Summer may be officially over but B5 keeps on chugging along! This week, Sheridan learns what true fear is, we learn about the existence of a Babylon 5 triangle, and Londo learns a painful lesson about the price of newfound power. Welcome my friends. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5.
Spoilers ahead.
1. What Ships Stall, When Denied the Wind They Crave?
Fun fact: this episode was supposed to originally have come out prior to “In the Shadow of Z’Ha’dum” but ended up airing after. This isn’t much of a problem, as the structure of Babylon 5 takes into account the balance of plot-heavy and episodic adventures and allows for a shift in order. It does mean, however, that the Icarus’ appearance in Sheridan’s visions no longer serves as a primer for the revelations of Morden’s connections to the ship. It does not harm the impact of those revelations but it is not a perfect swap.
By placing this episode after, other fears would be eating away at Sheridan. The explosion of the Icarus, which he was not present for, may not have been the vision he saw, as Ambassador Kosh shared with him a vision of Z’Ha’Dum and the explorer’s excursion there. But, at the same time, it was a new fear, and old traumas often remain, scarred as they are upon the minds of the traumatized. Sheridan would still associate the feelings of loss and pain with the image of the destruction of the Icarus.
It is a minor gripe but those are often the most fun to consider and discuss.
2. Urza the Ousted
While I wasn’t worried that Londo was about to be brutally murdered in front of Vir (Westworld, this is not), I was caught off guard by the strange cloaked figure being a friend of Londo’s. For a second, I thought maybe someone had sent a kidnapper to take Londo and, I dunno, ransom him? But instead! We get Urza, a Centauri friend of Londo’s, one who’s house is tied to House Molari, and who fought alongside Londo in a bygone war.
Why now? What’s his game? Simple. He’s about to be branded a traitor in the first round of purges by the new regime and wants Londo, as his old and dear friend, to help him get out of it. This is a dynamic we haven’t yet seen from Londo. Since he has gained power and clout, people have sought him out, but they were all for selfish reasons and were strangers. Here, it is a friend who is coming for, an arguably selfish though understandable, reason. Urza is coming for help, from a friend who has the tools and the willingness to assist, not for power or gain.
What I love about this is that it gives Londo the chance to reflect on his power through a different lense, to see how it has hit him personally, and to peak behind the curtain at the machinations he has so far been sheltered from. It also forces him to consider his culpability in Urza’s ousting and through the act of trying to alleviate that, he finds that he has even less solid ground to stand upon than he realized. What happens when you make a den of vipers your home? You must be careful where you step, lest you get bitten by the creatures you have chosen to share a space with.
3. Ghost Host
But not all is doom and gloom on the station. There is also the really fucking weird. Let’s catch up with our good friend Sheridan. What’s he doing this week? Seeing spots, space pterodactyls, his worst fears and greatest losses? Sounds like a jolly old time!
Yup. In the same episode as the Molari drama, we have this rather odd plot about a strange death in the haunted – sorry, “haunted” – sector of B5, the Babylon 5 Triangle. When Sheridan goes to investigate, he is grabbed by this clearly dead body, attacked by a lense flare, gets a bit dizzy and is checked out by Franklin, who’s official diagnosis is that the corpse had gas that let it fully stand up, open its mouth, grab Sheridan and fall back down after having bashed their own head in, causing said death. Yeah, I’m sure there was nothing spooky going on Doc.
Continued belowFrom there, things get weirder and we’re treated to watching Sheridan seemingly losing touch with reality. It’s easy to tell what’s going on, and it’s a pretty standard set-up, but they weave it in pretty well and the “twist” at the end makes it a great character piece rather than a tame psychological horror story. There’s an air of mystery to it all and I’m a sucker for a good possession story that isn’t like every fucking Exorcist rip off or movie in the Paranormal Activity or Conjuring worlds.
4. Well, There’s Your Problem
So, what is going on with Sheridan? Clearly it’s not a ghost because, despite having literal Satan appear earlier in the season and Technomages, the show doesn’t put much stock in the supernatural. The way around this is to bring in time travel bullshit and gaseous forms of life. I’ve said before that there are times this show leans towards Science Fantasy and this could be one of them, but I like the idea of there being a gaseous form of life that got displaced from its dimension thanks to the tachyon horseshit of that sector. It’s a bit belabored but it works.
It also works to remind us that something fishy is afoot with Earth Gov, that Garibaldi trusts no one and keeps copies of files just in case they go “missing,” and that Sheridan is not, in fact, Sinclair and thus has no idea that B4 came back for a bit. As always, this kind of world building is welcomed, allowing for a natural progression of plot points, reminders of key events that will play an important role later on, and gives the show a change to play with changes in the status quo without every action being this huge narrative event.
Franklin’s reactions were priceless and the creature leaving Sheridan’s mouth was the stuff of nightmares — It’s why I picked that moment for the icon, though it is more horrifying in motion.
Thanks SFX team! Won’t be sleeping soundly tonight.
5. 
Remember how Urza wanted Londo’s help with, you know, not being hunted down by the new regime? Turns out he wanted him to stand alongside him fight against the people in power, or at least pledge his house to their side. When Londo turns him down, well, honor demands a fight to the death.
Obviously.
I love the way this whole plotline plays out. It’s political intrigue at its finest in the show, with conniving advisers, intentions hidden behind strange actions, and the rules of honor being used to protect those who might have otherwise run afoul of them. Londo is forced to kill one of the last of his friends, symbolic of how he has thrown away all he used to be and believe in for his new, powerful, rotten friends. Urza sacrificed himself so his family may live. Londo sacrificed his soul so his empire might grow, fed on the blood of his opponents and former friends.
He sees all this and weeps for his loss, for what his friend was forced to do. Yet he doesn’t turn back, even at the insistence and pleadings of Vir, which is where the episode chooses to end. Not on the hopeful or weird Sheridan plot, but on Londo resigning himself to the role he helped forge and cast.
And that is the greatest tragedy of the whole episode.
That about does it for now. Join me again in a week for another Doctor Franklin dilemma, Markavs, and a virus on the station that wraps humans and aliens in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal . . . all alone in the night.
This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Line of the Night:
Vir: “You know, on rare occasions, I am proud to be your attaché.”
