All Alone in the Night

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon five for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Babylon five for the first

Brent: time. And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the very first time. We are two veteran Star Trek podcasters that are watching this show for the very first time.

And we're looking for how this show does some of those Star Trek type messages that we're always used to, uh, as Star Trek podcasters. You know, the things that give us a hope for the future, uh, is that holding up a mirror to society, giving us betterment of, of mankind. What are those in there? And we're also trying to decide how much we like these episode.

Jeff: While we are Star Trek podcasters, this is not a Star Trek podcast at all. So we keep ourselves in check by playing the rule of three, and that means we get three references that each of us can use per episode. And that is, that's it.

Brent: Three one of those strikes. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund. I

Jeff: did it

Brent: You did it. I can't believe it. You did it. I love it.

Jeff: I deliver. That's how it

Brent: works. You said that happened fast too, man. I like it. I, I forgot all about that till

Jeff: this moment right here. That's awesome. I've been, you're excited to share a huge theory that you've come up with me. I have a big

Brent: theory. It's, This is huge, Jeff.

Jeff: Well see. I i Will it top this like that's the question. Will it top the new drop? We'll find out

Brent: Jeff. It's one of those. I will tell you this, Either people are going to be mad at me. Like if you are driving. Pull over to the side of the road when I get to the spot, okay? Because you are either gonna like, crash, you're gonna be so mad at me that I got it, or you are going to laugh your butt off at how wrong I am.

There is no in between. There is no like, you're so right, but you're also so wrong at the same time. No, no, no. This is one or the other, but this is my theory and I'm sticking to it and I've got a pretty good track record on my theories in this

Jeff: show. Very eerily, almost . Well, that's a great way to set up a huge payoff coming up later in this episode.

But hey, we've got some payoffs to share right now. Brent, I've got a five star review. Oh yes. This one's from Apple Podcasts. Q4 p Mike BC says, Wow, that's a, that took a breath after that name. He says, As a nearly lifelong Babylon five fan who also likes Star Trek, I've really enjoyed this podcast. There are times when I am screaming about how wrong or right you are with your predictions.

Many times I yell out, Just wait. I also can't tell you how tickled I get to see you. Experience it for the first time. Listening to you fall in love with the characters is the highlight of my day. I'm nearly caught up and will hate having to wait a whole week between episodes. You summed it up. Great. Way back in voice in the wilderness.

Part two though, when we said this isn't Star Trek, this is Babylon five. There you

Brent: go. I go. You know, that brings up a question I have, Jeff. Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day. I was like, man, we are consistently getting like really good like reviews, like all the time. But you remember back at the end of season one we did that big giveaway.

Mm-hmm. and you were like, We have so many new reviews. I can't read them all. Yeah. Are we still like, are these still some of those, Like we're catching up to that. We got so many back then. I

Jeff: think that's what it is. Cause some of them are mentioning season one episodes. Yeah. So I think, I think that is the case that they're,

Brent: this is the backlog cuz we're, we're not gonna read all of them in one single episode.

That would be

Jeff: the episode. So, And I do have a backlog in the inbox still that we're working through. I know. Reviews. So, Uhhuh , it's a good problem. It's a great problem to have. But you know what?

Brent: Just from the future, let me reach back to all of you. Uh, Well you guys are gonna be like I wrote in Off Berillo.

They haven't read it yet. Just wait. Uh, but thank you guys so much for all the reviews you've been writing in and whatever, you know, Hammer, Rambi, code, name person you are there. Uh, That's awesome. You nailed exactly what we love about doing it, and we love that. You love watching us do this.

Jeff: Exactly. Very much.

So, one more five star review for this one. Oh yes. This one also from Apple. This is from Docs 1289. Docs says, I followed Jeff here from his Star Fleet Leadership Academy podcast. Thank you. Good call. Yeah, and this has quickly become one of, if not my favorite podcast. Unfortunately, I'm almost caught up.

Theme, theme there. And we'll soon need to wait on new episodes. It's entertaining to listen to what you get right and wrong, and I can't wait for you to find out for selves.

Brent: I'm gonna get something right today and you guys are gonna lose it. Send it, listen. Send all your emails in to Babylon,

Jeff: five first gmail.com.

Brent: Send all of those emails in. I won't see a single one of them, but Jeff gets 'em all. And, uh, , send them in there and just tell 'em how awesome I am because I got everything right. No, no, don't do that. Cause it'll spoil it for Jeff. But uh, that's where you can

Jeff: email us. Yeah. Babylon five first gmail.com. The number five, the word first.

That's also our website, Babylon five first.com. But next, Brent, I wanna talk about our YouTube channel. We have an

Brent: awesome YouTube channel, not the channel, the community, the community that or is in. That's what I'm really meant. I mean, I think our channel is pretty dope too, but the, the, the community man, these, these people are awesome and like, it's cool like cuz we've kind of gotten to know them now.

Jeff: And so this is one from Christoff Lombardi that said it is a real joy to tag along on your journey. Also, even though there are other YouTube channels out there offering reactions to B five, you guys are the only ones to do a post reaction deep dive and that is amazing. And invaluable. I'm a longtime B five fan and know this series inside and out and it is a most welcome feeling, having you bring new light and perspective to it.

Thank you both for the amazing work you're doing. That's cool.

Brent: Yeah. Are we really the only ones? Uh, you know, I guess most of the other shows they either do like a full on reaction or they do like, Hey, we're gonna throw our podcast up there. Uh, I don't wanna say we're the only one cuz I haven't done that exhaustive of a search, but in like, just kind of running through in my head as far as ones that actually do both, like

Jeff: yeah, that's, we are one of, if not the only one.

Right, Right, right. Cause there, there, there's, so, you know, it's funny, when we started this podcast when we were talking about it, Right. Just the logistics back and forth. We looked on Apple podcasts and we're like, there are only like, Babylon five podcast and like a couple of them were defunct. Yeah. Only four of 'em look like they're active at all.

Yeah. So like, yeah, this is a great space. And then I apparently like 300 other people had the same idea cuz there were so many. And I, and I really want to use this as an opportunity to say so many great Babylon five podcasts out there. Yeah. We have our awesome community on YouTube, on Twitter at Babylon.

Fir at Babylon first. But there's the, the, the community expands even more with a lot of great creators out there putting out some really, really good stuff. We are not mm-hmm. . We're not like brand exclusive here. We love that you're here, but, you know, check everybody out. There's a lot of really great conversation going on.

Just stay with us mostly. Exactly. Stay here. You can look at other places. We'll go check the other

Brent: people out too, but stay here.

Well, Jeff, Brent, you know, we have our, our, uh, rule of three. Mm-hmm. that we. Um, and we have our, uh, reviews and our comments that we like to go through. One of the other segments that we do on the show that we love a lot is where we get to guess what the next week's episode is gonna be based on the title alone.

Now, we don't do that until the end of the show, but this is the part of the show. Or we get to look back on last week's guess, which was for this week's show and see just how right we were. So, Jeff, do you remember what you said all alone in the night was gonna be and how close were you?

Jeff: Yeah, about as far off as I could possibly be.

I mean, I said Sonari, Nan war, and there there was a narn in this one. And that's, That's a narn with a neck? Yeah. With some weird like safety harness things. like, what, what does that, what does that help happen? I don't even understand. But yeah, I, it was gonna be, uh, lawn and he was gonna be all alone in the night and some stuff around the war couldn't have been further off.

