Sheridan has to do some soul searching, G’Kar is on a quest to rescue his friend, and Delenn wrestles with grief and a crumbling alliance. 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’m on the Hunt, I’m After You
While most of the crew is still concerned with what happened to Sheridan, be it in the hopes that he is alive by some miracle OR by keeping his sacrifice in mind for future action, G’Kar is on the prowl for Garibaldi. This hunt has taken him to some random bar on some random planet where he threatens some junker over a piece of Garibaldi’s Starfury and then gets into a bar fight with the Centauri guard. He is subsequently bailed out by our good friend Marcus and the two have a lovely conversation about G’Kar’s single-minded, single handed quest. I love every bit of this. JMS’s writing during their exchanges in Marcus’ cave home is about as pitch perfect a conversation as you can get on TV. It’s meaningful, it’s funny, it’s economical but full of life, it’s just an all around amazing bit of television.
The lead up to it is less strong, only because it took me until, like, halfway through the episode to realize G’Kar was no longer even on B5. It wasn’t until there was a thunderstorm that I even considered it. It’s a function of the sets that were used and I must’ve looked away when there was an establishing shot, chyron, or line. It’s a crazy coincidence that Marcus & G’Kar met up on this random planet too, but I’m going to look past that because the substance of the episode was so strong.
I didn’t think I’d like Marcus when he first appeared but now I’m glad he’s here. His relationship with Dr. Franklin last season was a real highlight and if that continues with G’Kar this season, then we’re in for something special. G’Kar may not realize he needs his friends to actually come with him to help, rather than them just being his connection to B5, but I’m sure he will soon…at least once he’s saved from the clutches of Londo.
2. Straddle the Line in Conspiracy and Crime
You remember how I said G’Kar fought some Centauri guards with Marcus? Well in that fight he also fought the bar owner, and that owner was not happy about that. In fact, he was so not happy that he looked through a Centauri guard’s face book to identify him and then sic the guards on him for the reward. At first, he’s safe in Marcus’ cave but eventually he’s found out and captured and then presented to Londo as a gift from the Emperor to do with as he wishes.
This development is excellent and dramatic and made EVEN BETTER by Londo’s reaction. God, that scene in the dungeon kills me. This is what Londo has wanted, twisted as it is, and the journey we’ve taken to get here has transformed our understanding of the moment. Were something like this to have happened in season one, it would have felt more…right is the wrong word but Londo was often portrayed in a more “correct” and positive light then and it was only through getting to know G’Kar, in deepening our understanding of his and his people’s plight, that we could re-evaluate that worldview and reach the point where seeing G’Kar captured and under Londo as the worst thing that could’ve happened. By this point, we want G’Kar to stop Londo. In fact, I suspect Londo wants G’Kar to stop him, much as he would be loath to admit it.
I don’t think Londo wants G’Kar to win, to give up the Centauri supremacist position he holds – the poison of his life lived runs too deep in his veins – but Londo knows he has brought everyone to this point and he feel responsible for Cartagia & the Shadows on Centauri Prime. And so, he helps G’Kar as he can by asking for his help in assassinating the Emperor in exchange for anything. Londo had already made the ultimate bargain, whatever G’Kar could ask for would be a mercy, and he asks for what he has always wanted: freedom for his people.
Continued belowG’Kar is in for a long, painful road ahead and damn if that isn’t compelling.
3. Lorien, You Want Me, Give Me A Sign
“Hour of the Wolf” introduced us to a nameless alien who spoke entirely in frustrating philosophical musings. This week, we, and Sheridan, learn their name and their deal. It’s a hell of a doozy and one I did not see coming. See, Sheridan didn’t actually survive that fall into the heart of Z’Ha’Dum. Yeah! What a twist! Straczynski got me and so I have to retract a few of my comments from last week. I still feel like the episode itself was harmed by the way it played out BUT many of my nitpicky “oh how did he survive” ones are moot.
In fact, this development helps make a lot of the “he survived” stuff far more interesting because, well, he didn’t. Sure, he’s still around and is going to come back but the how has changed, and so has his character. His plot this week was all about taking a spiritual journey into himself to find out, in the words of the previously nameless alien Lorien, “who he is” and why he wants to live. I love a good introspective episode, especially when it confronts an aspect of a character that’s always been there but I’ve never noticed.
Sheridan has always been a bit on autopilot in his life. He rarely did things for himself and was more than willing to jump into danger because he saw his life without an inherent, intrinsic value. That’s not to say he didn’t value his life nor that he was seeking death, just that he did not think twice about going into dangerous situations where he was putting his life on the line. There was no calculation as to what he might lose or what he is fighting for beyond “the good fight.” He’s always been a soldier, as I’ve charted since he first came onto the show, and that motive just isn’t enough to bring him back to life…but his love for Delenn just might be.
4. In Touch With the Ground
In all my excitement to talk about Sheridan, I forgot to mention one teensy detail about Lorien. They’re The First One. Not just one of the First Ones, like the Vorlons or those creatures that say Zog, but the actual First One. That’s FUCKING HUGE! I didn’t even consider that there might be a first one nor that they might be a giant sentient ball of light, kinda like how I imagine the Vorlons to be under their suits.
This revelation opens the door to so many other developments that I cannot think of at the moment but have me stoked. This is why, I suspect, the episode ended with Sheridan fading into darkness rather than on something more conclusive. In fact, the only plot that gets resolved by the end is G’Kar’s, as we never follow up with Marcus or Garibaldi, who’s trapped in a weird Brazil-style torture chamber and only shows up for this one scene, nor Delenn’s push to invade Z’Ha’Dum or Londo’s actual plan for assassination. I’m glad we don’t resolve any, as long and medium sized arcs that develop over the course of a few episodes/the season are always great, and we certainly resolve or disrupt the emotional arcs of the episode; it was just unexpected and not where I thought we’d end.
5. A Scent and a Sound, I’m Lost and I’m Found
Delenn’s depression provides the opportunity to loop Dr. Franklin back into the narrative in a satisfying way while also providing the catalyst for Delenn’s transformation from reluctant co-leader and grieving lover to passionate unifier and leader. Delenn never wanted to be in charge of the Rangers but was handed the responsibility by Sinclair. It has weighed on her ever since and as such, she has not acted upon her power. Moreover, it was Sheridan’s leadership that helped keep the League of Non-Aligned Worlds in the alliance to protect Babylon 5. With that crumbling in his absence, Delenn feels like she’s failing him and herself. This manifests as grief, yes, but also as a depressive spiral which keeps her trapped in her room, unable to eat or do anything.
Continued below
Feeding this is her guilt about denying Sheridan the truth about Anna and that possibly driving him to take this final journey to Z’Ha’Dum. Yes, that was resolved by the end of the s3 finale but grief and self-doubt are not logical in nature. They feed on our insecurities and doubts, and in the absence of the one she loves, that cannot be resolved with a well-meaning conversation about having to eat because she is now only half-Minbari, which was both an excellent conversation and beautifully shot, by the way. I love the touch of keeping Franklin out of focus but in the frame the entire time Delenn speaks and even after. By not doing that, it keeps her and her feelings centered rather than putting Franklin’s concern on equal footing.
Delenn had to resolve to move forward and to take control by herself and in Valen’s name, she does.
That about does it for now. Join me again in a week for the potential rescue of Garibaldi, more alliance building, and G’Kar’s most humiliating moment yet on the station where everything changed in the year of destruction and rebirth.
This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Lines of the Night:
1) Delenn: “I should have trusted him more and loved him less.”
2) Isaac: “It was salvaged. Finders keepers, losers…buys them from finders, ehehehehe.”
