Babylon 5 Season 2 Wrap-Up

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon five for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I have just watched the second season of Babylon five for the first time.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I've also watched the second season of Babylon 5 for the very first time, and I'm so excited to be here at the end.

We're at the end,

Jeff: Jeff. We are. We made

Brent: it 40% of the way through this

Jeff: show, and I feel like it's just getting started. Right, right, right. Now, normally, I was gonna say, normally this is the part of the episode where I introduce our rule of three, where we talk about how we're Star Trek podcasters and we're gonna make Star Trek references, but that is off for today.

Not only are we gonna make Star Trek references, . That's all we're gonna do. This is actually gonna be a Star Trek podcast about Babylon five. We're gonna do all of them. All of them, every single one. I have memory alpha open. I'm just gonna start reading from it here pretty soon. I've

Brent: got memory beta.

That's how deep I'm going. That is

Jeff: deep. Wow. Wow. I am kidding. This is not a Star Trek podcast, but we will, we're not gonna hold ourselves to three. If we feel like we need to make the reference, we're gonna make the reference in this one. Feel free to throw

Brent: a buzzer in there once in a while just cuz it's fun and pleasing for the ears for all of our listeners.

Jeff: They love it. Our listeners love when we buzz ourselves . But you know what I love more than that is when our listeners buzz themselves, that's the best.

Brent: Yes. Be careful cuz this could be going wrong real fast in that, in that conversation now, uh, along with doing all of the Star Trek references that we said to celebrate, you know what else we're doing, Jeff, what else are we doing?

We're having a very exciting giveaway. Yes,

Jeff: we

Brent: are. This is at now at this point, this is now a tradition, I guess with Babylon five for the very first time. Uh, and this week, week, this season, this season, we are giving away this inbox, captain John Sheridan Vintage, 1990. Nope. Yep. 1997. Captain John pointing Sheridan with a teeny tiny Babylon five that he apparently swings around his head like a lasso.

And, uh, we'll be doing this at some point during the course of today's show. Jeff, I didn't look ahead to see where we're doing it. It's not now, is it? It's not

Jeff: now. We're gonna do it a little bit later. We'll probably talk about it a couple more times because it's exciting and it's cool. And the way that people have entered to have an opportunity for this is they left a review on Apple Podcast or good pods or pod chaser or somewhere they screenshotted a screenshot.

It. They screenshotted it, then they sent that to us at Babylon five first gmail.com. The number five, the word first, or at Babylon first on Twitter. So we're gonna hit that here a little bit

Brent: later. Jeff, are you sure that the past tensed version of the word screenshot is screenshotted?

Jeff: Maybe it's

Brent: screenshot.

That's what I was thinking. Is it screenshot? ?

Jeff: I would like you to keep your shouting off of my screen. , be

Brent: screenshot. No, that wouldn't make sense. Screenshot. I would, I would go screenshot.

Jeff: Screen chat nerd.

Brent: Oh,

Jeff: that'd be cleaner than a screenshot. I think. ,

Brent: I don't know. Uh, . . Well, Jeff, uh, you know, along with that rule of three game that we are not playing today, there is another game that we do like to play in every single episode.

And we are going to play this game today where we get to the end and we try to guess what next week's episode is going to be about. Except last time when we did a wrap up show for Season one instead of just saying what the next episode was gonna be about, although I think we did that too. We made a prediction of what season two as a whole is gonna be about.

So where this is the season two wrap up, now is the time to look back at that prediction and see how close we were to being right about our predictions for season two. So Jeff, do you remember, you gotta think back. This is been months now, months, 22 weeks ago, right? What did you predict season two was going to be about and how close

Jeff: were you?

So almost five months ago. And the cool thing is on our website, Babylon five first.com, the number five, the word first. We have all of our episodes up there. So I did do a little prep and went back and re-listed to our season one wrap up. Cause I have no idea. , I had no idea what I guessed , but it was there and I listened to it.

And my guess was that the shadows were, I mean, this is called the coming of shadows, right? Right. So at season two. So it's gonna be the shadows coming up and I thought it was gonna be a conflict, a war between the shadows and the vlan with everybody else cut in the middle. And the ultimate question that would be answered would be the one when, uh, back when Morden was on the station and he ran into Kosh and K said, they're not for you.

And I thought we were gonna determine, determine or find out who they are and who they are for. So I, I mean, I was a little close in that there is a longstanding conflict between the shadows and the vlan. Right, but there was no war with the shadows directly in this one. People weren't caught in the middle.

People that were caught in the middle were the ones who were actually at war. So maybe, maybe, I don't know, 15, 20% credit on this one. What about you? How did, what did you guess? How did you come?

Brent: Well, I, instead of saying that there was this longstanding war between the Vons and the shadows, I actually said that the Vons are the shadows.

That was my prediction was, um, uh, yeah, was that they are the shadows now somewhere in the middle of the season. I said they're the same people, just two different sides of the coin. So I was really kind of hanging onto that. Um, but I, I said that this would have something to do with Kosh. The VLANs are coming and they're gonna take over everything.

They're the harbingers of death and everyone's gonna have to team up against the VLANs. So that would, that would bring Lado and Jaar and the Na and Sonari together in alignment. And then, You've got the Mbar and the humans, whatever's going on with those guys because we didn't know at the time, um, and that they were gonna all go, have to go against Kosh who showed us how awesome he was when he just went, boo Death Walker's gone.

Jeff: Right. Death Walker not walking no

Brent: mo. Right. . But then you said what you said and I went, oh, so maybe the Volans could be the heroes. They're just jerks for not stopping all the bad stuff that's happened in the universe. And I might have been a little bit right about that possibly, but, uh, I'm gonna give you more credit than I give me.

Jeff: I think either way we were pretty far off. I mean, conceptually, like we said something, words Yeah. We had some

Brent: words that were Right. Yeah. When, when all those people who comment, uh, at our YouTube page or send us emails, uh, or tweet at us and they're like, or Mastodon at us, I guess, or we're over there now, I guess.

Jeff: I don't know. Right. Whatever. Yeah.

Brent: Um, When people do that and they're like, you get, you're, you're so close, but then you're so far off. This was a, you're so far off, you're just, you have no clue. I'm like, yeah, cuz we've never

Jeff: seen it before. Yeah. Frankly, it would be weird if we were able to chart the course of an entire season, especially of Babylon five Uhhuh

But we'll find out at the end of this episode. Maybe we'll be able to do that this time. Brett, you've unlocked, you've unlocked your superpower and guessing a couple of the episodes I've had, I've,

Brent: I've nailed a few of them. Like, and, and even like, Hey, here's my thought. And then you would say something and then I would nail it on the comeback.

Like I'd grabbed rebound. Uh, that's, that's been fun. I, if we were really, uh, on top of it, Jeff, we would grab like a highlight reel of that and we would play that right about now. Right. But we.

Jeff: Um, however, let's for the replay, you right? Yeah. That's what you get

Brent: the last 22 videos, uh, on our YouTube channel or in the podcast feed.

Go, go check that out Jeff. I want to call an audible. Okay. This isn't in our plan, this isn't in our notes, but typically in an ordinary show, we'd get to this spot and we'd say, well, let's remind the folks of what the episode actually was about. Let's take a moment and just sort of off the top of our head, we're both first time watchers, so it's only in there as much as first time watchers can be right.

The things that are really important, we don't know. They haven't stuck out to us yet, you know what I mean? So as best we can, let's take just a, a couple of minutes and go, what are the key themes? What are the major things from season two? And we can even go back to season one, I think, and just what do we know so far?

Like let's just sort of recap where we are as we head off into season

Jeff: three. Okay. Well, I think to kick that off, the, one of the biggest things that happened in the second season transitioning from season one was the introduction of Captain Sheridan. Right, right. Uh, Sinclair going to Minbar and Sheridan coming in and then kind of upgrading the station and that he's a captain of Ava, became a commander.

She started taking on more those diplomatic duties and just kind of the change in the command structure on the, on the station.

Brent: That definitely was a big part and we'll talk a little bit about that. I've, I've got thoughts on how that affected specifically Ava in a way that I didn't realize until I started thinking about it.

Um, so we had that coming out of season one. We had questions about what the heck happened at the battle of the line, and we got answers. Why did the mumbar just suddenly pull back when they were at the, at the depths of victory? And we learned that mumbar souls have been disappearing. And they've actually are attaching themselves or they're being born into or whatever that process is into humans.

And so maybe not all humans are a part bar, but they are. And I predicted Sheridan's, part Mobar, not Sheridan, uh, Sinclair, but I think Sheridan probably is as

Jeff: well. Yeah. Who else we Yeah, we predicted that to you. You predicted that,

Brent: right? Uh, so, so we learned that which was huge and that, that is, I'm still something prompted Dalin to go into this chrysalis, which was a part of fulfilling a prophecy that she just sort of said, I'm going to now make it about me.

Mm-hmm. , it seems to be pointing towards me, so I'm just gonna make it about me. And she went through some sort of change that makes her literally part mbar part.

Jeff: Yeah, cuz the prophecy, right? Was that the two sides or something? The two sides of the minbar. The darkness and the light, I think even were need to come together.

And she personally interpreted that as a physical manifestation and decided that she was gonna do it. I was actually thinking, because early on she was so self-righteous about that change, right? Mm-hmm. , somebody asked her like, Hey, so clearly you're different. What's going on? Oh, I'm doing this, uh, thing with the blessing of my government.

Yeah. And I was like, no dude. They, they threw you out of the, this isn't the blessing. But then I thought about it at the time, she was a sati, she was part of the government and she did it with her own blessing. So technically , she has a blessing of

Brent: the book and didn't forbid her from doing it. Exactly.

Yeah. They didn't forbid her, they, they just said, we'd rather you wait. I went, oh, well you did it anyway. Well, you know, and, and dude from the, from the Great council came over and was like, Hey, here's the thing you're gonna need in order to do it. Yeah. Gave it to her like, I don't know how much more you could interpret that as being with the, you know, I guess there's a difference between with the blessing and just not being forey.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. Well, and so years and years ago in front of our state legislature, I, I applied for a grant, a couple million dollars to do some cool stuff. And you have to go in front of legislature, get the okay to do it. And there were some policy implications. And so, uh, the committee voted to not make a decision.

Like their decision was We're not gonna tell you yes or no, we're just gonna say we're not making a decision. And when I was walking from the capital building to my car, the chair of the committee called me and he said, do it. And then come back in the next session and ask for a retro. He says, I'll write you a letter so you can bring it and blah, blah, blah.

So I feel like it's that thing where it's like, we're not gonna tell you yes or no, but we're also gonna give you all the tools to do it and just kind of look over here. Mm-hmm. also, we're gonna fire you. There's that. Right. We are gonna fire you, but we're gonna let you stay still be an ambassador. Right.

We're gonna let you hang on there. And I think that to kind of pivot real quick, I think says a lot too about the status of Babylon five from season one to season two, where I think the Menari were like, yeah, I mean, you're kind of ostracized. We're not, you're not on the great council. We're not gonna include you in our, in our reindeer games anymore.

But you can still be the ambassador over at that place. That's, eh, not so important to us anymore, apparently. Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Well, and, and definitely not because with the ousting of Delin from the Great Council, they have now brought in Naroon of all people. They could have, that could have been anybody. It didn't have to be naroon, you know, uh, they could have brought in anybody to do that, but they did bring in Naroon and that tipped the balance of power of the Great Council because we also learned there's a worker class Yeah.

Apparently as well, which, okay, cool. Uh, but it tipped the balance of power with the, the Great Council. And so what we now see is, We have just taking stock of the various governments. DRA came in and said, I don't recognize Men Bar anymore. Mm-hmm. . And now the balance is tipped on the men bar. And you're right, they're kind of almost hands offing, babble on five, who knows what's really happening on Men Bar right now?

You've got Earth where they just a assassinated their own president and installed their own dude. And something's going on with Cycore out there. Like, and they're all whatever. And there's now this Ministry of Peace, which has come in, which may be an extension of Home Guard or some other deal. We haven't really heard Home Guard in a while.

Um, you've got, you've got the Sonari who are just going crazy with their imperialist plans and recapturing. Narn and Nan's fall into the Sonari and the Volans still just out there being the Bolon. Mm-hmm. being the big old jerks waiting around, just watching, oh, look at this. Just letting, letting things happen.

That's an interesting kind of sort of state. Did I sum that up? Like with where we are politically in the world

Jeff: right now and I think the only, only other piece to add is that an entire species, the marab are gone. Gone. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Though, speaking of other species, we did get the very cool drowsy fight he did on green, purple

Like the, the, which I was going back reading some of those, uh, some of those comments that I missed when the episode first came out and they were like, that was JM S's um, like stab at political stuff. Mm-hmm. like the red blue, red blue uhhuh. And there is this one, um, this one scene in that episode when, uh, if, if I remember it right, dalen like takes a purple sash off of one of them and puts it on one of the green guys.

And like people just stood around, went what's, and then they just attacked the dude that was like their guy

Jeff: totally off the top rope,

Brent: get him like, he didn't even do anything. They just put, she just put it on him. And I was like, oh, that's so

Jeff: perfect's that blinded. That's so perfect. That blind adherence to a, to a color or a cloth or a rag or a in his, I said, you literally just pulled it out of

Brent: the barrel.

Like that's actually the only thing. And we do this every five years, , and it lasts for a whole year. Like we do this every four years and it seems to last for

Jeff: two, right? Uhhuh . Oh gosh. But, but even that, like it lasts for a whole year, but it actually only lasted for one episode. We saw drowsy throughout the entire season, which, and nothing was happening with Yeah.

And that we know, we learned, I think one thing we learned from season one to season two just logistically about Babylon five is each season is a calendar. Oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, they start early in the year. They end around, uh, Christmas time, Hanukkah time, new Year's Eve, and there were no drowsy wearing purple or green after that.

So, I mean, the way I read that, cuz Ava's solution was to make everybody purple, you know? Was it to go to, yeah, we were gonna go down to the quartermaster. We're gonna get everybody a purple sash. This thing's, uh, this thing's taken care of, which, you know, so a lot of a solution based on jms, you know, kind of read on this, was to go to a one party rule system.

Uh, yeah. , which also lines up with the Ministry of Peace popping in and the stuff going on on earth. But, but yeah, we should have seen people wearing green sashes the whole year. So, uh, missed opportunity. Missed opportunity. Right,

Brent: right. Um, so, but, but overall, okay. And then we learned a lot about the shadows.

Mm-hmm. , like, I think that was, that was honestly the, the big reveal. Well, before we do that, let's talk, there's Cy Core Yeah. Stuff going on at home, because that's been a big deal. So, We know Cycore is more and more involved. They're hunting down these telepaths, they're trying to breed them, which we actually learned in season one, but it really came to to light here in season two.

Uh, they're trying to breed them to get higher and higher. Telepaths Yeah.

Jeff: They're doing eugenics. They're doing genetic modifications like with Jason Ironheart. Yeah. They're really trying to create that perfect sigh per, you know, telepath, telekinetic thing. Yeah. For whatever

Brent: purpose, you can only assume galactic domination, um, or

What other purpose is there? I don't know. Right. Like, so they're, they're trying to do that. Um, and there is an underground railroad movement that was centered on Babylon five, but is now, apparently somebody else has taken up the banner and it's

Jeff: happening somewhere else now. It's still happening though. I think that's, and and they used it, right?

