Between the Darkness and the Light

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

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

Jeff: and we're watching Babylon five for you, and we are watching Babylon five for the first time for you. The one who is.

Brent: Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters. a couple of years ago decided, Hey, let's watch this show that we've never ever seen, and let's give it that same treatment that we do to our Star Trek podcast, which is overanalyze everything and try to come up with whatever weird messages they're trying to say.

But how are they doing it in a way that is different from Star Trek? How are they doing it in a uniquely Babylon five way?

Jeff: To keep the Star Trek to a minimum. In this Babylon five podcast, we play the rule of three. This is a game that limits us each two up to and no more than three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. One of those, no substitutions, exchanges a refund.

Brent: Hey Jeff,

Jeff: Hey, Brent,

Brent: it is that time again.

Jeff: you believe it?

Brent: We have reached, we are in the final stretch of season four. It feels like we just started the season like three weeks ago, 

Jeff: if that. Yeah. I can't believe we're at the end.

Brent: It has been so fast despite the middle of the season, which felt a little weird. Um, but oh my gosh. And do you know what that means?

Jeff: I do. Why don't you tell our incredible community what that means?

Brent: oh, that means that in just four incredibly short weeks, we are gonna be having our season four wrap up. And what do we do during wrap up?

Jeff: We give stuff away.

Brent: We do giveaways. Listen here, we have done, um, a 3D model printed, uh, Babylon five station. We have done 3D printed, um, star furries. We have done 3D printed, captain Sean, captain John Sheridan, action figures, which I guess those aren't really 3D printed.

Those are probably old poured, uh, plastic. Anyway, it was, we've done that. We've got something new this time. 

Jeff: We do. 

Brent: we've never done before. Jeff, it's in your possession. The

Jeff: And it's heavy.

Brent: this one's in your possession are, you look like you're farting right now.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: Can that go on the the audio feed?

Jeff: this. Oh, it's so heavy. This is the Babylon. This is the Babylon five encyclopedia with a complete hardcover set in one massive paperback. If you're on the audio feed, please go to our YouTube and look at this thing. This thing is no joke. It is literally, it's like 813. Nope, nope, I'm sorry. 817 pages of information about Babylon.

Five. This was a gift from a, from an incredible listener who wanted to remain anonymous. And, uh, we're gonna pass this on, uh, to, uh, the, a special winner on our season four wrap up. Brent, why don't you tell people what they have to do to win this thing?

Brent: Yeah. Listen folks, this one's real easy, real, real easy. All you have to do is go and, and this is kind of a bone, this is, this one's gonna be for a special group of people. Now, this is open to everybody, but there's one qualification. You have to be a patron. You have to be a patron at any level, any level of Patreon, and you qualify whether you have been, uh, whether you were one of our first ones in Patron.

And if you're a first one, you know exactly who you are or whether you have joined us, uh, uh, just recently. Um, and all it doesn't matter what level, anybody who is a patron qualifies for this giveaway. If you have not joined us on Patreon yet, please go over and do that. The address patreon.com/babylon five first.

Jeff: the number five and the word first.com.

Brent: we're gonna make sure that it's down in the show notes below. If you are watching the YouTube video, or it's gonna be in the show notes for the podcast feed. If you're listening to the audio version later, all you gotta do is sign up, be a patron. We will draw your name and you. Could be the winner of this complete hard cover set in one massive paperback.

You know what I thought, Jeff, I thought you were just saying that word, and then I realized it's literally written on the cover. That is hilarious.

Jeff: right there and you even get it got, uh, all this great stuff I'm sharing

Brent: It also, I'm sorry, it includes free access to online multimedia edition as well.

Jeff: Pretty cool,

Brent: Ooh. A full multimedia presentation song of the sabu. Here we come.

Jeff: right? This is a thing that anybody who loves Babylon five would love to get their hands on.

Brent: I kinda wanna like, like, I don't know if I wanna keep it. I I probably would, but I definitely wanna look at it.

Jeff: Well, I'll tell you, I made a mistake. I'll own this. I opened it to look and I looked and I said, I don't recognize this photograph that's here. And I immediately closed the book and I said, this will be for later because our great, wonderful, dear listener did send a copy for me and a copy for the giveaway.

Brent: there you

Jeff: uh, so I, I'm leaving mine on a shelf. I'm not gonna touch it till we're to the end. But this is, this thing looks like it's got everything

Brent: You know what's been cool, Jeff? All of our giveaways have been listener provided

Jeff: know.

Brent: The two 3D printed models came from our good friend Wash.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: The captain John Sheridan was sent to us by a listener. Um, and this one has been sent to us by a listener. That is, that's, that's the community feeding the community right there.

Like that is amazing.

Jeff: That's our, our community showing that humanity's greatest strength is our ability to build community.

Brent: There you go. Oh, look at you, Jeff.

Jeff: We are living the Babylon five message.

Brent: 10 points for you, my friend. Well, Jeff, uh, listen, we love giving stuff away here at Babylon, five for the first time. We love our rule of three. One of the things we also love is our predictions. It is one of the highlights of the show. People talk about it nonstop. It's their favorite part is when we get to their predictions and they say how, how scary it is that we are so right and how absolutely hilarious it is when we are so wrong.

Jeff, let's look back at last week to see what you thought this week was gonna be about and how close were you to what, between the darkness and the light was gonna be about.

Jeff: I thought this was gonna be the other side of intersections. In real, in real time, right? Like that. Like we were gonna see the things going on while Sheridan was being. Um, interrogated. We're gonna see Yvonne, a liberating colonies garabaldi, begging to get someone to listen to him. And then I figured this would be the rescue attempt by Dalen and Lanier.

Brent: What do you think? Hmm. Oh, I get to grade this one, don't

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. You had to start doing that a couple weeks

Brent: Yeah. So the first part of that is, um, the rescue. I, I'm gonna give you something just for the rescue attempt.

Jeff: but it wasn't Dilen or Lanier that did it.

Brent: That is true. You did qualify

Jeff: did. The only thing I'd got even close to right was Ivanova, liberating some colonies.

Brent: There you go. There you go. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you a 10th of a star, a 10th of a point,

Jeff: it's very generous. It's

very 

Brent: of a 

Jeff: Thank you. What about you?

Brent: I said that, uh, since last week was all about Sheridan. This week was gonna get back to everyone else. Uh, to be fair, I basically thought that meant not Sheridan. He wasn't gonna be a part of this episode at all. Uh, but I, I said this is the, the rescue attempt. The rescue attempt is on what this one is about.

It is the retrieval of John Sheridan, and I put no parameters on who was coming to get him.

Jeff: It's pretty smart. So I'm gonna give you 0.75 on this one cuz you got that. That was great. That was also kind of a little part of the whole thing.

Brent: I, I truly thought that this entire episode, like that was the thrust. Like we were gonna open with Ivanova and Marcus and maybe Garabaldi off doing something else, and, and they're just going, we've gotta go get him now. We're gonna go get him. Let's just go. And that it was gonna be that story and it was gonna end with them like opening the cell door and grabbing John and taking him out.

Jeff: Him being like, oh, the light,

Brent: right. Yeah. Oh, and he's gonna, he's gonna be like all scr. His beard was gonna be like, like you after you haven't shaved for 20 minutes, you know? So. Well, Jeff, uh, those were our predictions. Let's get to what this episode really was about for the folks at home who maybe haven't seen this episode in a while, or maybe maybe like us, they've never seen this show before.

They've never seen this particular episode, but they're listening to us anyway, which is totally cool. Why don't you tell the folks out there what really happened in between the darkness and the light?

Jeff: Sheridan is free. Somehow he's back on the station. He's visiting with Dr. Franklin, which frankly should be the first red flag that you see here. Cuz actually, no, he's still, he's still strapped to the chair with not William and some interrogator in training, still doing what they can to break the good captain.

