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B5 4x07-09
After the tension and delight of the previous few episodes, this part feels fairly draggy. (Also: not nearly enough of my faves! No Vir at all!)
Some observations:
• I loved G'Kar and Garibaldi's reunion. G'Kar hugged him!! And Garibaldi apologizing for indirectly getting him captured and tortured. That was just a neat scene.
• Everything else about Garibaldi's storyline I'm kind of meh about. I can tell there's brainwashing going on, but it's just taking foreveeeeer to get anywhere on that. I also feel bad about the way that (other than Zack) no one really seems to care that much about what's happening to him, or that he's gone. Like! He was one of the core command crew, and they were all friends, but I'm not getting so much of a friend vibe from them in general this season. Aside from Sheridan and Ivanova, we rarely even see them hanging out together like they did in past seasons.
• Delenn is a descendant of Sinclair! I figured it out partway through the episode, but that's such a great reveal. And it's one of those twists that, as big as it is, doesn't feel like an ass-pull at all, but rather, explains why she was the one who was able to use the machine to make her partly human: it's activating latent human DNA. (Although the thing with Sinclair having originally used the machine to make himself Minbari now feels even more circular than before: Delenn was able to use it successfully because, unknown to her, she was a little bit human, but the reason why she was a little bit human was because Sinclair had already used it on himself ...)
• Unsure how I feel about Delenn having been *that* involved in the beginnings of the Earth-Minbari conflict, but Delenn screaming "Kill them all!" was such a moving scene, and so jarring. It's fascinating to me, now that we know this about her, that she and Londo have that in common: they both were instrumental in starting a genocidal war, and while Londo sort of stumbled into it while trying to accomplish other things, Delenn actively wanted to wipe out the humans (at first). This also puts an interesting new twist on Delenn actively rejecting Londo's friendly overtures during the period when the Narn-Centauri war was kicking off - not just condemnation of his actions, but suppressed guilt about her own, perhaps?
(I hope this will be touched on in some future episode, but at this point I'm not really sure what peripheral relationships the show considers worth exploring; so many of them have been dropped. Here's hoping, though! Please do not tell me if it does happen; I enjoy being surprised for that kind of thing. And there's always fanfic if not.)
• Speaking of Londo, the whole dynamic with having him back on the station, where everyone now hates him, is an interesting time, although we don't see much of it. But it's pretty clear that he's burned his bridges badly here. Not to mention with G'Kar, if there even was a bridge to burn. "You no longer exist in my universe. Pray I do not notice you." That's going to make living on B5 a relaxing situation, I'm sure.
• Bester! And his psychic jockeying with Lyta is so interesting - it's fascinating to find out all of the details of their mutual thwarting: she destroyed Z'ha'dum before he could potentially get the technology to save his girlfriend, but he was lying to the B5 crew about why he was there from the get-go and planning to betray them, so it's kind of a zero sum game, morality-wise. (And I wonder what he meant about having set something in motion to hurt them. My first thought was that the still unknown people who brainwashed Garibaldi are Psi Corps, so we'll see about that!)
• I enjoyed parts of the ISN newscast episode but on the whole found that episode a bit draggy. The propaganda elements and recutting all the interviews to make them look bad was interesting to see; I think I would've liked to see more of the characters' reactions than getting the whole news broadcast uncut, though I do like that the show plays with the TV medium like that now and then (including cutting away to actual commercials when the fictional broadcast cuts for future commercials, I assume).
• I do really enjoy all the little bits and pieces of B5 life that we see now and then: Ivanova reeling out of the wild Drazi party, G'Kar getting medical care and a prosthetic eye, the random Elvis convention!
• Marcus and Franklin arguing in the cargo hold of the freighter on the way to Mars was a fun scene. That being said, I'm not hugely looking forward to the storyline with them on Mars, which looks like it might be a plot push for the next little while. I want more B5, not having everyone split up in other storylines, woe.
ETA: WAIT I FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT. So I'd been assuming all along that the neck parasites are something related to the Shadows, but clearly they are something else entirely! I see we have unlocked a new chapter of The Space Horrors.
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On the other hand, if you watched "Epiphanies," you got to see my all-series favorite minor character be happy for about twelve hours before getting completely screwed by the ongoing consequences of Centauri Prime!
