Television 

Five Thoughts on Babylon 5‘s “The Fall of Centauri Prime”

By | October 5th, 2022
Posted in Television | % Comments

Last time, on Babylon 5. War, loss, and the beginning of the end. This time, everyone’s favorite Centauri bids us adieu, Londo achieves his (probably) final form, and we discover the disgusting secret of the Drakh Keepers. Welcome my friends. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2262. The place: Babylon 5.

Spoilers ahead.

1. There Will Be Peace, For a Time

What’s most surprising about “The Fall of Centauri Prime” is not that Londo becomes Emperor, not that he must regress to an even worse version of who he once was, but that the war is over before it even began. After weeks of build up, and an inkling of what was to come in the first part of this two parter, the Centauri-Alliance war ends with a resounding defeat of the Centauri and an exploration of the aftermath, both within the Alliance and without.

This is a great choice because it emphasizes the difference between the Shadows and the Drakh – one wanted a war, the other wants control and power – while also not embroiling the plot in another large-scale war narrative with only four episodes to go. It also means that the drama of the rest of the season is all the more complicated, since Londo has to be the mouthpiece of the Drakh’s interests.

One of his last truly free actions. Could someone bring me a tissue or 20?

Inviting this destruction was also a horrifyingly brilliant move on the Drakh’s part because the Alliance is now substantially weakened. Not only are the Centauri no longer a part of it, they are actively in conflict with their interests, AND to all the rest of the galaxy, they look like – and in actuality are – the victims. Moreover, the trust between the advisory council and the Narn/Drazi governments, as well as the other unnamed members who participated in the attack, is irrevocably broken. It was already shaky before but this pushes it over the edge.

Am I a little annoyed at the pacing of it all? A little. I think this would have worked better as a midseason ender instead of the Telepath War stuff, rather than happening with four episodes left. But then again, it seems like TNT’s schedule, much like UPN’s before it, meant that this was functionally a break-point. Or, well, this was the return from a break-point. You get the picture.

If weird placement is the sacrifice we had to get in order for this plot to resolve itself so well, so be it.

2. What Is History If Not A Collection of Human Failures?

I’ve said many times that Babylon 5 shines when it’s tackling big, thorny questions via its characters, often coming to an answer but not the answer to any of them, emphasizing how these questions, and events, are both entirely in our control and entirely out of our control, leaving us to stew in that contradiction and recognize how easy conclusions, easy blame, is counterproductive and often shortsighted. We can’t always know how our actions will play out and we can’t know the knock-on effects of our silence. It isn’t as simple as “if only X hadn’t happened, or Y had been said at Z time,” because no one has perfect information, no one can truly know the future.

This doesn’t mean we can’t guess, however.

For example, why the Centauri? Why did the Drakh pick them to be the wedge that pried apart the Alliance? Simple: they needed a new home after Za’Ha’Dum went BOOM and remembered where the Shadows were once welcomed. More than that, they knew how to make threats that would stick to keep Londo in check prior to having a keeper attached to him because of Londo’s own actions when he blew up an entire island with fusion bombs.

I could trace the whole set of actions and dominos that brought us, and him, to that moment. I could speculate about what might have happened had Delenn agreed to their demands for a homeworld last season. But the underlying point would remain the same: we cannot fully know what our actions will bring, be they good (chasing the Shadows off Centauri Prime) or bad (facilitating, intentionally and otherwise, their arrival in the first place) or neutral (eating a Spoo sandwich instead of Salami.) We have to simply take it as it comes and do the best we can.

Continued below

This is what the realism at the heart of Babylon 5’s sci-fi is built out and I absolutely love it.

3. Nip Nops

I hate that we know where the keepers come from now. Nipples! They’re Drakh nipples! Docked in there like a awful, fleshy Roomba! GROSS.

THANKS I HATE IT

This raises so many questions. Are the Keepers symbiotic beings that live with the Drakh? Are they actually a part of the Drakh that they can separate and give limited intelligence? Are they just radio controlled, organic devices? Do the Drakh have two keepers (or more???) or are they limited to just the one? I don’t actually want any answers to any of these questions. I just hope to never see another scene where Londo and a Drakh slowly strip and dramatically remove their shirts above their breasts in a “take me” pose.