What about you? I

Brent: think I said that this was gonna be something like, uh, I think in my head something like the power went out on the station and like everybody's just gonna sort of be alone. Like, I thought it was literally gonna be alone at night. Like people just sort of dealing with themselves, like their inner monologue or, or something like that.

Like, yeah, that, that was not

Jeff: at all. Well, you had some inner mono, we had some inner

Brent: monologue. There was definitely some inner monologue here, but that's not close to anything that happened really in this episode. So with that, Jeff, um, for the folks at home who haven't watched this episode in while, or maybe you're listening to this episode that we're doing, and you have never actually seen this episode all alone in the night, you should go watch it.

But Jeff, for the sake of our audience here today, would you please remind us what happened in all alone in the night? Dalen

Jeff: Sati, Dalen to the principal's office pleases. Delen has been summoned in front of the Gray Council to answer for her transformation and to find out her status. She tries to preplan for her potential replacement, but he's gonna come along with her ships are going missing.

Babylon five needs to investigate pulling a bit of a Sinclair, but with a little more reason as to why Sheridan suits up to lead a group of star theories to check it out. They don't find anything until, well, actually, yeah, they, they totally do. Big old ship pops out, blasts the star theories. Sheridan Ejects in his pod is picked up by this ship while Ramirez, a Dodgers fan because yeah.

Uh, baseball references in a sci-fi show was only ever done in Babylon five, you know, until other shows totally ripped it off, I guess. But Ramirez faces lethal exposure to radiation from his engine, but forces his way back to the station to tell them what has happened. He makes it through and is rush to Med lab.

General Ha. He's the guy that we met in points of departure and introduced us to Sheridan. Well, he's here for a personal visit to Sheridan and helps Siva lead the search for the captain. And a better hurry, though, Sheridan has slipped into the sixth season episode of the Next Generation Schisms. The weird devices experimenting on him, and then he runs into some prisoners that attack him.

A drowsy, I think, and a narn. The Narn kills the drowsy, but Sheridan is able to incapacitate it. After he wakes up, they try to mount an escape, But Sheridan is interrupted by a strange vision. Aon and Garabaldi are there even he is, but everything's kind of weird. There's like a Raven and a dove, and even a Kosh.

Kosh has a message for Sheridan in this vision, and he even repeats it. I l he says, This is not linear. You have always existed here. Yikes. Two down already. Back in non abducted space. Lens's visit with the gray council does not go well. She's been kicked off the council and has been replaced by nro. This is a big deal because the balance of the council is gone.

Now. The Warrior cast has unprecedented power. They talk about racial purity and how Dalen doesn't belong anywhere anymore. And then tell her to return to Babylon five. She does. And so does Lanier, a true friend and partner through it all. Well, things are not looking good for she. The ship keeps on plugging through space and AANA hasn't gotten much closer to finding him until though through she dumb luck.

Dalen reaches out and knows everything about these guys. The strive erase them. Inbar shut down before. So a joint minbar earth force attack led by the Agam, No swos in rocks, the stride and rescues Sheridan. All is good again. Until that is Hagen Sheridan finally get to sit down. The fix is in. Ha. Appears to be leading a quiet resistance on earth, resisting President Clark and his cronies in their way of doing business.

Sheridan has been a plant on Babylon five the whole time. He was planned for by former president Santiago. Sheridan tells ha that the command team of baby on five is loyal, and then they all agreed to do. something, something to uncover how Santiago died maybe. And to start and to stop the dark tide that is sweeping across earth.

Brent, what did you think of all alone in the night? Jeff? I gotta be honest, I was worried about this episode. Yeah, I was

Brent: real worried about this episode. We have been not nice to season two so far. It started off real rough, and then we had a good couple of episodes and then we had last week, and I really needed this to be a good episode.

And oh my gosh, did it deliver? Um, let, um, I mean, this, this was, I noted early in the episode that this was written by jms himself and I, I held a lot of hope. Talk about moving the ball down the field, like this episode pushed to Lynn forward. It changed the makeup of the, of the Mbar council, the great council.

It unveiled a bunch of stuff we didn't know about Sheridan. That, I mean this, I mean, this is, I don't know if this is a full on rec con or if this is what they had in mind from the beginning with Sheridan that we're, because there was no hint, none whatsoever that you could have gotten this, um, we're bringing back General ha we brought back the aga mimon.

We've got Kosh is shown up. I mean, it feels like whenever we see Kosh, that's a right, Like you can mark the, the Mark Key things that happen because Kosh comes in, in the episode for a line and then goes away. Um, uh, it was, it was a good episode. I was mad though. I was so mad because you're getting to that spot.

At some point. You have to give people answers. You have to let people in on what's actually happening. And we got that with Sheridan, that he's been this plant the whole time he's doing stuff. And then, all right, let's get the crew together. Are you guys in? Are you in or out? Okay, here's what's going on.

And credits. And Jeff, I do not believe that this is a cliff hanger. I do not believe that we're gonna open up on the next episode right where we've left off, and we're gonna hear the second half of that conversation. I don't think that for a single second, and that makes me so mad, so upset because I like, this is my crew.

This is the group I need to be in on. I don't need this group holding secrets back from me as a viewer, right? Like they're supposed to be our proxy into this world. So I'm a little mad, a little upset, but I have faith, might even say Faith of the heart. That's a complete waste of a reference. By the way.

It still good. It was

Jeff: still super good. Couldn to help myself. Literally, every person listening thought this. As soon as you said Faith, they all thought it. Every single one of you .

Brent: And I will. I will just say this. Linear. Good dude. Yeah, he's a good dude. I like Lanier. How about you, Jeff?

Jeff: What'd you think of this episode?

Same. This was so good, So good. And I felt like I've said it a couple times before where I kind of don't care about the shadow stuff anymore, right? The sent NA stuff is exciting and cool. The stuff with Thelen and the Minbar is interesting and I want to know more, but I'm all about the earth, human Mars, whatever stuff.

So this moving this forward, dude, the

Brent: shoutouts Sycor, like who's involved? Cycorp problem, Boom. Like Cycore is that you've got the whole Earth Force thing going on. You've got, you've got President Santiago and his old deal and. Yeah. That, that I think is certainly is center stage of what's

Jeff: going on right now.

Yeah. And we've been saying the Cyco thing for, I mean, since midway in the first season. I mean, we saw it coming. So to hear that from me, it was just like, yes, total validation. But I think my beef with this episode though, was like, there's the deen stuff that needed to move forward. I'm gonna assume that the vision that Sheridan had in on that ship means something somewhere.

And then that very last little boo scene with general ha all that other stuff with the tribe, like I, I will be shocked if we ever see them again. Like, I feel like that was really, I will not, because Menari rocked them before. Mm-hmm. Earth Force, Menari just rocked them a second time. I, I feel like if we see them again, they're gonna come in on the side of earth in Menari or something like that, but I just, I don't know.

They felt. It felt more throwaway than it needed to. Does that, That doesn't make any sense. But the whole thing just kind of, I mean, they dropped these little pieces. I, Let me, let me back up a little bit. I don't think we're gonna see them again. I think we're gonna see that device that sticks on the prisoner's heads that controls them.

I think we will see that again. Okay.

Brent: Let me ask a question. So they had Sheridan, they had, what we're gonna assume was the drowsy, I don't really know what he was, but there was the drowsy dude. There was the Narn guy, which by the way, his name and the credits was Nan .

Jeff: Oh, that's, that's what my notes called him.