Speaking of Londo, the whole dynamic with having him back on the station, where everyone now hates him, is an interesting time, although we don't see much of it. But it's pretty clear that he's burned his bridges badly here.
The thing where G'Kar not only gives him the cut direct, but blanks him from his universe, and Londo has visibly made himself not dodge the confrontation.
Bester! And his psychic jockeying with Lyta is so interesting - it's fascinating to find out all of the details of their mutual thwarting: she destroyed Z'ha'dum before he could potentially get the technology to save his girlfriend, but he was lying to the B5 crew about why he was there from the get-go and planning to betray them, so it's kind of a zero sum game, morality-wise.
The way even frozen, Carolyn seems to call out of Bester the most humanity he knows how to feel, which still comes all tangled up with long-range manipulation and ethics at the bottom of the barrel, but there's no one else he acknowledges regret, humiliation, loneliness to. There's no one else he misses. I love how that one real thread winds through everything else and the show never tries to run the numbers on what it balances out, if it even does: it's just a fact and so is his illegally trying to scan everyone until Lyta snaps his head back where it belongs.
the random Elvis convention!
I completely forgot about the Elvis convention.
ETA: WAIT I FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT. So I'd been assuming all along that the neck parasites are something related to the Shadows, but clearly they are something else entirely! I see we have unlocked a new chapter of The Space Horrors.
The visual of the eye opening suddenly in the grey ingrown skin remains a flash of pure AAAGH to this day.
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And following directly from Londo killing the Shadows, I presume. Which in turn followed on from Cartagia's alliance with them, which followed from Londo's alliance ... it's just bad decisions all the way down!
The thing where G'Kar not only gives him the cut direct, but blanks him from his universe, and Londo has visibly made himself not dodge the confrontation.
Yes! I love how you see Londo start to turn away, and then go to face him - it's a nice moment for him, for both of them. And also, as usual, there was so much extenuating circumstance to their teaming up that it's once again pushed them deeper into their camps as enemies instead of bringing them closer together. (There's something that is just typical about Londo's life that he actually did probably more than any Centauri ever has for the Narns before - he literally freed them and made himself persona non grata on his homeworld by doing so! - but under circumstances which mean that they still hate him, and validly so.)
Carolyn seems to call out of Bester the most humanity he knows how to feel, which still comes all tangled up with long-range manipulation and ethics at the bottom of the barrel, but there's no one else he acknowledges regret, humiliation, loneliness to. There's no one else he misses. I love how that one real thread winds through everything else and the show never tries to run the numbers on what it balances out, if it even does: it's just a fact and so is his illegally trying to scan everyone until Lyta snaps his head back where it belongs.
Yeah, it's a bit unusual - fictionally speaking - that loving her brings out his humanity, the soft side of him that no one else sees ... and yet has not managed to make him a better person in any way. She's simply an exception.
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I really admire the show's willingness to follow the fallout from the bad decision tree. Emotionally, I can object to the results! But narratively, I really like that it doesn't stop with the triumph of the Shadow War, there are all sorts of loose ends and aftershocks and unforeseen ramifications as in the wars of our history and it runs with them.
(There's something that is just typical about Londo's life that he actually did probably more than any Centauri ever has for the Narns before - he literally freed them and made himself persona non grata on his homeworld by doing so! - but under circumstances which mean that they still hate him, and validly so.)
It is incredibly Londo. It's not even back-handed. Irony got left at the post years ago. Just, my dude, I don't even know what kind of moral position you're in right now, but I think it involves violation of the laws of the space-time continuum.
Yeah, it's a bit unusual - fictionally speaking - that loving her brings out his humanity, the soft side of him that no one else sees ... and yet has not managed to make him a better person in any way. She's simply an exception.
Similar to the fallout, I still find it unusual of the show to be willing to present such mixed characters to the audience with so little direction of how to feel about them. It's part of what makes them feel real for me: most of the main cast/recurring characters do not reduce easily to any kind of thumbnail sketch and will furnish a short essay if you try, or at least if I do.
[edit] Marcus and Franklin arguing in the cargo hold of the freighter on the way to Mars was a fun scene.
