Sheridan considers a career change, Garibaldi ties up some loose ends, and Ivanova & Franklin share a moment of grief for the one they loved. 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. I Loved Him. Oh, God. I Loved Him.
I’m of two minds with regards to the aftermath of Marcus’ death. On the one hand, I was left absolutely devastated by the scene of Ivanova and Franklin lamenting Marcus’ boneheaded choice. They curse his cruelty and his kindness in equal parts, with Claudia Christain turning in what is, for my money, her strongest performance of the show. Gut-wrenching. On the other hand, it feels weird to have Ivanova confessing her potential love for Marcus just two weeks after I read her rejecting Marcus’ romantic feelings. On the other, other hand, she kinda addresses this point.
Ivanova has been very guarded romantically for her entire time on the show. She has loved, yes, but before she could really open herself up, the one she loved was plucked cruelly from her life. This caused her to close off even more with Marcus and not take the risk with him. Meta-textually, this was because of a desire of Talia’s actress to leave the show and because WB in the 90s couldn’t show Ivanova in a relationship with a woman, let alone having the lesbian-word said aloud, though with this development it seems that Ivanova is bisexual. Textually-textually, it’s because she was afraid to open up again after being hurt by her previous lovers (Talia, though never mentioned by name.)
The cynic in me says this change was not done because of a desire to have bi representation but because the network wouldn’t let JMS have a canonically textual rather than subtextual lesiban relationship; considering Marcus’ situation though, maybe not having another 90s tragic lesiban death, even one made in romantic self-sacrifice, is a good thing. I am also convinced now that Franklin did, in fact, love Marcus as well and that’s why they shared that look after Ivanova had that amazingly heartbreaking line about all love being unrequited.
Whether that love was romantic or platonic is irrelevant. Franklin loved him and now he’s gone. Ivanova loved him and now he’s gone. We loved him and now, he lives on only in memories and reruns. Godspeed Marcus Cole. Godspeed.
2. Actions & Consequences
I had more to say about Marcus’ death but with this being the second to last episode, and the Ivanova/Franklin conversation only taking up about 5 minutes of the whole thing, I figured I should move on before I fill the entire article up with lamentations. Instead, let’s talk about Sheridan. He turned himself into custody for breaking his oath to Earth Force and taking up arms against his government. It’s a fascinating but unsurprising development, knowing what we know about Sheridan and about this show.
For Sheridan, it doesn’t matter whether or not his actions were justified, he broke his oath and thus, once the reason he broke his oath was resolved – the removal of Clark and his loyalists – he turned himself over to judgement by a fair tribunal/court. It was up to them to decide if what he did was justified and what punishment, if any, should be levied against him; his moral code wouldn’t have allowed it any other way.
Because of the thorny situation he puts Earth Gov in, they basically offer him an ultimatum: resign from Earth Force, reinforcing this as a personal, moral choice, and we’ll honor you as a hero AND pardon your entire crew or don’t and we’ll court-marshal everyone, dishonorably discharge you, and stack the tribunal with those who want to see Sheridan dead for his actions. He takes the deal, after being understandably incredulous that he’s being given an ultimatum rather than a pardon but probably relieved the choice is his to some extent since so many hate him for what he did, even if they hated Clark more.
What I love about all this is how the audience has no idea that Sheridan has a new job lined up later with the New Alliance, even if you can kinda figure it out, so the ending is a big turn around.
Continued belowIt’s a good place to leave Sheridan at what was originally thought to be the last regular episode of the series as well as in the penultimate episode of a very packed season. His actions demonstrate why Sheridan is an excellent leader, and also how skilled he is at diplomacy and politics after so much time on the station. I mean, if he hadn’t made the whole thing seem credulous, there never would have been a full pardon in writing nor would he have been able to secure a true, free Mars.
3. Our Bester Boy
I tend to save entire thoughts for Bester when he appears in an episode because, well, he’s just so good. Of course, he’s cruel and conniving and smug about it all without ever falling into cartoonish villainy so “good” is the wrong adjective to describe Bester. Walter Koenig AS Bester is good though because I could honestly watch scene after scene after scene with him in it. It doesn’t matter that his entire presence in this episode is about as long as the Franklin & Ivanova scene, he steals the show and kills it!
I think I gush about Koenig every time Bester comes back so I want to also gush about how damn successful JMS is at making Bester feel human. We’ve seen a lot of Bester as a power broker and manipulator but until we learned about Cynthia, it seemed like he was just an all around crappy dude. He still is, and his actions reflect his twisted view of the universe, however, they show us a piece of Bester that is willing to go against his usual MO and tank everything else for her safety.