So pretty, pretty on

Brent: brand. But then like when everything was blowing up, we saw some people running through the corridor that were the Roswell

Jeff: Graves. Totally. The ones that,

Brent: Were those the tribe or is that another group of prisoners?

Jeff: I totally thought that was the tribe, and I think they were the one. Oh, in Grail.

In Grail where they had the court scene and the guy was like, My great great, great Grand Papp was abducted by your great, great, great grand pappy. And they had the little Roswell alien in there. And so I think Theri are like a part of the tapestry of Babylon five already. There's just, I don't know. Cause it, there was a total

Brent: story, but they didn't seem to know what the tribe were until Dilin told them about

Jeff: it.

But how is that different than anything else that's happened with Earth Force? From soul hunter to the grail hunter to every earth is the one being like, But if you are

Brent: on the station in front of the Ombuds, they're gonna know you at that point. They're gonna know at least your species. Like there, there's a basic things that you do on an alien station, , but at

Jeff: that point they, they didn't, they hadn't.

We saw that alien. Four seconds. Right, Right. And, and I think that Sheridan saw him for even less. The people back on Bab babble on five never saw them. They just knew there was this big ship abducting people and scheming them. Okay.

Brent: Well, since you're talking about this, Jeff, my theory.

Jeff: Okay. Oh, already. And it

Brent: is.

It is. It is. It is. And it happened early in the episode for me. Okay. The whole thing with the strives might completely wreck everything about this theory. I, I will acknowledge that straight away. However, I could still be right in my theory, even without the strives. Okay. Or even with the strives, I guess.

Little backstory. All right. Way back in the episode of Chrysalis, I wanna say it was Chrysalis. Was that the one where, um, Morden sent his people after and like, destroyed that whole Naar colony. Yeah. That was Chrysalis. Right? Okay. When we first saw those ships, I remember thinking then, I don't know if I said it in this show or if it was in my, my recap.

I don't, I don't remember where, but I remember thinking then I was like, Okay, are those ships or are those like big, huge aliens? Mm-hmm. . Cause they, they look like spiders, like they look like bugs. They don't look like ships. Right. And you don't really ever get a good look at 'em.

So I've kind of had that in the back of my head, Right. Like where I just, I just sort of said we saw laser beams coming out of 'em. So they've gotta be ships, not, not, uh, not organisms. All right. So fast forward to this episode, that one ship that comes out and captures Sheridan. I'm looking at it and I said to myself, I went, Man, that ship sure looks like it has a.

is this, and then, and then like the tractor beam came out of it, right? Like, I'm like, Okay, so fine. It's a ship. And then we saw Sheridan inside the ship on the table, and he's yelling, he's talking. All of a sudden the door in the ship opens up in that big claw arm, comes down and starts talking to him. And all of a sudden it hit me.

Jeff,

I think I know what this is. Okay, now you're gonna have to go all the way back to one of our most hated episodes from season one infection. Wow. Okay. Okay. Okay. And do you remember what the whole thing about infection was?

Jeff: Right. The, uh, the Bio Weapons

Brent: Organic Tech? Mm-hmm. Organic Tech. and when we saw this, it kind of looked like, Now you said that they, they went off into that schisms, another world.

It looked to me more like fluidic space from species 8 4 72. That's two for both of us, right? That

Jeff: is, yeah. Okay. Early on

Brent: it, it, it looked more like the fluidic space. I could be where, I don't think that's what it is, but the it, that's just what it, it brought to my mind anyway. I think it's organic tech.

And Jeff, here's the thing. Even if this is just strive and this is something else, what if, what if the shadows are organic tech? Oh, and that's the coming war. Oh, that Cause remember how, how they just decimated. Their planet. Mm-hmm. that made them, and they've been living kind of in this other deal. They're out on the rim.

There's this big thing, they're coming all, you know, everybody better beware all of this stuff. What if the shadows and, and think about it, those ships that look, they kind of look like organisms. Mm-hmm. , but maybe they're actually people. And then you get those people buzzing in and out and all that kind of stuff.

And I don't know what they've got over Morden. I don't know if he's got one of those little thingies on his face that's just Oh yeah. Like implanted inside his brain. I don't know what's going on with that. But what if the sha, this is my theory, the shadows, their whole thing. They are the organic tech that we learned about in infection.

Wow. That's, That's my deal. People out there are either freaking out or they're laughing their butts off at me right now. One of the two.

Jeff: Well, What I love about your theory is that , it gives me a chance to talk about mass effect because that's kind of like, I, I, I've compared the shadows a little bit to the Reapers in mass effect before, and that's kind of what it is, is this blending of organics where they actually take the DNA or whatever and they build these big sort of ships that represent the, like this ship is the race of whatever, you know?

And maybe it's the same thing with the shadows. Wow.

Brent: Wow. I think about it, man. Think about, and, and this ship certainly looked organic. Techie very much. It looked like the ship itself might be alive cuz like at the right time, the bindings that were on 'em, which looked. Less like bindings and more like the ship just sort of wrapped 'em in, like they kind of fell apart.

Mm-hmm. , the thing came out of the ceiling as if it was the alien itself. The ship kind of looked like it had a mouth and it looked like it had like claws and stuff like that. So yeah,

Jeff: that blanket holding in was kind of mucusy almost. Yeah. The probe even had like a hand, like wore the world's hand kind of a feel to it.

Brent: Yeah, and, and like I said, it might, it might be destroyed because if, if this is actually a, an alien group called Describe and they have absolutely nothing to do with the shadows, they're completely separate, then it kind of shoots a hole in that, just from watching this. But it still possible that even if that is true, the shadows really still could be the organic tech thing.

Jeff: Totally. And maybe, maybe, and this is, I, I guess like I just made that huge assumption that the tribe was that little Roswell guy running away. The tribe could be the ships. Right? Yeah. Or whatever. Or maybe the stripe are the little Roswell guys who just have some sort of a symbiotic relationship with the ships or something.

I mean, I've made a ton of assumptions based on, Oh yeah, they're the stripe. We destroyed 'em once. Let's go

Brent: destroy 'em. That was my first thing, like in the reaction video, I was like, Oh no. Does that kind of strive? I was like, Oh, but wait, what if they're actually the other prisoners with them? Or what if it's something else?

And it still could be the Drew like, Yeah, totally could be. So that's my theory, Jeff. That's my big theory. That's the big thing I've been been prepping for. That's huge.

Jeff: I think it could be true. Yeah. So far it holds up completely, I think, to everything we've

Brent: seen so far, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Hey, listen, this is just a reminder to those of you out there.

Uh, please neither confirm nor deny that what I just said is. This is where we are at this moment. All we want you to do is to go squeal. You are so close and you're so far, and I'm gonna tell you which one, or, oh, I want to talk to you about this, but I'm not allowed. Maybe we should have a place where people could go talk about what we've just talked about, Justin.

Yeah,

Jeff: I bet we, we probably would have something like that. Maybe if you clicked some of the links down in the, uh, the description or the show notes, you might be able to get there. Discord

Brent: thing or something. Patreon. Yeah. Yeah. Seem like gonna, Yeah. I don't know, Jeff, I, you, you don't seem as blown away by it as I thought you were gonna be, so

Jeff: I, I don't think I was blown away by it as I thought I was.

