A Tragedy of Telepaths

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin, and I am the one who was,

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I am the one who will be.

Jeff: we're watching Babylon 5 for the very first time. For you. The one who is,

Brent: We are two veterans, star Trek podcasters who have decided to watch this show 30 years too late. But we're applying those skills that we have gained as Star Trek podcasters, that analytical lens, we're applying that right here to Babylon five to see what messages Babylon five is trying to deliver in its own unique way.

Jeff, it occurs to me,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: when we first started this podcast, we would say that a little bit different. We're looking for the Star Trek like messages within Babylon five. This is actually what we've been doing the entire time. We've always been looking for the messages that Babylon five is trying to tell in its own unique way, but we just didn't have words for that way back when.

Like this is honestly what we, we've never tried to look for the Star Trek message, so we said Star Trek like message we. Anyway, it took us five seasons to get to this, but we got there eventually.

Jeff: at the end when we talk about it, we're saying the exact same things. Right. A merit to society, hope that we can do better, that all those things. So yeah, it's, we, we arrived, you know, we, we earned, we learned the vocabulary. It took us four seasons, but here we are

Brent: Because you know why

Jeff: Why is that

Brent: this is not a Star Trek podcast?

Jeff: at all?

Brent: It's a Babylon five podcast.

Jeff: It is. Well, we're looking for Babylon five messages, but because this is not a Star Trek podcast, Brent. We gotta watch our mouths. We gotta keep those references from slipping out because we are Star Trek podcasters. Lot of hours behind the mic talking about Star Trek. So we play a game called The Rule of Three.

That game limits us to a maximum not to exceed. Amount of three references to Star Trek in total for this entire episode. That's it. Three one of those plate, no substitutions, exchanges or refund.

Brent: And if we happen to make one of those references, Jeff,

Jeff: You're gonna hear this.

Brent: yeah. Because while this is most definitely not a Star Trek podcast, it's probable that those references are gonna slip in from time to time. Now, with that, we like that game. We like another game where we get to the end of the show and we predict what next week's episode is gonna be about. We'll do it in this week's, uh, we'll do it in this week's episode as well, where we'll predict next week.

Spoiler alert, pretty much gonna say everything that didn't happen that I predicted for this episode is gonna happen next week. Just push it off. That's just what I'm saying. Jeff, I don't know about you anyway. This is the part where we look back at what we guessed this week was gonna be about and we play.

Jeff: Time to pay the piper.

Brent: You wanna run that one more time?

Jeff: Literally like it's like one of the best moments of season five right here. Time to pay the Piper

Brent: That's right. Jeff, why don't you remind us of what you said that this episode, tragedy of Telepath was supposed to be about, and I'll tell you how close you were.

Jeff: Lockley calls her old buddy ster to come on to come on the station and take out Byron and his crew.

Brent: You got a little South Carolina twanging in there.

Jeff: A little bit. A little bit come out.

Brent: I like it. I like it. Um, it's, dude, I mean you, like everything you said happened, but then so much more happened in the episode. So it's hard for me to like, give you like the full point because like, you know, I

Jeff: said, I basically said Lockley is gonna be there and so will best her. That that would be like any other episode saying, oh, uh, Lanier's coming on this one. And also Delen will be there

Brent: Right, right. But you still nailed Bester coming in and that Lockley was gonna call him in and all of that. So Jeff, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit you with 75, 70 5% of it just cuz you got it. You nailed that part. There's just, there was a lot more that happened in the episode.

Jeff: a lot more. That was a lot more entertaining than that. What did you think this one was gonna be about?

Brent: Well, I basically said the same thing. I, I said, Byron and the gang are gonna be holed up in the down below area. They'll call investor to come handle the situation. But then I took it a step further and said, this is going to be the end of the telepath war because we're trying to get past this whole thing.

And I think that the telepaths are all gonna wind up dead. That was the tragedy of the telepath, that they're all gonna wind up dead in, in, uh, kinda like in a mark ha style type situation. No one left standing and, um, that didn't happen. But

Jeff: we kinda hit part of the,

Brent: next week's coming.

Jeff: yeah, and you hit kind of part of the stuff. Once again. See, this is that whole thing. I went super general and I got a bunch. You went too specific. It's gonna cost you, I'm gonna give you half a point on

Brent: That's fair. That's fair. Because that other half I'm telling you is coming next week. Just, I don't know if I can telegraph this anymore of what I'm gonna say later on in the episode.

Jeff: You, you thought it was gonna be about what? I never, I never would've guessed

Brent: Never do

Jeff: Well, listen, we've talked a lot about Byron, uh, coming into this investor, but there's a lot more that happened in this episode, and so if you are curious what that is, because maybe you haven't watched this and 20, 30 years, maybe you've never watched it before at all, Brent, why don't you walk us through a tragedy of telepaths.

Brent: Sure. This won't take very long. Picking right up from where we, I'm sorry. All right. Uh, I, Jeff, I don't know what the time, I don't know what our time is on, like shortest recaps ever. This one's gonna get close. I don't know if it's gonna beat it, but it's gonna get

Jeff: We've got a couple last couple weeks it had been, uh, y.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Here we go. That, I mean, this one is thorough. It is complete, but. Everything that happens, happens. Alright, here we go. Picking up from where we left off last week, the Telepaths are indeed sealed up in their own little zone down there. Whenever Zach and the B five maintenance crew try to get a plasma torch in the Telepaths play with their minds of the torture operator and they have to start all over again.

Lockley goes in for a visit for absolutely no reason at all, then trying to get a final negotiation, which doesn't go anywhere because it wouldn't and that's okay cuz guess what? Lockley has already called our old friend Bester in to help solve the problem. Bester arrives and helps the maintenance workers get their minds un messed with.