With nowhere left to run Garib. Baldi makes contact with the Mars resistance

and they're just about as happy to see him as Michael Scott was to see Toby when he came back. Number one offers to let Franklin do the honors, but Franklin wants to hear Garib Baldi side of the story. No one believes him, so he begs Lida Garabaldi does to do a deep scan. She does it and then she plops his memories into number one's dome and now everybody's on board.

They get to work planning the rescue of Sheridan, and number one is super stingy with the help she sends him along with the praying mantis teacher lady from the teacher's pet episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She isn't much help there, but uh, but they do get where they need to go. Garabaldi leans on his newfound celebrity as the dude that brought Sheridan in to get past the guards and into Sheridan's cell.

Thank goodness lead is there too. She unleashes Cy Core's ultimate weapon and takes the last guards down with pain. They rescue 'em and they're on their way out in space. Ivanova is doing exactly what she said she'd do. She's liberating colonies. Most recently beta nine, they take a prisoner who tells them Clark is onto them and is gonna ambush them on their way to Mars.

He's got some super destroyers now built up with organic shadow tech and plans on ending this before they get to Mars. And how does Clark know where they're headed next? Well, turns out some of the defectors weren't so defective after all. While all of this is going on, Londo and Kar are breaking diplomatic protocol.

They've called an, they've called a session of the Council without Earth or Minbar represented, which is not okay if you're gonna take a vote.

Len storms in just as the vote is taken and under the leadership of Jaar and Londo, they unanimously vote to help the liberation fleet, and they did it in a way that the Menari weren't involved, so they wouldn't be feeding into Earth's propaganda machines. Ava leads the white stars to the ambush point, ordering the earth ships to stand by.

The advanced Omega destroyers call for Ivanova to surrender, but she very coldly informs them that she has been sent by God and that she will be the last living thing they ever lay their eyes on. An exciting battle ensues with losses on both sides. Eventually the white stars are successful, but just as they're about to regroup, Yvanova's ship crashes into shrapnel and she's crushed under the debris.

Sheridan makes it to the white star and he wants to see Yvanova right away, and she is in a bad, bad way. Marcus has been sitting with her nonstop. The Menari physicians say that she has maybe a week to live at most in a heartfelt and tearful moment. She has one final request for Sheridan, and the episode ends with him fulfilling that wish and taking command of the aga Memnon.

They set course for Mars setting up Earth versus Clark in the showdown to end all showdown Brent. Did you find yourself between the darkness and the light in this one?

Brent: Jeff, I gonna lie. I loved this episode. I freaking loved everything about this episode. It was action packed. Um, they got me in the beginning look real, real short, and I was like, oh, I got, oh, oh, I see. Um, this was everything I needed. And, and we even got the pain,

Jeff: We did.

I knew you were. I knew you would love that as soon as

Brent: Oh, it was, it was, it was something else.

Um, but I, you know, it, it called back. It finally called back that not every defector was really defecting. Well, there was a big surprise. I think I'm going to roll over and die from, not surprise, like it was, it was awful. Like, But we got, but they came back to it is my point. Like they didn't just leave that hanging out there, you know?

Um, it was good. And, uh, all of that being said, I'm very sad. I'm so very sad because if Claudia Christian is leaving the show, like if Ivanova is dead. Now my, my question is because I, I mean

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like this happens and, and it, you don't come back from it. Um, if, if, if she's dying, what, what my question is is, is Claudia leaving the show or is a Vava dying?

Like, 

Jeff: Oh, 

Brent: part of the plan from jms? Like she has to go in order for other stuff to happen? Um, or like a, like a, you, you remember, you remember an enterprise when Tripp gets killed at the very end,

Jeff: I do.

I love 

Brent: I mean? Like is, is this, that moment, like we gotta have somebody that we love, somebody on the DVD v cover that's real, get, uh, get taken out,

Jeff: It might be that exactly

Brent: know?

Um, and I mean, Jeff, I think we should acknowledge that we are fully aware of the real life history of how the end of season four went down.

Jeff: Yes. We've been, we've been made, we've been made aware of that.

Brent: Yes. Uh, yes. And, and our understanding is, is that the show had gotten canceled. Actually, I think what it was was the P 10 network got canceled and Babylon five was on that.

So, uh, j m s accelerated his plans to get to the end of the show. So they're shooting us thinking they're coming up on the end of the show. Um, and it was like in the last moment, I guess, WB came in and rescued, or t and t came in and rescued Babylon five to give it the fifth season. Is my understanding anyway.

Uh, so if, if they're truly thinking this is the end of the show and Ivan was gone, then I'm, I just, I just want to know that like, probably should ask people to not actually tell 

Jeff: Yeah. I was gonna say, we want to know, but we don't want to know yet. Like just, this is a hypothetical. We want to know. Please do not

Brent: This is a, a rhetorical question of I want to know, was this a part of the plan or is this cloudy actually leaving the show? Like, cuz I don't, where's what? I don't know. I don't know at what point they knew they were coming back.

Jeff: Right. And I think there's an interesting piece that I, I honestly hadn't considered to this point where like, actors gotta work, right? And so they hear, hey, they're the, the network's gone and, uh, we're done. You go start auditioning

Brent: Yeah. 

Jeff: which makes, oh my gosh, Brett, which makes me wonder like, what's season five?

We'll get there, right? What's season five gonna look like? I, I can't think about that now, but I hadn't considered that. Like,

Brent: I mean, I'm, I'm going to assume that everybody is pretty much coming back for season five, except now for a Obama, cuz that, I mean, she, she took a ship to the face, like

Jeff: you don't come back for that. Although I have thoughts, I have some thoughts we'll get to at the very, very end, but, uh, but I think, but ultimately you're right. Like this is, this is it.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Which made, made me very, very sad. But we got, we got a great avan, a line out of this one. Um, and so yeah, we did, I mean, this, this was like classic a vva right here, so. And how about you, Jeff? What, what, what did you, what, what were your impressions of this episode?

Jeff: same. I loved this thing. It had, like you said, it had everything, the stuff going on on Mars to do the rescue, uh, was fun. It was funny. Uh, like it was, it was good. The stuff happening on the ship, like it was dark and heavy, but still great action. We saw, we saw old season one of Enva, like we just talked about the Great lines and the Crips, but also we saw more mature of Enva who understood exactly what she was there to do.

Like in that scene when she was talking to the, uh, the guy who, you know, gave up on the ambush piece and she's just like, you, you will answer for your crimes. Like, boom, it's just hardcore now. This was, this was great. This episode took us on a journey. All the way through and, um, was, was was just super powerful.

I I, yeah, I I loved this episode.

Brent: so I guess we just sort of start at the beginning.

Jeff: I guess,

Brent: don't know where to like, there, there was no like a plot, B plot, anything like that. It just, the plot was the plot,

Jeff: well I've got a couple like, breakdowns of stuff. Cause like really there was the whole rescue and then there was the stuff that happened with the league and then there was the stuff that happened with Ivanova and up in space. But,

Brent: Fair enough. Why don't you take it, Jeff, where are we going?

Jeff: let's talk about the Sheridan Rescue,

Brent: Great.

Jeff: cuz I think that's a fun thing to do.

I, for me, like you said, you, it got you at first and it did me as well, except my first question literally was, why is he hanging out with Dr. I'm on the Franklin train. People like, this isn't me going like sliding back, but I'm like all the people on Babylon five. Why? Why is he doing the debrief with Franklin here in the, in the thing?

But I'm, I'm glad that they like showed it was still continuing. They had the same interrogator. Um, I, I thought that was a really good fake out to

start the episode. 

Brent: we, we gotta talk about the interrogator. Did you know who that was?

Jeff: Who was that?

Brent: It was Bruce Gray. Do you know who Bruce Gray is?

Jeff: No.

Brent: Bruce Gray. He played, um, I'm, I'm, I'm sure about one, but I'm almost positive. There is an episode of the Next Generation where it was the other Galaxy class Starship that wound up getting blown up.

Jeff: Was that the

Yorktown? 

Brent: like that. Yeah. Yeah. But he was the captain because they wanted to show the enterprise getting blown up, but they couldn't show the enterprise getting blown up. So they brought in a fake enterprise. Um, but it was, it was that one. Uh, but the other thing, well, speaking of enterprise, I've already referenced someone's type.