It's, I oversold it. I, No, it checks out. You know what I mean? Like, it just, you say, you're like, Yeah, it's not, it's not mind blowing. You know, like when you, I thought it was mind blowing when you said, when you said back in season one, Sinclair is a mumbar. Yeah, that was mind. That was mind blown what? Outta nowhere.

And then the pieces slipped into place afterwards. But I think here, I You say shadows are organic tech and it's like, Yeah. I feel like, I feel like we've skirted right on that Uhhuh for a lot of this season, or, or since we figured out kind of what the shadows were. Mm-hmm. . But I think it's huge because of the implications it has on a larger galactic scale.

You know, it's like, this isn't, this isn't just a bunch of baddies coming in to blow people up. Mm-hmm. , this is an evolution. If it's organic tech or biotech or whatever, this is like an evolutionary step. Yeah.

Brent: And that's, and that's what cost starts talking about. Mm-hmm. , you know, like, like he says to Morden, like, they're not ready for you yet.

Or what he, what did he say to

Jeff: him? Think that's, Yeah, they're not ready or they're not, They're not for you. They're not

Brent: for you. They're not you. Or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like and and cautious is I thing, And don't forget, it was that same episode right before Dalin went into the cocoon and got hair and all that sort of stuff.

She went and saw Ko and Ksh like flashed her. Yeah. Showed her her whole self. Like what? We still don't know what Dalin saw when he did that. You know? Please, please don't tell us.

Jeff: Yeah. Don't. And you, you haven't so far. And thank you for that. Yes. Thank you for, It's been great. Yes. Let's, let's, I want to, I've kind of put my notes in.

I actually organized them this time, but let's, let's talk a little bit more about the strive and just the whole kind of sequence of events that led Yeah. To him there. Cause I think like two things early on that I thought were really big, one way back in signs and port the, uh, the shadows blew up. The big Raider ship where they'd been all that investment into the ships that could make their own jump gates.

Mm-hmm. . And then Sheridan said that the Raiders are still pretty much outta business. Right. So I thought that was a cool piece of continuity. But I want to personally, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look into the camera here. This is my camera. This is it. Okay, jms. Thank you. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for hearing my concerns and wrapping them up in a nice, neat bow.

Sinclair put himself in danger needlessly time and time again, and here you go and have shared Sheridan do the same thing. But you explained it. You explained it. He wants that flight pay. He misses the cold embrace of the stars surrounding him. Sheridan had a reason, and jms, thank you for listening. Thank you for being a subscriber to Babel on five for the first time.

That was awesome. I don't know if you were as moved by that as I was, but literally he, he, he gave his reason and I'm just like, Yes. Thank you.

Brent: Yeah. I, I mean, I think Ava also gave a similar reason when she went out. Mm-hmm. . She did after Sheridan did. But yeah, whenever Sheridan went like it, It really looked like just the, Hey, this is the guy that we've already paid to be in the show, and so we're gonna let him go.

It was the Kirk thing, right?

Jeff: There's your

Brent: three at that. But it's, it's the Kirk thing. Like it's the, he's gonna be the hero in every situation, whether it's right or wrong. And it really wasn't until we got too Picard Riker that's like, Hey, you're actually not supposed to go do that. So, yeah. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm glad they, uh, didn't do that.

I didn't know. Ramirez, is he new? I think so. I've never seen him before. We have. Cause he like, what happened to Keffer? Yeah. Like where's Kef? This guy's, this guy's into opening Grets.

Jeff: What's going on? He's still recovering from his time with large, Like, that was, that was a go as

Brent: emotion.

Jeff: It was emotional. I liked Ramirez.

I liked him. I did too. I hope

Brent: he sticks around like he

Jeff: died. He died. He died. He

Brent: died. He did. Did he actually die? He died in his last, I think I might have been making a note or something

Jeff: when that happened. His last breath is what saved Sheridan actually. Like Right. He was, he was a real hero and I thought it was, I thought it was cool how they brought him in.

But again, like I ,

Brent: that's why it couldn't have been keer cuz they made him die. Yeah. So we gotta bring in somebody else. He's the red shirt. Oh, he

Jeff: was the, here he was the red shirt. And we are out of references. We're out. That's it. No, and I have, I have more references in my notes, so I'm have to work around, but, but it was cool.

I, What I didn't like about that whole scene though was like, it's just them still shoving Franklin down our throats. Right? Like Franklin hanging out with Garrett Maldi and then talking about baseball.

Brent: But then he had to be, he had to be in that little council meeting at the very end too, because he's like a guy apparently.

Yeah. Like, we're gonna just have to deal with Franklin. Dude, they're, they're not shoving him down throats. He's just in the cast, man. They're,

Jeff: they're all in on him. I, I gotta use 'em. If I were shared and he's the last guy, I'd bring in on some conspiracy thing, but, Right. Yeah, I think

Brent: so. Um, I mean, the guy running an underground railroad, huh?

Jeff: Probably, probably not. The guy that you want

Brent: is honorable, but Actually I don't. Well, here they are. Hey, can we talk about that? Yeah. Like, I wanna talk about that. So HAG comes in and he is like, Okay, tell me what's going on. The room's not bugged, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're all loyal to Earth Force. Mm-hmm.

they're all loyal to Earth and it talks about all of them being loyal to earth.

For a minute, it sounded to me like they were going down the route of the Earth first people. Oh, okay. And what, what is, what is, what's that whole movement called? I forget. Uh, Home. Home Guard. Home Guard, Yeah. Mm-hmm. , like, it almost sounded like they were going that direction with it. Oh, wow. You know, and to sit there and say that they're loyal, they're loyal to the, to the, um, to to earth, Not to the mission, not to.

And, and Jeff, this is not a reference, this is an actual discussion point. This is a difference between Babylon five and, uh, star. . Okay. Actually, maybe this is a reference and shoot, I don't care. But I've, I've gotta make it, um, like Star Fleet exists for the betterment of going out and exploring and, and bringing peace to the galaxy, which is kind of what Babylon five is supposed to do.

But yeah, he doesn't say that they're loyal to the mission of Babylon five. He says they're loyal to Earth, they're loyal to Earth. Mm-hmm. . And now there's this sort of like, I, I, I, I think I labeled 'em. They're like the Earth Force, Antico squad. . Yeah. Like they're trying to prevent the coup that has already happened.

Let's face it. The coup

Jeff: is done. It's done. They're in power. It, they have

Brent: succeeded. Mm-hmm. . And now they're gonna try to take their government back.

Jeff: He said a thing though, and it really, it really rang true for me. When I enlisted in the military, had to do this twice cuz I went through the delayed entry program and then actually shipped off to bootcamp.

But you stand in a room with a bunch of other yahoos that are about to go to bootcamp and you raise your hand and you, you, you make an oath in there. One of them is to protect the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Right. So when General Hagg said, um, you know, they're loyal so they will protect Earth from threats both outside and within.

Yeah. I was like, okay, I get it. Yeah. This, this totally rings true for me. Yep.

Brent: Yeah. And I noted that too. And that's, that was sort of the saving grace. Mm-hmm. . But for a minute, like I really was like, Oh no, Sheridan's bad, but he can't be bad because how often are we gonna replace our show lead?

Jeff: Like Right.

Do that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna skirt around the reference and if you pick up on it, you're gonna do like every season have a different captain that just randomly. Comes in and leads your ship into the future. I thought it was great though, how Sheridan did call ha out on like doing this, and he is like, Dude, you don't know that you're gonna walk out this room and I'm gonna call Clark, you know, and tell him, tell him what's what.