*Shudders*

4. Delenn Solo

After seeing them get got by the Centauri last time, I was absolutely sure Delenn and Lennier were going to be locked in the dungeon on Centauri Prime. I know I shouldn’t be surprised that didn’t happen, seeing as how things are a little different from the future we saw in “War Without End, Part 2”, but I am. Maybe it will still happen but right now, they’re safe and sound after getting nearly killed and lost in hyperspace.

I love everything about this C-plot. From the way it illustrates the private, semi-private, and public actions and feelings of Londo and contrasts that to Sheridan’s, to the leeway he gets with the Drakh for being compliant, to the heart-to-heart Lennier and Delenn share onboard the ship. Actually, it’s that last part that holds it all together.

There’s a release of tension, it seems, when they’re slowly dying together. The awkwardness between them dissolves when they think they’re going to die, even though it does come roaring back for a brief moment after they discover they’re being saved and they both realize that Lennier confessed to Delenn his love and she acknowledged it.

What I love about how JMS writes this scene is in its maturity. They don’t laugh it off, they don’t pretend it didn’t happen, they reckon with it in the only way the Minbari know: through being circumspect in their words but direct in their meaning. Delenn cares so deeply for Lennier and he cares so deeply for her but they are different kinds of cares. To leave them unreconciled would be to invite further distance between them than they’d already allowed.

And that is unacceptable.

5. Heavy Is the Hologram that Wears White

I wanted to spend a long thought talking about Londo’s new place as the Emperor and his unavoidable subservience to the Drakh. How he had to shun his friends. How he had to be unrelenting in public and even in private, yelling at Vir and threatening Sheridan while riling up his people in a show of force that has terrifying echoes of the many despots of the 20th and 21st century. How Virini’s death got me. How this is all Londo reaping what he sowed, the fetid oats of his actions, even as he worked to heal and grow and be better, and how tragic that is, especially in light of G’Kar’s forgiveness of Londo, but not the Centauri. I wanted to talk about all of that but instead, I think I’ll talk briefly about that final shot, of him alone on the throne.

“The Fall of Centauri Prime” is another excellent episode of Babylon 5 in all respects. The music, the writing, the acting, the sets & costumes, the directing. And the shot composition, which matters a lot in the case of the final image going into the end credits. It sets the tone for the episode retroactively and shapes how we feel about it long after the TV is turned off.

“The Fall of Centauri Prime” ends on a shot of Londo in the dark, his new white uniform being a tremendous source of brightness. Yet he is utterly alone, sitting on the throne, a sour and nearly despondent look on his face. It is an image of contrasts – the dream fulfilled and the nightmare realized – emphasizing the loneliness of the dual roles he must fill. As he says, he has all the power but no choices.

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It’s not all hopeless, though. He is trapped by the darkness but not of it. He remains, not a beacon of hope but at least a dim guide for others. He can fight from the inside. Not much, and it must be done alone, but he has learned how to resist in whatever way he can from G’Kar and the rest of the B5 crew. It may be cold comfort, but at this point, even that is preferable to the warm embrace of the Drakh Keeper.

That about does it for now. Join me again in a week for at least two confrontations, more creepy eyes and a band of worshipers on the station where, in the year with no retreats and no surrenders, we thought of their beautiful city in flames.

This is Elias. Signing out.

Best Lines of the Night:

1. Londo: “I can’t stay. I just wanted to see how you were.

G’Kar: “Better. I would be dead if not for you. You risked your life to save mine.”

Londo: “Yes. You would have done the same.”

G’Kar: “Yes, but I am a better person.”

2.
Regent Virini: “I have to go now, Londo.”

Londo: “No…don’t go.”

Regent Virini: “I have been many things in my life, Mollari. I have been silly. I have been quiet when I should have spoken. I have been foolish.

And I have wasted far too much time.

But I am still Centauri…and I am not afraid.”


//TAGS | 2022 Summer TV Binge | Babylon 5

Elias Rosner

Elias is a lover of stories who, when he isn't writing reviews for Mulitversity, is hiding in the stacks of his library. Co-host of Make Mine Multiversity, a Marvel podcast, after winning the no-prize from the former hosts, co-editor of The Webcomics Weekly, and writer of the Worthy column, he can be found on Twitter (for mostly comics stuff) here and has finally updated his profile photo again.

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