They used it after it got taken down, so they still have access to it. , but it's, but it's, it's moved away from Franklin and from Babylon five. Right.

Brent: Uh, Franklin's still a jerk, by the way. Yeah.

Jeff: Franklin is now more, he is more the worst than he was. Like, if people would describe Babylon five as a roller coaster, and so far Franklin is just a downward, not an exciting downward slide, but a very wildly disappointing one.

I feel like there was

Brent: one episode where like for half the episode he got a little bump. I was like, okay, I'm actually kind of with him, and Oh, there he goes again.

Jeff: Yeah. Confessions and Lamentations like, oh yeah, I remember saying like this, this, this is such a horrible reflection of humanity that I'm on Franklin's side.

Right. That's how far you've pushed me. Right.

Brent: Until he went to like, oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was, uh, that was the one about the plague, right? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, it's like, I think in my, in my little, my little name tag, I said, Franklin was right. . Yep. You know, uh, but it was still very much the, it's my way or the highway.

There's no consensus here in that particular situation. It was correct, but, uh, yeah, overall, anyway, um, so they're trying to breed them. There's the Underground Railroad, but the bigger thing is San Ver or San Diego is just a big ball of dust. And underneath San Diego is Section 13,

Jeff: bureau 13. Bureau 13, sorry.

You're melding the two .

Brent: I am, uh, bureau 13, which has a, an AI called control.

Jeff: We're assuming an ai, we're assuming it's an ai. True.

Brent: Wait, in my head it was just an ai That's

Jeff: just an assumption. That was, that was what it was in my head up until, um, Talia went bad Uhhuh and had the thing unlocking her and Leah Alexander told us that it was Codenamed Control.

Oh, maybe it is an AI within her maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I think

Brent: I. Yeah. In AI we have a

Jeff: lot more to learn about control.

Brent: We do. And there's apparently 13 agents, one of which came to babble and five, and he blew himself. He went, he glitched effectively. Mm-hmm. . And we suspect Talia might also be another, have been another, uh, agent.

Do we suspect that the other 11 might also still be on Babylon five? That's my suspicion. That's because I seem to remember like there's 13 of 'em on Babylon five, which is just for a place that doesn't have that big of a purpose, like to throw all those people at baby on five, which just seems very weird.

But,

Jeff: well, I think for Earth, because they're all from Cycore, you know, this is all earth directed thing for Earth. That's the, that's the doorway to the galaxy. If I'm the sari, if I'm the minbar, Or some, you know, something, I've got access to everything. You know, Uhhuh, I've got all, but Earth, earth is still, earth is the one who is the little kid on the block who beat the dga, you know, kind of made a name for themselves and then almost got destroyed and then has been kind rebuilding itself up.

And Cy Cor sees this opportunity. The president sees this opportunity, whatever that whole government mechanism is, to be it, but they need Babylon five as like the staging, the staging area, essentially to do that. You

Brent: know what it reminds me of as you describe it like that, I don't know if you know who this is gonna be, uh, Logan Paul.

Jeff: Oh, Uhhuh, yeah. Yeah. He, uh, wrestled, he wrestled at a WWE event, uh, too long ago. Was, it was actually

Brent: incredible, right? No, but so like, apparently this guy was just like a YouTuber with a big mouth and like, he caught, like, he got, he got pretty big and caught some attention and like he wound up getting in wwe and like him and his brother are like, Big, like they're out boxing stuff, but they're not like classically trained boxers, you know?

Yeah. But they're going up and tearing up people, you know, . Mm-hmm. . So, uh, and they're, they're like, you almost describe it like that, like, yeah, it's this guy who's coming in that nobody expected, and all of a sudden they're tearing everybody a new one. But he had a new kid on the block and not really

Jeff: part of it.

He did, he did a fight, I think, at ufc, and I, I, I just, I thought it was ridiculous and whatever. But then, and then they hyped him for, I think it was him and Roman rains, uh, with wwe. And I was, I mean, just insulted like, I'm like, this is a David Arquette and w CW thing all over again. Oh my God. And then they went out and probably put on like one of the best matches of the year.

Like he showed such an understanding of the sport and Yeah. He, he, uh, bro, he twisted his knee, um, like dislocated it or something. Had some really bad knee damage and just had in the, in the match. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, right? People look pro wrestling. People call it fake. . There are many orthopedic surgeons out there that would never use that word.

I have that orthopedic surgeon cuz that happened to me when I was doing it Right. But he did, there's this iconic shot of him leaping off the top rope coming into Roman rains. It's beautiful, amazing looking shot. Yeah. But he did it with like a damaged knee. The guys, the guy's the real, I hate to say it.

Yeah. Real. These are real deal. Well so is Earth Jeff. Exactly. So is earth. And I hate to say that as well. I mean, it's a thing too where I think we left season one, I don't wanna say we ever felt good about Earth, you know? Cause at the end of Season one we knew that they killed the President. You know, we, we could piece that together.

But we still felt like earth, you know? Right. Where Earth and Earth that's gone. That is gone. Right.

Brent: So, but with that though, in the midst of Cy, and we know that Cyco is somehow in bed with the new Earth government and this ministry of peace, which I wanna flesh that out in just a second. But there is also a.

Small band that is military based of people that are basically creating their own resistance movement. Mm-hmm. and Sheridan and Garabaldi and Ava are a part of it, and they were gonna bring in Tolia till she went crazy. Um,

Jeff: dodged that one,

Brent: right? Yeah. Franklin Franklin's a part of it using his underground railroad connections.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. General, actively General HAG leads that. Right.

Brent: Yeah. Right, right. And they're actively working against this

Jeff: new government thing. But we saw how dangerous that is in the end episode, where as part of the Ministry of Peace, they have that night watch. Yeah. The Night Watch is already tattled on Sheridan very publicly in a way that, I mean, cause Babylon five to get damaged, to have that big strut, you know, thing come get blasted off of it.

But yeah, you're right. I think that we, we, we had a couple episodes where, at least one where Hag sent people to Babylon five to. Give Sheridan some information to ask for some information. Mm-hmm. , so like they're actively at least spreading. That was the hunter prey right. Episode where the doctor fled the president's entourage, and so they were able to lean on them as a, as a resistance group.

It's not the only resistance group, though. We've got Jaar and the Narn, right. Building a resistance group. So there's really this overarching story of massive powers in the sonari, in the Earth Force government. Yeah. And then these real small, really focused, really skilled resistance movements, uh, forming to, to, you know, fight Gorilla Wars or whatever they need to do against them.

It's,

Brent: it's amazing to me that Lando is still allowed to be on Babel on five, you know, although, I guess it occurs to me that in the real world, Just because one nation goes again, you know, declares war on another nation as we have recently seen, that nation isn't kicked outta the United Nations. Exactly.

You know, like you still have to have that ambassador there. Now, whether or not they show up, whether or not they take an active part, that's up to them.

Jeff: But in theory, that's where peace could get brokered. You know? I mean, that's where the conversations could occur and that's, that was the intent I think, of Babylon five, was to avoid war, but in the face of war, to have a, have a neutral place in which to parlay, you know, and, and figure his stuff out.

But they, I mean, the naer no longer on the council. That's a big thing. Jaar lost his seat because he's now technically a citizen of the Sentara Republic.

Brent: Do you think it was too early for AANA to declare that Babylon five being the last best hope for peace is a failure? Oh, a hundred percent. I think I, that actually might be too early. Like, it's not a, this is what you're here for, like to work through this. Right? Like, not to necessarily just prevent it, although you wanna prevent it if you can, but like, this is a part of it that when it does happen, you've gotta work through it.

Like, you know, uh, and I, I don't know that you call the last best hope for peace, a failure when you have this unknown outside entity coming to influence everything, you know? So I, I, and when they're

Jeff: still, they're still actively working for peace, you know? I mean, of the fall of night ended with like a montage of scenes with Havana doing a voiceover.

It was really well done. Yeah. And one of the montage scenes was the council meeting with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and the Council in Lawn, you know, beating his fist and yelling and screaming. What that told me is they're still. They're still meeting, they're still talking. So to me, like to say that we're done with peace and we're going for victory, then, then why is lawn on the station?

Why is there a council anymore? Right?

Brent: So let's talk about lawn. Uh, the sonari have lost their ever loving minds or just gone back to who they really are. Yeah, lawn has gone full irredeemable, bad guy. No matter how much remorse he feels, he is irredeemable. Like the only thing he can do, I think to redeem himself is to go stab the, the shadow leader or guy in the stomach.

And even that's not redeeming himself that. Kind of helps a little bit.

Jeff: Like it's literally the Darth Bader story, right? He was, yeah. He was akin up, or he was the fun loving guy who had an edge to him who had questions about himself. Then he walked in with a light saber and murdered a whole bunch of kids, and, and then he, he fell to the dark side and has to, you know, wear a, where a breather suit.

Now he's going off and doing terrible things. It's gonna take something to the level of the emperor trying to kill Luke and him watching, and him doing the math, and then taking that lightning on himself. He's gonna ha that's the only redemption for LoDo. Right. But does

Brent: that actually, that doesn't absolve him though.

Like, and that might be the thing. Lando might be able to be redeemed, but he's not going to be able to be absol. I don't know. You know, and I, I might be using the wrong words.

Jeff: Well, I think that brings up a thing we talked about back in the first season, and that's the, the difference between justice and revenge or vengeance.

Like what, what does, what does absolution, what does reconciliation look like? How do you rebalance those scales? You know, it's, yeah. Is, is his death going to do that? Is him giving everything up gonna be enough to do that? I don't know. Billions of, at least now millions of people have died, but according to the techno ages, it will be billions that will die.

Oh.

Brent: Because of, oh, that was something that was, oh, we'll talk about that in just a few moments. Um, so the, the shadows are fully aligned with the sonari. Yeah. Shadows are basically handing the sonari, these victor. For the most part though, it still seems like the cent are the ones going out doing this stuff.

It's just the shadows are like taking care of the

Jeff: heavy work. Yeah. I feel like the shadows go in blast. Itsari walk in, mop up. Yeah. Occupy the thing and set up their, their infrastructure in their government.

Brent: And they're trying to kill their, their, they have a shadow emperor right now. Who? Cartia.

Jeff: Is that his name?

I think it's Cartage or Cartage or something. Right. There's

Brent: rfa who is no good.

Jeff: He's the real, he's the, he's the puppet master right now for the Centar government. Right.

Brent: Lando wants to be the emperor though. I remember that. I don't remember if that was something from season one or if that was something in this season, but there was, it was like RFA and Lando were talking.

Did we meet RFA in season one? No,

Jeff: we met him in season two. I met when this, there was when we met the techno ages, cuz that's when Lando wanted to get their blessing. Oh that's, that's, that's,

Brent: oh, I should have remembered that. Cause I just rewatched that episode Anyway. Um.

Jeff: Good. I mean, it's funny we don't have a high up, but like now looking back, and we'll get to this when we talk about rankings, but it's like, oh my

Brent: God, this was Yeah, they're great.

It, it rewrote the, and I'll talk about that overall for the season. Yeah. Um, but lawn's like, like, hey, I think we got a lot of work to do. Cause and, and Reef was like, you can be the new emperor, right? We're gonna set you up. And he is like, yeah, I'm go Solando wants to be this emperor. I don't know if he still does or not.

I think he does. Well

Jeff: Heo he and Veer had that sari to do their thing. Yeah. He wants to Sari to be high and mighty. He said he wanted to be Emperor, but then he and Veer had that conversation, I think it was in, um, in the coming of shadows that they had the, the conversation where Veer was like, why didn't you go to the Royal Court?

Like you go to the Royal Court, you get seen. That's the fastest pass to Emperor. And Lawn was like, I don't think I want all that anymore. Like, that's why he started having the doubts that he worked through. Pushed into full evil. And I, I think to your point, I don't think he has doubts anymore. He even had a vision, right?

Yeah. He had the vision that has him as emperor alone and old. Old and coughing. Yeah.

Brent: Sick. Yeah. And Jaar has that gnarly scar down his face. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think that the, the season ended with a little hint in the council chamber with him coughing. Right. That that's the path he's on. I would be, well, I'll get to this at the end, but I, I, I think there is an ambassador or an emperor lawn in our future.

I

Brent: don't disagree. I don't disagree. I, I don't think that, uh, Babylon five is t and g or Voyager where people don't get promoted or change levels just to stay in the show. Like, you know, you can promote people, you can change them and still have them in the show. Star Trek.

Jeff: It's okay. Look at Avan like they did it right.

And you know

Brent: what? You don't have to promote everybody beyond what their actual rank should be. Discovery, um, right. . Okay. So that's, I mean, that's kind of what we know so far, right? Mm-hmm. .

Jeff: And we saw Kosh, I, that's the other thing we saw,

Brent: right? The whole, there's the first ones. The shadows are older than the first slash ancient ones.

They fought, then most of them went off. A few of them stayed behind the lon being some of them who stayed behind. Mm-hmm. than a thousand years ago. They fought again. And Jaquan was a part of that group, right? We believe you and yeah. And then, uh, now it's been a thousand years and the VLAN have just been hanging around waiting,

Jeff: I guess while the shadows have been coming to Zaha Doom.

Uhhuh , they're woken up and they've, and we got that, uh, the long dark right to talk about how they're traveling from all across the galaxy to come together at Zaha Doom. Right.

Brent: And then we also know that the dude down on the planet Draw is entering the game. Mm-hmm. and he's shouting out Zas. And we still have Babylon four and Zas and that whole thing that we're not entirely sure, although I have a prediction of what I think it does.

Okay. Uh, that's flashing around out there somewhere. And, and hopefully we'll come back to that at some point. Yeah. Okay, Jeff, so with that, that's what we know so far. Uh, let's talk about the season as a whole. Cause we're really talking about the season. Give me an, an overall impression. Of your season, like, just, just in a statement, wrap up your thoughts on season two.

Jeff: I think I have to talk about season one to talk about season two a little bit. Cause Season One introduced us to the world, it introduced us to the characters. It kind of gave us the, the, the political landscape. I was gonna say the rules of the game, but frankly I think we're still learning. I think we're still learning the rules of the game.

And then season two, I think was the first time we're like, okay, now we have a real story. We have a real story to tell you. We, we dropped a few nuggets along the way and here we go. Season one was, was wildly inconsistent where the, the, the bad episodes were, were bad, bad episodes and the great episodes, the handful that there were, were great in season two.

Overall, and I think we talked about this when we, when we started recording, a lot of it really runs together for me because one, it feels like it's more of a contiguous story, but also the lows weren't as low. Most of the highs weren't as high. There were some super high, there was like at least one mega high, one in this, in this, uh, in this season.

But as a whole, it just kind of felt,

it felt necessary and okay, but not nearly as exciting as I was hoping it would be, if that makes sense. What, what about you? Like overall, what, uh, what did you think? Yeah, I think I'm

Brent: actually, I'm gonna take the exact same illustration that you just used, but I'm gonna flip it. Okay. Okay. For me, season one, and this may just be, I have an expectation of sci-fi in the nineties for season one, and it's really low across the board.