And just as the episode ends, he welcomes what we now know are called the Bloodhound Unit. Ready to get to work in the next episode. Oh wait. There is more though. Remember in the last episode when Garibaldi mentioned that there was something about shipping lanes and Raiders, but it didn't actually look like the Raiders.

Well, turns out that has continued. They've, they've continued that line as well, and the member Worlds of the Alliance are starting to look cross-eyed at one another because the Ari, the dsi, the game, they've all found remnants of each other's ships mixed in with the debris from their own ships, which have been attacked.

They're all itching to start shooting at each other, but Delen positions white stars out there to keep an eye on all of them. You see, as members of the Alliance, the Alliance has jurisdiction for interplanetary disputes. This doesn't really sit well with the drowsy especially, but it works and they back off for now.

And there's a sea plot of this episode, Jeff. It's Londo and Jaar back on Sari Prime. Londo is going through some notes while Jaar is eating a nice fresh batch of S Spoo. Unfortunately, s spoo isn't supposed to be eaten fresh. That's nasty. Only Nars can stomach that taste. And with that, Jaar wants to know what other NAR are still on the planet.

Londo. Jaar, go check out the abandoned cells and what do they find forgotten and left to rot is Naau. I don't know if this is a brand new Naau or if this is the good naau, cuz this certainly was not the bad naau that we saw last time. Anyway. Jaar wants Londo to get her out and get her out. Now Londo can't legally, he says there's nothing you can do, but Jaar says Nene.

And together they come up with a plan to spring the to from the pokey. Which includes parading her right in front of all the other Sari and Londo being so drunk that he's kissing other people as he is walking by. But that is all an act because Londo is stoned sober. While this is all happening, well the Ruse works.

The Toth is on her way back to the Narn home world, and that leaves Londo and Jaar feeling pretty good, working together, doing good stuff. Now it's time to go have some old brought and spo. Jeff, what'd you think of this episode? Tragedy of Telepaths.

Jeff: Bro, I was so bored

Brent: Oh, really?

Jeff: yeah, I j like, I'm just watching and I'm like, okay. Okay. Londo and Jaar a little funny. Oh, fake spook. Oh, is he poisoned? Is he this? No, it's the best, it's like the best possible news we could have gotten in so long. This is OG nata. This was Caitlin Brown.

Brent: it? I was, I was wondering if it was her. Or just a third actress playing the Toth.

Jeff: Yeah, cuz why not? You know, I, I make a point on my first views, which you can watch me watch it for the first time on our Patreon. I. Avoid that bottom third, you know, the screen. But on my second one, I pay attention. And uh, I think I had her credited though, was Julie Caitlyn Brown in this one, but it was OG Toth.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: Yes. But like, they brought investor to this one and investor couldn't even save this telepath thing. Like I just, oh my God, Byron Byron's getting mad that people are killing in his name. It's like, dude, are you the worst cult leader in his history? What did you think was going to happen?

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I don't know, it's just they're making him more and more ridiculous all the time.

I can't, I can't stomach it anymore. I have, I have strong predictions for next week as well, but, uh, I, I love you called it the C plot cuz it's the Centa Prime plot and I loved it. It was fun, it was great and it was also heavy. Uh, spoiler, spoiler alert, as we get into our conversation. Think that this episode had one of the most powerful scenes in all of Babylon five.

Brent: Was it the one where they were walking drunkenly down the corridors?

Jeff: was one of the best. That was so awesome. That was great. But no, no, no. We'll, we'll, we'll talk about it. Cause I think it was, I think it was a huge moment

Brent: Like, I mean, we're, we're talking londo and, and jaar in an elevator type. Yeah, I agree. I think I know exactly what you're talking about and I a hundred percent agree.

Jeff: Yeah. I just, I, I, I, I watched that. Oh. But yeah, that this is, this one's not, not what I'm really super excited about, but, uh, I'm, what, what did, what about you?

Where were you on this

Brent: you know, in many ways I'm, I am the same way. I actually liked this episode as a whole, but Byron brought this episode down for me so much, and he wasn't even in that much of the episode. Everything without Byron, I was cool with the Lado and Jaar stuff, super compelling. I'll, I'll reiterate that from last week and I'll, it stayed this way.

It was the best part of the whole show. Even the alliance stuff with, with the DSI and the ships and all that kind of stuff like that felt very season two Babylon five, not season one, season two, like it was in that realm. For me, it feels like something that, uh, they could have solved by the end of the end of the episode, but I think we're gonna see more of this and.

I've got a red string yarn theory. I'm gonna propose to you later on in our conversation. It's been a long time.

Jeff: We're gonna get the corkboard

Brent: It's been a long time. So we've had a corkboard situation going on, but I got one for you today. So we're gonna talk about this. Um, uh, the bester stuff, uh, you know, when he's coming in and, and he's, even that one, that one did get me a little bit because he went down the same path that Byron's going down.

He was like, well, those aren't my people. Those are your people. I'm gonna take care of my people and check it. Like he's in that exact same situation. I'm like, dude, stop it. Stop it. Anyway, um, I am a little miffed at this episode though because all the Byron stuff, dude, just lo yawn city, you know, I'm so mad that they didn't die.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I'm so mad we did not get the Telepath war in this episode. In this episode. That means we have at least one more episode where this is gonna play out. So that being said, um, I think overall though, when I take the whole thing into account, I think I actually enjoyed this episode more than I have several of the other episodes of season five so far.

Um, this one felt, you know what this one felt to me like a voice in the wilderness. Part one

Jeff: Okay. I I

Brent: rever. Like it feels very setting up for whatever's coming next week. Like, everything feels like, all right, final pieces are put in place. We're getting everything where we need to go. Uh, you know, like people could have said, Hey, watch these two, whatever the next week is.