He played siroc in enterprise.

Jeff: Did he really?

Brent: And the fourth season, uh, Vulcan origin story, trilogy thing.

Jeff: Huh? I had no idea.

Brent: Yep. Is it really a buzz? I'm just talking about the actor.

Jeff: Yeah, a

hundred 

Brent: not my fault. He, okay, fine. Fair enough. Did I talk about Star Trek? Yes. Okay,

Jeff: Did he do other stuff other than Star Trek and you just happened to dust that one off or those two off? Like

Brent: No, that literally is his entire IMDB page. Couple episodes of Star Trek, Babylon, five, and nothing

Jeff: Oh.

Brent: That's his entire acting career. Actually, I'm pretty sure if you go back and look, hi. His, his acting credits are deep.

Jeff: probably, probably pretty

Brent: They run deep.

Jeff: he was great. I mean, we got him for a little bit at the end of last week and then here, and I thought he was great in the couple minutes we got him.

Brent: Oh, he was really good. I really, Jeff really, really liked the intercut between Dr. Franklin and the interrogator. Uh, what was going on in Sheridan's mind versus what they were saying in reality, how he and that girl were talking to each other right in front of Sheridan's face and Sheridan's like, I don't know what's going on.

Jeff: It made me wonder how they filmed that, cuz like, there's a version of it where they filmed the whole thing in the interrogation chamber and then they filmed the whole thing, you know, sitting at the table and then they intercut it together. But they had that girl in and out of different, like there's, I mean, all the way from production on shooting this.

There was a lot of plan on how they were gonna cut that together.

Brent: Well, yeah, I mean, you gotta shoot the whole thing once without the girl. Shoot the whole thing once with the girl and then do it again on the other side, and then they probably shot it. Do a few more times after that. Just for extra takes.

Jeff: Yeah. And then just did some comps to put people in here or there. But no, it was, it was a really well put together scene.

Brent: So is Sheridan keeping this beard?

Jeff: I, I

Brent: I like it on him. I really like it on him. I think it looks good.

Jeff: Yeah. Also, he was there a week. That's, that's quite a bit of growth for a week.

Brent: Is it? 

Jeff: Yeah. So I I, I got a pretty strong beard that that goes and, uh, I, I don't think I could do that in a week.

Brent: really? I, I like how, how even, even, um, messed up. Sheridan, like Captive Sheridan. His beard is still pretty Kempt.

Jeff: Yeah. It's quite manicured or whatever the word is. Yeah, very much so. Very clean edges, and especially like here on the chin, there's a, because my, my grow, my beard grows similarly to his in that you've got the, the welcome to the Babylon five beard cast as we talk about this. But you've got the, the hair on the chin that covers, and then you've got the little bit in the middle that I think in the, uh, late nineties, early two thousands, we called the Soul Patch.

Brent: Patch. Yeah.

Jeff: and then you got the on the side that if you keep that nice and clean cuz it's not the same level of growth, you get this real nice kind of separation in there. I gave up on keeping that clean, I don't know, about two or three years ago, but in this like it is, it is well taken care of.

Brent: Jeff, I need to pause just for a sec.

Jeff: All right, cool. YouTube, just so you know, you're about to see a skip. I'm gonna edit this piece out while he takes care of what you were just, uh, hearing over there. I think it sounds like his dog was doing something so cut. 

Brent: Ugh. Okay. We were talking about beard Game. Keep it clean. Looks good. We were done with that conversation.

Jeff: yeah. So, uh, I'll say you can just pick it up wherever I say, and we're back.

Brent: So this gaslighting story, like the, I mean this, this is the first example of pure gaslighting I've ever seen on TV this early. I mean, this is, they're trying to get him to believe this story that they've concocted about him. Like they like, cuz he, he said, he's like, we don't want his cooperation. We want his

Jeff: Conversion. Yeah.

Brent: his repentance cuz we want him to feel sorry about this awful thing that he has done.

Jeff: They clearly, he's done, there's no way he couldn't have done

Brent: Right. Right. But I mean, that's, that's like they're just going to, and keep, keep on insisting that this was history until he believes

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: and it never was.

Jeff: I was, I was, I was impressed with how easily he still fought back, you know, when, um, you did this because the, the alien said whatever. He's like, no, that's e even drugged up. She was like, no, that didn't happen. And so they added more drugs to the whole thing. And I, I even loved that.

Where like, they just told him exactly what's gonna happen here. We're gonna put this in his drink. It'll break him here. Would you like some more coffee? Oh yeah, thanks. Drink it right down.

Brent: So I have a question. Did we ever see Sheridan with the resistance on Mars?

Jeff: No,

Brent: Why does Sheridan know that everybody goes by a number? I wouldn't think that he would know that.

Jeff: I think the only way he would've known that is if Franklin or Marcus told him.

Brent: Yeah. But um, but he talks about as if he was there having conversations like, I don't know. We all went by numbers,

Jeff: I wonder. Yeah. Cuz even if I go back far enough, he was actually on the, against them, you know, back during the, the Mars riots and then yeah, they tried to make it like, yeah, you had these conversations

and well maybe like a couple other things that have happened in this season. That's the thing we're just supposed to assume happened at some point.

Brent: So just because it's the thing and it is a real thing. Um, and we see this happening all the time. Like we see this happening in public life these days, more so than I've ever, ever been aware of as a grown adult of people just reinterpreting. Like they not even reinterpreting, just they don't like what actually history says, so they're just going to say something different happened

Jeff: Mm.

Brent: continue to talk about it as if that actually is the fact, you know what

Jeff: a lie, if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth

Brent: People, yeah.

Jeff: because just like we learned last week, the truth is the truth, but also it's, uh, it's movable and fluid based on what you need it to be.

Brent: Alternative facts, I guess.

Jeff: Something like that.

Brent: Yes, yes. Um,

Jeff: And so garabaldi heads to the, is trying to get ahold of them, the, the resistance, right. And get them to, to, to help him out.

Brent: right,

Jeff: And then gets picked up by By them?

Brent: Sure. I really, you know, what really jumped out to me though on this whole scene was Franklin, now Jeff, you and I have given Franklin a hard time over the course of this series. There have been a few times, very few and very far between where we've gone. No, Franklin was right on this one. The way that Franklin insisted, insisted on hearing Garibaldis side of the story.

That was the right thing.

Jeff: A hundred percent.

Brent: That was the thing to do. That was the best, one of the best Franklin moments I've seen in this entire series. Like you go, dude, that's how that should be

Jeff: because I feel, I mean, one, it's fair, right? Just straight up. Fair to hear that. But I have no doubt that if he was just like, I want to hear your side of the story. And Garabaldi was like, well, dude was a punk and I hated him. Franklin would've straight put a cap in his, you know, boom. He would've fired.

I don't have no doubt he would've fired that ppg, but he wanted to give him the opportunity. And I loved how Garabaldi didn't get scared, didn't freak out. He cracked wise about the whole thing. You know, he is just like, wasn't my fault. It was his walking. Can you approve it? Yeah, sure. I got a receipt right here from the P COP that did the whole thing.

Like, so one, it was like, here's the truth. And also, look, it's just me, you know, being me. That was, that was really great. I loved, I loved the way that that happened.

Brent: Jeff, I have a question about this. So, Everything that Garabaldi did was, yes, it was amped up by ster in what he did to him, but it's roots. Everything he did was still in the basis of who he, like his internal dialogue of what he really thinks. Like on some level, Garabaldi really would think that Sheridan has this cult of personality,

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: right?

On some level, Garabaldi really would think that, that he thinks he's a God and maybe this isn't really the right way to go. On some level, Garib Baldi does think he can kind of go do whatever he wants with full immunity because what they've done on Babylon five is just as bad, right? Um, thing we see in our society time and time again is people. Holding other people accountable for their thought process,

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: not for the conclusions that they come to, but for their thoughts. Oh, well you said this, so that means you think this, and therefore you're done. Like, that happens all the time in our society. Should they have still been able to trust Garabaldi even though they knew that Ster had been there messing around with his mind, because he still thinks this, at least on some level. And by the way, we w this would've been the answer that we would've seen on TV in any other show. Oh, well, we still can't trust you because this is still you.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. 