Season one sci-fi, particularly in the nineties, is not good. So approaching season one with that, I just sort of, uh, stayed with that and to. That whole season was just sort of, the whole season was kind of mediocre. Like it was good, it was enough to get me in the show, like, I'm gonna watch this thing, which I guess served the purpose.

Mm-hmm. , I understand that it was world building. I understand that it, it was that the producers and the writers and everybody's still trying to figure everything out, even though JMS had it all in his head. Right. I, I get that. You're right. There were some really bad episodes. There were some really good episodes, but the, the, the, the curve between good and bad wasn't that large to me.

Okay. Like, there was, there was some, some not really good episodes, but even the really good episodes weren't that good. Right. Whereas for season two with me, the episodes that I think back that I did not like, that I did not understand, We're really low. And I'm like, this isn't even season one level quality.

This is just duh. Uh, but the episodes that were really good blue season one out of the water were amazing. So that curve, and maybe I just had higher expectations, it really could come back to that. I just had higher expectations of season two than I did season one mostly. Cuz y'all out there, seriously, were saying, oh, just so it begins

Jeff: all up here from here is impossibly high.

Impossibly high, right?

Brent: Um, the other thing that I think I have come to understand is that on a rewatch, now this is our first watch and we've talked about this over the last couple of episodes. It feels like you and I are in a first watch. We don't know what happens. We don't know where things go from here.

I don't necessarily remember everything that, that we've had so far. And I've even seen like some people in comment, oh, but remember in this episode they said this and this episode they said this. And if you put this together and this together, this together and all it's together, I'm like, you can't catch that on your first watch.

No, not at all. Right. And my guess is that on a rewatch season two is actually a whole lot better than what I remember it as sitting here right now, just having done a first watch and we, we've referenced the episode a few times already. Geometry of Shadows. I just had to re-watch that episode. Had to, I, I re-watched that episode, um, just cause , you know, um, and I'm watching this episode and we ranked it rather low, like we liked the techno majors, but overall it was just like a, what is this episode?

What's going on? Who are the, why didn't they come back? They sounded really cool. The rest of the, the whole purple, green, drowsy stuff, like it was whatever, like. But all of a sudden I'm watching this episode, and now that I know what I know, it's clear to me, or at least this is what I think right now, the techno majors were leaving, like, like the way that the first ones left, they were just, they were gathering at Babylon five, and then they were going off to Avalon or, or wherever it is that you go and you ascend, you know?

And he said, he's like, there's this coming darkness. We have this skill and this knowledge set, and we're not about to let it get, uh, destroyed. So we're leaving. We're saying that these are like the elves leaving middle earth. Mm-hmm. , my guys we're out, we're piecing out. Like that's what they were doing in that episode.

Not probably a, a group that we're gonna see again. Um, they were just leaving. But there's also this conversation between the, the chief techno agent, Elron, I call. Elrick actually, I think was his name. Eldrick? Yeah, it was Eldrick. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: Right. Jane, that's his d and d name.

Brent: But there's a, there's a conversation at the end between him and Lando where he's basically like, dude, you are bad.

You're going to be the bad guy. Millions of people are going to die because of you, and there's no redeeming you, there's no way I understood that when I watched that in episode three of this season. But looking back after everything that's happened, 22 episodes later, I'm like, oh my gosh. He just told you what was going to happen.

Yeah. Here's the

Jeff: whole

Brent: season for you. And I've got to believe that that episode, had we understood it in that light, would've been way higher. Mm-hmm. . Now you and I really hated that episode. The long dark. Yeah. Like we wanted to pitch it, kick it, throw it, uh, ball it up, pretend like it never happened. My guess is on a rewatch, there's stuff there that we just don't even realize.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it just really is a bad episode. I don't know. But I think overall with season two, this thing that feels like this wildly low and high, this curve is actually a lot better than what we may know on a first watch.

Jeff: It reminds me a lot of season one of Discovery, right? That when you're watching the first season of Star Trek Discovery, it's kind of like what?

Uh, okay. Oh, I guess they're spoilers if. Oh, I guess they're in the mirror. Univer. Oh, okay, great. Whatever. But then when you watch it again, it's brilliant. Like they're planting seeds in the third episode cuz the first two were kind of weird. But in the third episode they are planting these seeds where you're just like, of course it was the mirror universe.

Like it was there all along. But you don't, you don't get that until a rewatch. And I think that this is actually just through you talking about, I mean specifically geometry of shadows, but I'm sure there's other ones, yeah. Revelations even where they did mention Za Doom. No

Brent: they didn't. No they didn't.

They did not ,

Jeff: but did not all of those things. I feel like this is like discovery was Star Trek trying to do what Babylon five did in the sec We, I'll say in the second season, I don't know if it's more cuz we don't know, but Right. That's kind of what that was. So I think Brent, we, we've talked about this season a little bit.

We've already started talking about some episodes and over the course of our look at the season, We developed the definitive, objectively correct ranking of all the episodes in the second season. Yeah. It's so definitive in fact, that I think we should go back and look at it and see if we want to move anything around.

Brent: Can we, can we do it in a game? I do love our games. We like, we like our games. Can we do it as a game?

Jeff: Yeah, let's do it. What

Brent: do you got in mind? Okay. Uh, do you ever like, get to Christmas time and you do like white elephant gift

Jeff: exchanges? Yeah. Like here, this is for you. You can give it, you can steal it, you can trade it kind of stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brent: So here's what I think we do. I think we, we go through the, through the episodes and we can take turns. Okay. And, you know, we'll start at the top, start at the bottom. I don't care which one. And say, okay, does this actually belong here? Do you wanna move it? Okay. And, and if you wanna move it, like you get to be the one to call it, or you can pass, you say, no, I'm gonna pass.

I'm gonna leave it right here. Or if you move it, that's fine. But we each get. Let's just say three. We like our rule of three here, right? It's a good rule. You get three steals and you can swoop in and grab that episode and move it to a different spot. Now, understand, as we continue to move episodes, that that spot may get moved up or down.

But once you like a gift, like a white elephant, once you steal a gift, you can't, it can't be sold in a second time. Mm-hmm. . So if it gets stolen and put somewhere else, you can't, you can't move it after that. Like, you just gotta live with it. But, uh, this gives us a chance to reran it. Maybe, maybe readjust, but, uh, you know, we can play a little game with it and see, see how it goes.

Jeff: What do you think? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. I think I'm gonna open up a little, uh, little note here so we can keep track of what we do . Okay. That's probably a good idea, right? Right. We're

Brent: gonna go from the top or from the bottom. What do

Jeff: you think? I think we go from the bottom. Okay. Um, and then, and then work our way up from

Brent: there.

All right. Well, Jeff, I will let, I will let you go first. Oh. So you get to, you get to pass. Or move and we'll start with the long dark. Now you said you had like a little blurb of what each episode was about, right? Sort of. Yeah. Yeah. Can you, can you read that just to honestly help me remember and the folks at home playing along with us, uh, this is our, this is our one chance by the way, to update the 100% absolutely correct.

Definitive ranking of season two about long

Jeff: five, the un immutable unchangeable list. We're just, we need to just make sure it's correct. That's all. Yes.

Brent: After, after today. Like this is, this is locked in set in stone. Grab the tablets and the chisel cuz this is it.

Jeff: This is it. So the long dark was the episode with Dwight Schultz as Amos who, um, where, and then the other ship, I forget what it's called, but the ship came on board that had the husband, wife.

That was doing. Oh, and Franklin was wildly inappropriate with her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally hit on the wife. And then, but that one of what we learned, or, or, or meant to believe it was one of the shadows had been traveling with that ship to get to Zaha Doom, but ate the dude and then was snacking on.

Is, is that what it was? It

Brent: was a shadow that was traveling

Jeff: or one of the shadows. Oh, I think that's what we were supposed to believe.

Brent: The shadows like just live out in various spots and they're being called home. So that's, that, that's the impression.

Jeff: That's totally. So when that, what that episode did, so it ended with Jaar looking at the book of Jaquan and it had the drawing of the mm-hmm.

the, the creature that was, we sort of saw because the effects were sort of sea effects. Yeah. Um, but they talked about, yeah, it's picking up its path to Zaha Doom. And then in the shadows of Za and the shadow Zaha Doom, when they were telling the whole story of the first ones. They said they're calling all the shadows back and returning to Zaha Doom to do this thing.

Brent: I miss that. That's kind of weird and, and really kind of chilling to think that their shadows are just out there existing in weird places.

Jeff: Yeah. Okay. So, so to me, um, what this episode told us is that, yeah, that there are shadows out there and they're, they're, they're, they're coming through and it confirmed it gave us that little nugget that, um, Jaquan was around.

Okay. During the last fight with the shadows, cuz he had the book. But I, I gotta be really honest with you, Brent, like that's, those are cool nuggets or whatever. Mm-hmm. , I didn't need them for the big give giveaway and the shadow of Zaha Doom and the Franklin stuff in this was unforgivably bad. This, I, I think I, I want to keep this one at 22.

So you're passing, I am passing on this one.

Brent: I'm not gonna use a steel on this one, but just remember along with going up, we can also go down. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, it can change. I, I, I am, I will just say I don't know that this necessarily, and this will depend on how we discuss the other episodes. I don't know that this necessarily deserves a 22, a bottom of the barrel, although the Franklin stuff was just cringe.

Yep. Bright Should is always amazing. But with that understanding now of what was happening, this actually may be cooler, so it may get pushed up just because other things drop lower. Correct. But with that, so I'm gonna leave it there. So we're gonna leave it at 22 for right now. Okay. Uh, a distant star.

Jeff, what was the

Jeff: distance star? A distant star was the episode. Where the um, God, what was that explorer ship that came through? Um, the old buddy of Sheridan's came to visit Oh. With like swamp rat or whatever it is by himself. And, and they ended up in hyperspace. Keer saw the, became the zeta the zeta com Zeta one commander.

Brent: Yeah. I got it. I got it. I, uh, I I am going to move this one. I'm moving this one to 22. This one was worse than the long dark. The long dark at least got kind of cool, uh, shadows. Existing in hyper space is just stupid to me. Like I know that may be the rule of this world and people out there may not like me.

Cuz remember we, we turned heel in this, in this season. We did. Yep. We took you and I personally took a heel turn. Babylon five sucks. No it doesn't. Um, somebody's gonna clip just

Jeff: that. I know. You just killed this podcast. Oh my

Brent: gosh. Um, Babylon five does not suck people. We are quite enjoying it. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm moving it down.

Jeff: And I will allow, I'm not gonna steal that .

Brent: All right. Revelations that one. I, I can take this one. That was the season two, uh, wrap up. Jaar comes back to the station from being gone and we get Sheridan and his sister and Sheridan's crying over his wife. And I got into a lot of trouble during that episode for a comment that I made, which I'm not gonna make again here.

Um, Jeff, you gonna leave this one up there? This should, this

Jeff: should be, this should be like an like, because the seeds like this introduced us to Zaha Doom. We had the Anna thing that then paid off and the shadow of Zaha Doom. Where Sherry

Brent: do you think is gonna pay off even more when she comes back? Cuz she's not

Jeff: going to.

But uh, cause she's morden, she's a morden out there doing stuff, right? So the story beats in this are huge. Mm-hmm. , I think. And it did a lot, it did a whole lot to like, give us stuff to connect for, connect with, for, for Sheridan. But Brent. This was not a good episode. Mm-hmm. , this was hard to watch and it was a slog.

Yeah. Do I move it? And, and, but this isn't just about how good the episodes are, you know, it's also has something to do with how important they are. Ooh. I am really tempted to move this one up, but I am also have a strong temptation to leave it where it is cuz it's a bad episode. Although I am gonna lean on how, um, Anna is a morden and she's working for the shadows and we're gonna see her again.

Uh, coming up, I am gonna move this up and I'm gonna move it up above Grow Pose, which we have at number 16 right now. So I'm gonna make revelations move from number 20 to number 16. Here's a question.

Brent: When using a steel, does it have to be on that particular episode or can we go back and steal a former episode?

I think we can do whatever we want. Okay. We, we, we can, we can, we can steal for, okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna let it sit there for now. I may come back and steal that one though, just so you know. Okay. And really piss you off about it. But that's okay. . But I, I need to wait to see what

Jeff: ones one of these others are.

That's fair. That's fair.

Brent: All right. Uh, next episode then, uh, you said you're moving this up to grow post

Jeff: above gro post. Yeah. Number 16 above gro posts will be the new number 16. And I like grow post. Yeah. I, I'm putting a lot of, I am put, I'm putting a lot of stake in the Anna payoff. Like that's how payoff, that's how pot committed I am.

Right. But we don't know that yet, though. We don't, but I'm, I'm an optimist. I am an optimistic person. Yeah. And I'm an optimistic person about a very dark and pessimistic show. .

Brent: All right. So now for a word. I remember that one too. That's the one where the, that was a, that was an incredibly. Creative. Mm-hmm.

And well put together episode that was a clip show without being a clip show. That was brilliant. Uh, do I get to do this one or is this you? This is you. This is me. Uh, but we have it way down at 19. I liked this episode. I, I just, it was nothing that I needed at all. So should I drop it down? I'm gonna drop it.

I'm gonna move it. It's still above a distance start, cuz I would way watch this one before I would watch Swamp at again. But, uh, you know, the, you talk about the importance of Anna, the importance of that shadow bit moving through, because that actually reframes that episode in my mind now. And Dwight Schultz is even as cringy as Stephen, uh, uh, uh, Dwight Dwight Schultz.

No, no, no, no. Franklin. Even as cringy as Franklin is and how highly inappropriate he is. That love story was secondary to what was actually talking about. Um, so yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna move it down, uh, below long dark

Jeff: wow to number 21. 21. Yeah.

When I was looking at this list, this is one that I was thinking about moving up and now forward.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Just because, and not, and you're right from a, from a story beat standpoint, it did nothing. Yeah. You know, I mean, we,

Brent: it was a, if you haven't watched till this point, here's everything you need to know now.

Let's go forward. Right.

Jeff: Really quick as a YouTube note. I am about to change cameras cause I made an overheat warning, so, okay. Gimme a second.

Brent: Why do you have a camera overheating?

Jeff: I don't know. This thing isn't supposed to act like that. Is it a,

Brent: do you have a light right behind it that's shining on it or something?

Mm-hmm. ?

Jeff: No, I have a soft box over there. I don't know why it does that. My wife, when she was using this one said, and it's not even, doesn't even feel warm, but a little like warning thing comes up, so that's fine. I'll give it a little break. Okay. Makes me look big time having like multi-camera shoot. So , okay.

It didn't do, but, but I think just the brilliance of how this episode was done. I mean this, like we talked about in, in our recap on this one, how we talked about in our discussion on this one, just like how other shows happened because of this show. But then I have to look at what's on here and I, I, I, I think, I think that I am going to let it stay because I think the other episodes have more meat to them.

I mean, it's great. And I, and so here I am publicly acknowledging, here's the asterisk. It's a brilliant episode. It's genius. It was so well done, could have never aired and everything would've been the same. Like it

Brent: was nothing that, that is my reasoning for putting it down, but I can't put it below.