I forget what, I don't forget. I don't even know what the name of it, name of it is, uh, in this one. Like, do this as a mini binge, you know, do this as a two-parter in one. And, uh, I, we couldn't, this one has that. It, it's got that feeling. Remember when we got to the end of voice in the wilderness and we were like, why did we watch this episode by itself?

Jeff: Yeah. We should have done both of them.

Brent: should have done both. Well, but see, I disagree with that. I, I still think we did it the right way for our first watch. Never again. Never again will we do them separate. But

Jeff: Whereas war without End, those two episodes stand on their own, but also come together and like those are just masterpieces.

Brent: but that's why I chose Voice of the Wilderness and not war without it. And I, I'm not just saying it's a part, one of a two-parter, cuz that's not the case either. This is very specifically has a lot of that feel from Voice of Wilderness part one. And, hey man, hopefully next week's a wild ride,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: you know?

Jeff: Could use one. You know what a wild ride was in this one apparently was the, the need and drive for ratings. I felt some strong, uh, late season Voyager in this one when Lockley gets out of bed just wearing her underwear.

Brent: You know, my note about that was I liked the fact that she looked normal waking up in the morning because she had bedhead, her hair was kind of messed up. She, she did kind of have the skimpy underwear and all that sort of stuff, but remember all those times we saw Vva waking up in the morning and she had on the silky nightgown, but she also looked like she was straight outta hair and makeup

Jeff: Uhhuh. Yeah. Like

Brent: y.

Yeah. Uh, that was not Lockley this morning. Like, she had to go through all that and I, I appreciated that fact. And, you know, uh, she certainly, she was in, she was in in her undies and we saw, then later in the episode, we saw her take off her pants and be back in her undies as she was crawling into bed again.

Yeah. It had that, uh, what was that? Um, like the, like you almost just expected a blue light and some cream to get rubbed down on her

Jeff: Yeah. Someone to walk in and be like, you need some, need some de decontamination gel here.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Ratings are important apparently.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yeah. So she, she goes and she's gonna solve, I I, I, I enjoyed like her voiceover thing, you know, how it opened and closed with the voiceover. I was good. Um, and especially just how pragmatic she is. She's just like, this is gonna end with a bunch of dead people, probably a lot of dead people.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: it was so good that we got that voiceover from her because one, um, Traci s Coggins knows, and we know we have one season with this lady. That's it. We don't have, she doesn't have time to endear herself to us.

Jeff: Mm.

Brent: You know, like we, we know she's coming in here at the end. I'm not getting too attached to, to Commander Lockley or Captain Lockley.

I'm just not, I kind of don't like her. She's fine. I kind of don't, I kind of do. I don't know. I'm, I'm just like, I'm so nonplused about her. But this gave us some insight into her. It, it lets us spend a little bit of time with her getting to know her, getting ingratiated with her. Um, but also, don't forget Jeff, we're now on t n t and there's a lot of viewers who are just catching this, this show for the first time in season five.

And that was a masterful way of doing a clip show without showing us any clips, catching us up to speed on what's about to happen.

Jeff: You know, JMS has done a lot of amazing things, but I think that the thing that you have brought to light and needs to be celebrated and acknowledged is that JMS is the master of the clip show. That is not the clip show, like Brilliant,

Brent: So many of you, it's not a clip show. Yes, guys, it's understand

Jeff: is, but it's not,

Brent: but it's not right. But I literally just said it's not a clip show. It's a clip show without being a clip show.

Jeff: I got pretty excited when she literally just called ster, you know? And, and I thought it was funny too, like you, so everybody on Babylon five hates ster, but when she calls C N C to put the message through, they're just like, yeah, cool. Hey, do you want me to leave a message if he doesn't pick up? It's like, this is purely just personal.

This is a Sheridan thing. Gar and Garibaldi. Understandably. Yeah.

Brent: Well, and Neva and for all those pieces. Hey, remember when Ster declared that their war was his war and we were gonna be buds? Yeah. Not anymore. Anyway, um, I did think she gave a little too much personal information to her guy who's relaying her. That should have been, Hey, C n c, open up a gold, calm channel to Earth for me.

Great. Where do you want it to go? Cycore Ster connecting you now, ma'am. And then she needed to leave a voicemail or something like that. Like it didn't, she didn't need to

Jeff: Well, I almost think I.

Brent: message.

Jeff: I almost think she wanted Byron to know.

Brent: Mm.

Jeff: I mean, that's, that'll never come up or whatever. That's just in my head, trying to make all of this more interesting that she's just like, oh, here you go. Look, look what I got.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: Spoiler. I'm full of spoilers for people today, so my notes normally are so clean and organized. I literally just slap stuff into, into my, like I just have this like stream of con, I've rent notes

Brent: there you go. There you go.

Jeff: and it's hard cause I'm like, oh, let's see. What should we talk about

Brent: Hey, here's here. Here's a pro tip. As you make a note, highlight it and do like a strikethrough on it.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, I think I should just do what I normally do. It works better for me. I just, I, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Brent: Welcome, welcome to my brain. Jeff, welcome to my brain.

Jeff: here.

Brent: Would you like me to go through with this? Um,

Jeff: Well, I think on, on uh, on Lock Lee's voiceover, I, what struck me both in the open and the close of it is it was so clinical, right? Like she's got a little bit of emotion in there and like, to your point, you're like, eh, I, I don't like her. I don't not like her. I what, whatever. And that really came through in the voiceover also.

She's like, Joe Friday, you know, just the facts. This is what's going on. Little bit of color in there, but I was struck later when Ster came on board just at his overall demeanor. Like the only time he had any emotion tied to anything was when it was an us and them situation. But other than that, as clinical as could be, he's just here to assess the situation.

I've been here a thousand times, let me take care of this thing for you. Next thing I'm gonna do is this. I'm gonna process them. It's just, he's just doing his job. And I thought it was an interesting comparison on how clinical the two are in what they do.

