually,

than I would have if I didn't have this scene. Yeah, it did. It really did. I mean, I like the idea of the Vorda, the Dominion working with the Orion Syndicate. Yeah. I just don't think it was played out, orchestrated, you know, the way that the events of this episode happened felt bumpy to me. They just felt like clunky and a little shoddy to use your word there. All right.

Makes sense. There is a bit of trivia. There was a new transporter effect that was designed for this scene where Ramis beams in. I wondered about that. It sounded different. Yes. It looked different. Yeah.

The other thing that happens in the scene is that Billby witnesses for O'Brien. Aramis is very, you know, wary. He's like, who is this? I don't trust him. He's like, well, I witness for him. I vouch for him. And that's all that's needed in this Orion syndicate. Because once you vouch for somebody,

It's just verbal. You don't have to prove anything else because if you're wrong, then you die. You end up getting killed. That's right. Yeah. That's right. So a big deal. Delby has vouched for Miles O'Brien as being a safe person and a trustworthy person for them.

So that's a big deal. Huge. We go back out into the alley where Miles is meeting with his contact and he reports about this dominion connection that the Dominion's working with the Orion Syndicate. And he does identify the Starfleet officer that leaked the information, the RISA guy. So Chadwick says, well, that'll be easy to figure out. But he orders him, you know, that mission is technically complete, but you're going to have to stay here longer and discover what the Dominion wants. Is not what he signed up for?

No. Suddenly, the mission has changed. And he can't, he still can't call Keiko. He can't go home. Yeah. No. The other question that I now have after thinking about this is, what is Starfleet doing on RISA controlling the weather system?

Do you know what I'm saying? Riza is not part of Starfleet's domain. It is an independent pleasure planet colony. So there shouldn't be any Starfleet involvement at all unless this person was a civilian who then later joined Starfleet. That's the only other way I can explain it. But I'm a little... Excellent point, Garrett. Excellent point.

Thank you. I learned my nitpicking from the best, Armand, you. We go back to the very dark tavern. Have I mentioned it's dark in this tab? Yes. Have you? I don't think so. How dark is it, Robbie?

So dark, I had to close my curtains. That's how dark it is. Kroll is plugged into the comm unit. And they're basically robbing a bank. They're downloading. And now, Brian's helping them. Miles is helping them. So he's kind of proving that he's trust.

by participating in this, this bank heist. Yeah. And not just any old bank. This is the Bolian bank, the entire bank of Bolius, basically. Yeah. So huge deal. I like the jokes at the end. They basically, this is a scene about them robbing a bank and O'Brien's still playing

along and getting in deeper with them. But at the end, Bilby says, you know, I was thinking about opening an account there. And Miles says, well, maybe you should go with the different bank. One with better security. Yes. it's very funny after their bank robbery we go back to Bilby's apartment

and there's a young woman in the background Bilby talks to Miles in the foreground says he's basically he's hired an escort for Miles and Miles is freaking out he's like no no no I've got a girlfriend doesn't he ask her? Well really? What's her name?

Is this where he says oh yeah he's her name's Kimiko so he kind of stays close to cake out he adds a couple more syllables But Miles does pay the girl to leave and has a very awkward goodbye, which I thought was funny, where he walks her to the door. What does he say? He says, thanks for coming over. It was really nice to meet you. As he's walking her out, I just found that.

I laughed out loud. It was very funny. And for all of you budding secret agents out there, that's how you make your lies work if they're based in truth. So Kiko, Kimiko, very close to Keko. She works where a flower shop. Keko is a botanist. So this is a way to not get caught, exactly. But Bilby says Miles should get married.

Yeah. You know, this is, again, reinforcing that, that Bilby is a good guy. And he's a family man. That family is really important to him. And Bilby does brag about how well he reads people. And he says he really feels sorry for Miles, but he promises to take care of him. It says there's nothing like family, nothing more important.

So, yeah, we're starting to like Bilby more and more and more. So is Miles. Yep. And we cut into the alley for another meetup with Chadwick where Miles is really worrying about Billby now. He's starting to develop a real friendship. Yeah. And Chadwick says, Billby chose all this.

