“Business as Usual” pulls double duty. It is a Quark Actually Has a Conscience and an O’Brien Must Suffer episode. Quark’s story is good as usual. The O’Brien B-story tries a little too hard to be cute, but I ca handle it.The episode also marks the third time an actor from Rambo: First Blood, Part II appears on DS9. This time, it is Steven Berkoff, who played Padovsky in Rambo. The other two are Charles Napier, who played Murdock in the movie and appeared in ’Little Green Men” and Julia Nickson, who played Co in the movie and appeared in “Paradise.” I am sure they are all very proud of this intersection.
Word travels fast that Quark’s bad investments have left him nearly broke, so his cousin shows up to offer him a job as an arms dealer. One never goes broke dealing in weapons. Quark agrees, but gets in way too deep when he is to sell weapons with which his buyer plans to kill 28 million people. There are limits to Quark’s greed, so he stops the deal and exposes the genocide plot.
In the B-story, O’Brien cannot get Kirayoshi to sleep without his mother there, so he has to hold him constantly, even at work, to keep him from crying. Only Worf is able to placate the baby. Did not see that coming after Worf’s bad reaction to taking care of data’s cat in TNG, did you? Yeah, I figured you did.
We get further proof in “Business as Usual” that quark has a certain moral center. It is always good when his character is fleshed out to be more than a greedy crook or comic relief.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