Captain Swamp Rat.

Jeff: Yeah. So, I mean, all that one did was set up Keer getting killed really in the long run of things and, and told us that shadows use hyperspace to move. Oh, big deal.

Brent: Yeah. All right. Uh, acts of sacrifice. Jeff,

Jeff: I get to do this one. So this was the one with the Luma where Ava had to bring the Luma.

Show them the stuff and then they walked down through, down below and they saw how horrible humanity is to the, to people that are poor, uh, and then homeless. And they said, yeah, we love you. You're great. That's awesome. There was also some movement in the NAS war where Sheridan and Dalen agreed to move injured narn and supply and give food and supplies to them kind of under the table.

We have this currently at number 18.

I need to look and see what this other one,

YouTube. You're catching

Brent: all the behind the scenes work that goes in. Jeff's gonna edit this for the podcast. You guys get the unedited

Jeff: version. It's gonna be super tight. Super.

There's a lot in acts of sacrifice to not, like you brought up the great point of just the situation that Ava was put into and, and how that worked and how she kind of tried to work her way out of it, but how awful that was also the, the war stuff was, I mean, it was, it was, it was. Okay. I don't think we were high on this one.

I, I'm, I'm really arguing with myself over something that's not important where I'd want to put it. I think I'm just gonna leave this one at number 18.

Brent: Okay. I am, uh, not going to use a steel on that one. I'll let it stay right there. All right. I'll let it stay right there. All right. And there lies, all the honor comes in with number 17. Uh, no wait, I'm sorry.

I've got, they're all their allows all the honor at 19, or I'm sorry, 18.

Jeff: Hmm. It should be at 17.

Okay. Oh, because you're moving stuff in real time. So I have the static list that we had in this. Oh,

Brent: okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'm moving it in real time. That's, we moved up, we moved up, uh,

Jeff: an episode to remind you of what there all the honor lies is, I have a word from Ava. I mean, we're not some, some Deep space franchise.

This station is about something.

Brent: It's the D oh oh. They took a, took a shot at Deep Space Nine. And so this was the one about the store. That's all I remember. Is this the one where, um, Sheridan was, uh, like he killed

Jeff: somebody? Yeah, he got mugged, Babar, and then a Sean from the third Faint of Jumo tried to set, this is basically the, uh, the third fame trying to go and take star killer out command.

Yeah.

Brent: Um, I remember Gro poses. I think I like Gro Poses better than this one. Wow. Maybe, eh, put 'em in a bag. Shake 'em up. This is how they fall out. I'm gonna leave it. I'm gonna pass, I'm gonna leave it right there, Jeff.

Jeff: Okay. Write that down.

Leaving it in its space. Okay, so that gives me gro poses. There you go.

Groos has a different look on it. After the fall of night in Groos, um, they were moving 20 thou. We met Dr. Franklin's dad and then, uh, they were moving 20,000 Earth Force troops to that other planet that was closer and better staged in the nassari conflict. The war, the war it was going on, and at the time it just felt like they were.

Um, getting ready to capitalize, like let's get in a spot so when this war is done, we might be able to swoop in and do some stuff, but after fall of night, they were there to help support the sonari, possibly, or, you know, I mean, how long, oh, I didn't even think about that. It's like how long has, have these negotiations been going on to potentially ally with the, with the sentar?

So I think, and then, and then everyone died, right? Like everybody died in this one. I think, I think it's a pretty, pretty big deal in retrospect in terms of what Earth is willing to do. Okay. Um, to, you know, to, to advance. Its, its cause. So we bumped grow pose down in favor of what revelations we did.

So what I'm gonna do with this one for grow pose and our static list was at number 16. I look at you, I like Yeah. And it's currently are,

Brent: are our YouTube folks are getting are getting a thing here.

Jeff: Yeah. I like that. There we go.

Brent: So you guys can see the list as

Jeff: we go. So the question I ask myself is, are the impacts of grow posts bigger than the revelations from Revelations?

And I don't think they are. No. So I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna leave Gro pose there at number, number 17.

Brent: Yeah. Gro Pose, I think is one of those episodes that could become a personal favorite for individual fans. Mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? Like, I really liked the Garabaldi and the, the girl, whatever Dodger name was Audrey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I loved, this might be the only episode I liked, ke. Because him bouncing off of the, the, the other two gro poses, like, they kind of stood off and then they became drinking buddies and Yeah. You know, like, like that was fun to watch. You got, you understood a little bit more about Franklin and his character and his motivations, but nothing, it didn't change my understanding of him.

I think it just, it just gave reasons for why things might be that way that I sort of suspected anyway.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. agreed. So, and even with the Keer stuff, it was cool, but that could have been anybody. It didn't have to be keer, you know, it was really just to show it have been of auto. Yeah. It was, well I think it was, it was meant to kind show that brotherhood that happens when you're in, in, in the military or at war, and then the, the loss that occurs because of it.

Like, yes. To me, gro Pose was all about saying war is real and war sucks. .

Brent: Yeah. All right. So we have Gro poses there. We've moved Revelations at 16, so we're gonna pass over that one. We're now moving into 15 Geometry of Shadows, which we've just been discussing. Mm-hmm. , this was the techno age episode, and we also learned in this episode that Lando is gonna be bad.

That was foretold, and they're leaving even though that's not what we understood was happening in that moment. And techno majors are awesome. Remember the monster that tried to attack Veer, and how cool

Jeff: was veer in this one? I am veer Kato at Attache to Ambassador Lawn Mallari. Like he was just, I am strong and I am confident, and I am not afraid of your fake things that I'm pretty afraid of.

But great. And it had the Dsy stuff in it as well. It was Aon. It was Aon. This is when Ava got promoted, isn't it? This is where she became commander, and this was her first like diplomatic. I don't, this is the one where she broke her

Brent: leg. I know that. You know, uh, they wrote it into the sh she did in real life and then they wrote it into the show.

So, which is cool. Uh, is this mine or yours? This is yours. Oh, I'm totally moving this up, but where do I move it up to? Um, I, I, this is an episode that upon a rewatch I got a way new appreciation for, and I don't know if this is right or not, but I'm seeing soulmates right there and I remember liking soulmates.

Um, I'm going to move this up above soulmates cause I think, think soulmates might actually need to come down later. Make it number 11. I'm gonna make it the number 11. Yeah. Cuz I think it, this, this episode meant a lot more on a rewatch than what we understood at the

Jeff: time. This is the first time I'm strongly considering a steel, and if I do, I'm gonna move it higher.

Okay. Because I think, Brent, this is so, it's so brilliant because it literally, . There was a comment way back, and I'm gonna get it wrong. Um, but it had something to do, like, you know, the concept of checkoffs gun, you know, like if you're going to shoot someone in the, in the fourth act, you have to show the gun in the second act.

You know, kind of like, there it is. Somebody described the second season as checkoffs gun cabinet. Like, here's everything. Oh, and that's what happened when Eldrick was talking Tolando at the end, he literally spelled out the entire season. He said everything that was gonna happen. And in the moment it was just like, okay, he's creepy, Michael and Sara being awesome, but whatever.

Like, okay. And then on a rewatch, it's like, holy cru, this is so brilliant. The reason I I, I, I'm feeling I'm not gonna steal is because the drowsy thing was interesting. Kind of fun, kind of cool, but also I think it dragged the episode down. Ultimately,

you had this at 11.

Brent: I put it up at 11. You gonna steal it and move it? No, I, I'll leave it

Jeff: there. Oh, I was

Brent: really

Jeff: hoping you would actually. I was, I'm really close to it, but I, I, I just, I mean, as, as for As, and I got to quote Rush, I got to quote Rush for the drowsy thing, but I think there are other ones that belong in the top 10.

Brent: Okay. Okay. Well moving on then. Our new number 15 is, comes the inquisitor pin ultimate episode of the season. And this one is yours, Jeff. It is, and I'm, and you and I are wildly different on our enjoyment of this episode. I think our conversation liked it. You were like,

Jeff: our conversation on this was really great.

You, you really did open my eyes to see this one in, in a, in a different way than, than I had seen it before. But brand's just not a good episode. It's just so slow. And the, and I think really what, what kills it for me is the fact they had, this is the second to last. I mean, , you should be going balls to the wall and you stop for a doctor who rip off who's got a cane instead of a screwdriver to come and mess with Thelen and Sheridan a little bit to tell us.

I don't know. I I, I have a deeper appreciation for it because of what you said, but I still just don't because

Brent: it was the testing, not the, it was the teaching, not

Jeff: a testing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , which is great. That's awesome. And, and, but in my mind, the teaching was already, was it already happened. I, I am gonna put this one,

I'm gonna move this one down right underneath there. The all, they're, all the honor lies right underneath Number eight. Make it the new number 18.

I've already used the steel, haven't I? No, you said you might later, so you, you still have, oh, I said I might later. You still have all three of them?

Brent: I do, don't I? Okay. Um. Ooh, see now you got me wanting to steal. You said under there all the all the honor lies.

Jeff: I would put it at, make it the new 18 basically, and move honor gro pose and revelations up.

I'm going. So put, I guess my key is, I'm gonna put it above acts of sacrifice is my key.

Brent: So yeah, I'm going to use my steel and I'm gonna steal this one and I'm actually gonna put it right back where it is right now, . And I'm gonna leave it right there at 15 because I need to go, I need to talk to you about spider in the web points of departure in these, and possibly it actually gets bumped up because some others might get moved back down.

So I don't know, but I'm gonna at least leave it there. So that's my steel. Comes, the inquisitor is locked, cannot move it outside of shifting things up and down below it or and above it. What

Jeff: you might do on this next one, that's yours, Uhoh, A spider in the web. Yeah. Which is the one with the Mars first guy who was the recipient of the project Lazarus piece.

We did learn about Bureau 13 in this episode, but the, the gist of it was, um, Mars dude.

Brent: Yep. Um, and I do, I think this one's gonna go down for me because while, while as mind blowing as Bureau 13 was, frankly they've done nothing with it. Now they, again, this might be a, when you get into season three, season four, and it comes back and all of a sudden it, it's this bigger deal.

But this episode, Jeff, could have easily been a season one episode and you'd never know the difference. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Jeff: Um, we already knew Cycore was sketchy in the first season, so why not just show us they've got an underground thing going on.

Brent: Yep. Yep. So, uh, for that, this one is going to drop way low.

Jeff, are you ready for how low? How low can you go? I can go all the way to number 21. Wow. 21. I would take a clip show without clips before watching this episode that belongs in season one. The question is, are you gonna steal

Jeff: it? I'm not. I fully agree. The only thing I was ready to fight you on is if you put it above and now for a word and you did not consider.

No, there's no fight to be had. .

Brent: All right. Uh, next one is yours then Jeff. So, wow, we are, these are shifting quite a bit. Um, we have comes the inquisitive points of departure. Our season one open our season two opener, Jeff. Season two opener. We get Sheridan. Um, there's the, uh, uh, he has to deal with, uh, was it a Mbar ship?

The Trudi, yeah. Yeah. Trudi, that's right. Uh, so it was just, it was the introduction of Sheridan effectively, and he's cool.

Jeff: It was the introduction of Sheridan and it was the, um, the answer to the battle of the line. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we have this one originally we had this at number, well we had it at number one for a very long time,

And uh, it landed here at number 12 for us. Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Oh, well, and currently, well, yeah, now moves. It's now 13.

Jeff: I had a real fundamental problem, and I talked about it in the Points of Departure episode, but I had a real problem with the fact they just had Lanier talk for like three minutes to tell you all the stuff they built all of season, like all of season one. What happened to them missing 24 hours? Why did the Minbar surrender?

What's happen? Well, here's why. I'm just going to stare at a camera and tell you why, and you were gonna go. Oh. I mean, it's huge, huge revelation that again, they haven't really done anything with really. Okay. So there's, there's Minbar Souls in people, and Sinclair has one that's, that's literally all we know.

Like we have theories.

Brent: That's, that's about the last we've heard of it, to be frank with you. Yeah,

Jeff: that's it. And yeah, and then the Sheridan stuff. Right. And, and Sheridan. Sheridan's. Great. I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna move this one down and I think I'm gonna move it down quite a ways as well. Um, I'm gonna put this one.

I'm gonna put this one as the new number 19, just above and now for a word,

uh, I'm not gonna steal.

Brent: I'm gonna let it sit.

Jeff: I think that's, I feel like that's gonna upset. I feel like that one's gonna upset some people.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Probably. But I think you're right, because we got Sheridan, you had to introduce the new captain because of stuff that happened. Mm-hmm. , fully get it.

Sheridan's cool. We learned that throughout the entire entire deal. Um, but you're right. This, this thing, I was glad to get the answer, but you're, they haven't really, like, we haven't met anybody else that's confirmed to have him inbar sold. Exactly. They haven't even brought it up. You feel like we should at least know if you, we, we saw cost the angel, but we don't know anybody else who's got a mbar soul.

Yeah. Besides Sinclair.

Jeff: Well for our next one, and this is very apropo for you to get this one. You're a big fan of this episode for a long time and advocated for it. Brent, what about soulmates?

Brent: Soulmates was fun. Soulmates was the episode with lawn getting divorced from his wives and he winds up picking the truest of 'em all to stay, right?

Yep.

Jeff: It's a fun, fun episodes. A fun episode in a season that did not have a lot of fun. No, and

it

Brent: was entirely inconsequential. It may come back later on as Lawn continues his side. Maybe his wife is gonna come back and slap some syns into him. You know what I mean? Uh, or she's gonna be the new Empress, right?

Jeff: Maybe that's what she's angling for the whole thing. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I don't know. Uh, but she at least seems like. Even if she is the new Empress, like she's not gonna take any crap from anybody either. Like she's just going to be it. So it's incredibly, entirely inconsequential. It was fun. You know what? Another episode that we thought was well done, it was fun.

It just got way lower because it was not that important. And now for a word, it's true. And I'm gonna put this one above and now for a word, but do I like it more than I do Points of Departure that gives us that little bit? Did I like it more than the Long Dark, which gave us Cringy Franklin, but also amazing.

Before you

Jeff: rank it though, don't forget the, don't forget the B story in this one, which was t. T's ex-husband, where we learned about the eugenics program at Cyco and Matthew Stoner, who's now an empath instead of just a telepath. And the other thing, so there's some cyco stuff that happened in this one as well.

Brent: Yeah. But I still feel like most of that's mostly been inconsequential. , like it came up again in a race through dark places. The Bester episode. Mm-hmm. . But I didn't need this one to understand what happened in the Bester episode. You know, like, so you can't even say that it set it up. It just introduced it, which I could have gotten it later.

So I am actually going to put this one as our new number 19 below. Points of departure above Now for a word. I love the episode. It's just not that great,

but I did like the episode a lot.

Jeff: I'm gonna steal and

Brent: I'm gonna please make me happy

Jeff: and make it higher, but I am gonna, I am gonna make it higher. Okay? Uh, and I'm, I'm stealing based on what it adds to lawn and why it's such a bigger deal that he fell. Um, Because he didn't just get to divorce his wives cuz they were psychos and he hated them.

He got to divorce his wives because of a favor from the emperor who he had fallen into very good graces with lawn, was playing both sides right. To make sure he always came out on top to the point he got this, this unprecedented gift. His wife was an incredible person with massive amounts of integrity.