Brent: I loved in the monologue, the whole idea about never say Yes to something for the favor of a friend or whatever. Like, it's a pretty dumb reason to say yes to something. And she, and like I, it gives her character some color I still hate and a bore the fact that she and Sheridan used to be married. I, in my head canon, that never happened.

They just worked together. They knew each other from some point. There was never anything more than that kind of a relationship between those two. Cuz that's, it never needed to be more than that. Um, but she has this one line in her o in her monologue that I thought was really cool. And this is not a message for me later, but she's like, all this stuff is going on. And I could go talk to them about going and doing this. I wonder if the cent need a need, a Starship captain, I can speak a little. And she goes, no, I'm gonna deal with this because this is my command.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: I'm here, I'm the one in charge right now. I've gotta deal with this. I'm the person here for this time right now. And I loved that. I lo I loved the, the truth that she would just rather not be doing this right now. I think we all have that. Like, I've gotta do this. It's my responsibility to do it, but dang it, I really just don't want to do it. You know? And having the, just the, the, the honesty to be able to say, I don't wanna do it, but I'm going to anyway.

Jeff: it's my job. I, I take pride in my job. I'll do it.

Brent: I think my opinion of her. Went way up in this episode because of that monologue.

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: Yeah. I still, I still kind of don't care one way or the other, but I care more now with her. Like, I, I feel more connected to her. Has nothing to do with seeing her under, in her underwear.

Jeff: that very, very late nineties underwear that she was, yeah, that was, wow. I mean, I had to hurt her belly button. It was up so high. But the, uh, it makes me think a lot. Cause I think that's a, like, I, I have so much in my job that I'm just like, oh my God, I can't believe I have to do this. And the mantra I tell myself when I'm there is, this is why they give me money to show up. Like, if everything I did at work was cool and I loved it, I'd probably do it for free. Right? Like, this is awesome, but I gotta do this stuff. And so I'll show up, I'll earn my paycheck.

Brent: you, have you ever seen the show, the Play? Hello Dolly.

Jeff: I actually never have, I know a lot of the music from it.

Brent: Mattau, all those guys. Okay. Hello. Dolly is actually based on a play called The Matchmaker. It's, it's the exact same story, just not a musical. Right. I was in a production of the Matchmaker and I played the grumpy old rich dude, the Walter Mattau character.

That was me, right? I, I should show you pictures, Jeff. It is a, it's phenomenal. Anyway, uh, the, the makeup guys just did so good. Anyway, uh, there's a line that I've never forgotten from that, uh, from that deal. He's, he's, he, like, he's this old, rich business owner and he's talking to this girl that he kind of has intents of marrying, and she is a business owner herself. And, and he says this, he says, wages, Mrs. Malloy, you pay those girls of yours too much. Girls like that enjoy their work. Wages, Mrs. Malloy are paid to make people do work they don't want to do.

Jeff: Right, right.

Brent: I'll, I've never forgotten that line and it's one of my favorites. And it's true,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: by the way, also, if you're a boss and you set wages out there, it's an awful business practice to set wages by that rule.

Jeff: Yes. By the way, yeah, it's actually, it's probably illegal most places

Brent: Hey, pay your people fairly, folks. But still, um, I'll say this, uh, did you get the sense that Lockley might have been a telepath,

Jeff: No.

Brent: like a secret telepath when she puts her face up against the thing and they do a thing and she's like, oh, this.

And she gets like this thing in and like she knows she's gotta go talk to him and she crawls through the thing and she's there talking like, bring me to Byron now. And he's there and they're talking and they're like, Hey Captain, what's up? And there's no actual reason for her to be in there at all. Except for, did we send her the message? Do you think she got it? Maybe, maybe not a hundred percent. I thought she was like, and I, I thought she was more latent. Telepath Ivanova style, because to me, this is clearly what Ivanov would've been doing season five if, if, uh, uh, Claudia had come back.

Jeff: I didn't get that impression all just that they wanted to bring her in and I'm still not sure why they wanted to bring her in other than for him just to say, bad things might happen to us, but it doesn't matter because we deserve this and we're going to get it and then you have to give it to us. Or we will die.

You're gonna die. Then we will die.

Brent: Well, you've always treated us fair though. There was the, just the recognition of that too. Like, Hey,

Jeff: I did wonder too, cuz he is like, you know, I, I, that piece, I wanted to acknowledge that, and then they shook hands and a big deal has been made between Ster and Lita and even Talia back in the day of that whole, like, we wear gloves and we don't touch people. So I'm wondering if like they, he implanted something else in

Brent: I thought that too. I was like, oh, did he just do something to like kind of first episode Kosh, right? Like when something happened there, it's like, did he just do something with her? Or when he did that, I had that same thought.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Had that same thought,

Jeff: that'd probably make this whole thing a lot more interesting. I doubt that's what it's gonna be. But, so the, uh, the alliance stuff, I, I had this thought Garibaldi and Sheridan are talking over the, the metal that's clearly as flimsy as flimsy could be. Like, is this really from a ship? Like, man, I don't, but I'm like, I thought Garibaldis head of covert intelligence, not Sheridan's chief of staff, he's setting up agendas for things and it's like, I, I dunno, I think I, I'm just, I'm really landing in this place.

Last week it was like, what's the difference between the alliance and the league? I don't have it. And now I'm just like, it. They're just making it up as they go along and it's, they're being inconsistent with people's roles and what they do. And I, I have, I, I am losing steam on this alliance storyline as well.

Brent: I just, I, I remember that last week. Like, it just, it's, I just don't care. But again, this felt very seasoned twoish to me. Remember the episode where Ivanova and, um, uh, Sheridan are sitting in front of like all the, all the workers and they're, you know, they're like, strike, strike. You don't care about it.

