This episode is full of good acting and dialog scenes, but the basic plot doesn't make any sense. What is Winn's plan?
OK, so Secretary Kubus and Winn are working together, and she gets him to come to the station, where he is then recognized and detained. This is contingent on the Bajorans on DS9 recognizing him, but it seems he was a fairly notorious figure so we'll let that pass.
Odo then allows Winn to visit him in detention (which seems dubious, as Odo knows that Winn is a terrorist who ordered Neela to blow up Keiko's school and assassinate Bareil) and doesn't monitor or oversee their conversation (also very dubious). In detention, Kubus divulges to Winn that Bareil was the one who ordered Prylar Bek to tell the Cardassians the location of the resistance base. But we know that Winn already knows this, as the nod they give each other earlier in the episode indicates to us that they're carrying out a plan.
Winn then asks to use Odo's computer(!) and googles Prylar Bek and the Kendra Valley Massacre, something she could have just done on a padd or terminal. It's also not clear why she would need to look those things up, as nothing Kubus told her should require here to look up basic information on the events. Essentially she only does it in the hope that Odo will look in the browser history to see what information she accessed and then tell Kira, an obvious trap Odo falls right into. But that's moot because Winn comes straight out and tells Kira about Kubus's allegations against Bareil in the very next scene.
Kira is only able to find out the truth of the situation by getting Quark to hack into the Vedek Assembly (something Winn could never have been able to predict) then getting Chief O'Brien to retrieve the lost data in the erased logs, which requires unscrambling and reassembling the deleted file fragments that are still stored in the computer memory after deletion. Somehow this happens to include a retinal scan(!) that links back to Bareil. It's nigh-on impossible that Winn would have even known about these long-since-deleted files in the first place, let alone known that they would be recoverable or traceable to Bareil - it's not rational or feasible for Winn to have thought that Kira or anyone else would have been able to retrieve this information, even with Starfleet expertise - and as such Kubus's allegations against Bareil would have remained completely unsubstantiated, rendering Winn's plan moot. It's also completely unclear whether Winn knows that Bareil is covering for Opaka or whether she thinks Bareil genuinely betrayed the resistance. There seems to be no way for her to know (Bareil only does because he was Opaka's close confidant and protege), and in fact if we read the episode as if Winn genuinely believes that Bareil is guilty, all of her actions seem a lot more justified. Rather than mere outrage at his betrayal, she's more delighted and satisfied that she's finally found some dirt on him that she can use to her own ends, which is in character.
Even if Winn does know about Opaka, how can she assume that Bareil will withdraw or lose in order to keep the secret? If she and Kubus were to go public with the allegations, it would be far more rational for Bareil to come out and explain to the Bajoran public that Opaka betrayed the resistance base in order to save 1200 lives, sacrificing her own son in the process. This would complicate her legacy but by no means destroy it and would ultimately be very healthy, as would Bareil then becoming Kai. So Winn's plot, such as it is, rests on the assumption that Bareil will simply withdraw from the race to protect this secret, which isn't a logical deduction. Again, Winn's plot makes more sense if she really does believe that Bareil was the one who betrayed the resistance. When she blackmails him by threatening to reveal this information and he then capitulates and withdraws from the race in response, this can only strengthen her impression of his guilt. Yet somehow the episode wants us to think that Winn had a master plan and was pulling the strings on everyone all along and getting Kira to do her bidding.
OK, so Secretary Kubus and Winn are working together, and she gets him to come to the station, where he is then recognized and detained. This is contingent on the Bajorans on DS9 recognizing him, but it seems he was a fairly notorious figure so we'll let that pass.
Odo then allows Winn to visit him in detention (which seems dubious, as Odo knows that Winn is a terrorist who ordered Neela to blow up Keiko's school and assassinate Bareil) and doesn't monitor or oversee their conversation (also very dubious). In detention, Kubus divulges to Winn that Bareil was the one who ordered Prylar Bek to tell the Cardassians the location of the resistance base. But we know that Winn already knows this, as the nod they give each other earlier in the episode indicates to us that they're carrying out a plan.
Winn then asks to use Odo's computer(!) and googles Prylar Bek and the Kendra Valley Massacre, something she could have just done on a padd or terminal. It's also not clear why she would need to look those things up, as nothing Kubus told her should require here to look up basic information on the events. Essentially she only does it in the hope that Odo will look in the browser history to see what information she accessed and then tell Kira, an obvious trap Odo falls right into. But that's moot because Winn comes straight out and tells Kira about Kubus's allegations against Bareil in the very next scene.
Kira is only able to find out the truth of the situation by getting Quark to hack into the Vedek Assembly (something Winn could never have been able to predict) then getting Chief O'Brien to retrieve the lost data in the erased logs, which requires unscrambling and reassembling the deleted file fragments that are still stored in the computer memory after deletion. Somehow this happens to include a retinal scan(!) that links back to Bareil. It's nigh-on impossible that Winn would have even known about these long-since-deleted files in the first place, let alone known that they would be recoverable or traceable to Bareil - it's not rational or feasible for Winn to have thought that Kira or anyone else would have been able to retrieve this information, even with Starfleet expertise - and as such Kubus's allegations against Bareil would have remained completely unsubstantiated, rendering Winn's plan moot. It's also completely unclear whether Winn knows that Bareil is covering for Opaka or whether she thinks Bareil genuinely betrayed the resistance. There seems to be no way for her to know (Bareil only does because he was Opaka's close confidant and protege), and in fact if we read the episode as if Winn genuinely believes that Bareil is guilty, all of her actions seem a lot more justified. Rather than mere outrage at his betrayal, she's more delighted and satisfied that she's finally found some dirt on him that she can use to her own ends, which is in character.
Even if Winn does know about Opaka, how can she assume that Bareil will withdraw or lose in order to keep the secret? If she and Kubus were to go public with the allegations, it would be far more rational for Bareil to come out and explain to the Bajoran public that Opaka betrayed the resistance base in order to save 1200 lives, sacrificing her own son in the process. This would complicate her legacy but by no means destroy it and would ultimately be very healthy, as would Bareil then becoming Kai. So Winn's plot, such as it is, rests on the assumption that Bareil will simply withdraw from the race to protect this secret, which isn't a logical deduction. Again, Winn's plot makes more sense if she really does believe that Bareil was the one who betrayed the resistance. When she blackmails him by threatening to reveal this information and he then capitulates and withdraws from the race in response, this can only strengthen her impression of his guilt. Yet somehow the episode wants us to think that Winn had a master plan and was pulling the strings on everyone all along and getting Kira to do her bidding.