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Stray B5 comments on the Cartagia arc
Randomly rewatching bits and pieces of the series.
Rewatching the Cartagia arc, it is really fascinating to me how you can visibly see Londo's empathy for G'Kar build throughout the sequence of episodes based on how he's interacting with him in the cell. In the first scene he's very clearly staying out of reach of G'Kar's chains; even when he leans over to talk to him, he's doing it from a safe distance. By the end, on Narn, he's entirely in G'Kar's space, easily close enough to touch him, or for G'Kar to hurt or kill him - which G'Kar probably wouldn't do because cooperating with Londo is the key to freeing Narn, but the thing is, I don't think Londo is even thinking of that; there's no risk analysis going on there. He's pretty clearly stopped thinking of G'Kar as an enemy. (Unfortunately for him, quite a while before G'Kar stops thinking of him as an enemy, for obvious reasons.)
In the first scene of their alliance on Centauri Prime, I love his little "hello" when he first steps into the cell, followed by putting his Centauri game face on, but he's clearly really off balance there. It's interestingly similar to when he first enters G'Kar's quarters much later in the season, a very similar vibe though of course the circumstances are completely different.
"I have seen them prolong suffering for days, weeks, months."
When was that, I wonder? He's definitely speaking from experience with things he's either personally seen or heard of when he describes how G'Kar is going to die. And removing Cartagia makes things somewhat better but clearly doesn't change things like, say, Na'Toth being left in the dungeons to die. It makes me wonder about some of the things Londo has seen and heard over the course of his life in and out of the Centauri court.
I just love the interplay between him and G'Kar throughout this arc.
"If I remove the monster from your throne, you will remove the monster from my world."
And also Londo and Vir, and Cartagia in general. This arc really lives and dies on the chemistry and skill of the actors, and they, and the writing, are bringing their A-game so completely.
The scene with Vir and Londo talking to Cartagia in the garden (with his hands gloved in blood) is on Youtube and I think that might be my literal favorite scene from this arc and one of my favorites from the entire show - it's just so bonkers, and the interplay is so great (including the extras; I love the Centauri aide who just apathetically fails to catch Cartagia tossing the bloody cloth at him), and especially Vir's reactions, in which Vir is the one actual normal person in this scene who is having normal emotional reactions to an objectively horrifying conversation.
Youtube also provides the whipping scene that follows it. I love the way this particular iteration of their conversation in the cell is framed, more or less from G'Kar's POV, looking up at Londo and really getting a sense for how monstrous he is being here, even as we also understand his desperation (but good lord, Londo, what a way to talk to a guy who's been tortured for days). The more intimate framing here is an interesting contrast to the framing of their first conversation in the cell, which is mostly looking down at them both, or framed around Londo; in this instance we're getting more of a sense of a wounded, beaten G'Kar looking up at him.
(Also, one thing I kept thinking watching this was how did they ever come back from this, how could they come back from this. No wonder their bond in season five is absolutely unbreakable, if this didn't shatter any hope or possibility of reconciliation.)
And just for completeness's sake, Cartagia's extremely well-deserved death scene.
Still amazed that these two idiots (affectionate) pulled off a successful assassination without getting either themselves or any of their allies killed. Although it was a close thing with G'Kar.
I also think it's interesting in the middle part of the arc - the torture sequences - how clear it is in retrospect that the main thing Londo does that is unforgivable in G'Kar's eyes is convincing him to scream. (I mean, not the only thing, but that actually is the main thing, I think; the way he acts towards Londo really shifts after that.) It's a fascinating contrast with what Londo doesn't forgive himself for, as we see a season later - which is letting it happen at all, and not speaking out against it. But I don't think G'Kar actually sees it that way. Not that there isn't plenty for him to blame Londo for going on here, and he probably does. But as for what G'Kar would have wanted Londo to change about the situation to make it right - if he even could - I don't think what Londo himself would have wanted to change is the same. His dream sequence in 5x02 is definitely Londo's own conscience beating himself up for this, not what G'Kar himself would have said if it wasn't Londo's own mind doing it to him, still crushingly weighed down with guilt over having been a witness to all of this, even a year later.
