Garibaldi is confronted with a surprising specter from his past, Ivanova is confronted by a non-so-surprising specter from her past, and Zach has the unenviable task of talking to Garibaldi. 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. Something Rotten
Sheridan and Garibaldi’s feud continues to be such a fascinating development. It’s not something I would have necessarily expected but it is a natural conflict of their two personalities, exacerbated by meddling from Psi-Corps and from Sheridan’s own experiences on Z’Ha’Dum. The only person who seems to notice that something is actually amiss is Zach and even he’s not sure if this is something more sinister than “Garibaldi stopped liking Sheridan.”
I’m so much more invested in their inability to communicate than I have any right to be. Most of the time when a conflict arises between two characters due to communication issues, I buckle up for some of my least favorite tropes and conflicts, but because JMS has done such a great job of laying the foundation of how, at its core, this conflict is a clash of personalities manifesting as an increasingly escalating series of arguments, retaliatory actions, and silent resentments, I’m wholly in on it. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna yell at the TV as Garibaldi makes stupid decisions based on his resentment for Sheridan treating him like a regular former employee rather than a trusted friend or Sheridan for giving Garibaldi the third degree for getting mixed up in something that, were he still chief of security, would have been the kind of thing he was doing anyway; it just means I’m going to be yelling in worry rather than frustration.
2. Ain’t I A Stinker?
One thing I forgot about Garibaldi that just clicked into place is that, while he loves Daffy Duck as the butt of the joke, he views himself as the Daffy of the station, at least for the moment. Oft maligned, never able to catch a break, but resilient, Daffy reflects Garibaldi’s insecurities about himself and about Sheridan. The clip we are shown in this episode is from Duck Amuck, wherein Daffy is harangued by an invisible force wielding a pencil, ostensibly the animator, whom he is having an antagonistic conversation with as his relationship to the camera, his surroundings, and even his own physiology changes. At the end, a fed up Daffy yells, asking who is doing this to him before being closed behind a newly drawn door, and it’s revealed that Bugs has been manipulating him this whole time.
There are a few ways to read this episode in relation to Garibaldi. One is that Bugs represents the Psi-Corps’ meddling, making Garibaldi unsure who or what to trust anymore. Another is that he sees himself as Bugs, as the trickster getting back at the desperate and haughty Sheridan, since Daffy’s other defining trait is his ego. A third is that Sheridan is Bugs, shutting Garibaldi out as Sheridan acts like “the savior” of the station, and that Daffy is raging against the powerful for misusing their power to mess with those who do not have it. I like to think that, in Garibaldi’s head, he sees himself as all three. The first is subconscious, more representative of Zach’s suspicions than Garibaldi’s own, while the second is what he wants to be, while the third is what he thinks he is.
He wants to be the big hero who takes down a corrupt leader who abuses his power, but he also sees Sheridan as someone with a big ego who just needs to be taken down a peg or two – after all, Daffy in Duck Amuck thinks he’s the hero but he turns out to just be a buffoon with an over-inflated ego. Think Garibaldi realizes the irony of it all yet?
3. Busting Makes Me Feel Good
Before I move on from Garibaldi, I wanted to touch on the actual plot he gets embroiled in because, uh, it’s the A plot and pretty consequential. For one, he meets up with his old flame Lise Hampton, now divorced and remarried to William Edgards, the Jeff Bezos of Mars, and has to protect her and some telepath “cure” from a band of telepaths who kill themselves upon being captured with cyanide pills as part of a trust exercise with the shady coup group. This leads to Edgars being impressed with Garibaldi and offering to hire him as “security.” (read: union buster and rebellion quasher.)
Continued belowThroughout it all, Lise and Garibaldi fight and talk through all their baggage. It’s a compelling drama about a once loving couple who, having been torn apart by their respective egos and choices years ago, try to navigate who they are to each other now after all those years of pain and heartache. You feel for Lise, you feel for Garibaldi, and throughout the whole thing, there’s a nagging sense of “something isn’t right.” While there’s no sudden but inevitable betrayal, the seeds have been planted in our minds not to trust anything about this situation and, were Garibaldi more in the right mind, he wouldn’t fully trust it either.