Even though I think this aspect of him ended up suffering from a lack of follow-up thanks to the faster pace of the season, JMS’ scripts and Koenig’s acting kept it fresh and feeling real. Bester isn’t some perfect antagonist and that makes him all the more compelling.
4. Tie Up Those Loose Ends!
Yeah, so Garibaldi’s hunt for Lise is definitely one of the weakest aspects of this whole episode and smacks the most of “oh shit we’re getting cancelled oh shit oh shit WRAP IT UP HAPPILY PEOPLE.” You can’t look at his three scene search and then one scene post-coitus, all of which took up maybe 5 minutes of the show’s run-time, cumulatively, and not say this was only added because they couldn’t leave the thread hanging.
It was fine, I guess. I dunno. It’s the one choice in the episode, and the season really, that feels entirely out of place with this as the penultimate episode to a fourth season of a five season show AND the penultimate episode of the series, as was assumed at the time. All the other decisions, even if I can see where compromises were made, feel mostly satisfying and can be easily followed up on in a short and long capacity. Garibaldi getting back with Lise just feels too happily ever after. Leaving it up in the air and making mention of it in the finale/allowing it to stretch across a couple episodes in the fifth season would have felt more appropriate.
It’s a minor gripe to be sure but one which stuck in my mind throughout the episode so I couldn’t NOT grouse about it.
5. What Do You Mean We Have Another Episode Left?
This really felt like a season/series finale episode, didn’t it? It wrapped up all the lingering plot threads, left the door open enough for potential developments that could be explored in sequel series, in comics, in novels, or in the imaginations of its fans, and even ended on narration about what was to come. Those kinds of teases don’t feel like episode 21 of a 22 episode season material to me, and they aren’t. I’ve been talking about this all season but Babylon 5 was all but cancelled at this point in filming due to the impending shutdown of PTEN and a lack of a firm “yes” for a s5 from any network yet.
This meant that the season four finale was filmed as a series finale, thus forcing “Rising Star” to act as a capstone on season 4’s big plots in order to allow episode 22 to act as an epilogue, allowing the season 5 questions and plots to be briefly wrapped up and explored. It’s messy but if watching JMS and the Wachowski Sisters’ Sense8 has taught me anything, it’s that I’d rather get a messy finale than no finale at all.
Continued below
Eventually, TNT would pick the season up and we would get a full fifth season so they had to rush back to film what we will be watching next week – “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars” – and push the finale-finale to the end of season 5. Why do I bring all this up here instead of next week? Well, it’s because this context is necessary to understand two things: “Rising Star” is Claudia Christian’s final appearance until the s5 finale and, had JMS known that Claudia would not be in s5, Marcus Cole would not have died.
It’s debated why Claudia Christian left the show. She says it was because TNT refused to allow her to film fewer episodes in season 5 while JMS said contemporaneously that she simply left the show of her own choice when the renewal came in. I dunno which is true but one does not contradict the other, and knowing the meddling TNT had with Crusade, I would not be surprised to find out Christian’s account was accurate and JMS was simply not told.
As for Marcus, according to this thread referencing the DVD commentary, Marcus’ death would have spurred a change in Ivanova’s approach to relationships, forming the backbone of her plots during the final season. With Ivanova gone from the show entirely, Marcus’ death remains impactful but there are now two holes where once there was one, and Franklin cannot fill the role Ivanova was supposed to.
Franklin was not saved by Marcus, not directly affected by his death. It just wouldn’t be the same. Without Ivanova there, it’s like the show has lost Marcus twice. It’s easy to lament this with hindsight but there really was nothing that could have been done. Not only did he not know Claudia would be leaving in S5, he didn’t know there would even BE a S5, and so all the decisions made here reflect this…and I kind of love it.
Babylon 5 wears its production woes on its sleeve. It’s easy to tease out where something changed suddenly and everyone had to get creative. It’s clear where knowledge was uncertain and the show had to make a choice. It’s messy and weird and sometimes it falls flat on its face but more often than not, it’s brilliant. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
That about does it for now. Join me again in a week for an unexpected finale, a look into what comes next, and perhaps the return of the Drakh on the station where everything changed in the year of destruction and rebirth.
This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Line of the Night:
President Luchenko: “Half of Earthforce wants to give you a kiss on the cheek and the medal of honor. The other half wants you taken out and shot. As a politician, you learn how to compromise, which by all rights means I should give you the medal of honor…then have you shot.”