Brent: know, like, uh, put it in a romance. Well, you know, you still have feelings for that person, so I can't be in a relationship with you because deep down, like really deep down, you still have feelings for a person that you were together with for a very long time. Like, eh, what do you think?

Jeff: I felt like when, I don't think I ever brought this up, but I think that when he was having his initial objections to Sheridan there, there's precedent in their relationship. I think of, I think it was the coming of shadows or the shadow of Zaha dom, I forget which one, but where it was shadow Zaha Dom when Sheridan had Morden arrested and was just going, going, you know, mafia style on him and she and Garabaldi was like, one, you can't do that, and two, if you keep doing that, I'm gonna walk.

And then he kept doing it and he walked. I think that Garabaldi on his own without the bester influence probably would've gone to Sheridan and said, dude, what is going on? What's, if you keep doing this, I can't be a part or what They would've had the conversation. I think the Bester influence took that, that it's that pause.

We talked about it before. The little, the little person who sits over here with the flag and sells, you know, says Say it, don't say it. He basically took that person out so that Garabaldi went from, I don't like what he's doing to quit and go do other things instead of having the conversation. But I think that from, if I'm Franklin, if I'm Sheridan right, like I, I am looking forward to the scene between Sheridan and Garabaldi when they talk about this.

And Sheridan has to have, you know, has to forgive him essentially. I, I have to believe that's what's going to happen because yeah, these are parts of him that are turned up. But I also think he got to a point in his programming where he didn't have control over what he was doing. And I think this might have been around the time, cuz it, it, that's where he started really going dead face.

A lot of the time. And when he did capture Sheridan and meet him in the bar, he was kind of going through motions at that point. I think Garabaldi of old an uninfluenced, Garabaldi would've been brimming with emotion. And see, he would've gotten in on that bar

Brent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz he just, he literally just sat in a chair and watched the fight happen.

Jeff: with no expression on his face

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. You're right, you're right.

Jeff: So I think, you know, for me, and it goes back to passing through Gethsemane right, on who you know, is it the, is the new personality responsible for what the old personality did? And while it's complicated because these was ramping up his feelings, I, I don't think you can hold him responsible for what he did.

Brent: Yeah. I

Jeff: number one felt that way too. After she got the mem, after she got the download of everything, she, um, immediately changed her tune.

Brent: yeah. I, I wanted to point this out just because I think the way they wound up handling it here in this show, Is the way that we should handle stuff like this. Like people, y you have to be able to have the initial thought and then run it through the filters. You, you know what I mean? Like, and be able to, to, in your brain before it comes out of your mouth, hopefully before it comes outta your mouth, go, okay, is this right?

Is this wrong? Is this right? Is this wrong? No, here is my actual answer of way I feel about it. You know what I mean? And I just, I feel like sometimes people, if they find out like too early in the process what somebody's thought was, I mean, it's, it's thought police, right? Like we've been dealing with this in this epi or in the show, right?

Uh, but I think the way they handle this, like they, they didn't hold an original like, oh, deep down below, this is how you really feel. No, like I, that might be my first response, but I, I'm an adult. I can. Come to a conclusion on that. I, I've said before, Jeff, there are certain things that I was, that was drilled into me growing up as a, as a, as a hillbilly in Kentucky,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: that as an adult now, I would tell you are gross and awful and not okay.

And there are still times today my initial response is based on that old way. And it, and it gets caught somewhere between, you know, here and here, uh, b between my head and my mouth, uh, for the audio folks out there, um, it gets caught there to go, oh, wait, no, no, no, that's garbage. Let's go with what the truth is.

You know what I mean? Like, let's be a grownup about it and, and like it's okay that people have that process.

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely.

Brent: Speaking of processes, let's talk about blocks. Lida was having a lot of trouble getting through these blocks of Gu Baldi.

Jeff: At first. Yeah.

Brent: Okay. I know Becher's a P 12.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That's pretty big.

Jeff: Well he, he'll tell, he'll be the first one to tell you.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: But I thought Lida was like supercharged, like I know she's technically a P five.

I know the Vons did something to her and amped her up, but I always got the impression that she was beyond P 12. But she like having, like, she had to work to get through that stuff now. She eventually did. Like, but I just, I, I just didn't, I didn't, it felt incongruous that she had that much trouble getting through buster's blocks.

Jeff: I think she had trouble getting through them cuz she didn't want to hurt Garabaldi. If I wanna break into your house and I have a sledgehammer, I can break into your house no problem. But if I break, want to break into your house and not have, you know right away that I broke into your house, I'm gonna have to like take time and skill and be gentle with things.

I think that's what it was. Because she even said, he's like, do it. Get in there. And she's like, look, you get hurt really badly. This could be awful. And he's like, I don't, I don't care. I'm gonna die one way or the other. And then she went full beta.

Brent: Oh, the eyes went black and everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: And also he

Brent: I wanted to see the gills pop out.

Jeff: Exactly. I go full, full, full lead of, I was gonna try him with Alita Orlon thing, voor VTA or whatever. But he should have been afraid of her. Did you, have we ever seen that automatic PPG rifle thing before that she was holding?

Brent: I don't know.

Jeff: I'd be a little nervous too.

Brent: I feel like we have, but I feel like we haven't seen a lot of guns. Uh, just the PPGs. Right. But I feel like, I feel like back in the gathering, we saw a variety of weapons and they just sort of stuck to the ppg,

Jeff: that seems right. Yeah. And then we got the one, we got the slug thrower and gray 17 is missing. That's it.

Brent: There you go. There you go.

Jeff: So he goes down, they, once they're on board, he says, Hey, let's get a plan. Let's go get Sheridan

Brent: Well, I, well, I mean, so Garibaldis back in the fold

Jeff: Yeah, just like

Brent: we're good. He's back in the fold

Jeff: Yeah, everything's fine. Yeah. Apparently

Brent: kind, kinda. I mean, okay. Spoiler. Kinda like, Hey, you know how he can beat this bad guy who just came back from the dead, that is like really scary

Jeff: it's

Brent: a hug.

Jeff: all we need

Brent: That's, that's how we're gonna be. To her it, that was a hundred percent a Star Trek 

Jeff: Yeah. 

Brent: or those out there wondering a hundred percent

Jeff: I just need to give you a hug and love, love

conquers 

Brent: be okay. And I mean, that's the Roddenberry way

Jeff: apparently.

Brent: that love was gonna be the thing that kills. You know, immutable technology.

Jeff: But I think, I think though, to that point, I get it in this episode. I, I need, I, yeah, I need, I don't, I don't need Franklin and Garabaldi to make nice, um, I won't need a Vva and Garabaldi to make nice. I need Sheridan and Garabaldi to make like, I

Brent: Needle back on the same page. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Jeff: But I kinda love, like, they're like, how do you know where he is? And this stuff? He's like, dude, I'm a hero. Like I s n has me up all the time and people are begging to tell me this stuff. I thought that was cool.

Brent: Yeah. So let's talk, let's talk about that whole point, because that was, I, it was a fun little, little bit. It was a fun little retrieval

Jeff: It was.

Brent: going in, talking to, talking to the, to the guy behind the cage, and then going in, talking to the guards and I

Jeff: Well first we get the whole, uh, we're going down through all these tunnels and got a little canteen. Right. Who gulped this just, we got a long ways to walk. You sip. You don't gulp. I love the two cuz I'm on my second watcher. When I knew the joke was coming through, Franklin totally took a gulp. Like garib is like boo.

Lead it, boo. And he took, he even had the whole, after he drank it. And this is like, dude, come on man.

Brent: right, right. That is one of those things that oddly, I'm sitting here thinking, did they need to pad like 10 extra seconds in the episode?

Jeff: That whole scene.