It's not your fault. Like whatever happens, he'll probably end up in Federation prison. That's our plan. You can't save this guy. He got himself into this mess. And Miles accepts that. We go back into the tavern where the whole gang, our criminal gang, with Bill Beard, walking in, laughing. I always hated those scenes where he had to walk into a room, you know, or on action.

Suddenly, everybody's supposed to be laughing as if it was spontaneous. Yes, yes. That's very difficult to play. I thought about that, too, but I thought they, did it pretty well actually. They did pretty well. Yeah, I believed it. And then Ramos and the Vorda are there. They surprise the gang. They suspect that there's a traitor among them. They line them up. It does look like the Vorda goes over, looks each of them in the eye, and then points to Miles. But the bartender comes around behind him and shoots filth. Fliff, not Fiff. You did it too. I did it finally. Fliff. You did. Not Fltf. You did. Not Fltf. You did. Not Fltf. You did. Not. Fltf. You did. You did. Not. Flt. Flt. You did. You did. You did. filth. Yeah, the bartender is the one, which confused me. Like, why is the bartender shooting him? When they beamed in the group of them, wasn't the Bolian guy also with them in the initial beam in? And then now, because I thought, okay, this is the heavy crossing behind the bar and coming around and shooting.

I didn't think he was the bartender. I got confused about the diarroof. I would go with Garrett, because when you said bartender shooting him, I went, that's not the way I remember it. But I could be wrong. So, but if I, I would. Yeah, Garrett's probably right. Yeah, I'm guessing. There was a boleon with them the first time they beamed in. There was. So that's why I thought this is this guy.

But the way he crossed in, it looked like he came from the bar. So in the bar. Yeah, so you're not wrong, Robbie. It just looked like the bartender. And the bartender is a bollian. Yes, so I think there's a bollian bartender and there's a bollian heavy. So there's two bollions. But I, what I was guessing, but maybe I'm wrong.

All right. Yeah. You never want to have two bollions. They can only be one boleon per scene. That's right. It's very confusing. But they do kill Flith. We learned that he neglected to pay his fare, his Vig, his whatever.

Yes, he engaged in some business on the side. And anytime you do any side business, it doesn't matter what business it is, you have to pay the Vig on that, too. And so he cheated them. Yep. Poor Flith is dragged out of the room. And Rames and Gellon give Bill Be a very dangerous new job. It's to assassinate a Klingon ambassador, use those disruptors that Miles fixed. We learned this complicated plan involves Gowron. Gowron is supporting the alliance. There's this other guy, this ambassador that doesn't support the alliance. So if there's an assassination and they blame it on Gowron that make this guy look like a martyr and it'll help.

break up the alliance, basically. That's what they're trying to do. Right. And it's the Klingon ambassador to Farias, who earlier, it was he who provided the coils to fix the disruptors to the... So it's so many layers going on. Yeah, it's very complicated. Yes. They do say the murder's got to be carried out with Klingon weapons, so the killing will appear to have been ordered by Gowron. Correct. That's the logic there. I did like the dragging out of Flith's corpse, though. It was just like, it was like spread eagle. It was just one of those.

Very funny. I did like the Vorda line, where he says, I never realized how much the Dominion and the Orion syndicate have in common. It seems that in both organizations, loyalty is everything. So it was a nice line there. Yeah. Who was this Vorta actor? Was it the first time we've seen this actor?

No, he was in the previous episode, I think. Was he? I didn't know that. I liked him. Yes, he was very good. Armin, what was he doing in the prior episode? Do you recall? I'm just trying to remember.

I don't. I don't, but I remember reading someone that he had been in a previous episode. He's the guy, Robbie, that I said, oh, I thought it was Iggy Pop again. Do you remember that when we saw him? It was after Iggy Pop. Yes. It was the new Vorda that we met. And I think this is the same guy.

His name is Leland Crook. I liked him. Yeah, he did a good job. I liked Leeland. He did a great job. And it seems like all of these Vorta are based on Jeffrey's first interpretation of what a Vorda is.