Like, it felt like that, like just, this is just running the station. Let this be the b plot.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Show us this is just every day. I don't have to care about it. It's just this is what you're doing.

Jeff: But, but what makes this a thing is, is that this is gonna pull in the dark minions of the shadows and reignite that stuff. And what I thought was cool in the storyline was what the shadows did back at the, um, tail end of season two, early part of season three, is they were pitting all the little races against each other, you know, making alliances and then whispering so that they'd go to war, fighting a shadow war.

They're doing the exact same, like the, the minions are just taking that page out of the playbook and they're like, Hey, we can't go make deals with all these people, but we can plan some evidence and make them go fight each other. So we're kind of getting a rehash of what the shadows did, what, two seasons ago?

Brent: Jeff, I would like to read for everybody out there a text message that I sent you earlier today.

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: This text message said, Hey Jeff, I have a new red yarn theory that I'm pretty sure is actually. Fairly obvious, but I feel like I just figured it out. Get your corkboard out.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Here's the, here's the, here's the red yarn theory.

You ready?

Jeff: Ready?

Brent: All right. Last week we mentioned the Raiders, but it wasn't the Raiders disrupting trade routes. Okay. Uh, Lockley says in her opening monologue that the disruptions are continuing,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and it was in the last episode that we learned that the DRock and the minions are in control of the regent hiding shipping manifests and all that kind of stuff.

Also, the DRock and the minions were allied to the shadows. Who just stirred stuff up in between the different people out there. Huh? Here's the theory. The DRock and the minions are responsible for the attacks.

Jeff: What? What?

Brent: It was kinda obvious, right?

Jeff: Very. Yep. I think, uh, well, we saw Sari ship making the attack at the end of that one, and so they're, I mean, it's, yeah, this is the, they're gonna pull the centara in. They're gonna be the ones that get blamed. It's all gonna blow up in a big war and,

Brent: do you remember when the red yarn theories, like, it literally like, was not this obvious? Like, it was like, man, we could, this could go anywhere and people just love us. Like, because you're, you're either so close or you're so far off and you're like, I mean, can you tell Telegraph this anymore for what it is?

But I, I gotta be honest, when it, when it hit me that like, oh, this is the minions, this is the drop, this is what they're doing. They're totally the ones behind it. I was like, oh, I got it

Jeff: yep. My guess. Right Here's, here's, here's Jeff's guess on the Dr. Drop war, I guess is what it's gonna be. Shadows, uh, the shadows so much, but the, the dark minions and the allies blame Londo. And they blame the centa for everything that went down. They were supposed to stay cool. They were

Brent: But they like lawn. That's what we heard from the regent. They like you.

Jeff: Well, yeah, they like him. They think like him, they think the same, but I think what they're gonna try and do is got a bunch of infighting on the alliance and then unify. So weaken 'em up, right? Get 'em all busted up and then unify them against the centara. This whole thing is them wanting to get revenge

Brent: on the Sari for Orlando. Turning his back on him and all that sort of stuff.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Interesting. And that would actually, that would rewrite a little bit of what we saw in War Without End

Jeff: I don't know about that.

Brent: and well, it would redefine it, let's put it that way. It would redefine what we saw happen to war without End.

Jeff: it would give it a lot more context, you know, cuz Yolanda is blaming Sheridan for not wiping all of them out. And so that's, that's gonna be a thing here that happens, but, Like, I mean, they, they went after Centara Prime. It was in flames 17 years from now.

Brent: Yep. But also, turns out Londo really wasn't that mad about it. He just had to put up the front to whatever. Yeah. Anyway, uh, I have one more note on this particular part. Um, I thought Garibaldi made a really good point, a really interesting point about the idea that we mark our time with wars, not with times of peace.

And having been teaching history for a while now, that's generally how you split up your history is we started with this war, which then led to these few things which led to this war, which said these things. And then we had this war, and then we had this sort of thing that happened after the war. And then this war happened.

And you know, you go from the French for American history anyway, it's the French Indian War. And then the fallout of that leads to the American Revolution. And shortly after that we get the war of 1812. And then the re all that stuff after that leads. Into the Civil War, and then we have reconstruction, and then we have just this little Spanish, the Spanish American War, you know, happened real fast.

And then how that leads up into World War I and then how that leads to World War ii, and then how that leads to, well, we kind of usually skip over Korea and Vietnam mostly in history, or we're just out of time by that point, you know, but we do, we, we mark history via war. Okay. World history. You think about it, like you study the Greeks, you study all these, you always study about the war.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That's an interesting point.

Jeff: and why? Because it's exciting.

Brent: It's more fun. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, what it is, is because wars Mark, I, I disagree with Aldi's reasoning. Why,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: um, wars mark change. Wars Mark, when regimes change, when things change, when, when, when, and, and everything in between is when stuff is happening. It's just sort of the, the. When times are copacetic.

So when you're studying history, you're studying the points of change, the anchor points throughout history. I think that's why we really study it that way. But also, wars are more interesting,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: but they are the, the marks of change. And if nothing really changes from a war, guess what we tend to do? Skip over it.

That's, that's why we skip over the Spanish American. Nobody really is in American history studies. The Spanish American War. Just go, it happened. Why? Because it didn't change much. War of 1812 didn't really change much. You sort of skip over it real fast. You know, even World War, I think about the difference between how we study and I don't, uh, rest of the world.

I'd love to know what you guys do. Think of the difference of how we study World War I versus World War ii.

Jeff: It's intense.

Brent: Mm-hmm. Anyway.

Jeff: Another great line that came out of all that stuff was the dsi. The dsi are not as cool as I think we thought they were for so very long. They're kinda kinda little jerk waters.

Brent: I mean, seriously, could we not have known that, like from way back in the day?