It’s a great contrast to the kind, less morally compromised Garibaldi we saw at the top of the episode too. Yes, Garibaldi acts to save Lise & the other guy’s life but the usual questions aren’t being asked. Moreover, I suspect Lise’s call to Garibaldi at the end of the episode was less of an apology/reconciliation attempt and more of a warning about Edgars because there are no good billionaires, especially not during a war, and especially, especially not when that billionaire wants a secret cure for a telepath disease that may or may not exist. It reeks of not curing a virus but of “curing telepathy” itself or, if that’s not the case, then Edgars just wants to corner the market on this drug. No matter what the case, it’s suspicious as all hell and Garibaldi being embroiled in it all will not end well for him.
4. I See Your Simmering Conflict and Raise You a Boogeyman
Besides finding out I misspelled Drakh last week, there haven’t been many developments on the Shadow War remnants and that’s a good thing. Babylon 5 is strong when it has enough long and medium term stories to let one lie dormant with just a brief acknowledgement while another develops. As such, the scene between Sheridan, Londo, and G’Kar isn’t a particularly long one but it is important. We learn that the Drakh were considered urban legends by the Centauri, giving an additional reason for why we’ve never heard of them before but without them feeling out of blue, which also raises the question of whether these are truly the Drakh or if they’re just using the name to cash in on the fear with those know are in the know. It also gives us some development on the relationship between Narn and Centauri prime as well as the evolution of the rangers into a peacekeeping force.
I like how Sheridan plays this whole thing. He wants to be able to send the fleet out to be on the lookout for the Drakh and be of assistance to the other worlds but he can’t unilaterally send them out – that would be bad, even for a good cause – and planets would likely be hesitant to accept the help from this outside force. By getting the Narn AND Centauri to agree to allow them to patrol the border between them, it’s a sign that the fleet can be trusted to keep the peace even in tense areas. Sheridan did at least one thing right this week!
5. Zathras!
THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S MA BOY ZATHRAS. Last time we saw the indomindable Zathras, he was heading backwards in time with Sinclair in “War Without End, Part 2.” We got a tearful goodbye and I thought that was the end of Zathras. And, well, technically it was but, as it turns out, there are 10 Zathras’ and only one went backwards in time. Every single line from Zathras was perfectly timed to get me dying of laughter and gave Claudia Christian the chance to use every one of her facial muscles to act. The dirt speech??! Absolute gold and I won’t hear otherwise. It’s another very short scene, mostly because it was a small part of the “Ivanova gets to go on wacky adventures and have some of the best lines” plot revolving around finding enough power to broadcast the voice of the Resistance far enough but I love it all the same.
I also love how she caps her adventure down on Epsilon 3 off with a big old OY. My thoughts exactly, Susan.
Continued below
That about does it for now. Join me again in a week for Sheridan’s rumors, Delenn’s bargains, and Ivanova fighting Earth’s lies on the station where everything changed in the year of destruction and rebirth.
This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Lines of the Night:
1) Ivanova: “We can transmit the signal throughout most of this sector, but beyond that… If we’re gonna broadcast to Earth, we need a lot more power than what we’ve got now. I don’t know where we’re gonna get it. I’ve been working on this for days.”
Franklin: “What about Epsilon 3? During the war, we evacuated the wounded down there for safekeeping. I spent a lot of time looking around. There’s enough power down there to broadcast clear to the Rim.
Ivanova: “Or, just a crazy thought, we could try Epsilon 3.”
Franklin: “Yeah, you could do that.”
Ivanova: “It’s the logical choice. Anybody could see that in two seconds. Only a complete fool would fail to see that.”
Franklin: “I wouldn’t…”
Ivanova: “It’s absolutely obvious.”
Franklin: “Well, I wouldn’t have thought of it.”
Ivanova: “You’re far too modest, Stephen.”
Franklin: “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”
Ivanova: “Yep, that’s my job. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I think there’s a shuttle waiting for me.”
2) Ivanova: “Zathras came with us to Babylon 4. Zathras stayed in the past with Valen. You’re Zathras. Therefore, you went into the past.”
Zathras: “No, that was not Zathras. That was Zathras. There are 10 of us, all of family Zathras. Each one named Zathras. Slight differences in how you pronounce.
(With the same exact intonation & a long pause between each) “Zathras.
“Zathras.
“Zathras.
“You are seeing now?”