Just as all of the Ferengi were based on my mistaken performance for the Ferengi. You created that, Arm. You created a species. You were the inception of it, yeah. I spent years trying to fix that. And I think you did. You did with me for sure.

Yeah. If I could go back and fix the species that I created in the episode Threshold, I would go back and fix that species. Kitty played a Vorda once and when she was cast. The first person she called was Jeff. See, there you go. She didn't even ask me. She went straight to Jeff. What do I do with this?

I love it, which probably all these actors did. They probably all know Jeff. They're like, we'd be able to call Jeff right now. Yeah, they probably all know Jeff. Yeah. We cut back out to the alley meetup spot. I was about to say hookup spot, but that's a different kind of meetup. That's a whole different episode, Robbie.

We cut up to the alley where O'Brien and Chadwick meet again. And O'Brien tells him about this planned assassination. And Chadwick decides he's not going to arrest Bilby's group. Instead, Starfleet will warn the Klingons and allow the Klingons to deal with the syndicate themselves. And O'Brien feels really bad. this he's angry he's not happy at all yeah he's not happy because he knows that um bilby's going to be killed right and that he's responsible you know this is not he's become his friend and he doesn't want billby to be killed and chadwick says you know what thanks for the hard

work but you're done with us now we've got what we need this is going to play out you're going to go home and miles punches him in the face knocks him out and before before what preface the punch is O'Brien says, Chadwick, this is when we learned the name. And I kept thinking, this really pulled me out because I'm thinking, why give him the country club name? Why did you do this? Chadwick. Chadwick, yes. And he turns and punches him right there.

Oh, Chadwick. You've got to do it. Your tea time is about to happen now. Yes. Buffet. Tell Chadwick that the tea time. Horrible name for this episode, sorry. I particularly like the interchange where Chavik reminds Miles that the Orion syndicate are the ones that deserve to be murdered.

Abilby and his friends are the ones who murder people, not us, he says. Miles says, no, we just get the Klingons to do it for us. Miles, you've lost your perspective. I like seeing black and white in characters. And what I'm seeing in this is not so much that the characters are black and white, but that the Starfleet itself, the organization has, Yeah. As its shady sides as well. Exactly.

Completely. They're not as upstanding as we thought, you know, when we see this. Nobody's hands are completely clean. Nope. Ever. In Star Trek or in life. That's true. That's true.

That is true. Yep. We go back to Bilby's apartment. It is meal time for Chester, the cat. Boy, this cat got a lot of close-ups. He did. This cat got more close-ups than... Jake did.

Than Jake did. Yes. Or that Cisco did. That's right, in Ward and Cisco. The cat for this episode was number one on the call sheet. Yes. The cat had a good agent. This cat had more lines than some of the series regulars.

I mean, it got to meow quite a few times. So do you think it's a trained cat? I mean, I watched the cat jump over the sofa and get to whatever it had to. And I thought, oh, they've probably trained that cat. It's hard to train a cat. It's got to be hard to train a cat. Yeah, cats are very tough to train. So do you think it was Renee Ishaveria's cat that they just brought

on set possibly? I really think it was Sirrock playing Chester. I love it. I love it. Well, Chester's getting some food. Miles is visiting. Billby says he can't go. He says, this is a trap. And we go to a commercial. In the old days, we went to commercial. Now we just pause for a second. When we come back, Miles says, you can't go. And he admits that he works for Starfleet. Miles tells Bilby, yes, I work for Starfleet. And Billby, free. freaks out. He says, I witnessed for you. He goes, I'm a dead man. I'm not safe in prison. And even if you put me in prison, they're going to go after my family. And Billby's logic is he's just got to play this out. He's got to keep his family safe, he's got to go basically sacrifice

himself. Yeah. And it's a great scene. He realizes that he was a fool to trust Miles. He asked Miles to care for Chester, and he goes to meet his fate. It's a, it's a great scene. It's a very powerful scene, especially because Bilby is the one that brings up the whole Starfleet thing. He says, very good. When he says, how do you know that? I suppose you work for them. O'Brien says, what if I said I did? He was very good. You have me. I mean, just for a minute there, I actually thought you were working for Starfleet. And there's this pause where you see O'Brien's face. You pop back to Bilby, then O'Brien says, I am. And it just, it was very moving. I thought everything was very well done on both actors part.