Jeff: I wonder if that changes like with the green and purple regimes, like maybe right on cue. But dude says to Sheridan, every great fall starts with a single mistake, and this was yours. But history remembers. We know this because of the deconstruction of falling stars. History remembers that his greatest mis mistake, his single mistake. That led to his fall was letting the telepaths come on board.

Brent: And I'd say that it wasn't letting the Telepaths come on board. It was him withdrawing his support of the Telepaths. That was his actual mistake.

Jeff: So let's get to the good stuff here.

Brent: Yeah. Spo,

Jeff: So gross. So gross.

Brent: it looks like yogurt.

Jeff: Ah,

Brent: So where you supposed to have rotten yogurt? Like moldy. Like what is, what is properly prepared? S spoo. You remember when dude was eating a spoo sandwich?

Jeff: mm-hmm.

Brent: What kind of s spoo was that? Was that properly aged s spoo or was that fresh? S Spoo.

Jeff: I think it was aged cuz the fresh SPO was like with a spoon and drippy and wet. Where's the ferment? I'm gonna say fermented spoon cuz it's basically to, it's tofu to spo, but like it had that firm kinda,

Brent: You could make a sandwich out of it. It could be the actual meat of the, like even with peanut butter and jelly, like that's still like, it's not runny. At least it shouldn't be.

Jeff: that's pretty cool thinking. You know, by jaar, he is figuring, oh, what's on the south end of the palace? And they go in. Did you have any idea like what they were gonna walk into?

Brent: no, no, no, no. I, I knew, I, I was almost positive they had NAR down there in cells still. I said, do they still have NAR here on the planet leftover from the war? That totally makes all the sense. The idea that it was NAU blew my mind. Blew, blew my mind.

Jeff: yeah. I was thinking this whole thing of like maybe 20 arms down there, they've been holding onto and torturing and whatever, and now Jaar is gonna have this little army or whatever. And then this is so much better than that. I mean, give Netta a wrench and she's better than 20 Nas.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Let her go. But I really appreciated Jaar in this where Londo is making the case that you, I can't do anything.

I'm powerless. And Jaar is like the hell you are. Like, this is, dude, come on. Thought that was great. They had a good plan. I thought it was a really solid plan. It was so funny too when the, the one, I don't know the, the eight or the whatever comes in and he's like, yeah, you, you'll do. Yeah. Did you take off your clothes?

Oh, emperor Cartia played this game with me too.

Brent: But I don't think these are gonna fit you. And he is like, let me worry about that baby. And jaar, Jaar first is all like lawn and then she looks at him and he is like, well it's animal magnetism. I like, oh my gosh, you two, are you two or something

Jeff: They are too much. It's

Brent: This is this though, Jeff. This is why everybody remembers Londo and Jaar as the big buddies because we saw them in season one. And then really once the the cent na worst happened, we very rarely saw them on screen together. Until now, and now we're seeing them like they are the buddies, you know?

Jeff: and there's, it's so fun. So fun.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: But one thing I really, oh, go ahead.

Brent: I was, I was gonna say, uh, the, the, the scene where they're enacting their plan where they go get in a to and they're walking down that hallway. Um, Nope. I'm sorry. I wanna back up a little bit. The scene that you were just talking about, Jeff, you're gonna have to edit this, the scene you're just talking about, Jeff, where Jaar says to him, what's on the south end of the palace? And Peter's like, I don't know. He's like, yes, you do. He's like, no, it's, it's this and it's that, and it's the abandoned this, and it's the other.

Says, oh, like I thought Peter Jurassic played that part perfectly. This was not Londo trying to pull the wool over Ja car's eyes. This was not Lando trying to devalue what, what Jaar felt was valuable. He really didn't know. He had no idea, and I, I just thought that that was a perfect part, the way he played that.

So good.

Jeff: it was great when they did go get her. I loved, again, again, love. I love, I love Jaar and NATO's relationship. Like he was so supportive of her. Just, you know, advocating her for her and fighting, you know, this was my aid. Londo, you knew her. You talked to her like she's, he's, for lack of a better term, he's, I was gonna say humanizing, but he's izing her, you know, for, for Londo.

But then they get in the room and, and they're like, Hey, we're gonna get to the, the ship. Is he gonna make, is she gonna make it? And he's like, this is Netta. She could walk halfway across the planet if need be. And I'm like, he's such a fan of Netta. I love this. And it made the whole thing work. You know, the, the, the fun, the fun scene from here, uh, really worked, I think because Jaar built her up so much.

Brent: Londo gave, uh, Jaar story about why they could have just forgotten and people forgot to counterman an offer. Interesting story, cute story. Um, let's just say you should always know the reason why you're doing stuff

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: like Jeff, you served in the military.

Jeff: it did

Brent: If, if your job was to go stand in this one spot in the middle of a courtyard for no apparent reason, and why do we do this?

Because this is what we've been doing for 200 years, is there not a level of like, you gotta cast some vision to your soldiers and let them know why they're doing what they're doing and not just being these good little automatons.

Jeff: totally.

Brent: You need to know why you're doing what you're doing. There is this, this idea of we just forgot is a piss poor excuse.

And you know, Lao's given up too easy. He's try, he's, well, there's nothing I can do. Uh, yeah, there's something he can do. He just needs to think.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: And we've seen, we've seen Londo give in, this might be actually one of Wanda's biggest flaws, is he gives in to not being able to do something too easy. You know, like, like when, um,

when. Morden came and he talked to Londo and he's like, what do you want? And then he went off and did stuff and Londo like, look back at it, Londo felt like he got swept up into what was happening. It's like he got in front of a boulder that was rolling and he just was trying to stay in front of the boulder.

Like cuz so many times we saw Londo going, oh crap, what am I doing? Oh no, what's happening here? Right. Uh, this is, this is an MO for Londo

Jeff: Holding onto a wild horse and try not to get bucked off.

