Quodo in Every Episode discussion: "Whispers"

[chacusha]

This week we're discussing... episode 2x14 "Whispers"!

Episode synopsis: Following his return from the Parada system, O'Brien starts to notice everyone behaving strangely around him and especially keen to shut him out of security arrangements related to the upcoming visit by the Parada delegation. This instills a sense of paranoia that ultimately leads to O'Brien fleeing the station looking for help and answers.

What The Boys are up to in this episode: Odo has a couple of scenes, and Quark has one. Odo, on Bajor for most of the episode, returns and is immediately alerted of O'Brien's suspicions and promises to look into it further, but ultimately takes the side of the other senior officers in trying to manage O'Brien's behavior. Between these two scenes, Quark has a brief conversation with a noticeably on-edge O'Brien where his attempt to casually talk about the Paradas further raises O'Brien's suspicions.

One screencap from this episode:


Transcript: http://chakoteya.net/DS9/434.htm

Quodo fics tagged with this episode: None (https://archiveofourown.org/works?work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Episode%3A+s02e14+Whispers+%28Star+Trek%3A+Deep+Space+Nine%29&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&tag_id=Star+Trek%3A+Deep+Space+Nine)

Tell us:
- What did you think about this episode?
- Have you written a fic set during/after this episode?
- Do you know of any other fics set in or that build off this episode that weren't linked above?
- What do you see as the Quodo potential for this episode?

Anonymous comments are on, so feel free to chime in even if you don't have a Dreamwidth account! If you prefer, we are also available on Discord:
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Event info & rules
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Comments

[chacusha]

Random thoughts:

- Average day in the O'Brien household lmao.

- I feel like some people in this episode are better at behaving normally than others. Keiko is the worst at this lol. Actually, let me rank them: Best: Odo/Bashir -- they're good at acting more or less normal, although I think this is because Odo is just generally kind of prickly and distrustful of (other people's) authority. (It's also unclear to me if Odo was in on it before he left for Bajor or had to get caught up after he came back.) Bashir is good at defusing tension/suspicion with humor. Maybe this is why they end up giving him secret Changeling plots a lot later. 2nd: Sisko does an OK job but ends up having to pull rank at times in order to control O'Brien. 3rd: Kira is barely in this but does fine I guess? 4th: Random engineer guy. Kind of got careless at various points but maybe he's also the least informed about what's going on. Dead last: Keiko. 😭 (By the way, adding this episode to my evidence file for my "Keiko is autistic" headcanon.)

- There's a note in the DS9 Companion that this episode was tricky to film because its close focus on O'Brien meant that he had to be in basically every single scene, so was pretty demanding for Colm Meaney and filming scheduling.

- I always wondered what was the reason why they emphasize O'Brien's (heretofore unspecified?) coffee order so much in this episode. Just to add to the unsettling/"O'Brien is an impostor" vibes, like he's living life on repeat or something?

Okay, overall thoughts on this one: I actually kind of hate this episode. 😂 It starts out really good and is a really good depiction of, like, the inner experience of paranoid schizophrenia, but the ending just kind of kills the whole episode for me. The plotline involves such an overcomplicated scheme that is way too much effort and backfires massively, and I don't really get the reason why the response the DS9 people would have to being tipped off by the rebels about O'Brien's status is to just let him keep doing whatever he's inclined to do but gaslight the hell out of him?? So bizarre. I don't know, it's one of those episodes where the core emotional experience is interesting but justifying it is VERY difficult even with handwavy sci-fi mechanics and they just don't manage to do it here. If this one had managed to stick the landing with the mystery reveal, it would be like an 8/10 for me, but as it is, it's like a 3 or 4/10 for me. (My hatred for this episode is probably somewhat related to my hatred for "The Inner Light" as an episode of TNG -- "The Inner Light" is much better in quality all around, but it shares in common with this episode that the reveal for the whole premise of the episode is so WTF that it retroactively ruins the rest of the otherwise-very-good episode for me.)


Thoughts on Quodo potential:

- Uhh, hm. I guess going along with the themes of this episode, maybe you could have a scene where Odo and Quark seem to be in cahoots and having a weird conversation with each other about O'Brien or the Parada security arrangements and this (on top of everything else) also makes O'Brien feel like he's going crazy.

- Maybe you could write a Quodo version of this episode where Quark or Odo wake up one day and everything is Off, and maybe the other person's behavior is part of the offness, or maybe they're the only other person that Quark/Odo can trust.

- Coda to this episode where Odo finds out all the sketchy things Quark did on the station while Odo was away on Bajor.

- Or I feel like this episode is good for missing scenes from literally any non-O'Brien character's POV since you never get to see that, and so you could have Odo and Quark in the background of this episode discussing what happened to O'Brien.