I mean, I think our whole Star Trek, our whole Delta rating was based almost on her. Yeah. And her alone. But the fact that he had such a close relationship with the emperor that he allowed this to happen sets up the scene when in, in the coming of shadows, when he and RFA are like waiting for the emperor to die.

And then the emperor whispers this stuff, Adam, and he tells everybody, oh, it's cool. We did a great job. I think it added so much of an impact. To that scene. It wasn't just fun like this, this, this added weight to the, the fall of lawn. So this was, where did we have this one? Uh, we

Brent: had it at

Jeff: 12.

Well, I'm gonna steal and I'm gonna be petty and I'm gonna put it right above comes the inquisitor , you're,

Brent: you're gonna do what I did. You're just gonna put it back.

Jeff: Uhhuh. Yep. I'm gonna work that bad boy where it belongs.

Brent: Fair enough. You know what I tr this is potentially my personal favorite epi. This is the TKO of season two.

Yes. Yeah. You know what I mean? Um, although for different reasons, but. I, I'm, I'm okay with that. I'm not gonna argue with you on that at all. And I couldn't because I can't move it now at all. Anyway, uh, next episode. Geometry Shadows, we've already discussed and we have moved it. The episode above that.

Number 10, currently on our list. Knives, Jeff Knives was the episode, remind me

Jeff: this was Lawn and his old childhood friend doing, uh, the Sword fight. Oh

Brent: yeah. Oh, I liked this episode.

Jeff: And this was also the one where Sheridan got the download on Babylon four cuz he got that weird, um, time alien thing that was in the Marab that then jumped over to him and then he had to fly off the Babylon four to get rid of it or out to, what was that, sector?

Brent: 13? Yeah. Yeah. This is mine.

Jeff: No, this yours. This one's mine. Mine, yeah. Yeah. This is yours and

Brent: I think you can do with knives. We're in the top 10. Hey, where're, the good episodes now, ,

Jeff: we made it. So this one to me it, I'll tell you, I'm gonna leave it right where it's at, at number 10. This was an important lawn episode, and I think it just reminded us of Babylon four to be like, Hey, this will be a thing.

Reminder. So I'm gonna keep this one at number 10 if

Brent: I could, if I could have an issue with this episode. This episode gave us so much hope for lawn about the, because we've been calling for it for most of the season, the redemption of lawn Mallari, right? It gave us so much hope. That has just turned out to be dashed upon the rock.

So where he's now, you and I have said both times he's irredeemable at this point. Yeah,

Jeff: but I think that's the important part where, just like I talked about in soulmates where it showed that he cared about the old emperor and it hit him in a personal way, this showed, there was still that hope, that glimmer.

And so when he fell, it made his fault. That scene, you know, of him staring out the window just became that much more powerful. Yeah. Because of stuff like a

Brent: kni. Yeah. It's good episode. Really good episode. All right, next episode, hunter. Pre. This is the one with, so crates. Yep. Dr. So crates, uh, running away.

And was this also the episode we got Kosh putting Sheridan in the hot box. I think that is this one. I think that's this one. My list here. All right.

Jeff: Um,

it's the one where we got them eating Kellogg's, uh, cereal bars.

Brent: Yeah, I am, I'm looking at this one and I think I'm gonna move this up. One spot. Above confessions and lamentations because I, as I remember, confessions and lamentations, I think I, I think I remember with that episode, I didn't really like the episode, but I thought it was a very important episode for what it had to say.

And it was one of those episodes I really don't ever wanna watch again. But this one I would, and I wanna move this one up one spot into the new number eight, uh, slot. And we'll move confessions and limitations down one that works.

Jeff: I am just double checking cause I'm not sure. It's the one where he got into the hot box.

I think this is the one where he got, uh, where he went out to meet Kosh and like talked to him and, and what's no. Cause that, that was the one where it started with them looking at his ship. I'm trying. Yes, that is this one where they, they spent the time, like they realized he had organic tech, and then he is like, I'm, it's the one where we said it's organic tech.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna be friends with Kosh. And so this is where you decided to

Brent: fight legends. That that idea, you know, you're unveiling, starting to unveil Kosh and more of who he is. And, and we're diving a little bit more deeper into the mythos. So for all that reason, I'm gonna move it up and I'm gonna wait to see what divided loyalties and all alone in the night are to see if we don't actually bump it up a little bit higher, because we're moving those other ones down.

But Jeff, you are currently up for confessions and lamentations. That's the one with the plague. Oh man. That, that was just a tough watch. The marab got completely wiped out. Uh, hit us really close to home. Having just come out of a pan, I, I guess we're out of it, but arguably, arguably, yeah. Uh, but we've had, you know, the Covid 19 pandemic as we've recorded this.

Um, what do you think? Do we leave this in? Do we go up or down with it? What do we do?

Jeff: This is a powerful, powerful, and important episode that I hate with every bean, every piece of my fiber. Right? But I think that also on top of the, the powerful message that it had, it introduced some stuff around Dalen and the Menari.

I have that question outstanding now, after having seen Kosh, if she had an early encounter with a VO on Yeah. That that set her up for some greatness,

this is definitely gonna stay in the top 10. There's no question of that for me. Right? I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hedge a bet on what you're gonna think of divided loyalties. I'm gonna move this above divided loyalties as the new number seven.

Brent: New. Number seven. Okay. I thought it would go down, to be honest with.

Jeff: I have a hard time not moving this one up big time. It's just to me, just because it is so, so important. Yeah. It's so important. C

Brent: how Push back down to number nine. That's okay. All right. Uh, so new number eight. Then we've been on number eight for a couple of things now divided loyalties, which one was divided

Jeff: loyalties.

Jeff, this is where we found out that Talia had the we, Weta Alexander came back, and then Talia had the, the fake, the bad guy personality that busted out of her.

Jeff,

Brent: gimme just one sec.

All right. I'm sorry. Say that one more time. Tell me what, what divided loyalty was about.

Jeff: Divided Loyalties is the one where lead Alexander comes back and warns about the implanted personality in somebody, and it turns out Natalia turns into a bad guy. And we find out that Ava and Talia have been romantic.

Oh,

Brent: yeah.

I'm gonna leave this one right there. Really? I'm gonna leave it right there. I'm gonna leave it right there. Okay.

Jeff: You can steal. I'd be, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to steal, but I would move it maybe one, one place. And I, I don't, we may not hit all three of our steals. I'm realizing, okay. As we move this way, but that's fine.

Okay. It's all right.

Brent: All right, so next episode then. Oh, here we go. Top five Jeff. Top five. I don't know that these are actually gonna move that much. Right. So the fall of night season ender, we got, we got Kosh coming out as an.

Jeff: Well first we gotta talk about all alone in the Night. That's the next

Brent: one.

Jeff: Oh, I'm sorry, I missed that one.

And this is the one where Sheridan gets abducted by the, the str and then he has the vision and, and all all that stuff that, that happens there. And then, uh, it's where Dalen gets fired from the Great council and Naroon, um, is placed, which by the way I was doing the math earlier when you were kind of talking through the season and we learned there was the worker cast.

The worker cast now has more of a voice on the council than the religious cast does cuz there's four warriors. Three yeah. Workers and only two religious. It's true as workers are gonna stand up, it's a, it's gonna be another by any means necessary for the Menari coming up. Right. . Right, right. So we have this one right now, all alone in the night at number six.

Uh, Oh man. Like I'm looking at the top five and I'm like, does this crack the top five? Does it get in there? And the only place, only thing I could do is swap it with the fall of night. But yeah, I think I'm just gonna leave it at number six. This was, this was such a good episode, but like you said, these are gonna be nitpicky if they

Brent: move it all.

I, I was gonna say, I don't think these last ones are moving that much at all. Just a prediction. I don't think that these top five are gonna change that much, but it is time to get into our top five.

Jeff: Oh yes. Wouldn't be an episode of ours if I didn't have that in there at least once. ,

Brent: I think I just said KN five Oh, which was number five and top five.

Smooshed together. . That works. . All right, number five. This is mine. Fall of night. It's been a while since I've

Jeff: seen this episode, Jeff. It's been a long time. I barely remember this one.

Brent: Actually. Like seven days. Maybe a little more, actually at this point. Might be like eight days, but whatever. This was the season two finale.

Uh, this was the one where we got ko, the angel.

Jeff: Handsome, handsome Squidward.

Brent: Right. Um, we got, uh, we got the Sonari blowing up Sheridan. We got, what else did we get besides Ko The Angel, which that was, I mean, you talk about reveal of all reveals that was the reveal of the season. Right. That's huge. Huge.

Yeah.

Jeff: Cause I mean, it's been the reveal of everything really. Because I mean, he was the focus point of the pilot of this whole thing. Yeah. But we also

Brent: got, that was, that was the, I didn't see it coming. I knew there was something there, but I had no, no idea that it

Jeff: would be that. And we also got the, um, the non-aggression treaty between Earth and Sonari.

And then we got night watch getting to work.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Um,

I'm gonna do something here, Jeff Uhoh, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this just to make us rethink the entire top five . I am moving this. To number one. Okay. All the way up to number one. And if you want to replace it, we're gonna have to move one of these other ones, but it's gonna force us to actually ask questions about every single one of these last episodes.

Okay. So this was a fantastic episode. This episode meant a lot. This episode sets us on a new course. In fact, I would almost say that this changes the game more so than the season one finale.

Jeff: Oh, I agree. I agree with that completely. Yeah. Yeah. The season one finale, put caps on things and left a little hanging for us to pick up this, this is, we were playing chess, right?

And we were polishing the pieces and putting pieces on the board. Yeah. Now we're, we're, we're in a whole, we're, we're playing a whole new game.

Brent: All right, so let's go back to the thing here.

Jeff: So I have two steels left. I could, I could invalidate what you're trying to do. Do we both have two steels, right? We

Brent: do. You could move

Jeff: it. You could, but I'm not going to because I understand the thought exercise you're forcing us into. Yes. And I, and I appreciate it. It's important, I

Brent: think. Uh, but it, I mean this was, this was a fantastic, uh, season two finale, even if, I don't think this should have been the finale episode.

Right.

Jeff: I, I hear you there.

Brent: So with that number four then, well actually the new number five,

not five, uh, in the shadow of Zaha Doom. This was the episode where we got all of the information about the ancient ones, who the shadows are the coming war or the war that's at hand. Um, and we also got morden being

Jeff: interrogated. This is the episode where I decided the, the cannon ending to Babylon five, where Anna Sheridan shows up as a, as a shadow agent.

Oh, oh,

Brent: that's right. Because we revisited that whole situation a little bit, didn't we? Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Jeff: And the shadow Zaha doom really is like Revelations part two . Mm. In a way, or part two six. Revelations 1701 a four . Right,

Brent: right. Okay. So in the shadow of Zaha Doom,

Jeff: so when we look at the top five, there's, there's a very clear theme.

We're looking at the, the stories that involved the shadows, the stories that involve the narn and sent war with one outlier. That's talking about Cycore specifically. There's some earth stuff in there, but it's really about the Underground Railroad and Cycore. And so this is gonna put us in the thought exercise.

And I'm gonna tell you, Brent, what I'm super tempted to do here is to shake our game up. And instead of us going episode by episode back and forth is we just start, look at this new top five, that's the same top five in a slightly different order. Mm-hmm. . And we just start breaking out how critical these are and where, where they land.

Cause like if I look, if I think about the story of season two Yeah. That we thought was gonna be super shadow centric. The shadows were the, the whisper underneath it all. Yep. The real story was all the strife, the shadows, the lower the little s shadows where all the governments and the species blowing up against each other and with each other.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm . So I think that a race through dark places is super important because we have to have something in the Earth Force story that. That hits this piece. And it was, not only was it important, it was so, so good. It was

Brent: such an, I mean, such a great twist. It had, it had that Ocean's 11 kind of a twist on it.

Yeah. Yeah. It worked and it worked so well. Yeah. Yeah. So this, it actually made Bester a cool bad guy. Yeah. Like, I remember when we first met Bester, it's like, oh look, it's checkoff. And I was, oh, it's Bester. I love Bester. I'm like, yeah, it was okay. It wasn't that great. You know? And like this one came in, you're like, oh, I kinda like Bester, like as a bad guy.

Jeff: Yeah. You know, cause you underst I understood him a little more. Mm-hmm. like, you know, they added some depth to him and everything. So to me, this is, this is what I'm gonna propose. I'm gonna propose keeping a race through dark places at number four, and then us talking about the three, four, the four remaining episodes that are really the shadows and nassari stuff.

And kind of figure out what order those need to drop into. Or do you still want to maybe take it piece by piece?

Brent: You kind of have to talk about these all as one. I think

Jeff: you do. Cuz they, they're all contiguous in

Brent: a way. But here's where I kind of want to like, you mean these top three? We kind of gotta talk about these top three all together. Yeah.

Jeff: Um, because I'll be honest, I am super comfortable keeping shadow of Zaha at five and a race through dark places at Foreshadow is incredible.

But the big thing in it was, was the story that, in my opinion, history of everything. Yeah. The billions of years of history that sets the stage for probably seasons three, four, and five. Right. Right. So the real story for us comes in this coming of shadows. Long twilight struggle, fall of night.

Brent: Yeah.

How many steels do I have left? We,

Jeff: we both have two steels left. Oh.

Brent: You know, the thing is, is I could steal one of these and make a change, and then you could steal something else and change it back. I know. And then we can't move it. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna see what you do here, Jeff. And I'm gonna issue my second steel.

Okay. And I'm gonna bump a race through dark places down to number five, because I see in the shadow of Zaha Doom really as a part of this four, and not separate. And I think I actually, I, I think that in the shadow of Zaha Doom is more important than race su dark places. And I think I liked the episode better, even though race su dark places was great.

Like, like we, we've talked about, these are those episodes. You throw 'em in a bag, shake the tiles up, and th this is the good part of season two. When we talk about those high. That are so good. These, all of these episodes are that. Yeah. So it, it's, you know, how do you rank the stuff that you love? Well, you ranking me, put it in an order.

This is where I'm going. So I'm gonna issue a steal of just saying I liked in the shadow of Zaha doing better and I think it was a little bit more important. So I'm gonna go up to number four. I'm stealing, I'm stealing, uh, a race through dark places and dropping it down. Okay. Which means you can't steal a race through

Jeff: dark places.

Exactly. It's where, where it's at now.

Brent: Yes. Uh, but like I said, you, you could steal something else and move it so your heart's content.

Jeff: Well, I don't think we need to, I don't need to steal yet. Yeah. Um, cuz now, now we're talking. Oh. I kinda hate what you did.

I get it. But I, it's alright. We still got, we still got a little bit to get through. Okay. Coming of shadows. Coming of shadows. Yes. Come into shadows is where the war was declared

Brent: the Sonari Nan War. Correct. We got the old Emperor with the no hair. Mm-hmm. . And he died. Right. He whispered in lawn's ear at some point and they were thinking they were gonna have to kill him, but he just died anyway.

Jeff: Yeah. I loved actually this one too, where Ja, cause Jaar was gonna kill him and he's just like, how dare this guy . Right. How dare he go and die on his own . Right. He was prepared to throw it all away. Right, right.