Rewatching the Cartagia arc, it is really fascinating to me how you can visibly see Londo's empathy for G'Kar build throughout the sequence of episodes based on how he's interacting with him in the cell. In the first scene he's very clearly staying out of reach of G'Kar's chains; even when he leans over to talk to him, he's doing it from a safe distance. By the end, on Narn, he's entirely in G'Kar's space, easily close enough to touch him, or for G'Kar to hurt or kill him - which G'Kar probably wouldn't do because cooperating with Londo is the key to freeing Narn, but the thing is, I don't think Londo is even thinking of that; there's no risk analysis going on there. He's pretty clearly stopped thinking of G'Kar as an enemy. (Unfortunately for him, quite a while before G'Kar stops thinking of him as an enemy, for obvious reasons.)
In the first scene of their alliance on Centauri Prime, I love his little "hello" when he first steps into the cell, followed by putting his Centauri game face on, but he's clearly really off balance there. It's interestingly similar to when he first enters G'Kar's quarters much later in the season, a very similar vibe though of course the circumstances are completely different.
"I have seen them prolong suffering for days, weeks, months."
When was that, I wonder? He's definitely speaking from experience with things he's either personally seen or heard of when he describes how G'Kar is going to die. And removing Cartagia makes things somewhat better but clearly doesn't change things like, say, Na'Toth being left in the dungeons to die. It makes me wonder about some of the things Londo has seen and heard over the course of his life in and out of the Centauri court.
I just love the interplay between him and G'Kar throughout this arc.
"If I remove the monster from your throne, you will remove the monster from my world."
And also Londo and Vir, and Cartagia in general. This arc really lives and dies on the chemistry and skill of the actors, and they, and the writing, are bringing their A-game so completely.
The scene with Vir and Londo talking to Cartagia in the garden (with his hands gloved in blood) is on Youtube and I think that might be my literal favorite scene from this arc and one of my favorites from the entire show - it's just so bonkers, and the interplay is so great (including the extras; I love the Centauri aide who just apathetically fails to catch Cartagia tossing the bloody cloth at him), and especially Vir's reactions, in which Vir is the one actual normal person in this scene who is having normal emotional reactions to an objectively horrifying conversation.
Youtube also provides the whipping scene that follows it. I love the way this particular iteration of their conversation in the cell is framed, more or less from G'Kar's POV, looking up at Londo and really getting a sense for how monstrous he is being here, even as we also understand his desperation (but good lord, Londo, what a way to talk to a guy who's been tortured for days). The more intimate framing here is an interesting contrast to the framing of their first conversation in the cell, which is mostly looking down at them both, or framed around Londo; in this instance we're getting more of a sense of a wounded, beaten G'Kar looking up at him.
(Also, one thing I kept thinking watching this was how did they ever come back from this, how could they come back from this. No wonder their bond in season five is absolutely unbreakable, if this didn't shatter any hope or possibility of reconciliation.)
And just for completeness's sake, Cartagia's extremely well-deserved death scene.
Still amazed that these two idiots (affectionate) pulled off a successful assassination without getting either themselves or any of their allies killed. Although it was a close thing with G'Kar.
I also think it's interesting in the middle part of the arc - the torture sequences - how clear it is in retrospect that the main thing Londo does that is unforgivable in G'Kar's eyes is convincing him to scream. (I mean, not the only thing, but that actually is the main thing, I think; the way he acts towards Londo really shifts after that.) It's a fascinating contrast with what Londo doesn't forgive himself for, as we see a season later - which is letting it happen at all, and not speaking out against it. But I don't think G'Kar actually sees it that way. Not that there isn't plenty for him to blame Londo for going on here, and he probably does. But as for what G'Kar would have wanted Londo to change about the situation to make it right - if he even could - I don't think what Londo himself would have wanted to change is the same. His dream sequence in 5x02 is definitely Londo's own conscience beating himself up for this, not what G'Kar himself would have said if it wasn't Londo's own mind doing it to him, still crushingly weighed down with guilt over having been a witness to all of this, even a year later.
