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Babylon 5 2x07 "Soul Mates"
I rewatched this one tonight, mostly for the Timov of it all, but also ...
I had forgotten this was the episode in which Delenn makes her speech about reincarnation and souls finding each other again. It's just such a random throwaway episode for a moment like that, and it's in the context of Delenn at Londo's Ascension day party (whatever that is, we still don't know), talking to Garibaldi about his love life, of all things.
Delenn: We Minbari believe, as do some humans, that souls travel together. Some groups of souls are drawn, one to the other in life, to relive good relationships from the past. And if possible, to make right the bad ones.
Garibaldi: You're saying that these other people and I run into each other, lifetime after lifetime, because our souls have some kind of cosmic sewing circle going on?
Immediate cut to this:
.... quite possibly one of the only times in the entire show so far that the whole cast is in one place and more-or-less happy. (Ivanova's there; she's behind Lennier.) I think possibly the only other time in the whole series up to this point that we saw them all together like this was in the various religious festival scenes in "Parliament of Dreams" back in early season one - and it'll also be the last time for at least a couple of seasons, considering that the Narn-Centauri war starts in a couple of episodes.
Other random observations from the episode: I noticed there was a female musician playing with the Centauri band in the background at Londo's party. It's not like we don't know that "entertainer" seems to be one of the few occupations open to female Centauri, but it is unusual to see a mixed group of female and male Centauri doing the same job.
Also, this episode highlights one of the things I love about the Centauri worldbuilding in the show, which is that in spite of Centauri women having next to no official power in their culture, and no female Centauri characters who recur in more than an episode or two, the show repeatedly shows us Centauri women who are tough and determined and resourceful, and deals with the various ways in which women in such a society seek power, and the methods they use to achieve that. As Dragear says in this episode about her own behavior (paraphrasing from memory), "I am what my father, and Londo, and my society made me." Which seems to be part of what prompts Timov to make the choice she does to save Londo's life; as she says to Franklin, even 20 years married to Londo can't strip out every shred of her ethics, and neither can her society.
We see in this episode three different women with three different ways of handling their own relative powerlessness about their own choices: Dragear plays up to her husband, Mariel tries to better herself and get back at her unloved husband at the same time via cheating and murder, and Timov refuses to play the game at all and tries to be a person she can respect. Their society says that women are there to be ornaments; but the show itself makes it clear that this is cultural, not biological -- they are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diverse in personality and ethics as people anywhere.
(I also find it interesting that divorce apparently is not a thing that even male Centauri can choose for themselves, at least among the nobility; it takes an imperial act.)
I had forgotten this was the episode in which Delenn makes her speech about reincarnation and souls finding each other again. It's just such a random throwaway episode for a moment like that, and it's in the context of Delenn at Londo's Ascension day party (whatever that is, we still don't know), talking to Garibaldi about his love life, of all things.
Delenn: We Minbari believe, as do some humans, that souls travel together. Some groups of souls are drawn, one to the other in life, to relive good relationships from the past. And if possible, to make right the bad ones.
Garibaldi: You're saying that these other people and I run into each other, lifetime after lifetime, because our souls have some kind of cosmic sewing circle going on?
Immediate cut to this:
.... quite possibly one of the only times in the entire show so far that the whole cast is in one place and more-or-less happy. (Ivanova's there; she's behind Lennier.) I think possibly the only other time in the whole series up to this point that we saw them all together like this was in the various religious festival scenes in "Parliament of Dreams" back in early season one - and it'll also be the last time for at least a couple of seasons, considering that the Narn-Centauri war starts in a couple of episodes.
Other random observations from the episode: I noticed there was a female musician playing with the Centauri band in the background at Londo's party. It's not like we don't know that "entertainer" seems to be one of the few occupations open to female Centauri, but it is unusual to see a mixed group of female and male Centauri doing the same job.
Also, this episode highlights one of the things I love about the Centauri worldbuilding in the show, which is that in spite of Centauri women having next to no official power in their culture, and no female Centauri characters who recur in more than an episode or two, the show repeatedly shows us Centauri women who are tough and determined and resourceful, and deals with the various ways in which women in such a society seek power, and the methods they use to achieve that. As Dragear says in this episode about her own behavior (paraphrasing from memory), "I am what my father, and Londo, and my society made me." Which seems to be part of what prompts Timov to make the choice she does to save Londo's life; as she says to Franklin, even 20 years married to Londo can't strip out every shred of her ethics, and neither can her society.
We see in this episode three different women with three different ways of handling their own relative powerlessness about their own choices: Dragear plays up to her husband, Mariel tries to better herself and get back at her unloved husband at the same time via cheating and murder, and Timov refuses to play the game at all and tries to be a person she can respect. Their society says that women are there to be ornaments; but the show itself makes it clear that this is cultural, not biological -- they are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diverse in personality and ethics as people anywhere.
(I also find it interesting that divorce apparently is not a thing that even male Centauri can choose for themselves, at least among the nobility; it takes an imperial act.)