Brent: they choose. That

Jeff: Between the sip gulp conversation and then Lida for a substantial amount of time on screen being like, I am not a good liar. I don't know how or for what, but I'm gonna sue you. I'm gonna sue somebody. I'm gonna like, that was a good chunk of time to get that out.

Brent: I, my, here's my note. I'm just gonna read it to you. And you can choose to buzz or not. I don't know how many I got left right now because I don't know that it is. I said the whole thing about gulping or sipping being a good liar or not ensuing someone equals pillar filler.

Jeff: Well, yeah, that's not a buzz, but because he probably has done it in other things

Brent: He did. He did. For those of you out there who don't know, uh, Michael Pillar is a writer. He wrote a lot for Star Trek, but other things as well, and he was infamous for whenever an episode needed a little bit of padding. He would write a tiny little scene that didn't mean anything. It's where we got the Warf Loves Prune Juice bit,

Jeff: yeah. Which stuck pretty well.

Brent: Yes.

Jeff: Should be a buzz. I'm gonna let it

Brent: Uh, but I was whatever.

Jeff: now. We'll let it go.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: So they get in. Dude behind the thing is just like, Hey, I know this is against protocol, but you're cool. You're the guy on the news. Go ahead, go on in. Wow.

Brent: wasn't. I was like, Hey, he's not supposed to be out here. Oops.

Jeff: The other guards call him on it. We got Le doing

the 

Brent: Alita dropped them. That's what I mean. She, she went through the block. Okay. I, I'm with you on the blocks. He's just trying not to hurt him. And that was the issue. Like, but I mean, she dropped those pain Ah,

Jeff: She made the face in every, like,

Brent: oh, it was so good.

Jeff: it happened. It's literally like, they're like, Hey, we want you to do this thing. Uh, let's have you watch this episode called Eyes. And she's like, oh, I'm not a great actor, but I can't be that bad. And they're like, no, no, no. The other guy. The other guy, there's this great scene.

You need to do that.

Brent: Oh, you might have worked with him once or twice.

Jeff: Yeah, possibly. Yeah. I gotta tell you, when they came in, so they beat up those guys in the tunnels, they put on the Earth Force uniforms to go in.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I prefer those Earth Force uniforms.

Brent: Over the, the Babylon five uniforms

Jeff: Yeah. Like the menari ones they made for 'em.

Brent: Ooh, I don't.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I don't, yeah, I, I like the Babylon five, the, the Earth Force ones. Look, I like the dress Earth Force uniforms. The Daily Earth Force uniforms are, they leave a lot to be desired visually, but the, the dress ones look really cool on a day-to-day wear, though I like the Babylon five ones way

Jeff: yeah, yeah. They're probably more comfortable, I would imagine. But I like to look seeing Garibaldi and, and Franklin in them. I'm just like, God, I, I miss seeing them in these.

Brent: it, it took me a minute to realize while Garra Baldi was holding his uniform jacket, I didn't even occur to me that it was the Earth Force jacket until like they were walking through in Earth Force G Gear.

Jeff: So, yeah, they go in, they get Sheridan. He's high as a kite. I, I loved it. When he is kinda looking, first thing he sees he sees is Franklin right. Which would, given what just we just saw, would probably cause a reaction. But then he sees Garib Baldin. He is like, Michael, I was going kick your butt for something, but I don't remember. That was good. I thought it was good cuz like the, everything about that, even up to the actual rescue is kind of played for laughs even though it had some serious stuff in it. I think it was really well done.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: And then he makes it to the fleet. Garabaldi and Franklin go somewhere else.

Brent: Somewhere else. Somewhere else. And they're good to go.

Jeff: And while all this is going on, we've got Londo and Kar

Brent: Londo and Kar.

Jeff: who are just buddies. They're, they're

super 

Brent: know, I was gonna say, they, they went through that process of getting back together real fast. Like it went, you went from I'll sign it, but not on the same page to, Hey, we're making plans, we're having dinner. Why don't you come on over. I'm gonna pick some food off his plate. He's gonna share something off mine.

Family 

Jeff: this was gonna be through the end of this season into the fifth season, kind of a like, let's explore this and do, Nope. Not only are they buddy, buddy, but like they're all smiles and they've got all these great ways and ideas to help everybody. Now,

Brent: Yep. 

Jeff: I didn't really 

Brent: but I, I will, well, here's the thing. I was having an issue with it until they explained it at the end of the episode, and I wanna save that for later in our, our discussion. But, um, I, I loved that piece and I think that's a, that's a huge thing. So we'll come back to that. Uh, but let's put a pin in, in that, that particular conversation.

However, Londo in the league, uh, now what did you, I thought they were going after Sheridan. I thought they were trying to concoct a plane to actually straight up go after

Jeff: Yes. Yes. I thought the same thing, like they were gonna go in and do it. I think I, I get what they did.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: I'm not okay with it though.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: What are your thoughts on their plan?

Brent: I'm not sure in general. In general, I like what they're doing. Right. Um, yeah. I don't know.

Jeff: It bothered me because the, the guiding principle that Sheridan has had through this whole thing, and I feel like he's been crystal clear about is

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: this is an earth thing.

This will be humans going and taking on humans. There's a massive propaganda machine in Clark and all of his stuff about how all of this is influenced from alien forces

Brent: Mm-hmm. Particularly the mbar though.

Jeff: Particularly the Minbar, which, which they went through pains, do you right. To make sure that the minbar weren't a part of this.

Brent: Right?

Jeff: But the minute some alien fleet pops through to help with the battle, everything that propaganda machine has been saying gets confirmed. If I'm Joe Average, who just watches I S N, and they show me footage of alien vessels firing on Earth Force destroyers, they're right.

Like it's all real to me now, the sentiment is great, but the execution, I think is super contrary to what, what Sheridan's been trying to build here.

Brent: So my other problem with it though was are they gonna leave Babylon five open?

Jeff: Oh yeah.

Brent: And that's what, that's honestly where my mind went when I was like, like, I like the idea of them going to help. Um, they can stand in support as long as they stand behind. Does that make 

Jeff: Yeah. They're not up there doing this stuff.

Brent: exactly. Uh, I do think that there is, there is something to be said for the strength of, um, the rest of the universe is coming together to tell you that you are wrong. And we've got our human folks up here at the a at the front that, you know what I mean? Like, like this isn't just your own, your own little civil war you guys got going on. This is, this is everything else. The other side though is does the league really, is that not interference? Because this is kind of a civil war thing.

Right. Like it's really not their business. It's, they don't need to be getting involved on, on that level. Like they can come out and sign their support and say, yes, we support so-and-so, but to, to come in and back up somebody else. Like that's

Jeff: I see it's a big difference between this and then the Narn Sonari war, where when they used the mass drivers, the, the Sonari did the, uh, earth Menari and the Volans all wrote, you know, filed protests against, you know, the use of use of those. In that case, someone should have gotten involved. Like, that was the door that opened.

The other people should be getting involved in trying to help protect, protect the Narn. But in this case, with Earth, that's a, it's, you're right, it's a civil matter, but now they're gonna come together. I think it's, on one hand it says a lot about the maturity of the league and, and all the other, all the other worlds there.

On the other hand, I think it shows, um, I don't know, maybe just that power of, well, this is a show about humans on earth, so we're gonna come together for humans on earth

Brent: He, here's the other thing. In many ways I feel like it overpowers the resistance fleet because earth is a planet.

Jeff: Yeah. One,

Brent: All of these other planets out there are a planet non-aligned, worlds Aligned or not. They're non-aligned worlds. Who does earth have coming to its defense? What alien is coming to Earth's defense?

None. Not that we know of

Jeff: well, they had, they had the shadows for the longest time. I still, I'm still holding out and there's a little evidence in this one that I was, right.

Brent: and we'll get to that. Um, we'll get to that. But, but in general, who's coming like given the entire white star fleet and the mass number of defections We had five before lunch. Remember that? Okay. All of these defections, how big is Earth's fleet? That earth is still going to outnumber them. Or,

Jeff: Or even, or even stand up against them.