Just because I forgot to comment on an element of this episode that is stupid and I love it: how clearly the credits music is an outtake of Jason Carter doing as much of the Major-General's Song as he can remember (ably yes-anded by Richard Biggs) before the director pulls the plug on him, which is absolutely not the sort of thing the show normally did even when it used the end credits for purposes of reprise, but it was probably worth it because whatever else I can't remember about Marcus and Franklin on Mars, I can remember this incredibly dumb gag.
[edit edit] I genuinely like Marcus as a character, his combination of chivalry, relentless snark, and emotional idiocy, and he is so much more obviously from the Tolkien substrate of the show than the sfnal side of things, I am not always confident that it knew what to do with him in a space opera.
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Truly amazing. Orion remarked when we were watching it that you'd think he'd get *some* credit from literally anyone for having saved the Narns, which is a reasonable point, but it's also true that he spent two seasons actively and openly aiding and abetting genocide in front of everyone he knew, so there's that too.
LONDO WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS
It's also a fascinating dynamic that G'Kar, who was a pariah in season one, has spent the last two seasons doing more or less the opposite - building bridges to the other people on the station. Now their positions are effectively reversed and Londo has no one but himself to blame.
I still find it unusual of the show to be willing to present such mixed characters to the audience with so little direction of how to feel about them. It's part of what makes them feel real for me: most of the main cast/recurring characters do not reduce easily to any kind of thumbnail sketch and will furnish a short essay if you try, or at least if I do.
Yeah, I think the show standing back and letting you make up your own mind about very complicated characters and moral quandaries is one of the things I like best about it. It doesn't handhold its audience. Even the characters whose heroic qualities are relatively uncomplicated were involved in a brutal war, with all that goes along with that. (I saw a post on Tumblr that described the show as "put four different types of war criminal in a room together and expect them to invent galactic peace" - accurate.)
The show manages to make clear and unambiguous big-picture points about war, forgiveness, lasting peace, etc, while not being didactic at all about its characters, and I think that's what makes it not feel unpleasantly didactic in spite of being very clear about its themes. It's morally clear but not morally simplistic. I like that.
I genuinely like Marcus as a character, his combination of chivalry, relentless snark, and emotional idiocy, and he is so much more obviously from the Tolkien substrate of the show than the sfnal side of things, I am not always confident that it knew what to do with him in a space opera.
I continue to have mixed feelings on Marcus, and the person who said in an earlier post comment that he feels like he's from a different show entirely is a big part of that. I also feel like the nature of the show is such that a character like Marcus doesn't really get a chance to shine very often, because the show tends to lean into things that aren't Marcus's things (diplomatic wrangling, military chain of command, characters wrestling with moral dilemmas that are relatively simple for him, that kind of thing). That being said, I've come around to enjoying watching him on screen!
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Oh, I like that! XD
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It's so true! (Link?) I really appreciate it's one of the things the show does not forget about Sheridan, who otherwise runs the risk of being kind of a boy scout. He doesn't stop thinking like the man who blew up the Black Star.
It's morally clear but not morally simplistic. I like that.
That's a concise way of putting it: co-signed.
I also feel like the nature of the show is such that a character like Marcus doesn't really get a chance to shine very often, because the show tends to lean into things that aren't Marcus's things (diplomatic wrangling, military chain of command, characters wrestling with moral dilemmas that are relatively simple for him, that kind of thing).
That makes sense. I am glad you are enjoying him, though!
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One, this set of episodes marks a shift of gears between major arcs of the series and I am willing to bet there just wasn't enough time to do it as gracefully as however it was originally planned. Two, if the show is going to be all A-plot all the time, then it has to be as strong as something like the first six episodes of this season, which are so tightly interlocked as to pass for the current model of prestige TV but also firing on all cylinders across the different fronts of the Shadow War, and if it hits any kind of rough patch while in this mode, then I think it actually matters that the show is missing the casual density of its protagonists' lives, because their not necessarily foregrounded through-lines were one of the factors that made earlier seasons of the show feel always something doing.
