The Illusion of Truth | For the Second Time

[0:00] You can only watch it for the first time once. It'll be interesting to see what we catch and what we don't. This is our only first time. We know that it's a serialized show. Can you ever play the video game Mass Effect? Okay, Tolkien. Chill out. Some little breadcrumbs. Jean-Bré-Dé Chuckle Nugget. This is where Babylon 5 is becoming Babylon 5. We have the most incredible community out there. Feels like... I was right. Let's try and put the pieces together. I was right. I'm the king, baby. What? Are you kidding me? Here I go back to Doom, as I often do. We're officially into it, Jeff. 100% so good. It was so good. Completely accurate. That was great. I love that. I can keep watching the show. I love it so much.

] The year is: 2026

[2:12] This week, Brent, we're watching the illusion of truth for the second time. When we watched it the first time, we played a game where we would predict what each episode was going to be about based on the title alone. What did you predict this one was going to be about? I said that this one really had to get back to Sheridan and Dylan and their story because we didn't really have anything about that in the last one. The last time we really We saw them. They were flying on that little ship going, it's all time. It's all time now down here. So we had that. And then also this would probably be a lot about the propaganda that President Clark is spreading back on earth about Babylon 5. How about you? I thought this was going to be a Garibaldi episode, like focusing on his programming.

[2:56] He quit, right? He put in his resignation. And so I thought we'd see him kind of kicking off his business and all that kind of stuff. But he was going to be like he would be faced with things that pre-programming garibaldi was into and now he's not into like the dissonance between old and new garibaldi would come up and so like his illusion of truth would come up based on the cognitive dissonance in his day-to-day life very interesting jeff yeah those were our predictions they were why don't we take a look and see what we actually thought about this episode the first time around. Let's do that. Previously on Babylon 5 for the first time. The illusion of truth. The opening scene with Zach, total Clint Eastwood impression. Like, don't say that until you know what I was shooting at, boy.

[3:45] Then he mugs so big for the cameras. God, he's awesome. It was clear to me this was going to be a hack job. And frankly, I'm embarrassed that Sheridan felt right. I think this is a really important chapter. I think it was done powerfully. It was horrifying, the things that are going on there. When the actor guy clearly been tortured and was giving his forced confession. They just put that on the newscast because people are used to seeing it. I can't help but think about the ordinary, everyday, average citizen back on Earth. Well, if they know anything, it's from ISN. This is the only way that they can know anything. But the people back on Earth aren't going to know that. I mean, unless they really can wake up and be like, hey, this is not okay. I don't know if you've been watching this show or not, Brett. It's Babylon 5. Yeah, people don't wake up in this show and see things. If you play the end game out, part of it is getting Sheridan arrested and bringing him back. Now, if Sheridan's a hero and they bring him in and they want to send him to one of those camps that the director dude was at. No, you can't. He's a hero. But if you start seeding that, no, he has this disease, it's wrong. We're helping.

[4:55] Pity him we need to bring him back and make him whole again then they'll put him in those horrible camps and people will cheer and they'll be so thankful for the benevolence of the earth government and part of my prediction for this whole fourth season is that babylon 5 would become the focal point of some alliance maybe they bring earth into this alliance sheridan becomes the president of earth if babylon 5 becomes a nation he could become the president get the corkboard back out baby it's been put away for a while babylon 5 is going to form some sort of an alliance with the mars resistance maybe we'll see a couple of other pieces like there's proximate 3 and i think we're gonna have this big earth babylon 5 conflict it's the scourging of the shire it's going to wind up with clark gone it'll be interesting when we get through whatever this arc is that they're building to come back to this episode and analyze that that 15 minutes of a newscast and see what all got worked in and from that yeah like stuff that we just gloss over right now in this moment yeah for real nailed it totally maybe they're gonna do something with this mars thing, maybe. You know, honestly, though, it's not that hard to figure out.

[6:18] You've read literature. We know at this point we're, I don't want to say ripping off Tolkien, but that's just kind of where we are. This is where we are in the story. This is the storytelling, and this is.

[6:31] I remember a lot, a lot of times during the first watch, we talked about the idea that I, and I like this about JMS is he doesn't necessarily subvert expectations, right? He sets it up, he plays with it, and then he delivers. And that is satisfying. And the way people subvert expectations these days is so common that it's not subverted. Like what subverts expectations is that you actually meet the expectations that you set up people for. Yeah. It's pretty exhausting. Yeah, and it's great when it happens. It's like, that's how it needed to happen. And so, yeah. I also said it'll be neat to come back, and here we are back. Look at that. And really analyze those last 15 minutes. See what happens. I think a thing you said, I've been really focused. We had a couple things in the JMS Speak stuff that we share about him being like, quit trying to say that I'm doing this thing or that this is from this. Like I'm writing my own thing, but yes, this is so Tolkien-esque. It's, it's a little overwhelming, but I think what you just said kind of just prompted this thought I want to share. Tolkien, one of the things like that was really remarkable about him was he established the storytelling structure for, I was going to say high fantasy, but it's like high concept.

[7:56] Media, you know, for him, it was books here. And so I think it's just that JMS is following that structure in a way where it just, it can't not feel Tolkien-esque. You want to see if it's going to be like that this time? I do, but I do want to say this going into it, okay? Because the biggest thing I remember coming out of this episode is the question in my mind of whether or not the newscaster guy actually wasn't working for Sheridan. Not working for him, but kind of working on behalf. Like, he's actually a good guy.

[8:31] Kind of like a – like, he's on the good side, but he's, like, double agenting it. Like being inside. And so like, he's got to keep up certain pretenses, you know what I mean? But, but he, in doing that, he's going to insert just enough doubt that actually gives Sheridan some credibility, even though he's got it as like a railroad job, which I love that idea. I don't know that we ever got a definitive answer on how that worked, but I'm interested to watch this episode and see if that jumps out again. So in a rare clickbait moment, Brent, I have an answer to that question, a definitive answer to that question. And we'll get to that at the end of this episode that we're going to start right now. What do you say? Let's do it. Awesome. We're going to bring the episode up right now. It's what's going to happen. We're going to watch through the whole thing. We're going to talk about it while it's happening.

[9:27] We're going to edit it up on YouTube. So it's like a reaction video. The unedited version, The full thing is available on our Patreon page at patreon.com slash bad nerds. And if you're listening to this on an audio podcasting app, just sit tight. We're going to have the entire audio from that watch. So one, you can kind of know what we're talking about when we're talking about it, because Jeff and I are going to have lots of conversations during the middle of the episode. But then we'll have all the stuff on the backside. So sit back and enjoy. Jeff, let's go watch an episode. Let's do it. Accessing file.

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