Brent: yeah, like, like what do, what do you have left?

Because now you're gonna add in all of these alien worlds that are sending, let's just say they all send one ship each, it's probably gonna send more cuz they're assembling their fleet,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: but also who's watching Battle on Five back there? I, I just, that's it. I, I mean, listen, if Sheridan and Crew wanna roll through and just pick off everybody, like it's nothing cool, but you r that's really, it's, I don't know.

Jeff: It's a problem. I, I take it back to the Leada and Garibaldi thing. Leada, yes. Could just bust in and pull those memories out of outta Garibaldis head. No problem. She didn't want to hurt him. Sheridan could bust through just with the white star fleet. Bust through, take everybody out, blow up, you know, bring float President Clark up into space and blast him with that white star beam weapon, you know?

No problem. Easy. This could be a three day affair. Right. But no, he doesn't want to kill people. He wants to give him an opportunity to surrender. He wants to protect things. So it's more surgical, bringing in alien vessels, ruins all of that.

Brent: I mean, even if they just show up of their own accord,

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: you know? Um, now that being said, for the narrative of a story,

Jeff: It's great.

Brent: oh, I loved it. Oh yeah. Go to get there. You guys are. Yeah, we're not, not by the way. Uh, cuz here's the other thing Jeff did, did we just witness the founding of the federation?

Jeff: I think what we saw

Brent: The non-aligned world just aligned and they formed a federation of planets that were united just saying.

Jeff: I think specifically what we saw was a thing that if you go back, oh, I don't know about 20 episodes in the Babylon five for the first time feed, you'll see this one called the season three wrap up, which is where we predicted what was gonna happen in season four. And if I remember right, it was all of these worlds are gonna come together under a common banner.

I thought it was gonna be called Babylon, but uh, under a common banner. To, uh, to help fight all this stuff. I thought it was gonna be Earth and the shadows, but like, we'll, we'll get to it in a minute. It, it, it still might kind of be earth in the shadows, but Huh. Weird that we ended up here. Who would've ever guessed?

Brent: Very weird. So we've got the, uh, the aliens are coming. Um, they've got all their stuff going on. Sheridan has been rescued. Uh, Marcus is waving his fa hand, very creepily over Ivanna's face.

Jeff: Yeah. That was, she'll never

Brent: Aana of, of Ivanova. Sorry, what now?

Jeff: I, I was nervous. Something not great was gonna happen there. Right. When, uh, so she's sleeping and, uh, he goes in to wake her up and he kind of waves his hand weird over her face and says, she'll, you'll never know. And I'm like, oh, no. Is he gonna do something like, oh, okay. Nope, nope. She'll just never know that he loves her.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: But she, but she does,

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: says that she's been learning some minbar. Apparently she's got an IDE memory and she's translated what Marcus told her

Brent: And it was so sweet and, and, and yet now we're gonna get Marcus and Ivanova. I, it makes me wonder if j m s knew that they were gonna have a fifth season, would Marcus and Ivanova, would this have been played out over the course of the fifth season? And actually allowed to breathe and not just brought right here at the very end.

And then, oh yeah, we're gonna up the emotional stakes of Ivanova getting taken out because she just finally said like, yay.

Jeff: Like this thing is gonna happen finally. But no, no, it's not

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: one thing that I loved in this whole piece. Right? So the defectors aren't really, you know, defectors. I'm just gonna lay this out as a deep cut rush reference. I'm not gonna explain it, but if anyone understands. That the defectors are double agents in the episode between darkness and light.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: beautiful subtle rush reference

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: and of the My rush people out there, four of you got it cuz it was not a popular song,

Brent: Wow. That's funny.

Jeff: but I loved it. So they're gonna go take on these new destroyers. They don't know much about 'em when they go to take 'em on. Just that they're advanced

Brent: Right, but then we see them

Jeff: immediately. You know what's

Brent: oh my gosh, they've got shadow spines. 

Jeff: They got the red lights.

Brent: oh,

Jeff: they look so mean.

Brent: oh.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: And so why do we, why is this? Is this what Sheridan knew? And he kept insisting about those Telepaths?

Jeff: so. I don't know what it's gonna look like, but if these are powered. Like this is the thing. This is how he's gonna take down their advanced fleet, I think.

Brent: I, yeah. I don't know. Oh,

Jeff: crud. What a battle. What a battle. That started with peak. Peak of Ava.

Brent: Uhhuh

Jeff: Oh my God. That's so good.

Brent: Uhhuh.

Jeff: Who am I? Who am I?

Brent: Right.

Jeff: Oh man.

Brent: Say it. Jeff, did you write down the, I didn't get the quote. I really wish I would've. I, I, I'm, I'm, I was trying to find it real fast. I, cuz I wa I should have written this down and I didn't go.

Jeff: I should have, I should have have it as a drop is what I should have done. But who am I? I am Susan of Vva. Commander Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is gonna kick your sorry ass all the way back to earth. Sweetheart. I am death incarnate and the last living thing you are ever going to see.

God sent me. Oh you I get that communication. Reverse course. Reverse course. Full speed. Full speed. Back to earth.

Brent: That, that, that lady be crazy.

Jeff: Yeah. We out go.

Brent: She done, she she out her mind, man. Um, yeah, it was, oh my gosh. Peak ivanova. It wa like everything we've known about Ivanova built to that line

Jeff: Like if this and one more line of hers have to be the last moments of her that, wow. So good.

Brent: Jeff, I, it's been in my head for a while and it, this would take some doing, but I want to, I want to do like a, like a top five list with you. Like, like when we're done with the show and we're just trying to come 'em up with content that we don't have anymore, I'm gonna do a top, top five of vva lines of the entire series.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: is number one. This takes number one, but 

Jeff: it's everything. Yeah. It's everything she's ever done. That's great. Into one piece.

Brent: exactly. Oh, it was so good. It was so good. And then, We have the most on budget collision we've ever seen. Like, oh, he is coming. He is coming. He's coming cut. And now everything's messed up in the set. Like we didn't see it getting messed up.

It just is now

Jeff: You, you see her standing there, right? And then you see the ship getting closer as Marcus says, first, he says, navigation is down. Like, we're gonna head over here while the repair systems can fix our navigation. I loved that line because otherwise it's like, why did you hit that thing? But you see it coming quick, cutaway, quick back.

Brent: right.

Jeff: I didn't, I didn't think that she was hurt that, I mean, I knew she was hurt. I didn't think it, I didn't think it was gonna go this far. Like I didn't think I was, I was kind of shocked when, when we finally got

Brent: As as well. I mean, I, you know, I thought she would stand up with like rubble and probably have her hair messed up in some blood or something. But, you know, uh, my exact line was, so help me if she's leaving the show. Because I'm not okay with this. So, um, but we're not sure. We're not, I'm just telling you my, I'm, this is just where I am right now because like, I mean, we still got three more episodes, 

Jeff: Exactly. 

Brent: could happen, but I'm like, um, wait a minute.

No, no, no. This is, this is, uh,

Jeff: It's not okay.

Brent: no, no, not okay. Not okay. Um, hey, I wanna back up just a little bit to Sheridan. Uh, still drunk out, but he got a PPG in his hand and unloaded

Jeff: That's one thing we call a

Brent: over there.

Jeff: call that a trauma response is what that was. Yeah, that was wild.

Brent: I I loved it. I I really did. I really did, uh, speak. Oh, go ahead.

Jeff: oh, I was gonna bring us back to this piece just real quick before we get to the, the ivanova stuff. Um, I think I was kind of shocked that they had the shadow tech, the organic shadow tech ready to rock and the destroyers already.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: And so my question that I have is if they are now working with, like, if I still believe they have a shadow ship in waiting that we're gonna see, but I wonder if they're working with the dr. Like if that's a, an extension of their alliance and the DR are helping them adapt the shadow tech.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: were just gonna say something?

Brent: I'm trying to decide if I think that ACA really involved with Earth and I don't think they are.