Brent: yeah. Rather than calm the horse, the frick down or get bucked off and let the horse go and don't be a part of it or whatever,

Jeff: dust yourself off. And, and I, and, and I think it's, it's, he's such a product of the dominant and toxic centa culture that he can't not become a part of it when things get moving.

Brent: you know, that could be a really interesting character study piece. Jeff. If you were to take who we see Londo in the first season that we've talked about so many times before, um, with I forgot how to dance and sitting in bed with Lady of Dear going, this doesn't matter. I've spent my whole life looking for my name.

And it doesn't matter to be that guy, to being the guy who is just on a wild horse as you put it, trying not to get bucked off. Um, and

Jeff: Garibaldi put it that way, to be fair, but

Brent: fair. Well, sure. Okay. I don't remember that, but Okay. That'd be an interesting character study, I think on, on, on Londo and, and where his biggest flaws really lie.

Jeff: It has a lot to do with like authe, these buzzwords we throw out about authenticity and things like that, and we see it in people where, They're one person with this group of people and a different person with this other group of people. And when those people come together, you know, how do they, how do they mesh those things?

I think that'd be a fascinating thing to look at. But the whole guard standing there on the flower thing, I can't tell you how many thousands and thousands of dollars I have made literally from companies hiring me to come in because they have what I call the, the six words of death. We have always done it that way.

And no one questions. Right? And I just, I, this was, this was a great example and I liked how he laid it on. It's one of the problems with a monarchy. No, you can't, you can't do stuff. But hey, guess what? Guess what? Londo, you're actively dismantling a lot of those things right now. I feel like this is a good one to take on.

Lot of benefit could come from this.

Brent: Sure. I agree with you, wholeheartedly agree with you. Uh, the scene of Lando walking to talk through the court again, Peter jus such a good actor, the way he slipped from drunken Lando into stone sober lawn, and then back to the sober Lao. So good. So good. Um, and then the only other note I have on this is the scene where we see Londo and Jaar watching Nata go off and we see them through the window

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: and we even got a clip of it in this show, uh, in this, in this episode of Londo staring through the window by himself.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: And now we see Londo and Jaar staring through the window. I think that's a, that's a really important moment to see Lao's. Lao's still in the window, but now he's not alone. He's got jaar with him and they're there together having done something very honorable and very good. And I, I just think that was a very poignant moment.

Jeff: It was a great counter to the long twilight struggle, um, which was one of the most powerful scenes ever in television of Londo watching those mass drivers. And we saw the reflection, you know, we saw what he saw, kind of a thing countered with this of exactly that in his worst moment alone, and watching horrible things go down that he felt he had no control over to now, not alone saving someone.

Brent: Jeff can, can I, I wanna bounce off what you just said. He was alone watching something that he had no control over to hear having done something despite having thought, he actually had no control over

Jeff: Oh, yeah, yeah,

Brent: You know what I mean? Like he's, he's in the same position. Like, I just did this and I didn't really have control over it, but I did it anyway versus before of going, I'm standing.

I have no control over this happening right now. Again, that goes back to that character study of who. Londo really is, and what he gives into and what he doesn't, the idea of, of what he can do if he actually just tries

Jeff: yeah. If he just does

Brent: Lao's, actually. Good. What would've happened if Londo would've just stood up and been like, no, we're not doing this.

Jeff: Yeah, just like just Jaar said, say something. Just say something. Or like Sheridan said, just say no. One more time or say yes one more time and they say no. Like just do

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: I think it's a beautiful segue right there cuz we've reached this point of our conversation where we boil this all down. We see what messages this has, any morals that it imparts, if it holds a mirror to society or maybe even gives us hope that we can be better in the future. Brent, you're gonna do that by rating this episode on a scale of zero to five white stars to the strength of that message and just how Babylon five it was delivered.

So, uh, what do you got?

Brent: Well, it's in this vein. The reason I didn't say anything when you mentioned it earlier is cuz this is the vein. I want to take everything I'm about to say and then at the end I wanna say what we just said about them watching each other in the mirror. Like just ta tack that on there. Uh, Londo very quickly goes from, there's nothing I can do.

And Jaar saying, yes there is to formulating a plan and executing a plan. And he, and he got, he got the, the girl involved, the guard. He had a fully fleshed out plan for that. You're gonna walk away from here. You're not gonna know what's gonna happen, and then you're never gonna come back in this room again, ever.

And you're gonna seal this wall off. And no one's ever gonna come down here and see what, to see what I've done to this girl. And he's like, yes, sir, I sure am. You got it, son. You know? And he and Londo takes everything. Jaar did nothing. All Jaar did was say, yes you can. In fact, Jaar tried to stop Londo in a few places.

Remember? Really? He is like, why are you telling her to take her clothes off? Londo? What do you He throws the li the, the, the, what's the liquor? Braava.

Jeff: bru. Yeah.

Brent: He throws the Brava on him. And then Jaar is all like, oh, you know, um, here's the truth. There's always something you can do. You just have to be willing to go there and think it through and then execute it in the end.

Londo says that doing the right thing, standing on that ship with, with Jaar doing the right thing was exhilarating. I dare say it felt exhilarating, not just because of what he did, not the fun of going through all of that, but also because of the righteousness of the action itself. Was this an intended message though, Jeff?

Is this what JMS was trying to put down on paper? Was it a mirror to society? Was it a commentary on anything? I don't think so. I think either A, it's a personal philosophy of jms or B, and I think this is probably the most likely, and I don't know. We'd have to ask him to find out. This is just what the characters would've done in that situation.

Londo and Jaar are so fully fleshed out by now in jm S's mind. All he's doing is going, okay, Londo, what do you say here? All right, Jaar, what are you saying now? That's how that writing's going. Those characters are speaking on their own as far as JMS is concerned at this point, and this is the way they would've done it.