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The implications are horrifying, but it's another one of the details I like because they stress that going to the stars in this future does not automatically confer enlightenment: the Centauri Republic is technologically second only to the Minbari and it's an absolute monarchy with an imperial cult and vivisection as a form of public execution. We've got nukes and electrocute people. Ta-da.
including the extras; I love the Centauri aide who just apathetically fails to catch Cartagia tossing the bloody cloth at him)
I forgot that guy! He really looks like he cannot be asked to care about the nineteenth appalling thing thrown casually in his direction that morning.
and especially Vir's reactions, in which Vir is the one actual normal person in this scene who is having normal emotional reactions to an objectively horrifying conversation.
I love scenes where Vir is the normal person in the room (not to mention often the person who is holding the brain cell, or at least the brain cell with ethics) because especially by Centauri standards Vir is not all that normal, it's just that everyone else in the room is . . . farther out.
And just for completeness's sake, Cartagia's extremely well-deserved death scene.
I have never seen Wortham Krimmer in any other role and he's so spectacular as Cartagia, I kind of can't imagine it.
But as for what G'Kar would have wanted Londo to change about the situation to make it right - if he even could - I don't think what Londo himself would have wanted to change is the same.
I think that's actually true. They took different kinds of damage. What G'Kar requires to heal is textually not what Londo originally knows how to offer.
(That said, the part about the obligation of a witness to speak out does sound like G'Kar to me, because his entire history—the history of anyone who lived through any part of the occupation of Narn—is woven with atrocities that have not been acknowledged outside the community that suffered them and certainly not officially by anyone who inflicted them, R.I.P. Emperor Turhan.)
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Yes! I really enjoy how believably complex and flawed the various alien cultures of the show are - the Centauri who still have monarchs and torture and ruthless court politics, the Narns who are clearly suffering a vast cultural wound and have reacted to it by becoming as destructive in their own way as the people who conquered them, the Minbari whose Vulcan-like serenity turns out to be a thin veneer over ethnic turmoil that erupts as soon as their government is no longer holding them in check.
He really looks like he cannot be asked to care about the nineteenth appalling thing thrown casually in his direction that morning.
Truth.
I have never seen Wortham Krimmer in any other role and he's so spectacular as Cartagia, I kind of can't imagine it.
He is a perfect Cartagia. I looked up some pictures of what he looks like normally, and I cannot get over how completely ordinary (and wrong) he looks without the Centauri hairstyle and Cartagia's overall affect.
They took different kinds of damage. What G'Kar requires to heal is textually not what Londo originally knows how to offer.
Yeah, and I love how they do eventually find their way to healing, in spite of all of that, and in spite of the sheer amount of fumbling that it takes to get there.
(That said, the part about the obligation of a witness to speak out does sound like G'Kar to me, because his entire history—the history of anyone who lived through any part of the occupation of Narn—is woven with atrocities that have not been acknowledged outside the community that suffered them and certainly not officially by anyone who inflicted them, R.I.P. Emperor Turhan.)
Yes, that's a good point, and you're right - the mere recognition and acknowledgement of his people's wounds is something he's very clearly and textually been searching for since season two at least. Would he have wanted it in the moment, in that particular context ... perhaps not. But Londo's apology is clearly very meaningful to him, the sentiment behind it even more so.
(I would love to know if they ever talked about this again.)
And obviously, this is also one of the episodes where the show states one of its themes in plain text. (And Comes the Inquisitor is another one that does the same with a different theme, re: the definition of heroism - I had guessed that even when I watched it on my original run-through, and I'm even more sure of it now.)