And then he goes through and he's like, No, I, I know you're not because you're a patriot. And I thought that was great, but totally unrelated. I just wanted to share that, like when he said that. Mm-hmm. , I hate that the word patriot sounds like a bad word now. It does. Yeah. Like back to your point of like, he's going down that home guard route.

That was my initial reaction. If he's a patriot, I'm like, Oh no. Oh no. Nope. That's me. Coloring it with unfortunate modern history.

Brent: I, Yeah. Yeah. I, it, it real, it's become such a politicized word. Mm-hmm. . Right? And, and I mean, whichever side of the political spectrum folks fall on here, I will tell you, I got a, I got an email the other day and I'm not really sure how, why I'm on this person's email list.

I'm really not. Uh, it was a, it was a political funding email. Um, well, I guess it wasn't the other day. This is a long time ago. This is, I guess, back before Elections , you know, like it was a while. Okay. But it, it just, this sort of stuff sticks in my head and the email read, and I'm not gonna say who it was, but y'all will know.

And this, this person said, Brent, you are one of my most loyal patriots. Mm. And I was like, Dude, I ain't your nothing. Right. You know? And same dude was like, I wish my people would respect me as much. Kim Jong Uns did. And I was like, I'm not your people. That's literally what America is, is we're not yours.

Like I, I am not loyal to a person. . Yeah. Like I'm not even loyal to a party. I'm loyal to my country. Yeah.

Jeff: Oh my gosh. And I think that's what made this scene so complex to watch in 2023, is. It's, there are all these new dimensions to everything. We're back in 1995, I think when this aired. It was, it was relatively straight.

I mean, yes, we, we had domestic stuff going on, but not like we do today. And it was pretty clear, right? Yep. You are pro earth. Mm-hmm. , that means pro earth is not earth first , but you're, you're a patriot. And because you're a patriot, I know that you're gonna stand up and you're gonna do the right thing. And so I I, I had to pause and like, take off the lens, the 2023 lens to watch, um, to, to, to watch this scene.

I noticed though, we never heard Sheridan's answer. Hag said, I got 20 minutes. I gotta get onto a, under my transport and head home. I need you to answer me right now. And then it cut with him pulling in the command staff. Yeah. So you said Sheridan can't be a bad guy and I agree on surface. Yeah. But what if he said no?

And he's pulling them in, in some like Counterterrorist exp espionage. I, I don't think that's the case, but I'm just asking

Brent: it if Battle on Five was being made today, I I could give you some credence. Battle on five was made in 1990. This is what, 95? Yeah, I think, yeah. When this episode's made. That's just not how TV was done then.

True. Okay.

Jeff: Like, well, but this is Babylon five. Babylon five is not how television was done. It's

Brent: true. That's fair. That's very fair. But I don't, No, like this is the story of the good guys, you know? Uh, and, and even if they reveal that he said something different, it's going to be for good and Noble causes that we're gonna be on his side.

Like, we're gonna be on the side of Sheridan, We'll be on Hague's side if and only if Hague stays on Sheridan's side. Like that's, that's how this is gonna roll. Sheridan's like our North Star Sheridan's. Yeah. He's gonna be the hero. Yeah. He's mm-hmm. , You're right. He is the guiding post he is. He is the, uh, uh, uh, he's our general Hammond.

Okay. You

Jeff: don't understand that? I don't, But a general like it sounds good. Yes.

Brent: He's our, he's our, he's our, um, I'm trying to think of others. He's our, uh, uh, the president, Uh, the, the president from Battlestar. Rosa. Rosalind. Rosalind. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's our president. Rosalind. Uh, he's our, um, our Luke Skywalker.

Our, our Yoda. Our Yoda. Yeah, our Yoda. Right. Maybe more like a mace wind. I'm not really sure. Um, Take whatever .

Jeff: Yeah. Any of those. You know what I mean? Going back to the, the Strive ship and Sheridan. Yep. Do you wanna break down that vision that Sheridan had? Please do. Please

Brent: do. Because this. They all had ravens on their, or not all of them, but a lot of, I saw ravens on, on a

Jeff: lot of shoulders.

Yeah. I felt like, So I, I actually went, I, I went back and watched this, like, tried to bust it up and so Ava was the first that we saw there, and I'm pretty sure that was a Raven. It was a, Why would she have a crow, you know? Mm-hmm. , but it was, I'm guessing that Sure. Another version of Sheridan that he was looking at, which also like the, maybe this is, but the way the scene was lit, the fact there was this, the, a lot of the back and forth really took me back to that episode where Sinclair was with the Knights.

Right. And the nights were, I'm trying not to reference . The nights were in his brain, Right. And trying to pull out information. I, I wonder if this was initially meant to be a return to that storyline for Sinclair. Mm. But instead of Sheridan, So he twisted it up a little bit. But there's another Sheridan, there's Garabaldi and I feel like Garabaldi had a, was a white bird?

Like a Raven or a dove? Raven in the dove. Uhhuh. . But he said Garabaldi spoke and he said the man in between is searching for you. Then Ava, I'm thinking it was Ava. She had some weird makeup on and like a veil. She said that he is the hand, You are the hand

Brent: of the king. Cuz this is Game of Thrones.

Jeff: Exactly.

I mean, apparently,

Brent: that's exactly what I thought he, she meant

Jeff: there. One of the Sheridans turned around at one point and he had a Cycore badge.

So I do have

Brent: a theory that I'll How many times did you, how many times did you go back and break this whole thing down?

Jeff: I, I, I probably took 15 minutes, like pausing on each scene and looking at it cuz it moved so fast and it had kind of that weird like cloudy quality to it.

Yeah.

Brent: Jeff, next time you do this, I need you to do some like screen grabs so we can throw it up for the YouTube folks.

Oh, that's a good idea. You know what I mean?

Jeff: That's a good idea. Yeah. Let's see what else is there Then there's Kosh, right? Ksh said that he's never been away and this I think is big. Sheridan's mind is now quiet enough to hear him Uhhuh and then said that he's always been here. You've

Brent: always been here.

Yeah. Yeah. Which like then we saw KO in real life and he just looked at 'em and just went, You've always been here. Yeah. And he turned around and walked away. Cuz that's the way Kos rolls.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. . Exactly. Which

Brent: by the way, I'm sorry, goes back to, I hate to keep interrupting you. It goes back to Ko is there like supervising.

Right.

Jeff: Yeah. You know, stirring the pot. Just check. Or not even stirring, just checking it. Was the water boiling yet? No. Okay, good. Yeah, we're fine. Oh. Oh, here's this. Now you're ready. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I think what got him ready is when the stride like probe thing came and put holes in his face. Holes in his face that persisted like that makeup scarring persisted through the episode.

So I'm like, it zits. Exactly. I know. very like symmetrical, zits uhhuh. Which in my experience is not how those things work out. Right. But I wonder if they unlocked some sort of like telepathic power in him, and is Cycore in Sheridan's future? Mm. Or did it just like unlock something that quieted his mind enough that now he's on some other plane, like operating on some other plane where now he and Kash have like a bat phone connecting them sort of a thing.

A bat phone. Yeah. You know. Hello? Commissioner Gordon. Yeah. Yeah. A direct line, I guess would be the, the thing to say. But no, I think there's a ton that went, that happened in that, and I, and I feel like I want to feel that that's a big part of the story coming up. What I, Jeff,

Brent: here's what I need you to do with this, Okay?

And I'm gonna give you homework on this one.

