There is no such thing as truth. The truth will set you free. The truth is a lie. The truth will set you free. The truth is ever changing. The truth will set you free. 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. Good Morning
Originally, based on the description given to me by HBOMax, I thought Garibaldi and the Martian resistance would be making an appearance in this episode. Apparently that was a lie, either done intentionally, or by accident, or because I looked at the wrong episode description. Whatever the reason, it caught me off guard in the best way when it turns out the entire episode is one long scene with Sheridan in an Earth prison. It’s a real brutal episode not because it is fantastic, like a manufactured virus that only affects telepaths, but because it is all too real.
Where there is a secret police, where there is an oppressive regime, there will be scenes like this. Where dissidents are spirited away, forced to give false confessions in order to further the political agendas of the people in power and trick the populace into believing the official narrative, scenes like this will exist. Even in non-authoritarian locales like, say, the United States at Guantanamo Bay or via the actions of ICE or the tactics of HUAC or hell, regular police, things like this, to varying degrees, happen. It’s scary and should act as a reminder that, if something like this is starting to form, we had best stop it before it gets too far.
2. It’s Lunchtime, isn’t it?
Back to the episode itself, we spend all 40-some-odd minutes with Sheridan as he is tortured psychologically and physically by a character only identified as “Interrogator.” Interrogator is played by Bruce Gray, who’s mostly a character actor, and he absolutely shines in this episode. He’s not sadistic in the way Emperor Cartagia was when removing G’kar’s eye. He doesn’t physically maim or maul Sheridan nor does he find glee in the ways they torture him. He’s a simple bureaucrat who’s there to do his job; it’s just that his job is psychologically breaking people so they will turn on their friends and causes.
He’s a very interesting figure in this episode because it’s so easy to see through what he’s doing but it remains utterly effective. Everything Interrogator does is calculated to maximally dole out hope and then crush it, to construct a reality only to shatter it, essentially making it impossible to know what’s real and what’s not. You see Sheridan struggle and fight back and find little victories only to have those victories snatched away by the cruel and indifferent system arranged against him.
The episode asks us to imagine ourselves in Sheridan’s position, though we have the comfort of our couches, and then proceeds to break down our own objections. It’s brutal and engrossing and harrowing, ending on a note of despair rather than positivity. I, however, will be ending this thought on a funny note. One of the major innovations off the screen for B5 was Straczynski’s use of the internet to communicate with fans in real time. This was an exchange from the Lurker’s Guide page about the episode:
“You understand the concepts of breaking down a human psyche.”
(shrugs) Well, sure…I work for Warner Bros.
3. Would You Look at the Time? It’s Time for Supper.
What actually happens in this episode? Well, as I’ve mentioned a couple times, it’s essentially all A-plot, entirely focused on Sheridan’s torture at the hands of EarthGov generally and Interrogator specifically. By stripping away all the usual rhythms of a TV show, Straczynski indicates that the events of this episode require special attention and consideration, though the events are fairly simple to sum up.
Sheridan is denied food and water for days in an empty cell, which eventually contains two chairs and a table. He is then presented with the Interrogator, who asks him a series of questions to gage his cooperability and then demonstrates 1) what happens if Sheridan tries anything funny, 2) what happens when he doesn’t cooperate and 3) that even when the Interrogator tells “the truth,” he’s not always 100% honest. We then spend the rest of the episode riffing on those three items via many different tactics, though none stem from overt physical violence, all in the attempt to break Sheridan down to the point where he will sign and then read a confession naming names of conspirators.
Continued belowI really appreciate this choice – to make the episode all one scene – because this could have easily been done in an episode with a B & C plot and would have functioned in much the same way. It would not have been nearly as good, however – see this episode of Supergirl for an example of what I mean. Taking the whole episode allowed the scenes to really stretch, to evoke the necessary feelings of uncomfortability and the darkly humorous nature of Sheridan’s situation.