Am I placing this one? Is that me?

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. This is you. Oh man. Oh no. Wait, this is me. I think it is. Yeah. This is me. Sorry. This is me. Um, well we said we were gonna talk about these together, kind of together, but I, I honestly, now that I think about it though, I almost wanna drop it down to like number four.

Jeff: You think Zaha Doom was a bigger Yeah. Bigger impact.

Brent: Yeah. I'm doing it. I'm dropping

Jeff: it down to number four. So I think, and this is where I think the coming of shadows was a bigger impact, I think in the shadow of Zaha Doom was a better episode. Fair. Enjoyed that. One

Brent: more. Yeah. They declared war in this one and it consumed the second half of the season and will likely extend the repercussions of that are gonna be felt all the way through season three, if not beyond.

Uh, yeah, the impact is probably better, but in the shadow of oom is the overall mythos, right? Mm-hmm. , like that's establishing the mythology of what, of what's going on, so, exactly. Uh, yeah, like I said, throw 'em in a bag, shake 'em up. But I'm, I, I'm gonna go with and in Shadow was a better episode on than, uh, although in the Coming to Shadows, maybe we got the new sets.

You got this. I mean, there was a lot with that episode. It was a good episode. Good episode highs. These are all the highs

Jeff: and they're very high.

Brent: They're really good. Yep. Yep. All right, so you have, this is our last one. Oh,

Jeff: this is number

Brent: one. This, well, this is our old number one now it's number two. This is our final episode to discuss, Jeff, final episode.

So you get to place this one. I have one more steel. You actually have two steels. You could use them both together. Yeah. Oh, you. Oh, you sneaky devil. You just stick '

Jeff: em all up. Planned it a little bit. Not all the way,

Brent: but final episode, Jeff. It is yours in the long twilight

Jeff: struggle. The long twilight struggle.

The long twilight struggle was signaled the end of the nan regime. I mean, that's Uhhuh. This was

Brent: the, this was the end of the sci

Jeff: entire Nan war. Mm-hmm. and the end of lawn as someone that we were rooting for this had that unbelievably powerful scene of lawn watching the mass drivers' shooting down onto home world.

And he is just like, oh my God, what have I done? Watching his

Brent: own reflection. Yeah. Seeing his own reflect like, oh my gosh, it was such a good episode.

Jeff: My problem I talked about, I talked about with comes the inquisitor. I, I, my problem with se one of my problems overall with season two is how it ended. Just the, the tone and the pace was weird.

So we got long twilight struggle. We got comes the inquisitor, we got the fall of night. Fall of night, and twilight struggle are great episodes comes the inquisitor interesting episode. Super slow. Could have happened anywhere else and it ruined, it ruined the end a little bit for me. But the thing is, Brent, the long twilight struggle.

Should have been the finale. Yeah. This was a season ending episode. Let me, let

Brent: me ask you this. Could you have switched long twilight struggle and the fall of night? Just switch the titles on the episodes if you want to. I don't care. But, but switch their position, have the cost reveal, and then move into shadow the, the, the final shadows just obliterating the na home world and moving into that, that piece.

I think you

Jeff: can, I think you could have The only thing, the only piece that, and, and they, they kept it as a b story through, through both comes the inquisitor and, uh, fall of night, but just the Jaar stuff and the, the narn resistance that he's building, you just keep that storyline. Well, you wouldn't be able to keep it cause the end doesn't

Brent: come that, no.

Honestly, that piece, those, those things are season three, move it into season three ending. Ending a thing on. Oh my gosh. We just abl we know what KO is now. We know. And, and because remember when they, when they revealed who Kosh was, it was like a, okay, not everybody knows that. That was Kosh. Don't tell anybody.

We'll keep it a secret from the shadows. That was the, that was where we left that, right? Yeah. So you easily move into the, the events of long twilight struggle after that where the shadows come in and do this big thing where they just obl, you know, it's the last, the last hurrah, right. Lawn's like, this is the last time I'm getting my associates involved.

Right. And they go in and, and obliterate it. And the final shot is, we're like, oh my gosh, the shadows have just really come out. We know what KO is now, and they've just obliterated the, the Narn home world and lawn's sitting there looking like, what have I just done? Mm-hmm.

Jeff: End season. That's it. Now we're moving.

You could even put that same voiceover. That Ava does, you could still have that same end little sequence at the end of it, but just after the destruction of home world, you could,

Brent: but honestly, that would go better in season three. Leave this here. I don't need that as a, like, have, cuz you know what that, that honestly kind of is, that's Ava's like, Hey, here's what happened last, last season.

Oh yeah. Babylon five.

Jeff: Well, I feel like what it really is is Babylon five being like, Hey, we don't know if we're coming back for season three, so we're gonna tap this on here just in case this is the end of our story. Oh, I have no idea.

Brent: I don't, no idea. Don't, don't tell us guys. Well, we'll find out after.

Jeff: But I, but I do think on top of, just to think about just the, again, the pace of the episode, confessions and Lamentations was the, started the last five episodes of the season and in that we saw the, the destruction of an entire Mark Haber gone. Yeah. Then in long twilight struggle, narn effectively, Gone.

Yep. So you hit, I mean, whoa. And I, but I think spacing it out and having that be at the end would've been stronger. That said, we gotta get, we gotta get, just

Brent: just to clarify what you said, cuz you're gonna get a lot of comments and emails on this one, Jeff. The narn are not obliterated like the marab were correct.

We're saying politically the narn are effectively gone cuz they just got absorbed into the sari. Their sonari and their, their sonari, they're slaves ish, maybe second class citizen,

Jeff: whatever that is. They are, how does lawn put it? They are reeducated stabilized now. Oh yeah. That's what it is. They're not slaves, they're just reeducated, which has a real night watch ring to it.

Right? . So let's get to work. Um,

Brent: things are you, what are you doing

Jeff: with long twilight struggle? That right. It's, it's the best episode of this season. It is number one. It is the best, it is the best episode of Babylon five that we have watched

Brent: so far. I would not disagree with you on that. Uh, and this is why I wanted to move the fall of night.

Up number one, cuz I wanted, I wanted you to once again say like, it had to earn its top spot. Like, yes, it deserves to be in this spot. So Jeff, our top five currently sit at the long twilight struggle, the fall of night in the shadow of Zaha Doom coming of shadows and a race through dark places, plus all the other episodes.

You have two steels left if you wanna make any final adjustments. And once you do it, I can't do bku about it. You gonna use any,

Jeff: can I steal from the first season and put tko in our top five?

Brent: No, not I will veto that one. . That is a

Jeff: veto. No, I, I, I feel really good about this list. Do you have a, you have a steel left. Is there any last steel you wanna make? I'm gonna take soulmates and move it into the top five. Okay. I'm good. uh, long, dark, long, dark is coming up.

Uh, the long dark had a big win. It

Brent: really did. I mean, you remember, like we had, it was, it was like the long dark automatically fell to 22 and we just filled in the rest of it for the whole of the season, Uhhuh. But I, you know,

that's, that's an episode that, that is better on the rewatch once you know what's going on and it matters so much more. And same thing with Geometry of Shadows. Honestly. Geometry of Shadows got a big bump out of this, out of this

Jeff: exercise too. I'm looking at our initial list and I think that Geometry of Shadows is the big winner in this one.

Everything else, I mean, we moved a lot of stuff, we had a lot of conversation, but things moved within maybe two, you know, one or two spaces. Yeah. Um, you know, I mean our, our top five is the same. I mean different order, but it's the same episodes. Mm-hmm. the bottom five. What do we got here?

Yeah, same. Well, yeah, about the same. So, I mean, things moved around a little bit, but I think, I think that says a couple of things. One, it says that we were using our analytical eye as we were moving through this and trying to rate things fairly, but also it shows that when you look back at the season, things do change.

Yeah. And, and we've, we've acknowledged that. I'm excited to see how that continues. Right. Moving on into like, what is season two gonna look like after we're partway through season three, right? Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Mm-hmm. . I, I'm, I mean, we've talked about it. Babylon five for the second time has, is a, uh, I'm not, I'm not committing us to doing that as a podcast, Jeff.

Okay. Let's,

Jeff: but it's more and more of a possibility or more. That's it. There's more and more, um, there's more merit to it.

Brent: Yeah. And there's, and there's, there's definitely some, there's a reason to do a second watch after doing a first watch, uh, that is not your 43rd watch.

Jeff: 47th watch. 47th. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's be, let's be clear here.

Brent: Um, and honestly, we would have a different reason for watching it a second time than the Star Trek analysis, right? Mm-hmm. like the analytical lens to it. So Jeff, that is officially the 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of Babylon five, season

Jeff: two. I can't wait to post that. Do you remember when we posted the ranking for season one?

Like people lost their minds. Well, minutes later, like literally minutes later, Twitter was almost nonexistent. It felt we, we crashed Twitter with that

Brent: list. It took, it took Elon coming in to try to save it,

Jeff: and he's like, no, no, it's fine. Don't worry. I've got this. I, I'll, I'll blow this thing. I'm gonna fire everybody who let this list on here.

Who .

Brent: All of you go.

All right Jeff. So that is our ranking. Um, Let's, let's, this episode with the, the wrap up is a little bit of a longer episode by nature, but let's feed this along just a little bit. One of the questions we had last time, and we've gotta look at it again this time. Question last time. Favorite characters coming outta season one?

Who do you like? Right? Um, let's revisit that just for a minute. Now with season two, have any of the, the characters elevated d like, have they any character shifts for you that have been super big that you want to address before we move on into season three?

Jeff: Well, I just want to call out that at the end of season one, you wanted to be Lawn do.

Yeah.

Brent: So yeah, I will. I will say this, my favorite character still is Ava, and if I were to be in the reboot of Babylon five, I would still want to play lawn. Cuz frankly, the bad guy's always the best person to play as. And you know who, you know who would agree with me on that? Andrea Thompson. When we got evil, Talia.

Yeah. And she played her so much better than she did. Good. Talia,

Jeff: I think the, when we talk about shifts and changes, it is Jaar and Lando that had the biggest shifts, you know, lawn for all the reasons we've talked about. But I think Jaar there, I mean, when was it when he first, um, the episode where he was like, oh, by the way, don't know if you knew this about me or not, but like, religion's kind of a thing for me and Lawn stole my flower.

Yeah. And we were, and we were like, when

Brent: they make Jaar a religious figure, like remember I remember asking that. Yeah. Did they just pull this out of their

Jeff: butts? Like, and it just, it over the season, how powerful that's become and how much more, um, of a empathetic and sympathetic character he has be like Jaar has, we have seen him high as high, as low.

As low and just has really changed. But I think for the other characters, my, my favorite out of season one was Garabaldi. Loved Garabaldi in season. I still love Garabaldi here in season two, but not, not as much I think, and, and it feels like, it feels like a cliche almost for me to say. I'll tell you right now, my favorite is, is waffling between two.

One is the

Brent: Please do Lanier and ve You're so

Jeff: close. You're 50% there. Okay. So the cliche one is Sheridan. Yeah. Brent. I love, I love

Brent: Sheridan. He's

Jeff: so good. Yeah, so good. Yeah. But my other one is Veer. I went for a guy like I bagged on both linear and VE in season one and they grew on me as the season went on.

Linear, more so in first season. But my God veer in the second season, his growth, every scene he's in, I'm just like, yes, God, you're awesome. I love, I love this stuff with Veer

Brent: Lanier to me. I remember in the first season, felt like a young kid. Mm-hmm. . And in this season he doesn't feel like a young kid anymore.

He feels like a man. Still under Delin, still with respect, but he has his own strength. And you know, he's a guy that like, oh no, he's actually, he could just be the ambassador himself. Like he's qualified, right? Yeah. Um, ve is going through a growth that I honestly, I think I hoped for lawn. Like you remember when Lando was laying in bed with that girl and he is like, what have I done with my life?

And later on with the cousins, like, I forgot to have to dance. I don't want you to forget to dance. Like, like beers. Going through that, finding inner strength and, and, and morality and what's really important in life. A real, and he's making it. There's

Jeff: a real generationality to progress and change, you know, and I mean, we, we see that in, in our life and we put all these labels on it, you know, gen X and millennials and Gen Z and all this.

Yeah. Where we just look at things differently. We see it spelled out in front of us with lawn who's trying it was who was trying to change. He was brought up in the old ways of the, the Great Santa Republic. And, and, but also he, you know, wanted to like, love and, and do things. Veer has grown up with that mindset.

I wanna marry who I want to marry and I want to advocate for people who want to do their things. And what, so when we look at this in terms of like, the progression of change, who else in veers generation has these? You know, is this a, is this a, is this their millennial, you know, generation, or I guess at the time is, is veer their Gen X that's coming up?

I'm like, yeah, this is, this doesn't work. We wanna do things differently. Yeah. And I think he's gonna, he, I, I still think at the end of. I dunno, the series or season four or whatever, when the nan finally are independent of the Sonari, it's going be Jaar and ve holding their hands high. That's gonna be how the resistance happens.

That

Brent: is one I veer. Joining the resistance makes all the sense in the world. Mm-hmm. , you know, um, I do wanna address lawn and jaar because my opinions of these two people have changed wildly.

Jeff: Dramatically. Yeah.

Brent: J the Nan as a whole and Jaar as well, where I used to see them as a big strong people group, actually seem rather weak and frail to me now.

Like they seem weak and not just because they just got obliterated. We watched a scene where the cent and the no began to. And the sonari kicked. But Fat

Jeff: Andon belly Drunk cents. Were beating them up.

Brent: Yeah. Like the Narn as a whole, and I mean like the Narn look like they're this big imposing warrior group and they're not like, and they tell us that like, like they've actually told us that the Naer and Agrarian society, they were a peaceful society.

This is who they are. They're not this big warrior group. So it makes sense. This is just now how I see them. Yeah. You know? And like Ja Jaar also just appears very weak now. There's an inner strength, I think in Jaar that's gonna come out and he's gonna lead. And you know, even this weaker people can band together and be a resistance.

I don't wanna get any emails or comments like, oh, I'm just saying this is how I now see where I used to see them more clinging on esque. Mm-hmm. , they're now more bejo esque. You know, and like preoccupation, Bejo, maybe. Mm-hmm. , you know. Yeah.

Jeff: Well there are religious peaceful people that are full of artists and, and they are what we saw in the first, I'll say season one Babylon five, when they were full of bravado.

And we thought for sure they were gonna be the bat, you know, the evil, evil race on there. That's what the sent occupation turned them into. Yeah. You know, and so when, when all this happens in the nan declare war on the sari, that is the natural progression of what the sari have always done to them. Yeah.

Of course. They predict, you know, declared war on them. Right, right.

Brent: And uh, and for lawn lawn's change breaks my absolute heart. Um, I hate what the writers have done to the character of Lawn.

Jeff: I think his change breaks his. You know what I mean? Like,

Brent: fine. Uh, but it, but this is not the, this is not the story.

I wanna see lawn go on. I don't mind a heel turn by a character. I e Talia. Talia turning into a bad character is fantastic. I do not like what is happening with lawn and, and where he's gone and he's gone so far. And I don't really see Lando coming back. Like I see something weird like Jaar is gonna wind up as lawn's personal servant or something like these two are going to get stuck together.

