Delenn is forced to confront her past, Lennier proves he’s Best Boy, and Marcus & Franklin get to have some quality time together…if Franklin doesn’t strangle Marcus first. Welcome my friends. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2261. The place: Babylon 5.
Spoilers ahead.
1. Zoom and Enhance
While I was watching “Atonement,” I kept thinking that there really weren’t any B or C plots of note this week. Sure, we get some table setting for next episode with Marcus & Franklin, and a bit of a check in on G’Kar & Zach but the vast majority of the episode deals with Delenn’s trip back to Minbar and the trail that awaits her. It’s all A plot because the rest don’t have an arc.
G’Kar’s new eye is introduced but there’s no pay off on his ability to remove it…yet. Zach Allen being convinced Garibaldi is going to take back his position hasn’t been resolved one way or the other…yet. The closest thing we get to a set-up and resolution is the Marcus/Franklin Mars trip but that’s more like bookends for the station events. This isn’t a bad thing! I actually liked the structure of the episode, with Delenn & Lennier’s story having more distinct chapters than your usual A plot, owing a lot to the relative lack of concurrent narratives presented to us. As such, the emotional developments and revelations take precedence and we get an episode that continues to cement my love for this show and Straczynski as a writer.
2. Is this a Tragedy or a Comedy?
One of the big reasons Straczynski’s “Amazing Spider-Man” run is so well regarded today is how he wrote the marriage and relationship of Mary Jane & Peter. It was neither a perfect relationship nor an absolute disaster that we were waiting to see fall apart but a real, flawed, but loving one that could contain conflicts as well as any pre-marriage romantic relationship can. That understanding of how to infuse drama into a relationship without rooting it in a threat to the relationship or a cheap communication mishap is reflected here with Delenn & Sheridan.
The early conflict of “Atonement” centers around how much Delenn should tell him about the Dreaming and how, if she “fails” while on Minbar, she will not be able to return. She waffles about whether to tell him at all and, in the end, she decides to only let him in on the generalities. That she must go back to Minbar. That she loves him. That, if things do not go well, she may not return for a long while. It’s hard and there’s clearly tension but there’s also love and trust. Delenn wants to spend her last night before leaving with him and while there is a brief source of tension in him being quite wedded to his work, that is quickly resolved when Delenn makes clear tonight is the only night left.
Delenn ends up stealing away in the night while he sleeps but there is never a moment of Sheridan being hurt by this. Instead, he does not worry because he trusts that she will be OK. Because he trusts her, he does not pry more than he has to. Because he loves her, he is willing to wait for her to return, even if he is sad to be apart.
3. Wherever You Go, I Go
Lennier, on the other hand, ambushes Delenn in the hallway before the spaceport and is basically like, “How dare you leave without saying anything to me? As punishment, I’m coming with.” He does not take no for an answer not because he does not respect Delenn but because he knows she will need someone who will be there for her who can be there for her in this way. Babylon 5 previously let us know that Lennier loves Delenn, with the implication that it is romantic, but I read it as a love born of respect and admiration. Of a close friend who is akin to family rather than a romantic partner. And I believe the text of the show backs me up.
Lennier in this episode takes the place of Sheridan for plot reasons – Delenn’s relationship with Sheridan is the contentious reason she’s even going back to Minbar – as well as for thematic reasons. He fits the role of the lover who “does not care about their partner’s past/flaws” and will stand by them anyway. While this likely remains true of Sheridan, JMS makes it a point to have Lennier fill this role: to take Delenn by the hand after she tried to warn him off, and to support & comfort Delenn in the Dreaming, both before and after learning of the things that haunt her.
Moreover, this reinforces two of the season’s core themes: you cannot do everything yourself and not everyone can do everything. Sheridan cannot be there for Delenn in the Dreaming, it must be Lennier, and because the show makes sure to remind us that Sheridan is not worried more than the general “I hope things are going alright,” the text makes its intentions clear. Meaningful relationships of all varieties are required to live a full life and one is not intrinsically better than the other; each can accomplish different tasks that the other cannot. Delenn’s love for Sheridan and her love for Lennier are different but no less valuable or impactful.