Jeff: or if they're a thing even anymore,

Brent: Was that it? You mean like not a thing because it's a dropped thread.

Jeff: yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Oh,

Jeff: Although this is a drop thought I would support. Cause I think like they put 'em out on screen and they're just like, oh, okay. Nope, nope, we need to change course. That did not work.

Brent: The, the jock are the alien from Gray 17.

Jeff: Yeah. The, the whatever that thing was that we got, apologies for.

Brent: Um, so I, I, I mean, so end of the episode then is Sheridan finally gets reunited with Dylan. He goes and sees Ivanova who is in a halo,

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: and Sheridan tells her the truth.

Jeff: he does.

Brent: Good on him.

Jeff: Yep. Right. Thing to do.

Brent: I hate it when people, oh no, you're gonna be fine. We're gonna get you through this.

I'm like, you can't, no, you can't say that to that person. Like you, like, I know you're just trying to bolster spirits and stuff, but you don't know that.

Jeff: Yeah. That person needs time to become at peace if he, if it's possible, they gotta come to peace with where things are, and Sheridan gave her that chance.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: But she was great and she dropped another amazing avan of a line, you know, she spoke quite a bit about, you know, don't feel any guilt for me. I, I am who I am and I did what I did.

You're not responsible. Don't feel guilt. I don't carry any more guilt for me, or I'm gonna come back. And kick your ass. And I'm like, yes. And that one line alone tells me like she's gonna, either she's gonna be okay. She's still there, or they just gave us that one last little, I'll tell you, between now and watching this next episode, this is all I'm thinking about is what's gonna happen to Ivanova.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. We gotta we gotta find that out. Now. One, one last bit about on actually closes the show. She has a request

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: and it's a cool request out In this moment, she is not thinking of herself.

Jeff: all.

Brent: I love it. And Sheridan, with the permission of the current Captain Retakes command of the aga mimon for this final battle. That's dope. Like, I love Sheridan back on the aga mimon and I don't even, I don't even know the aga mimon, like it's the ship that dropped him off three years ago. That's it.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Like, that's, that's, that's all it means to me. Oh,

Jeff: can't get outta my head though, and I don't know if it's just the way the captain portrays himself or what, but I still feel like they might be not so defective. Defectors.

Brent: I, I am, I felt that way at first. I think I'm just on the, I think, I think until we have a reason to believe, to otherwise say it, we've just gotta take it for face value.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That's, that's where I, that's where I, that's where I am with it. I'm just taking it for face value until they betray my trust.

Jeff: That's fair.

Brent: Well, Jeff, uh, with that being said, we have definitely then reached that point of the episode where we boil this all down and see if this has any of that deep moral message.

Is there something that j m s is trying to tell us through this episode? Is he holding up a mirror to our society? Is he giving us hope that we can be better in the future? Is he trying to tell us something? Well, Jeff, you are going to analyze that. You're gonna tell us how Star Trek that is and how Babylon five is it done by rating this on a scale of zero to five Delta Furies.

Jeff, what do you got for us this week?

Jeff: In addition to what I, I, I have prepared, we brought up that conversation earlier about not just jumping to conclusions and allowing people to have their thought processes and stuff. I want to include that here in my final assessment of the episode because I think it's so important. You know, I mean, we just, that leads to real dialogue and real back and forth when people can think through things and have permission to change and change their minds, and I think that's fantastic. I think in this episode, what's challenging for me, and I think, and I have a feeling this is gonna persist through at least the rest of this season, if not further on, is we have these long arc threads that are being pulling, being pulled through message threads, as it were. And two of them really stood out to me in this one, one we talked about a little bit last week, about the, um, the person who just shows up to work and just does their job and is perpetrating super, super evil things as a result.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: In this episode, Len said, uh, she's talking about, you know, president Clark is the one issuing the orders, but there it wasn't. Ava President Clark is issuing the orders, but they're the ones pulling the trigger. And so like, that's William, that's not William, the people who are just showing up and doing their jobs.

And I think this really causes, there's not a message in this per se, as much as a, Hey, think about this. If what you are doing is inherently bad, but you're doing it because it's your job or you're afraid of what's gonna happen if you don't do it, but you still know it's not a good thing back to last week, say no.

Brent: Right,

Jeff: And I think that came up when Ivanova was grilling the people over, the people that were killed at beta nine. She was all about justice for them. And so where does that culpability lie? But the big one in this one that I, I think, really touched so much of, of what happened and, and where I think, and you'll see reflected in my, in my score that.

We're not there yet. This episode didn't do it. This episode moved it along. Humanity is the glue that bonds us together.

Brent: Gosh, Jeff.

Jeff: God, right? Humanity builds community, fosters diversity and bonds people together. And what we've seen in the last four seasons, I mean, I can say we've seen it in four seasons now, full four seasons without humanity at the center and what I'm in, in Babbel on five, this is humanity for us, this is without our humanity, our united humanity, in the center of what we do.

Without that, we fight, we argue, we kill each other over scraps, right? I mean, just petty stupid things. But when we can look at humanity as a whole,

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: Just like Sheridan said back a couple episodes, it's easy to unite against a common enemy. What we need to do is unite for a common goal, and that's what we saw happen right here in this one.

And I think it was incredible. I loved this. I think we still have more to go and that's why it's not gonna be a five Delta Fury episode, but this is a four Delta Fury episode.

Brent: I like it. Jeff, you, you picked up on the one thing that really stuck out to me. Humans are the glue that hold us together. I'm not gonna repeat too much of what you just said, but I remember going through, uh, when I was doing Beat Me Up as a Star Trek podcast, and we got into Enterprise and we're going through Enterprise. And something that struck me with as many times as I've seen Enterprise that struck me brand new was the idea that all of these alien races already existed out there.

The Volcans, the Andorians, the teller rights, the the K Clingons, all of these guys out there, all space fairing, and they were all warring against each other. Nobody was together. It wasn't until this new group, these humans came on the, on the scene, that they were able to not even set aside their differences to still own their differences, have their differences, but in the middle of that, still come together and work together to be the glue. And it's, and the, it was really just this idea that Gene Roddenberry was trying to push out all the way back in the sixties, which is that hu like the hope of the world, the hope of the universe, the hope of the world is humans. It's us.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: The capacity to be great, the capacity to do stuff is, is in us. It exists in us.

Um, I am gonna stop here because you said it way better even just a few moments ago. But I love that I, it harken all the way back. I would. I would encourage anyone to go back and listen to beat me up. Uh, I know it's shameless and selfless, uh, to be able to say that, but, uh, particularly through the enterprise episodes, uh, because it was an interesting conclusion to, especially for me as somebody who had seen this show so many times before, um, to, to just kind of reflect on the idea of what is it that humanity, the potential of humanity, that despite all of our differences, we still can do this, which is just amazing to me.

So, good. Four, I'm, I'm with you.

Jeff: Well, on top of that, we are creating the absolute 100% definitive and objectively correct ranking of all of the episodes in the fourth season of Babylon. Five. top five. For those of you keeping score number one into the fire, number two, last week's intersections in real time. Number three, no surrender, no retreat.

Number four, the long night, and number five, atonement. Brent, where do you put between the darkness and the light? That

Brent: Jeff, remind me what atonement was. I remember really liking it and feeling like I maybe was putting it a little higher than it necessarily deserved, but remind me what that one was about.

Jeff: was thelen doing the dreaming and we learned about Duco.

Brent: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: it's a really good one.

Brent: Oh, okay. Because I was gonna say I was gonna put it above that, but I don't think so. Um hmm. Does it break the top five? I liked this episode a lot, but honestly, Jeff, at the same time, this episode also doesn't feel this episode sets up next week. Guys. Let's, let's face it, this episode is not over.

This episode did not come to an end. They just said, Hey, press pause before we get to next week. You know, like, so I, I don't think it cracks our top five. I, Jeff, this top, this top 10, top 11 is a really strong group of episodes.

Jeff: good. Really good.

Brent: Okay. Face of the Enemy. We just had that one. Which one was that one? Or I, I remember just going through that one.