Like, the many uninterrupted shots of Interrogator entering the cell, setting up at the table, forgetting something, leaving, coming back, and then continuing to set up without saying anything for another minute? Instantly would have been cut, despite how necessary they are at setting the mood and mentally preparing us for what was about to come. My favorite of those shots has to be the first of them, where the camera lingers on Interrogator eating a corned beef sandwich (on white bread! That’s how you know he’s evil.) It’s a small moment of levity in an otherwise oppressively bleak episode and I think that’s why it couldn’t have been told any other way. The interruptions would have been too much, too distracting, and would undercut the severity of Sheridan’s situation. We’ll get to see the parallel plots later for sure, but not yet.
4. Pizza Time
What is truth? Is it a single thing or is it malleable and transformative? Can truth ever be approached or is it a fool’s errand to even try? Much of “Intersection in Real Time” is ostensibly about these questions but what I think the episode is trying to grapple with is our relationship to truth rather than what “truth” is. Back in “The Illusion of Truth”, we approached this subject with an eye towards objectivity – and now have an understanding of what prompted the confession we saw at the start of the broadcast – but what Interrogator posits here is different from what Dan Randall was arguing, and in a way, is more true.
Truth is not a single thing. We like to think it is but truth can be manipulated and used and we see tons of examples of that in this episode. Interrogator always tells the truth throughout “Intersection in Real Time.” When it’s lunchtime, he eats. Morning is the start of the session. Suppertime means it’s the end of the day; it doesn’t matter if it’s actually 8am, 12pm, or 6pm when any of those things happen. It is not honest but it remains true, and that is what categorizes Interrogator’s entire approach. Well, that and his dishonesty manifesting itself through a lack of presenting the whole truth.
Sheridan, however, sees honesty and the truth as two sides of the same coin. They must go hand in hand or else what is presented as “true” loses all real, rather than theoretical, meaning. The idea that lunchtime occurs minutes after a declaration of Good Morning, with the implication that it is indeed morning and not midday, is odious not because it cannot be made to be true but instead because it is dishonest and, most importantly, predicated on a withholding of information, thus denying it wholeness.
“Intersection in Real Time” does an excellent job of challenging why we react with such visceral negativity to the idea that what we see as true is not always accurate without disputing the necessity of truth. A singular truth is, like many things, a fiction we tell ourselves to keep the world turning, like money or the comfortability of jorts, but that doesn’t make it useless to agree on what is true. This is true more now than it was in 1997. Ironic, isn’t it?
5. Good Morning
The episode ends with Sheridan being carted away to what he thinks will be his death, only to find himself in a second room, identical to the first, with the Drazi he thought was dead actually having been a plant. He realizes the extent to which he has and will continue to be manipulated – Interrogator only said HE told only the truth, after all – and then the episode fades to black. It’s a powerful ending to a powerful episode and one that, were we to have been watching it in real time, would have provided a very long break.
Continued belowBecause PTEN had a very weird schedule, this episode ended up preceding the summer break, in the same way that “War Without End, Part 2” did. For contemporary viewers, that must have been maddening but for JMS, it was a godsend because, apparently, this was supposed to be the finale to season four. According to the aforementioned Lurker’s Guide, Straczynski, had he been absolutely certain there would be a season five, would have ended the season with this episode.
This actually helps clarify my feelings on the rest of the season because it provides a point of reference. Had he not had to change his plans in order to give viewers a satisfying ending in the event of cancelation – can you IMAGINE if this was the series finale? – the events of the season would’ve only been pulled forward four episodes.
The structure of the season may have looked very different in the way plots overlapped or were parceled out but the broad strokes would have remained mostly the same. We would have been building to Sheridan being captured, the Shadow war having ended a while ago, and the war with Earth in full swing. I’m also riding high in knowing that the Bester reveal for Garibaldi had the feeling of a penultimate episode reveal because it was supposed to be one. Success!
That about does it for now. Join me again in a week for the other side of this coin, the aftermath of Garibaldi’s newfound knowledge of his actions, and, perhaps, a confession on the station where everything changed in the year of destruction and rebirth.
This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Line of the Night:
Sheridan: “I was thinking about what you said. The preeminent truth of our age…is that you cannot fight the system. But if, as you say, the truth is fluid…that the truth is subjective…then maybe you can fight the system. As long as just one person refuses to be broken…refuses to bow down.”
Interrogator: “But can you win?”
Sheridan: “Every time I say no.”