That being said, I thought it was a fantastic message through and through the poignancy of seeing Londo and Jaar stand standing in that mirror or standing in that window tack on everything we just said about how that, how that goes back. Um, this one is better than halfway. This is, this is on a scale of zero to five.

I'd originally thought about giving it two and a half, kind of meeting it right in the middle, but this is actually more than half. So I'm gonna give this one. Three white stars.

Jeff: I like that. I like it, especially because of the Babylon five way it was delivered. It was delivered in a way that played on. Maybe land's lowest moment,

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: and then the, the visual representation of his lowest and one of his lowest and one of his highest personal moments.

Brent: And if, just to satisfy our many listeners out there, I would just like to say the redemption of Londo Malari continued in this episode.

Jeff: There you go.

Brent: I don't know that it's complete yet, but it, it has advanced because of this episode.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Good rating. Yeah.

Brent: Well, Jeff, uh, I may be doing the white stars, but my friend, you get to be the sole person who places this episode and are absolutely 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of season five of Babylon five. Our current top five. Jeff, I don't get a say in this cuz I have a feeling where I would rank it and I don't know where you're going to.

Our current top five is the very long night of Lando Malari. Number two is no compromises. Number three is learning curve. Number four is a view from the gallery. Number five is Day of the Dead. Jeff, I ask you, does this episode crack the top five? And if so, where?

Jeff: If it wasn't for Byron, this episode would crack the top five,

Brent: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: but it hurts it. That Byron stuff hurts it a

lot. 

Brent: down. You're not joking.

Jeff: But that said, it, it, it's right there. And so I love this head ster in it. I have to look in the Kingdom of the Blind. And this one, the Centara storyline is so compelling and, and, and it's been great.

Last week's was so, um, serious and heavy and it was setting the table, reintroducing characters in a setting, all that kind of stuff. This one put lawn, he's there, Jaar is there, they're gonna go do stuff. And they had fun. We leaned into the characters a lot more. And I mean, those scenes were just perfect.

So I'm gonna make this one our new number six,

Brent: Ooh, just outside. Right below Day of the Dead too. I like day. Day of the Dead was so fun.

Jeff: we're both doing it the same time. I'll let you

Brent: No, you go ahead. Go ahead. You've got it. You're already in there. Yes. This is Brent and Jeff in live typing in where we placed it so we don't forget it next

Jeff: because we will forget it if

Brent: Yes. We'll,

Jeff: if we don't do it. Well, Brent, that's it for a tragedy of Telepaths. Next week we're gonna be watching Phoenix Rising for the first time. We don't watch ahead, we don't look at thumbnails. While we avoid the thumbnails at all costs, we don't read descriptions or anything like that.

We play this game where on the title alone, we predict what the next episode is gonna be about. I am endlessly curious. I have no idea whatsoever or where to even begin guessing. Brent, what do you think is gonna happen next week in Phoenix Rising?

Brent: Well, let me think. Hmm hmm. Um, it's the war with the Telepaths. And by God, please let Byron die. Please. I, I do not wish for the death of characters very often, but I want this cha not the actor, the actor's a fine human being, but this character needs to go and so help me if he winds up splayed out like Neo at the end of Matrix three.

You know, as a full on Messiah crucified type situation, I'm gonna lose it. But I need this storyline to be done and we need to move on and get back to like the actual stuff that's really compelling about season five. So that's where we are, we're set up for it. Everything about this episode set us up for that.

The one curiosity I have, and I'm not gonna make a prediction as far, oh, maybe I should because that'd be more in the spirit of what this episode really is. What is the Phoenix Rising, because that's an that, I love that title. So let's hear Phoenix, uh, rising from the Ashes. Is it Lita? She's also a redhead, right?

Like, so she's kind of gone down and now this is her seeing how bad the, the Telepath cult is and coming. I don't think so, because this is gonna go up against Ster and Sters not great either. So I don't think that's it. Maybe it's actually has nothing to do with the Telepaths, and this is, this is in reference to Londo and Jaar and something like that.

I have, I have no idea. What do you think the Phoenix rising is, Jeff? Because I think it's still about the Telepaths,

Jeff: I do too. Yeah, I think, I think Byron's gonna die. I think that's this one. It's gonna get bloody, we're gonna see more of that just out, out, shoot up, shoot him up. Stuff with telepath things going on. It's gonna be bloody, Byron's gonna die in the Phoenix is gonna be his legacy. He's gonna be Obiwan Kenobi, where once you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

They showed that guy tagging the wall free Byron.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Byron is gonna become a rallying cry. He's gonna be a martyr, and he's gonna galvanize telepaths, not just on Babylon five, but I think this telepath war is gonna get a lot bigger, and it's not ending next week. I think we've got at least two more episodes of this.

This one that'll cr bring it up to a crest. And then the episode following or a little after will be the big, the big sendoff. But I think his and I even wrote here, his unearned legacy is gonna be the Phoenix cuz he's the

Brent: Okay. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: Well, we'll find out in just one week's time right here. You can catch us anywhere. You get your podcast here on YouTube. Thank you for being here with us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or if you're watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, hit that bell. Get notices when we send other stuff out cuz we got some other cool things going on here as well.

Leave us a rating or review, comment down below and share this with someone. YouTube's Got it. Apple Podcasts Good pods, Amazon, Spotify, audible, they've all got it. Share this with somebody who either loves Babylon five already or is just now falling in love with this series. So until next time.

Brent: Hey Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah.

What's up?

Brent: How, um, how you been doing lately? Man?

Jeff: I mean, thanks, thanks for asking. But, uh, I mean, I'm fine. I'm a little depressed about inflation and that kind of stuff and, and really like, can we get real, I mean, hemlines are starting to go down again.

Brent: up. Shut up. Let's just get the hell outta here, okay