Jeff: I did

Brent: your homework last week, so I works, I, No, no, no. But this is gonna be like, I may have to help you with this one. I need you, We're going to, we, we, I'm gonna commit us to doing something and I'm probably gonna live to regret this. I'm, Here's what we should do, and this will be exclusive to YouTube, so audio podcast, people listening.

Go to our YouTube site, youtube.com/i think

Jeff: it's Babylon five first. Okay. I think that's right. Or just look at Babel on five for the first time we pop up.

Brent: Right. And search Google, Or, or, or search it, Yeah. Yeah. On five for the first time. But we should put up a video. That is breaking down this vision. Oh, and maybe, maybe it's a you and me.

Mm-hmm. a you and me thing. Like we'll do it together and we'll break down the vision, go piece by piece through this thing, uh, of this vision and take a look. I think, I think that's something we should do. Because you're right, this feels like that. Like we need to catch the, the, the background stuff. You take it frame by frame almost and, and analyze it.

Jeff: I think we should do that. Yeah. Cuz my, cause I, I have a lot, I'll save 'em for that video. Cause I have a lot of theories on what this is gonna come out for. The big one I had is just like, oh my gosh, Sheridan's got some sort of a mind, something telepath is what we know.

Brent: So is Sheridan also Mbar? ? Like, Cause I think you just assumed that whatever the path was for Sinclair, uh, jms transferred it over to she.

like made, made some minor changes that fit his character. Mm-hmm. , you know, maybe the things is like, Oh, if I could redo shit Sinclair, this is what I'd do. And then he had a chance to mm-hmm. , you know, Um, but I, I think that's the, the general idea is this is the planned path for Sinclair and they've just moved it.

So is he also mbar? Is he something else? Like,

Jeff: and that adds a whole layer to him being the star killer. Right. Where like, if he realizes he's got that menari soul and then he's star killer and he's responsible for the death of all those menari, it's a whole other layer of emotion for him to live in.

Brent: Mm-hmm. . Oh. Because no menari has ever hurt another.

Jeff: Nevermind, except for all the times they did. Hey, wanna dive into the great council and end stuff

Brent: buddy? We naroon.

Jeff: It's Naroon. Yeah. I, I love and hate this, this, uh, this decision. I love it because I was ha I was happy to see Naroon again. I, I liked, I liked the actor, like the way he is portrayed and the story he told coming in made total sense to me, but Wow.

Brent: Wow. Yeah. My note here is I'm very disappointed in the Mumbar because the mumbar are supposed to be the better of humanity, the better side of it, right? Mm-hmm. , like, like that's the impression we've been getting. Like they, they are what we should be. And they waited. The council now towards, uh, the, the warrior cast and the words he was speaking Jeff when he said, um, When he started talking about the purity of their race.

Yeah. Diluting the purity. I'm like, Wait, wait, wait. The men bar are not supposed to think like that. That's not like, I'm not okay with what is happening with the Mumbar, you

Jeff: know? Well, and everything he said, I could imagine coming out of President Clark's mouth, like I just saw this stark parallel development between Earth, Earth Force and, uh, and them in bar and also there's three casts.

Okay.

Brent: Like what? Okay. Jeff, do you remember a couple of weeks ago we were talking about spoilers and I said, I've got two that I want to tell you about, because people wrote them down in the comments. Yeah. And I said, The one is what the bone, the, the bone thing is. Mm-hmm. On the back of their head. And I said, I've got another one that's about the makeup of the great council that somebody told.

and you opted for me not to tell you, so I didn't tell you. And here, and this is it. That was it. I had no idea that this is, that this is where they got it from. I didn't know if it was like, this is extra material JMS put out afterwards or, you know, whatever. But this is it. We've never heard of this third cast before.

Yeah. Not one time. This is

Jeff: new information for us. And to have them on the council, like, I mean, we were, Oh my gosh. Now I'm almost upset that someone shared that because it changes everything with, with having, what is it? Nine, nine people on the council. Yeah. And that's part of why I think we thought it was the religious cast that was on there.

They made decisions on behalf of the Warrior cast during the war. And if there's nine, well yeah, it's gonna be a dominant cast, but there's three and it's, there's three of each split. Three ways. Yeah. But now it's only split

Brent: one way. And that keeps a balance of power. And now that balance of power has been disrupted.

But you also don't get the idea that the, that the great council fights amongst each other. . Like they may disagree, but it doesn't, you don't get that feeling like, Hey, we're gonna vote on this. And well actually, I guess they do do tend to vote.

Jeff: Yeah. And they talk about going off to debate and I remember it was in, um, God, it was the episode when she went back and they basically said we're, we're questioning Babylon squared.

Mm-hmm. back in Babylon squared. That one. So there was, there was the gray council guy that lives in her closet who was kind of a jerk. And then there was cool gray council person who was like, Hey, here's your tri force. Um, don't, you know it's interest to go alone? Like they were buddies. So they do kind of go do their own thing and then come back and debate to vote on stuff, but yeah.

Was that the same guy, the Triforce guy? Was that the same guy that was basically firing

Brent: her? It looked like it to me. That's what I thought. Yeah. Cause I thought they were buddies. Well, but see, okay, this is the thing that gets me about this. Delin went and told the great council, Hey, I'm looking at doing this.

And they obviously knew exactly what she was talking about doing. And they were like, they didn't tell her not to do it. They were like, Maybe you should just sort of wait. Mm-hmm. like, I don't recall a definitive like, do not, we

Jeff: forbid you to do that. Right. It was like, I gotta, It's like not now. Not

Brent: now.

And they were, and they were like, you know, but kinda gotta do your own thing. But at the end of that episode might have, might have been Babylon squared, I don't remember which one it was. Now this dude shows up and hands her the tri ary and then she uses the tri ary to do the cocoon. Yeah. Which to me is like saying, Hey, if you're gonna do it, you're gonna need this thing.

Like, that's gay. That's great. Council approved. Yeah. Right. So why are they freaking out now?

Jeff: Exactly. And then the same guy, I mean, he was, he was cruel to her. Yeah. I mean, just outright there was, they told you not to do this yet you did it anyway. Well, and, and, and then the whole, you know, you're not men Barr, you're not human.

You're not us. Like there was, there was racist hate. That was

Brent: gross. Yeah, that was gross. I mean, that was like, like I thought he was gonna call her a mud blood there for a moment. Exactly. Like that was just

Jeff: nasty. They, when she was giving her her appeal, her speech, she, she appealed to their friendship.

Yeah. And then the future of the species. And my first thought, cause I, I watched this episode twice and on the first watch through I was like, Nope, you put the future of your, your race first and your friendship second. But when I watched it again, I was like, Of course. She said, I'm gonna lean on your friendship cuz one of her friends.

like was just so was mean. Girl high school, mean girl to her. Right. Right. Before she set up and did that, that that whole thing. And then when she got in front of Linear and she's like, We're going back to Babybel on five, the council, I'm no longer set tie, but I'm, And he's like, Oh, the council is wise. And she's like, Yes, yes they are.

And she was pain like visibly pained to say that. Mm-hmm. . But she's not gonna walk out. This is like one of the things that makes her great. She's not gonna walk out and trash the council to linear. She's gonna go ahead and keep it all above board and cool. But you can see I, it's just visible how she was just

Brent: the acting and that honestly, both Bill Mummy and

Jeff: Mira mi Furlan.