Right? But it's still lawn lording it over and being this big bravado and here's Jaar having to get on his knees and, and let Lando use his back as a stepping stool. You know, like, like it, that's where I see this going and I don't like it. And, and lawn's eventually just gonna get old and he is gonna cough himself to death.

And Ja car is gonna gonna be the one who eventually kills him. Mm-hmm. that, like, that's how he's gonna go out. And I, I don't want that for this character. Like, I want so much more for this character and, but like I said, the Talia turn was great. I hope we see her coming that coming back. Totally. Totally. I don't know that we will, but I hope we see her coming back cuz her storyline is, and this we, we'll get into this in just a second of like what questions we have.

Her storyline is unresolved. Absolutely.

Jeff: She just left the station. Yeah. Yeah. You know, out, out in the world. Yeah.

Brent: Uh, I will say this and, and, and this is the last I have of the main characters I see more in this season than I ever did in first season. The Kirk Spock McCoy thing, and it's really Sheridan, Ava and Gar Baldi.

It's, it's those three. That are, they're in every episode. They're centric to what's going onono. And Jaar can come, and Golen can come and go. Thelan and ve they can come and go. All these people. Kosh can come. He never . He always goes, you know, uh, you know, but, but these three really are the, the core of this show and what it's about.

And, and that's, that plays more true in this season, I think, than it did in the first season of like, this is who it's about. Ava's, um, promotion feels like it's taken some of the edge off of her that we saw in season one. I agree. And I say some not. I mean, she still has, she still has the sna, she still has all this, but it's not as snarky.

It's not as frequent or often as we saw in season one. And I think that might just be, uh, she has new responsibilities, you know, but when you, what, look what she did to the draws to end that whole deal. You know, uh, when, when her, my favorite moment for I think Ava out of the whole deal. Um, well, I don't know.

There's a lot of good Ava moments, but all the way back in the first episode where she's like talking to, to Sheridan about Delin being in a cocoon and he's like, moth or butterfly? She goes, yes, yes. About high . That's classic of Vva. Yeah. And we just don't see that by the end of the season. You know, her

Jeff: bites don't have the bite that they used to have, and I do hope you're

Brent: gonna resist.

Yeah. That kind of,

Jeff: she just, and I also think vva is God. Like, sorry, God joke about that part. But I think even at the end of fall of night, not the very end, but near the end, they even like started to show, I don't wanna say incompetence isn't the right word, but they showed that she was a little out of her depth, similar to how Sinclair was.

as the commander of the station, but the sonari art, like they're in that standoff mm-hmm. and, uh, you know, if you fire on us, we'll fire back on you. And she says to Sheridan, they're trying to, they're trying to get us to make the first move. And he is like, no, they're not Captain Energy buildup in the, oh, here it goes.

Like, just little things like that where she used to be, right. She called the stuff as it was, she saw it, she had snark and snap, and now she's lost some of that. And when she does call things, she's not right. And I don't know if that's a, not a negative on her. I just think she's swimming in a bigger pool Yeah.

At this point. And it just takes time to get there. Hopefully we get more of the bite in her in the third season when things are not good. You know, she's not having to go solve the drowsy problem or be sexually assaulted by the Luma .

Brent: Well, on that note, uh, let's, let's quickly run through. I have a very short list on this one.

I do as well. Guest stars that stand out. There wasn't a lot of guest stars in this season that really stand out. The, the big, I mean, we, we both have our, um, what was the grill guy's name? David Warner. We both, I think we both have our David Warner from this, from this season.

Jeff: We do. But also they aren't a David Warner.

That is true. Right. Like the level, the level that he, I mean here, let's go talk about Grail , but the level that he brought to Babybel on five, no one has touched that yet. True. But,

Brent: uh, but our, our favorite guest star from the season

Jeff: two. Three. Two, one. Michael and Sarah.

Brent: Yeah, absolutely. Techno MAs a again, he made techno MAs.

Mm-hmm , like he was the perfect guy for that role. Um, and I don't know that they had anybody be like, it was nice to see lawyer in Aita. Yeah. We'll call her B five. She Hulk, you know? Yep. And it's, when you told me that that was the actress who played nata, it made that whole character make sense. Exactly.

All that. That's where everything, and I want her back. I really like the, the guy who did the inquisitor. Mm-hmm. , uh, Jack Riper dude. I liked him a lot as a guest star. Um, that could be more recency biased, but he's not as good as Michael and

Jeff: Sarah. He was great. He went toe to toe with Mira Furland. Yeah. And it was believable, like Yeah.

He was, he was

Brent: great. And then I, when I absolutely hated, I hated, like, I'm talking Leon at Kimmer level. I did not like this guest actress again. And it was a blonde, the lady who played Sheridan's sister,

Jeff: I wouldn't go as far as

Brent: Kera Oh. Of her. I felt she brought the whole thing down and, and. Like, uh, uh, Bruce box liter did not act against her as well as he did any, like, the most cringy acting moments I saw from him in the whole season was him acting against her.

Jeff: It really is that comparison of him, because I, I, I, I agree. She wasn't great and that she did bring it, bring things down. I think KEMs at a whole different level. Also, also, I mean, I said it before, I enjoyed watching Kemmer, uh, did not really enjoy watching. Um, his, his sister, but Bruce Box Litner could not elevate her.

David Warner, elevated Jin. So not just jinx. So, but like rubber prosthetics, like he was acting against prosthetics and I believed everything more because of him. Yeah. He's just at a different level. Also, there was Dwight Schultz Yeah. In this season. Oh. Who was, you know, he was excellent. He was excellent.

It's such a good, crazy

Brent: guy. Mm-hmm. ,

Jeff: he always does. And to me, he, he was the high point. Of the long dark. And that's, uh, I mean, that's not saying a lot, but it was, he was, he was really great in that one. Mm-hmm. . But let's get, let's get to the good stuff, Brent. I mean, we've now watched two full seasons, 44 EPIs, 45 episodes, Kennedy Gathering of Baby on five.

What are the big questions that we have that are coming out of where we are now? I've got, I've got

Brent: about a half dozen. Can I just run through them as a list? Do it real quick. Do it. Okay. I wanna know what's going on with Talia and Iron Hart's gift. That was such a big thing from season one and they brought it back again and they took Talia out.

I think we understand that it's because the actress got fired or she went onto a different show or something like that. So that's where I'm like, I don't know that she's coming back. Hopefully she does because there's still like Iron Heart ascended and he gave her a gift and elevated her, and then turns out she's a MO working for the other side.

I just, I need to, this, this is lingering. It's not, it's not, uh, done. Uh, I need to know what is Bureau 13 and what is control, like this whole section, that piece. Uh, I wanna know, does the Underground Railroad play more into this? The movement of the, of the latent side caught people. We found out to Aons a latent.

Jeff: Right? We haven't even talked about

Brent: that. . Um, sorry. Uh, I wanna know how the VLANs figure into Earth's history. This might be my own personal curiosity more than show curiosity. Uh, we know he is an angel. Okay. Are they gonna address anything like, just throughout earth's history that like, oh, that was the VLAN and that was the vlan.

Um, I wanna know why the Vos didn't leave and where they go when they do. That is an outstanding question for me, you know? Um, and

Jeff: will any of them come back? Like, did they go somewhere and they'll come back? Or are they just gone, gone. That,

Brent: that gets down to, um, a little bit of, of my predictions for where we're going.

But also I want to know more about Zas and the whole Babylon four old Sinclair Deen's hand. We didn't feel like we, like they set that up and we didn't touch it, except for that one spot where draw goes. Zoros, zoros, ugh. Never around when you need him. Like, we didn't touch that. And that's actually, I think, a lingering one from season one.

Yeah. You know? Uh, and then my other piece is Lando. Is he gonna keep getting sicker? And, and is this infection gonna continue to spread in him? Almost mimicking how he has embraced this evil side. Like as he's embraced evil, does this infection continue to spread in him as

Jeff: well? He's like a general grievous kind of a thing.

Yeah. Yeah. What if, oh my God, what if, yeah, it's the marab. Virus that's mutated and is now somehow like in a, you know, different way, impacting entire, and

Brent: it's incubating in Orlando before it goes to the entire Sonari people group and knocks them all out. Yeah. That won't, and the narn are the only people left standing to rule the Sonari empire.

Jeff: Right. Wow. I don't think the message of Babylon five is that a virus is gonna solve the problem, but it's an interesting thought war of the world. Hello? Yeah. But it killed, I guess. So it was the occupying force that did that. Yeah.

Brent: How about you, Jeff? What, what questions do you have coming out of

Jeff: this season?

I think you covered most everything that, that I had as well. I just have, I have, I have a lot of questions about what's going on in Earth and to me, the Earth storyline is the one I'm most interested in really. I find, I find it fascinating and I love, and I especially love the Orwellian bent. They've taken on it ever since.

And now for a word,

Brent: Yeah, it's, well, it's with the ministry piece and all that kind of stuff going on. Yeah,

Jeff: exactly. The thought crime and everything. It's very bunk bon, it's very over the head, but, uh, he's not even renaming the things you, I mean, it's straight outta the book. But I think that I'm super fascinated in that.

But I mean, my, my big question. Yep. And this won't surprise you or anyone else, but when's Anna coming back and when's she gonna ask ? I think

Brent: that might be your prediction for season three though, too.

Jeff: And also, I mean, and when's Walker Smith coming back? When's the next Mui? Let's get to the good stuff. .

Brent: Um, alright Jeff, well, I think before we get to predictions, this is the part of the show where we boil everything down and see if it has that star treky like quality to it.

Is there a deep moral message? Is it holding up mirror to society? Is it giving us hope that we're gonna be better in the future? Jeff, we're not talking about a single episode, we're talking about the season as a whole. And so Jeff, uh, do you want Deltas or Star Furies Powell? Well, I think,

Jeff: do you wanna do it separately or do we want to kind of talk through and land on it?

Brent: Let's talk through it. Let's, let's do this one together. Yeah. By how has combined we

Jeff: shall answer this impossible question of how many Deltas does this season get?

Brent: But this wasn't, when we look at this, you gotta look at the overall story of the season. Mm-hmm. Not the individual things that happened in episodes.

Right. Agreed. And I don't think it, I mean, the Volans are very good at keeping the prime directive apparently until they're not.

Jeff: Yeah. , which is very Star Trek. I mean, it's,

Brent: it's , uh, which is very Star Trek. Um, but outside of that, I mean, you could, you could talk about holding up a mirror to society with how the ministry of Peace is going on and the way that that whole thing is happening.

Um, with the war and, and the antics of war and what that brings. But I don't know that there's really a, a hope. I mean, this is a very hopeless season. Yeah. Where with, where it's leaving us now. Maybe by the end of the series we look at the series as a whole, it gives us that hope. But right now you're in the middle of it.

Right. Night has fallen. Yeah. And I, I don't see a lot of Deltas overall, um, as far as that message. Like, what's it, what's it telling us? Yeah.

Jeff: Cause I think, cuz I think we've talked about this before, you know, star Trek is we're in a better future and how do we maintain that? And how do we do this? You know, what does it look like there?

Babylon five is, is it worth it to get there? One, yeah. And if it is, this is what it takes to get there.

Brent: Because honest, I, I'm sorry, just to piggyback off what you're saying. What I'm seeing out of humanity, out of earth, it's not worth saving. At this point, I agree. Right now with what we see, it's not worth

Jeff: saving.

Like right now, if you could wipe the cent and earth off the map, things would move a lot more smoothly. Like we'd be more

Brent: for the shadows. The NA are innocent and the vlan apparently are like the angels of the world, of the universe. Mm-hmm. , like they're cool, I'm cool with all them . But I

Jeff: think that there were some real strong messages through mostly, and this happened in the first season as well, but through through Dalen and you know, speaking through the whole thing and demonstrating multiple times about, you know, we live to the point of our life is service.

Yeah. That's what we're here for and what they're able to accomplish because of that. But again, it's Babylon five. They counter that by saying, Hey, we're all about service and all about greatness. Also, you only have two seats on the great Council. We're a warrior race now, and yeah, we're cool and touchy feeling here at the end of season two, but you know for a fact it's gonna come out.

Not great. But

Brent: to your point of delin. Okay, now let me, let me pull a direct Star Trek thing. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Delin sees this problem she takes on, she, she sacrifices everything for the needs of the universe of the whole, because there's this thing coming, right? That's a, you know what that means to be the one who's, who's willing to do that.

That's huge.

Jeff: Yeah. To think, cuz you hear the phrase, the one or chosen one, and you think the hero standing a top of the pile with their arms raised high,

but

Brent: no. You know what? I think, honestly, I think Neo, from the Matrix, laying like he's on a crucifix, getting crossed over the people at the end of the third film, which is like, wow, you went there with that one.

Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah.

Jeff: Cause yeah, in this one, the one is gonna be, Giving it all up, choosing to sacrifice herself with no fame, with no recognition or anything for the whole universe to survive. So I think, I think when we look at the Star

Brent: Trek piece and what, I'm sorry. And what does she do? What does she do In the middle of the season, she goes to Sharon and says, Hey, I need to talk to you.

We need to talk. We need to just go have lunch and have dinner and get to know each other. And oh, please, now I can start calling you John, and I'm gonna come and hug you and we're gonna become a thing. And Sheridan turns around and says, Hey Kosh, I need to know you. Hey, draw we're neighbors. It's about time we got to know each other.

Because Dilin did it

Jeff: first. She started it. She showed that, that's what you do.

Brent: Time again. I had not thought about till now. It really

Jeff: is like she, she showed the way. Yeah. You know, this is, this is the way that,

Brent: that we, we do in the midst of everybody else not doing it.

Jeff: In the midst. And this is, this is where like the, the final statement I have on what, what I think the real overarching message of season two is from, from this, this lens, is that even in darkness, in the darkest of darkness, there's beauty.

No matter how bad things are, something will come along, something will light. The way that's,

Brent: can I, can I add to that? Yeah. I wanna piggyback on that. Even in the darkness, something will come along and that something can be you. Oh. If you choose to do it. If you, yeah. If you take that all you choose to do it, it could be you.

Cuz it didn't have to belen. Anybody could have gone into the cocoon. Mm-hmm. , then you have to do the cocoon. But she's like, Nope, this is it. And I'm here now I'm, I'm in this. This is my,

Jeff: I'm gonna do it. And like she says to the inquisitor, right, if it's not me, there will be another who will come and take my place.

And if not them, there will be another cuz that mantle can pass on. That light isn't person centric. There's not one, the light that beauty exists regardless. And I think, and that

Brent: was the entire point of comes the inquisitor to teach her that fact. And then what do they say at the end of comes the inquisitor When I put the bo cap on the whole thing.

Just remember, you are the right people in the right place at the right time. For what? For, for the crap that you're getting ready to go through. Listen to me, you, for whatever's going on, you are the right person and the right place at the right time to make the difference. That's the starch trek. Whoa, Jeff.

Whoa. Get out right here. Uh, how many deltas is we gonna give this? I'm feeling three. It's, that's, that's exactly where my mind was. I don't know that that was the intended message. An intent, an intentional message automatically shoots it up. Yeah. But I, I, yeah, I'm comfortable with three Deltas on this season.