Which one was Face of the Enemy? That was two weeks ago.

Jeff: Yeah. Face of the enemy is when Sheridan, uh, when Garabaldi came and got picked up, Sheridan.

Brent: That's right. That's right. I'm gonna put this one above that one. This is gonna go between Atonement and Face of the Enemy. Uh, cuz I did like this episode a ton, but, uh, yeah. Delin and the dreaming and that whole piece, uh, what, what Du Caught did and said and taught and the way he instilled stuff into Len.

Like, yeah. That's, that's, I'm, I'm very comfortable leaving that. There

Jeff: yeah, that's foundational. Babble on five

stuff. 

Brent: Yeah. Yep.

Jeff: Well, that's it for between the darkness and the light. Next week, we're watching Endgame for the first time. We haven't seen these episodes before. We haven't seen thumbnails or synopsis or anything descriptions, anything like that. Brent, we like to play a game where we predict what the next episode is gonna be about and we're gonna be held, uh, to accountable for this next week as to how right or wrong we were.

So what do you sir, think end game is gonna be

Brent: Is it really called in game?

Jeff: It really is.

Brent: It's really called in Game. Okay. Oh, well this is the part where I would do some sort of snarky reference to a Star Trek episode that was also named in Game, and pretend like my prediction was the plot of that particular episode, or maybe I could even surprise you and change it by referencing the Marvel movie, which was in game.

And I'm not gonna do that. I told you earlier, I don't even need to know the episode cuz I'm gonna make a bold prediction, 

Jeff: Okay. 

Brent: really a bold prediction. Uh, this actually is a, is a prediction. Jeff. I was thinking about it. I was looking at it. This is a prediction that is based on the history and in this case, Babylon Five's history, uh, and specifically the real world production of the show. Not so much the in universe stuff. All right? What I have noticed about Babylon five is they have developed a pattern for episodes 2021 and 22, and next week is episode 20, right?

In season one, it was Babylon squared, followed by quality of mercy or whatever other lesser episode. They stuck in there because things were being shown out of order and then they had chrysalis, right? Season two was, um, long twilight struggle, followed by clumsy inquisitor, which I still liked better than you.

Uh, and then fall of night. Remember when we said with, with long TWI struggle like that should have been the season finale. Fall of Night was great. We lo Babylon Squared was our number one episode from season one. Um, Chrysalis was, was really good, right? Uh, in season three it was the Rock Cries Out, which was where Refa met his maker.

Right. Which was a, it was a good episode. Not as epic as long twilight struggle.

Jeff: Few episodes ever will

Brent: Right? Right. Um, but, but you had that and then you had Shadow Dancing, right, which was just walk about part two. And then you had Zaha Doom, which actually was a, a fantastic season finale. Um, but episode 20 has always felt like some big time season finale type episode.

Okay. The Narn tearing Refa apart could have been a season ender, honestly. Um, then, then episode 21 is this like little lull, and then episode 22 brings it right back up as the season finale. But 20 is the one, like, that's the high point typically speaking. So based on that, and now that you tell me the episode is titled Endgame because you know what Endgame is, Jeff.

That is the title of something being done.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: That is the title, that is an ending title. So that actually, that actually bolsters my prediction for next

Jeff: Okay. Okay.

Brent: Here's my prediction next week, not in three more weeks, next week, the Earth Battle, liberation, battle, liberation fleet, whatever we're calling this, this comes to an end, the finale of this thing. This whole thing with Clark and the President and Sheridan, it ends next week, not in episode 22 like we've been saying. So I think next week is the big battle. This is, this is the big climax of the story. This will end that conflict and that's gonna leave us two more episodes after that of do like a little dip down and then we will catch a, a season finale as we go off.

That's my prediction. And the title only bolsters my prediction. What do you think?

Jeff: So first of all, Ivanova,

Brent: Oh,

Jeff: think I'm gonna steal, steal a phrase from you. I think that next week we're going to get the redemption of Dr. Franklin.

Brent: nice. I could go with that.

Jeff: Franklin's gonna take Ivanova back to Babylon five, and he's gonna hook himself up to the quality of Mercy Machine and he's gonna save Ivanova.

Brent: that mean Franklin's leaving the show? No offense to Richard Bick. Does that mean Franklin's leaving the show instead of a Vva, or is he, is he just gonna like give her enough?

Jeff: I think he'll give her enough, like if she's not gonna come out and be like, I'm fixed in forever, it's gonna be like, here's enough to get you going. And now we're both gonna be laid out for the rest of

the season essentially 

Brent: I could dig that. I, I would, I would, that makes me feel better, frankly. Jeff, I forgot. I honestly forgot that, that machine, I know I just referenced the episode. I forgot that machine was in this universe.

Jeff: Well, we haven't seen it since. Revelations when they used it to save Garrett Baldy, uh, and Sheridan hooked himself up to it

and was was pretty okay. I mean, like he had said, I think if I remember right, he was drained, but I mean, honestly, he probably would've preferred death he was hanging out with his sister the whole time.

But in that one, but,

Brent: Well, I, I think what that was a piece of it was, there was a little bit of, Sheridan has a death wish cuz of, of Anna. Right. Like he still was carrying this death wish and he was like, yeah, let me go. I

Jeff: Yeah, I'll do it like it's getting rubbed in my face right now, so, so yeah, I think that we'll

end 

Brent: I a third commander here,

Jeff: Yeah. Why not this, this early, but I think the end, and I think you to a point, I think you're right and the end, this ended with Sheridan having them set a course for Mars.

And so they're gonna split the fleet, I think, and uh, somehow do Mars and Earth. But I have a very specific prediction of how this ends.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: Clark is gonna get onto one of these shadow destroyer ships and he's gonna be up there

Brent: tell me, he's gonna plug himself into the shadow thing.

Jeff: oh my gosh. I love that.

Brent: me he's gonna do

Jeff: He loves the shadow so much. He's gonna try and become one, right?

Like, oh, I love that.

Brent: Oh, that'd be cool.

Jeff: But no, what I think is gonna happen is he's gonna be like, we've seen him twice in little clips, like we've never actually seen

him, 

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: and so I think that we'll see him now. He'll be on a ship on the bridge. Yelling, screaming. He's gonna be broadcasting to the liberation fleet. But his big super powerful shadow destroyer is gonna be marooned right behind all the other ships, cuz he's really a coward.

And as he's yelling, and Sheridan is back and forth, right? So this is gonna be almost balance of terror type stuff where the two commanders talking it out, but it's gonna be broadcast across the fleet. We're gonna get this and this and eventually Clark's men are gonna be like, yeah, this is all a bunch of Bs and his own forces are going to turn and they're gonna blast Clark out of the sky.

It's not even gonna be Sheridan who fires the last shot. It's gonna be everybody collectively being like, we're done with you, my man.

Brent: They're gonna treat Clark and his ship like Sheridan treated that one dude with ppg.

Jeff: Yes. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Brent: Interesting. So we're, but we're both on the page that this, this war is over next

Jeff: It's endgame. How could it be anything else?

Brent: Exactly. It, it, I was thinking like, this was my prediction. You said endgame. Then I was like, oh my gosh. That's, that's, that's it.

Jeff: Yeah, 

Brent: That's the giveaway there.

Jeff: well, I think it sets up the finale really well, where now Sheridan doesn't have to be a criminal of any kind. He can be a hero cuz he's not the one who did the stuff. Like, I just think it, this sets

Brent: Not the one. Not the one.

Jeff: not the one. Well, I can't wait to find out. And Brent, we're gonna find out next week.

Thank you everyone so much for joining us. Please subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Leave us a rating and a review and please share this show with, uh, with a friend or someone who's dying to get into Babylon. Five. So, Brent, until next actually. Hey, Brent.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: It's kind of off, off topic, but I think it's fine. Did you see the game on TV last night?

Brent: Um, so. I don't watch TV anymore. Well, it, yeah, I mean, it's just a cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and unrealistic portrayal of life created by the liberal media elite.

Jeff: Wow. In Valen's name.