Yeah. Got it wrong last week. This,

Brent: they're acting in this episode. Respectively was just phenomenal. And I, I mean this may be jumping ahead a little bit, but let's, we can't not talk about this and not talk about what they said earlier in the episode. Lanier said something to the effect of service is a matter of conscience, not of the flesh.

Yeah. It shouldn't matter what you look like. And then she gets there and, and Delin says to the great council, We can no longer allow ourselves to be separated by names and borders. Our two sides must unite or die or be destroyed, I think is what she said. Like, Oh my gosh. First of all you talk about the message of this episode.

Right? Like, you know, cuz that's what we're watching happen. You know, and, and we now know that Sinclair is off on mind. Basically combining men, bar and earth people together. What's this gonna happen now with the new religious cast who wants to destroy them as they are? Mm-hmm. , Is Noro gonna go in and kill Sinclair and all the humans that are working on Men Bar now?

Well, he was ready. It

Jeff: seems like he would, He was itching. Itching for a fight,

Brent: Right? So I, I don't like where this is going. I, I don't like where this is going. Like, I don't like where lawn is going. . Like, I don't want them to go this direction with Minbar, and I don't want them to go that direction with, with Lando, you know?

Jeff: But here we are. But here we are, you know, And, and it really is like, you know, we, we've got, we've got the Earth War or the Sent Nawar , they got Warrior Council, Warrior cast running the, the Gray Council and Earth Force trying to insert itself. It, it rings so true with what we're experiencing today, but.

There's the massive darkness of the shadows, you know, rising and everyone knows it. Everyone's talking about it. Mm-hmm. , but we're gonna divide and we're gonna go fight each other on little petty

Brent: stuff while this is happening. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , Well, like all of this is happening out there. We're all seeing it, but we're gonna go worry about the this, And I gotta tell you the, the na nassari thing, Jeff, I really, I expect, and I think this is going to be maybe a season long arc, and it's gonna be like, this is just gonna be sort of the, the appetizer.

Now I know they keep talking about the great war. This is the year that the Great War came upon us. The great war is coming. I don't think the Nassari thing is the great war. I think this is just a, a, a, this will be a flash in the pan compared to what's really getting ready to happen.

Jeff: I actually have a pretty good theory on that war for when we get to our next game that we're gonna play.

Oh yeah.

Brent: I love it there. Um,

Jeff, did you have anything else about this episode?

That's better? I got one cuz I need to call something

Jeff: out in this episode. Yeah, it's probably the last thing I've got on this, so go for it. Okay. Yeah.

Brent: So, um, dude making a hell in color reference. Seriously?

Jeff: Yeah. Like, and, and it being so bad in the moment that even Garabaldi is like, Whoa dude, dude, come on.

When,

Brent: when you're, when your writing is so good that you can make a horrible joke and then within the same breath of writing, call yourself out on it.

But think about it like, so these guys are a couple hundred years into the future from us. So calling out a Helen Keller reference because Helen Keller's about a hundred years an hour past. Exactly right. So that's about 300 years removed.

Jeff: At least almost four. I think this would be,

Brent: this would be like on the level of us making a joke about Bach being deaf or something like, cuz at first I was like, you even know who Helen Keller was.

Jeff. I guarantee there are people listening to this show right now who are going, Hey, who's Helen Keller? Guys? Google it. You

Jeff: should, Brent. Brent. There are people who believe that Helen Keller is made up. Whoa. There was a, came out of some university something, but these students came together and said, there's no way she could be real.

The adversity she overcame, That's not realistic. It's not possible. You're lying to us about who she is. Yeah. There are people today questioning

Brent: that. Yeah. So I mean the, the basic story, just for anybody out there who might not know, Helen Keller was a person who was born both deaf and blind. And managed to do, She managed to overcome it.

And yeah, she wrote

Jeff: books. She, yeah. Inspired movements, like one of the most inspirational people I think, who's ever lived.

Brent: Right. And, and especially doing it as a girl in an era before, like women's suffrage and women's rights and, and things like that. Like, it, it, it, it's not just her, her disability, but it also is, it, it is connected to her gender , you know, uh, in that world, in that context.

Like that's pretty huge. And I mean, I'm, I'm fairly familiar with a lot of that. Uh, I grew up living with my grandparents. My grandparents were both deaf. Um, so anything that's in that world and that community is just, you tend, you tend to stand up and notice it a little bit more when you, when you live in that world a little bit.

And you know, Helen Keller. Somewhat of a hero. Yeah. You know, I remember my grandmother always talking about, now my grandmother wasn't blind, but she was deaf and, and I remember her talking about Helen Keller a lot. Like that was a personal hero of hers. So they really

Jeff: think she doesn't exist. Yeah. Yeah. I read, I'm just like, oh my gosh.

Like if the world ended this like would probably be better off , which is terrible thing to see. Maybe not that far, but whew. Yeah. Anyway, pretty mind

Brent: blowing. Yeah, like I just, uh, Alright. Helen Keller. All right, Jeff,

Jeff: I think we have reached this part of the episode right where we boil this all down, see if this show has any of that star treky quality that we've been talking about here for a little bit.

A deep moral message, right? Maybe it's holding up a mirror to society, giving us hope that we can be better in the future. We're gonna do this by me rating the episode on a scale of zero to five deltas on how star Treky it is, and Brent. You're gonna rate the episode on a scale of zero to five star theories as to how much we enjoyed the episode.

And I think I'll launch right where, where you dropped it there, how service is a matter of the, uh, of the conscience or the heart. And there, and linear is such a great example of that. He says, he says to, uh, Dalen, who's visibly shaken, who says that she is going to be facing darkness and fire. Right? That theme of fire that we got from Kosh, you know, a little while ago, but I mean dark stuff.

And he says, Where you walk, I walk like that loyalty, that commitment and that service and, and and, and even how she kind of pointed it back to him, you know, about how, you know, when you first came here, you wouldn't even look up, you wouldn't look me in the eyes. I told you to, but you never stopped. Never stopped, you know, averting it.

And it just, it just speaks to the, the strength of service. But I think so much of the message in this episode to me, we saw a lot of people face death in this. And we've talked before about the concept of be, do, have, right? Who you are, what you do, and what you have. And when you're faced with death, you see who you really are.

And I think that what we saw in here, Ramirez was such a great example where the computer told him he had already received the terminal dose of radiation, he was going to die. So he diverted all of his life support as much as possible to the engine so he could get back to Babbel on five and warn them about what happened to Sheridan.

His dying breath was warning them that they needed to go save Sheridan. He was, he sacrificed himself for the greater good, right? And he did so with dignity. all the way through. The narn on the ship wanted to die because there was no escape. Sheridan saw death as an option, right? Not something he wanted, but something that wasn't option, something he wasn't afraid of.

Thelen demonstrated not through death of person, but through death of identity and you know, not being sati anymore, and then just the pure hatred that they put on her. She knew who she was. Sheridan knew who he was. Narn, . Narn knew who he was in Ramirez did as well. I think that is such a strong message to know who you are and stick with it to the end.

In the last episode, Sheridan said The only certainty in war is death. In this one, he reflected further and talked about how unfair death is. Ramirez was just a kid. It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't. So be you. There's no one else worth being. I think between the, the messages of service, loyalty and being who you are, this, to me was a four Delta episode.