4. Rage. Rage. Against the Dying of the Light.
Speaking of meaningful relationships, we learn more about Delenn and Dukhat’s relationship as mentor and acolyte, all the way to equals on the Grey Council, and it is a doozy. We now have a better idea as to who Dukhat was and why Delenn and others always said he was the best of them. He was kind, he was generous, he was smart, and most of all, he was inquisitive. His approach to life and leadership was a clear influence on Delenn, right down to how she first instructed Lennier way back in “The Parliament of Dreams”:
I cannot have an aide who will not look up. You will be forever walking into things.
Dukhat clearly cast a long shadow over Delenn, much as she revered him, because the second he was gone, she briefly forgot what he stood for and ended up causing the Earth-Minbari war. While that is a gross oversimplification, as Lennier even points out when Delenn continues to blame herself, it remains true that in her grief she forgot herself for a moment and acted in Dukhat’s name to do something that would have brought him to shame. It’s excellent drama and made all the better by the parallels we see between the Grey Council’s decision to not make contact with the humans well before the war, the decision for war, and the sham trail Callenn is trying to set up.
It emphasizes one of the other motifs of the episode, which is the ways we only realize our failures after the damage has already been done. The Grey Council realizes they should have heeded Dukhat only after he is dead and war is declared. Delenn only recognizes her part in the instigation of a brutal and bloody war only after the moment of revenge has passed and it cannot be reversed. And while Callenn does not really get there in terms of a revelation, he does reverse course on destroying Delenn & Sheridan’s relationship, which would have only caused more strife and pain between the two, unknown consequences for the galaxy, AND continued to completely hide the ways in which Valen’s human DNA has been enmeshed into Minbari DNA for thousands of years.
Now, I believe the first two are more analogous, with the third delving into the murky waters of Callenn’s garbage eugenics beliefs, but all three still hinge on the leading body making a decision based in cruelty and/or deliberate ignorance and having that decision cause irreparable harm in direct and indirect ways. JMS is saying with this episode, though, that this is not an inevitability. That we can change and the resolution, albeit not a perfect one, avoids the mistakes of the past by learning from them.
Delenn’s relationship isn’t destroyed and while the knowledge of the Human/Minbari DNA mix remains unknown to the population, it is now known to Delenn, who will almost certainly be looking for ways to disseminate that knowledge in due time. It’s an optimistic episode, despite all the hardship within. We could use more of those.
Continued below5. 99 Bottles of Jala in the Hold. 99 Bottles of Jala. Take One Down. Float it Around. 98 Bottles of Jala in the Hold.
I couldn’t not spend an entire thought on the pre-end credits scene of Marcus and Franklin bickering in the cargo hold of a ship. It was such a fun and wacky way to end what was otherwise a very serious episode and proves that Biggs & Carter have some of the best on screen chemistry of the whole cast. It’s a short scene, maybe a couple minutes total, but now I’m super hyped to see the next episode. I’m also completely prepared to have it be 40 minutes of them dealing with travel. Seriously, I had that much fun with it.
Also, you cannot tell me he wasn’t having the time of his life singing “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” which then PLAYS OVER THE ENDING CREDITS. Seriously. Let the whole credits play this week. You will not be disappointed.
That about does it for now. Join me again in a week where we’re off to see the Martians, Garibaldi & Sheridan have a tough conversation, and Franklin & Marcus get to have wild spy adventures on the station where everything changed in the year of destruction and rebirth.
This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Line of the Night:
Delenn: “If I say I love him…is that not enough?”
Callenn: “No. You must convince us on other grounds.”
Delenn: “But what other grounds could there be? If you set the rules and you have already decided that this is wrong…what hope do I have of convincing you?”