And Bilby says, I should really kill you is what I should do. He does say that. But no one ever flinches. Miles doesn't think that's going to happen. And we'll tell Bashir later on that, no, that was never going to happen. Well, he says, I should probably kill you, but I've already proven that I'm not that smart or something. Yeah.

He says, the smart thing to do would be to kill you, but I've already shown I'm not very smart. So it's a way of sort of the writer's, addressing another option that he could that he thinks about but then dismissing it with some logic so yeah so yeah i thought that was good that they did that because it's it shows him going through all my choices i could do this i could do this i could do this i was not as dumb as he thinks he is exactly i do like at the end as he's making his way out he says uh uh back home wherever that is do you have a family he asked miles miles says he got miles is honest finally he says he says

Yes, I do. And Bilby says, good. That's the most important thing. So a very sympathetic bad guy. Yeah, because when he says, when O'Brien says, yes, I have a family, Bilby is actually relieved. He's happy for a second. He's like, yeah.

Yeah. He was like, this is what I want for everyone. Good. Have a family. You know, this is great. And then one last thing, look after my cat. So off Bilby goes. And we cut to an establishing shot of DS9.

We're back on the space station, inside O'Brien's quarters. Bashir's there. And Bashir reminds O'Brien that he was just doing his job. And he didn't have a choice in this. It was his duty to do this. And O'Brien struggles with that explanation because this mission forced him to betray someone that he genuinely started to like. And Bilby started to trust Miles.

Miles started to trust Bilby. And they kind of talk about the morality of all this. And Bashir doesn't understand. understand and Miles doesn't understand why Bashir doesn't understand. It's a very nice coda at the end of the episode. Yes. All right. And then we see Chester jumping into O'Brien's lap.

And I've forgotten whether Chester continues in the series or not. I thought the same thing. I'm wondering, oh, now we're going to see a cat every time we see Miles in his quarters. Or Keiko coming in and says, who brought this cat into? I'm allergic to cats. I mean, they tell us the things. So I think I will just use the theme that they gave us, which is family is the most important thing. Or by association, people you care for, but family is the most important thing.

Very good. And that was mine as well. Robbie? Mine's a little different. The theme I got from this is doing the right thing can sometimes be very painful. True as well. Miles was doing the right thing. He was doing his duty as the Starfleet officer. And he was doing the right thing because what was going on, what they needed to stop was this nefarious plan by the Dominion and a criminal organization. He was doing the right thing in the big picture. But on the personal level, it was very hard and very painful for him. And is not Miles responsible in a different way that we've totally forgotten about? If he had not fixed the disruptors, Miles fixed the disruptors, if he had not fixed the disruptors, if he had not

fixed to the disruptors, the plan against the Klingon ambassador could not have gone through. Yeah, that's true. Life is complicated. That's my theme. I'm going to restate my theme. Okay. My theme is life is complicated. Life is complicated.

Even on Ferrius, yes. Yes. Which is not a pleasure plan. Oh, that's funny. Ferrius is the name of the planet, and they are nefarious people. I bet that's where they got the name from. Let's go with the Patreon Paul winner for The slash lesson slash more of this episode.

Before we do, how much would you like to bet that they agree with Garrett and I? About the theme, yeah, the family is all aboard. I didn't go to family for some reason. So I don't know if it's that obvious to me. I thought that was a character quality, but I didn't think it was the theme or the lesson. And here we go.

From Alex Ray, the theme slash lesson slash more of this episode is, justice isn't simple when there's a human face on it. So they did not follow us, Armin, on that one. And honorable mention, Robbie. Honorable mention is submitted by Stephanie B. And that is, don't get involved with the Orion syndicate. Yes.

Very smart, Stephanie. Yes. This is the end of our podcast, our recap and discussion of Honor Among Thieves. Thank you again to Armin for co-hosting with this. Thank you. Thanks, Armin. Yeah. Thank you.

For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your glorious. bonus material. For everyone else, we will see you next time, and we will be recapping and discussing the episode, Change of Heart, with Terrefair.