What do you think on star

Brent: theories? Yeah. I I am. You said it so Well, I'm not gonna addend onto that because Thank you. I think you just did it well. Uh, I agree for Star furs. It sounds, sounds right up right there. Uh, or I'm sorry for Deltas as far as star Furies. Jeff, I, I liked this episode. This episode left me wanting more.

I don't know how much I liked this episode, given how much I disliked Groos. Last week, you know what I mean? Yep, yep, yep. Um, but there's so much to this, to this episode to chew on. There's so much to get through. This does not feel like an episode that is a standalone episode. Like if you are just flipping through the channels and you've never seen Babylon five and you jump into this episode, you just feel like you would be lost.

But for those of us who have been in it so far, this pulled so many threads and pulled things back together. And I think it might have even pulled threads that didn't tell you about like, you know, organic tech, um, or the techno majors. We didn't get any techno majors, but I mean, we need more techno. We need more techno majors.

Yeah. I need more Michael in, sorry, in my life. Totally. Anyway, um, it pulled so many things together that while the episode itself as a standalone episode really may not be that strong. It is a strong episode for where we are in this, uh, series. So I'm giving this one 3.75 star series. Wow. Okay. And that probably feels a little low to me because I, I, I think I could come back and look back on this episode and go, There's so much to chew on in this episode, but particularly Thelan stuff.

Yeah. Um, Ramirez, I immediately liked Ramirez and I still haven't grasped onto Keer yet. Like I would, I would trade you three Keifers for one Ramirez. A hundred percent. Yeah. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. . And he did in one episode. What Keer hasn't been able to do. And what is this? 11 episodes now?

Jeff: Well, I think four, three or four that he's been in.

Brent: Right. You. I might even trade you a netta for I, I'll check you. A Keer and a Netta for Ramirez

Jeff: Netta, who's been in one episode this season. Right? One. Yeah.

Brent: Right. So yeah, that's, that's where I got it right now. Nice. I'm gonna give it 3.75 star Furies. I could be convinced to go up later and, and make it more, but

Jeff: that's what I feel like this is gonna be one that part way through season four or whatever, when these pieces drop in, we're gonna look back on this episode and be like, Oh, this is epic.

So good. But we don't have all that information yet. There's, there's

Brent: a lot of potentially epic stuff if they could just drop it mm-hmm. , it could just be drop, but I don't think they're gonna drop much, much of the stuff

Jeff: at all. Well, starting now in season two, we are ranking the episodes. We are developing the absolute 100%, completely accurate, objectively definitive ranking of season two of Babylon five.

So, Brent, our top five right now is in first place. the coming of shadows. Second place, a race through dark places. Third soulmates, fourth points of departure, and five, a spider in the web. Brent, where do you place all alone in the night?

Brent: Okay. I remember really liking a race through dark places, right?

Mm-hmm. . Okay. The, when I do this, the only litmus test that I know that is, that is good to use is what episode would I rather watch again first? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. You know, like if I, if I could pick two episodes, if I got two episodes, I could pick one. Which 1:00 AM I watching? That's, that's how I gotta rank this.

So that being said, um, I think I like this one a lot better than a spider in the web. So I'm gonna push spider in the web out. I definitely like this one better than points of departure. Okay. Points of departure was a good opening to the season, but it by no means was its best episode. Agreed. Like not even, not even close.

So the question is, do I like this episode or did I like soulmates better? Now, soulmates was the one about lawn divorcing his wives, right?

Jeff: Yeah. Those are very different episodes.

Brent: It's an incredibly different episode. I really liked that episode, but I'm also a comedy guy. If you can make me laugh or you can make me feel something, I'm going to like that episode.

But is this an objectively better episode than soulmates? I think it might be, but subjectively, I think I like soulmates still better than what we got out of this one.

But is it like, But why do we, So here's my question back to you, Jeff, and, and admittedly, some of these episodes are starting to run together, so maybe you can help. Why do we like coming of shadows and race through bar dark places better than soulmates?

Jeff: Well, I gotta go back and look to find out.

Brent: I was just trying to do that while you were talking a minute ago,

I was like, Wait, what happened in these episodes?

Jeff: Let's see here. YouTube, this is, this is all for you right now. Mm-hmm.

Brent: Race through Dark Places was Best or Back. Oh, yes. And that was a phenomenal episode. Right? That was great. Yeah. That was a great episode. And I would watch that again before I watched Soulmates and the

Jeff: Coming of Shadows was the declaration of the Sent Na War.

Oh yeah.

Brent: When everything just sort of hit, Yep. Yeah. I think I've gotta put this one up above Soulmates. I liked soulmates. It was a fun episode, but this one feels coming of shadows. Like I think when we look back on season two and you think, Okay, what are the marquee episodes? The ones that. Turned the story.

This has to be one of those. So I'm gonna put this one up at number three below the Bester episode, but above the guilty pleasure. I think that is soulmates. Cause I think soulmates has to be a guilty pleasure, right? It

Jeff: kind of is. . Yeah. Like, yeah,

Brent: it was just fun. It was a fun episode. , you know. Uh, so yeah, I'm gonna put this on number three.

Jeff: Wow. All right. Well that's it for all alone in the night next week, Brent, we're watching acts of Sacrifice for the first time. Now we've never seen these episodes before. We haven't looked at thumbnails, synopsis, anything. We don't know anything about it. All we know is the title, based on the title alone.

Brent, what do you think will happen next week on Acts of Sacrifice?

Brent: Well, we saw, you know, I always want these to like continue the story from the episode we just saw, and that number is how it goes, right? Because I'm gonna be like, All right, so we just saw Lanier like agree to go back to Dalin, and so we're gonna find out what it cost him.

That's actually where I'm going. We're gonna find out what it costs Lanier to stay by Da Lynn's side. Nice. And I really hope that we get the other half of that conversation that Sheridan had with his crew because we, we need to, we need to have that information.

Jeff: I don't think we're gonna get it. I think we're gonna get it in story bits over the next three seasons.

Really? Yeah. Which sucks, but whatever. I think this is the beginning of the end of the Sonari war. Sonari Na War. I think it's gonna end within about two or three more episodes, Uhhuh. And this is the beginning, starting with lawn. Not publicly making an act a sacrifice, but sacrificing something behind the scenes to save face and still be lawn uhhuh doing all the stuff he does.

But he's, Is this like the

Brent: redemption of

Jeff: Lando? The beginning of, Yeah, I think this is the beginning of it. I know a couple episode. I don't like Lando right now. Exactly. I think a couple episodes ago I talked about how he's gonna die and have to kill himself and stuff. I don't know if that's gonna be the case, but I think he's gonna do something, Sacrifice some of his dignity is respect his, you know, part of his reputation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That will lead to here in a handful of episodes, the end of the Sonari Nan War.

Brent: Yeah. So you and I like you, you in agreement with me. The Sary war is just the appetizer for whatever the big thing is. I

Jeff: think you've convinced me, cuz at first I thought this was gonna be, well it's gonna be the appetizer, but it's gonna blow up into so much more Uhhuh

I think it is gonna blow up, but I think it's gonna resolve. I think it's gonna resolve. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then we'll move into so much more. Gotcha. Gotcha. At least I hope me too. Well, we'll find out here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us here. As we watched all Alone in the Night, we appreciate it so much.

Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. And if you haven't already, please head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. I really enjoy reading your reviews here on the podcast. So, Brent, until next time.... jeff. Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. I

Brent: need to know right now. Where do your loyalties lie? Are you in or are you out right now? I need to know.

Jeff: Well, I'm,

Brent: This is my first time.