[edit] What both of those opinions boil down to is that while I do not know the details of the original structure of the fourth season—it is undoubtedly out there on the internet—after concluding the apparent bulk of the show's metaplot, it would have made sense to take a couple of episodes of downtime, setting up the next moves while otherwise just kind of allowing the characters along with the audience to breathe and acclimate to the new reality, and while there is a certain amount of narrative force and perhaps even realism in no one getting a chance to catch their breath, it does feel like a slackening because you can't just keep a narrative at breathlessness pitch indefinitely; it loses its impact.
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Yeah, true! And the first six episodes were *so* good, I think an absolute high-water point for the show so far; I do think the resolution to the Shadow-Vorlon war might have felt a bit rushed to me, but the Narn-Centauri arc was basically perfect television, and the overall plotting was incredibly tight while also giving the individual characters plenty of space. As you say elsecomment, you can't maintain that pace forever without viewers collapsing from strain. (Which is why so many modern shows fall down a little on pacing; they never get to do anything except go at a high pace all the time to push a full arc into 6 or 8 episodes or whatever, and watching several of those back to back is a lot.) The show could've used a few quiet plot-of-the-week episodes on the station afterwards, and I would have loved to have seen that, now that I'm thinking about it, all the characters adjusting to their new normal at a more leisurely pace. But you're right that given the necessity of rushing into the next arc as soon as possible, but also the necessity of providing a little bit of a gap between two high-tension arcs, they're doing the best they can.
(Would still rather have had an episode solely focused on the B5 characters and general station life than the TV crew/propaganda episode that we got, though. That feels like a missed opportunity.)
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And I don't think it would have been disappointing! It's almost built in: even Londo gets one night without the rest of his life catching up to him, the rest of the cast aboard Babylon 5 can take a few days to clear their heads. I like "Epiphanies" as a coda to the intensity of the season so far, but then the show needs a little time for its stingers to sink in. "The Illusion of Truth" is the kind of experiment with format that belongs to the looser show structure we were talking about in Season 3 and could have been afforded in a fourth season that wasn't accordioned into itself, but I agree that under current constraints the novelty of the shifted perspective does feel like it's taking up too much time for its information delivered—it fleshes out the ways in which Earth has gone full fascist, but we did know that had happened and should have been taking the propaganda as read since the Ministry of Peace dropped by back in Season 2. "Atonement" is probably the closest in this set to an episode-of-the-week, except that it reconfigures so much of what the audience understands about Delenn, it's too load-bearing. So it's not just that the season catapults forward, it does it in a particularly unwieldy way, which was almost certainly the best that could be done, but I'm still going to complain about it.
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Yeah I didn't actually remember him from later seasons and that's partly because his storyline seems so disconnected from everyone else right now (imho at least)
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I really love how G’Kar comes into his own and rebuilds relationships. I will forever be a huge fan of his.
Vir, however, was always my fav
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I hated that! And especially since in earlier seasons he was always the character who reached out and made connections. Having him not get that now (even if there is something else going on, as there pretty clearly is) feels like such a betrayal.
G'Kar and Vir are my two other top faves now in addition to Londo, and they weren't faves at all in the beginning, but they've grown on me so much. Vir in particular just slammed into my id in the first few episodes of season four. I think he might be my actual favorite character at the moment, which is really surprising to me, because he's not at all the type I normally go for!
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A big part of why I like this segment less is what is happening with Garibaldi and, as you say, that the others don't seem to care/have time to reflect on it.
• I do really enjoy all the little bits and pieces of B5 life that we see now and then: Ivanova reeling out of the wild Drazi party, G'Kar getting medical care and a prosthetic eye, the random Elvis convention!
These were the highlights for me as well on rewatch, as well as the Londo / G'Kar encounter.
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After I'm done with all of this and no longer avoiding spoilers, I am going to have to look up what is known online about the overall plan sans network meddling. I'm still impressed at how seamlessly they wrote out Sinclair in a way that made it look like the plan all along, and I would like to know what they would have done with a hypothetical season four/five in which they could call the shots.
These were the highlights for me as well on rewatch, as well as the Londo / G'Kar encounter.
I deeply loved the Londo & G'Kar scene! Including the fact that Londo clearly pushes himself to face him when he could have avoided it.
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I love Marcus and Franklin together, even though I also didn't want them separated from the others. I can't remember exactly what they said in that scene, but all these years later, I still remember enjoying it!
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