Uh, cuz I think that's very clear when you look at the season as a whole. Now let's talk about Star Furies. Yeah. This is a different conversation. Five is this one. How much did we enjoy it? But how much did babble on five do it in it's own way, blaze its own path?

Jeff: Jeff, you know, when I, when I was preparing for this episode, I went back and I looked at the season one ranking that we did and can I compared it to the second one?

And that's kinda where I talked about season one had higher highs and lower lows, and that's not entire, like your explanation made a lot of sense. And what our ranking showed was that for the outside of the top five and specifically the top three of the top five, like everything was kind of here, put it in a bag, shake it up where it lands, you know, it's, it's where season one was, was not that.

I don't know that that's a positive necessarily though, you know what I mean? Like sometimes that emotional rollercoaster that they can take you on up and down means a lot. But it's not just about how we enjoyed it. I'll say this, when we were recording the first season, it made me sick to wait another week to watch the next episode, Uhhuh, after about five or six episodes into the second season, I wasn't feeling sick anymore, waiting for the next episode.

I was like, oh, okay. I'll watch this

Brent: one next week. No, you know. No, no. Cuz you and I were, you and I were the same on this one. You know what we were, it was, I need to watch the next episode to get past this one. Right? I need to my, how many, how many times did you and I go into a recording privately between the two of us and go, I need to record this one because I have to move on.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't stick on this episode for much longer because I've, I've gotta get, I've gotta get it out and just move on because of, I don't, right. But j Jeff, I wanna throw up our, uh, Uh, for the YouTube folks that are out there, um, I wanna throw up our list again for this season. And you know what I notice as I look at this list?

Hmm. Uh, geometry of shadows, soulmates, you might, could argue, comes the inquisitor. You and I would would argue about that is kind of the line between where we go from the good episodes to the, the episodes, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's our new zone. That's right around episode 12, 11, 12, which means half the episode, half the season was good and probably about half of that was great.

Mm-hmm. , right? And then below that half the season you and I would both look at and go was not really that good, right? Yeah. And so, I mean, this is a 50 50 season, like had some good, had some not kind of this. You know what I mean? And even, you know, I don't, I don't know that I would look at the bottom five and say that those were just absolutely God awful.

I never want, well, there's some of these I don't wanna watch again, but like, if I

Jeff: had to, if I was forced to, I wouldn't like throw up or anything, you know? Right.

Brent: I'd watch Monte rewatch. It's fine. You know, and I might even appreciate 'em more once I see what happens in season three and four. Yeah. So, uh, it's a 50 50 episode season to me.

Right? About half the episode season was good. Half it wasn't. Um, I don't know about you, Jeff, out of five star Furies, I'm gonna give this one, two and a half. I'm gonna split the, split it right in the middle.

Jeff: So I think that your math checks out half and half. Two and a half makes it half. But I also think that the other part of the equation is how Babylon five is it?

Mm-hmm. . Holy crud. This was, well, holy crud. This was a pretty Babylon five season. Right. Like we just talked about how they delivered a Star Trek message in a way, only Babylon five Right. Could do it To me that bumps it up to about three , three star theories. Uh, is is

Brent: doing okay. Cause I base base level two and a half.

Mm-hmm. is doing it in a completely Babylon five worth only one half of a star theory.

Jeff: So I don't know that it was done in a completely Babylon five way is my thing. And, and again, I claim we still, that Babylon five way is right. Yeah. But, but my understanding of it is that they wrapped a lot of stuff and like, Hey, we're gonna make this like the confessions and lamentations versus believers thing, right?

Hey, we're gonna take this thing on, but now we're a lot better at it. We peop everyone on the crew kinda understands. Oh. Cause that one both killed kids, didn't it? Uhhuh. , yeah. And Dr. Franklin was involved cuz he's, he's the worst, objectively speaking. But I, I, I think it could be worth another two and a half, like being more Babylon five could pop this all the way up to five star theories.

But I don't know that this is fully Babylon five enough to do more. So I, I mean, I, I'm saying three. Yep. But I would not shake a fist at three and a half.

Brent: Well, and then does half the season being objectively not good? Knock it down a little bit too, uh, from what it would otherwise be, just as Babylon five.

I'm comfortable with leaving it at three. Okay. Three Deltas, three star Furies is our final ranking on the season season. Three and three. That's, I'm, I'm comfortable. That's good. It feels

Jeff: good. You know what else I'm comfortable with? What's that thing that's gonna happen here Shortly after our next little segment here?

And that's the big giveaway. Come on now, Brett, we've been talking for almost two hours. Um, if you're on YouTube, you've been with us this long and you're amazing. If you're on the audio, it's not quite two hours long. Um, but you're still with us and that's awesome. Just know we've not left the giveaway out that's coming.

I have a little like, um, a macro that I built into. I didn't have time to like print things out and do the cool bag that we did for season one. So I just have the spreadsheet and I built a macro to randomly select the person. So that's gonna come up after we get into this next section. Are you ready for this?

Let's do it, man. Let's do.

Brent: Brent, two hours. Hey, listen, thanks to everybody staying around for two hours. I gotta go, man. Right? Let's get this, let's roll this. Let's

Jeff: do it. Well, officially, officially, Brent, this is it. We have now wrapped the second season of Babylon five. All right.

Brent: Oh, we're gonna, oh, we're now talking about season three.

Jeff: We're moving forward. Oh, let's, we're there. So the third, the third, so second season was called the coming of shadows. First season was signs in importance. The third season is called Point of no Return. Ooh,

Brent: I'm now, so we, the song from, uh, Phantom of the Opera in my head. Right. .

Jeff: So we like to play a game at the end of each episode, where we guess based on the title alone, what the next episode is about.

We're still gonna do that. But before we get to the next episode, Brent, what are your high level season three predictions for? What do you think is gonna happen in point of no return?

Brent: Um, the, the shadow war has to erupt. Like, if it hasn't officially erupted now, which I don't know that it really did. Um, this is, this is where it all has to, has to go to hell.

I think I'm gonna make a, a major prediction here. I think somehow, some way Babylon, five as an entity is going to break away from Earth and it's support for Earth. I think it's going to become its own deal. And they are, as a whole gonna become this hub for resistance against the Sonari and earth and the shadows and whatever else is going on out there, Psi Corp.

Um, but I, I, I, there was something Sheridan said in this last season where he's like, uh, at least we here at babylon five, or I, I forget exactly what it was, but it was in this last like episode or two. Where I, it kind of made me go, are they gonna do their own thing? And we know that there's this general hag resistance movement that's trying to like separate and, and you know, our point of no return is we're going to, we're in war.

We're gonna be in war. And I think a big piece of this is how Babylon five is going to, uh, be the forefront of that. Also, we know that that jms, he, he constructed these five seasons together and there is an arc to how he has put this together. And in the narrative arc, this is where the climax happens.

We've had rising action. This is the stuff, and we've been leading to war. So it's gotta be the war. Does it wrap all the way by the end of the season? I don't know. Because next season would be falling action, right? So, I don't know, but the, the biggest stuff has to happen here.

Jeff: I agree. Almost point, for point in fact, I think to, to like throw my guess way out there, every season so far has had an episode titled the name of the Season.

Right. Signs of Port has Come Into Shadows. There's probably a point of no return episode probably in the third season. That's gonna be the episode where Sheridan's like, we're out if you, if you don't wanna, you

Brent: Did you, so you picked up on that, like that vibes because

Jeff: especially I think it was in, uh, well between, um, shadow aha, doom and Fall of I Long Twilight struggle.

Mm-hmm. fall of night. There were alliances made specifically with Babylon five, right. Where Epsilon three and. You know, draw and everybody aren't allied with Minbar or Earth, they're allied with Babel on five. True. And then there's, uh, when he offered help to the Narn and then the, he, the

Brent: battle on five are gonna help the Narn.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Which included the Rangers. So I think we've got the military, it's got his own army. Right? Exactly. Yeah. We've got the arm of them through, through the Rangers. So I, I definitely think the same thing's gonna happen. It's gonna happen in point of no return and it will be a very peard thing where he is like, this is what we're doing.

This is the direction we're going. If you're not cool with that, there's the door go. Nothing will be held against you. We will not attack you. You are given safety and sanctuary and reprieve. But leave, go away cuz this is what Babylon five is doing. There you go. I like it. Couldn't agree more. Well, Brent, the first episode of the third season is called Matters of.

This matters cuz next week that's the episode we're gonna talk about. So based on the title alone and what we just predicted for the third season, Brent, what do you think matters of honor will be about?

Brent: Um, I'm going back to lawn and Jaar. I think this is kicking off with lawn and Jaar. Lawn is really, uh, I think he's really struggling still with the shadows, but he's still wanting to be sonari and I think, um, I think there's gonna be something where Lando is, is continuing his struggle, but he's still gotta clinging to it.

And there's that, that honor piece as opposed to Jaar who is beginning. Furthering his building up of, of this resistance. You know, this is, this is only gonna be a couple days after the end of the last season. Mm-hmm. . Right. Uh, we, we know that's just how they structure the, the show. So, um, I think, uh, I, I think you're gonna see that, uh, where Jaar is, is bringing that up.

Uh, I, I don't know what's going on with Sheridan and Niana and Garabaldi, but I think, I think it's a Lando car struggling with what not doing their next steps.

Jeff: Yeah. For like, Lando holding onto that wild horse that Garabaldi said he was on. Like, what, how does that play out for him now?

Brent: Yeah, and I, it's, you know, he's struggling between, oh well, because didn't he say in the like, this is the last thing he's going to do with the shadows.

Mm-hmm. , he's like, this is the last time maybe he tells the shadows, like, Hey, I. And they're like, no, you're not

Jeff: right . No you're not. That's so cute. That's so cute. You think that,

Brent: right? You're in for life, pal. Yeah. That's how it

Jeff: works. I think this is gonna be a counterpoint episode to their All the honor lies.

Okay. And that's the one where Sheridan killed the Minbar mugger guy that came up and the star killer thing came up again. Yeah. My guess is that Christmas gift that, uh, Devon gave Sheridan, the, the, the, the, the Black Star Yeah. Is gonna lead to something and it's basically gonna throw out all, like they're gonna deal with Sheridan Star, star Killer.

They're gonna address that and then kind of, um, put that to rest until it comes back, until it come. Because what I see happening, another piece I see happening with season three as a whole is the warrior ca. So we've got Earth and Sentara lied. You know, so the Warrior cast wants to get back at Earth, and so the Minbar Minbar are gonna come into the War against Earth and Sonari, but it's gonna come up that they want to go after Sheridan as well.

But they've already laid the star killer stuff to rest, so it's like, be cool, be cool.

Well, Brent will find out next week right here on Babylon five for the first time. But now it's time. Let's do it.

Brent: Let's get, you know, I was really attached to the thing from, from last time. I'm excited to give this one away. Like I wanna know. It's so cool. Who's, who's gonna get it? Who's gonna get this vintage 1997 inbox, captain Sheridan with a big pointy finger and a little teeny tiny babble on five station.

Who is gonna become the new proud owner of.

Jeff: If you're watching on YouTube, you could probably see the wash of White from the Excel spreadsheet. just opened and yes, for all of the Microsoft Power apps people out there, I'm using Excel. I'm sorry.

Brent: Yeah. And anybody who's just joining us that you don't know, basically anyone who has sent us in a review, and it could be on Apple Podcast, could be on Good, good Pods, podcast chaser, audible, Spotify.

As long as you took a screenshot of it and emailed it to us or shown it to us, you're in the drawing. And this goes all the way back to from when the show first began, except for the guy who won our season one wrap up show. Uh, Trevor, he doesn't qualify again. Sorry, Trevor. Yeah,

Jeff: we've got a winner. Who is it?

I feel I'd need to say this is for YouTube here, but I just have to say this feels anti-climatic without the bag. I am gonna do a, I just , I'm like, click. Oh. So just know that I wish this was more Okay. Here. Brent, we have a, we have a winner. This is a review that was left on Apple Podcast by I O G D M J.

His name is Darren. Darren sent the email in, sent it in. So, Darren. Darren, you win. Captain Sheridan. You emailed in your screenshot so you have all email.

All right. Also gonna also gonna give him an Oh yes, that's. So you have our email, Babylon five first gmail.com, the number five, the word first. You have the email. Reach out to us, give us your contact information, and you, Darren, win the captain. Sure. In action.

Brent: That's awesome. You know, I, I ain't gonna lie, I, I was very excited about that. I found another one and so I, I, I bought a second one that I'm gonna keep for myself. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah. In case. And for those of you on YouTube who haven't seen, I've got this one right up here on my shelf, that's a vava.

So now I'm, I'm into like, I wanna get 'em all ,

Jeff: gotta get 'em all,

Brent: gotta get 'em all. But I'm, I'm happy to, I, I happen to find the extra one, but, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm very excited to get this in Darren's hands. Darren, congratulations. You're awesome. And everybody who sent in reviews, you guys are rocking. I think this is now a thing, so when we get to season three wrap up, we'll probably do this again.

I don't know what we're gonna give away then, but keep sending in those reviews cuz that's how you get entered into win this

Jeff: thing. Yeah. And as we're gathering more stuff, we might do something before the season three wrap up, so don't hesitate to get those reviews in. And honestly, like, first, let me just say what I say every week.

Thank you all. Thank you so much for joining us. We're just two nerds who decided to watch Babylon five for the first time and feel so humbled that you are here on this journey with us. I mean, I dunno about you, Brent, but every single week we release an episode and people, the conversations kick off and I just, I have to pause and just be so thankful for the community that has been built here and the amazing people that we've gotten to know.

Mm-hmm. ,

Brent: it's really cool. It, it really is. Like, I always look forward to seeing, um, who's out there, who's commenting. There are people that you just, you kind of, we've gotten to know, you know, like there's the, the usual crowd and then there's always new people who bring in. Who, who bring in new stuff. And we've said it before, I'll say it again.

The Babylon five fan community is the best, the best fan community. In fact, a quick story of something I saw in the comments, um, uh, was this the end of season? No, I think this was real early in season two. Okay. Might have been late season one. I think this was real early season two. Somebody gets into one of the comments and, and they're just going off about the whole Star Trek thing.

Oh. Going into the, and somebody comments like, Hey, we as a fandom are better than that. Stop it. I was like, yeah, that's awesome. Wow. Yeah. So Battle on Five Fan Community. It's literally the best fan community I've ever been a part of. Yeah. Such great. And I've been part of a lot of fan communities. , I love my fan communities, but.

Jeff: Love it. Well, listen, don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening and be ready one, we are so excited when we get reviews from you, mostly because they feel great. We love to hear from you and we all get to hear this. Oh yes. But also you will be entered for future drawings, for super cool stuff. So stop by Apple Podcast.

Good pods. Wherever. Leave us that review, send it to us. And Brent, now that we have wrapped season two, until next time, Jeff. Yes, Jeff, Brent.

Brent: You know, we started this podcast as sort of, uh, how would you say, uh, a last best hope to see if maybe we should have watched this one sooner. Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. But now at the end of season two, I really think this might be our last best hope.

For victory.

Jeff: Oh, okay. Peace, victory, and long life.