GROPOS

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

Brent: I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time. I've never seen it before and neither has Jeff over there. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters who are watching Babble on Five for the very first time.

And we are searching for those Star Trek like messages in this series and trying to decide do we really like the series? Which of course

Jeff: we do. Yeah. We kinda love it. We're

Brent: doing the show. If we, if we're like, This show sucks, we're out. We wouldn't keep doing it. So, but yeah. How come? How come there's no new episodes coming in?

It's how much, It's how much we like the series is

Jeff: what we go we're doing. Yeah. And while we are Star Trek podcasters, this is not a Star Trek podcast. And so to keep us on track, we've limited ourselves to just three references a piece up to three references a piece per episode. So from this moment forward, any reference we make about Star Trek counts towards that.

Jeff?

Brent: Yeah. I really want you to go clip. That little audio from the movie Aladdin where uh, he's explaining the rules of the lamp to Aladdin. The genie is, and he goes, Uno do trace three. That's it. No more. Like, I want you to have that and have it on a so you can hit it. Uno trace, That's it. No more like, I want you to have that for this moment right here.

Jeff: Perfect. Hey YouTube, you're gonna, everybody here, you're gonna see how quickly I, uh, follow directions. Just tune in next week, See what happens. There you go. Oh, I was like, Dude, you already got it. Wouldn't that be ? I was like, Geez. Yeah, I can deliver. That's how it works. But I do have one other really cool drop that I love to use, and that's the one Brent that I play when we get a five star review.

Oh yes. This is from Apple Podcasts and Logos 7 28. After several Star Trek podcasts, these two jets turn their eyes to the best alternative to Trek sci-fi series of the nineties. Their years of podcast experience gives the Paris smooth chemistry, excellent timing and advanced insight into sci-fi TV tropes.

Trek looms over their frame of reference, but to three strikes Gimmick, only three Trek mentions Per purpose, per person per show adds an extra layer of fun when listening. If you're new to B five, due to its availability on HBO Max, this is a great companion podcast for it. You

Brent: know what? Logo 7 28 Gets us totally.

He understands this show or she understands this show. So whoever you are, logo 7 28. Thank you. You just explained it way better than Jeff and I ever have. I think. I

Jeff: agree. I agree. You a hundred

Brent: percent get it. And, and you know what I love is like logos seems to understand, like Jeff and I have never podcasted before together this, like, we've had a couple guest spots with each other, but that's it.

Like we each have our own separate deal and we came together to do this one. So, uh, yeah,

Jeff: it's actually a pretty fun story how that happen. That'll be for another time. Yes. Oh, Brent, we have another five star review. Yes. Yeah. They're coming in. This one's from Apple podcast. This is from Texas and La Shock and Texas and La Shock says this podcast is 100% Jaar approved.

One of the fun parts of watching new people watching Babylon five is seeing where they think it's going, whether they're right or wrong, and especially when they get it right and wrong simultaneously. That happens frequently with these guys and it's great. It does happen a lot with us, doesn't it? I like,

Brent: I mean, I only know that in hindsight, up to the point that we're here today and I have no idea what that is going forward, but that is the fun of the show.

is letting you guys laugh and giggle at us while we struggle to

Jeff: figure it out. It's one of my favorite things when people are like, Oh, you're so close and so far away. I just want to tell you. I just want to tell you. And I'm like, Then we have done our job.

Brent: Yes. Yes, we have. We have. And thank you for not telling us and keeping us Spoiler free.

Spoiler

Jeff: free. Hint free. Nudge free, Scott-Free. You know, all the free gluten, free all the good stuff. Hey, we have a website. Brent, did you know that we have a, We have a. I did Babylon. Yeah, Babylon five first.com. It's the number five in the word first.com, and this has a contact page and Darwin used that contact page and says in part, Hello.

First off, on the whole, I have to say, your show is gripping. I watch it every Monday as if I was watching the show itself. I find your insights amusing, shocking, funny, and entertaining. I hope you don't mind me sharing some thoughts on the show. And he goes on to share some really great thoughts and that include, I've wanted to post more but feel really constrained because I know everything that happens and I feel that my analyses or rebuttals to your conclusions are tainted by my knowledge.

I can't really discuss with either of you very fairly, because I have the knowledge that you don't have. Thanks, Darwin. That pretty much nails it as well.

Brent: It is. You know, it, it's one of those things. Um, I remember a while ago, a, a couple, you know what it was, It was back during that season one episode, the one where Dr.

Franklin got the machine with that lady, uh, who Quality, by the way. Quality by the way, that lady, uh, by, I don't think we ever talked about this. That lady was, um, the same actress that played Bill Mummy's mother in Lost in Space. What? Yeah. Like the old lady, like Rose or

Jeff: whatever anymore. I think somebody said that when that came out.

I, yeah,

Brent: like there was several people in the comments that that's at. Well I don't think we ever circled back to it, but yeah, I'm like, they never had a scene together. I'm like, But I bet they saw each other behind Z like on set. That's pretty I what they did. Um, anyway, uh, but, but it was during then people were like, Oh, but Dr.

Fr, cuz I, I declared then, and I don't know that I've changed much since then, Jeff, of like, I don't like Dr. Franklin. I have my issues with Dr. Franklin. But a lot of people are like, Oh, but Dr. Frankland said duh, duh duh, duh. And I'm, I'm sitting here. And my question back to them was, Okay, do you think that, do you believe that like, like ask yourself this question because Dish honestly should have informed your comment back to us.

Do you know that, Do you think that about Dr. Franklin? Because you have seen his entire story arc and you know what he, the journey he goes on and you are watching season one, season two, Dr. Franklin through the lens of a season five and movies and beyond Dr. Franklin. Or is this really what you think?

Cause this is really what you think right now. Cool. Let's talk about that. I don't want to talk about it on the other side. Like, let me get there. . Right. You know, uh, and it just, and I remember that on my Star Trek podcast when I was sharing that with my buddy Matt. Uh, we would often go through things and I knew the growth that certain characters would go through and he's like, I don't like this person.

He just, you know, and it, it just ta or like, Oh, this episode's awesome. But it really, it's not in the first time view. You only catch it really on the, the subsequent views. So, you know, there's, there's that, uh, uh, what, what was this person's name? I have to look. DMA or something like that.

Jeff: You're really's not, you're really pushing close to the episode.

I'm Darwin. Darwin Darman. I, so I was close, uh, Dar.

Brent: But like where Darwin's sitting there, like, I, I know the future knowledge and I have to reign that in. That's a hundred

Jeff: percent right. Yeah. I think about someone who's never watched any Star Wars except for the Clone Wars, and they're like, Oh, Anakin's so cool.

Anakin's the greatest guy ever. And you're like, Yeah, sure. Uh, there's, there's literally nine movies about how it doesn't turn out great. About, Hey. Yeah, he's awesome. Really cool. In the, this one series.

Brent: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

So Jeff, uh, along with, uh, getting to read all these awesome comments and, and five star reviews and all that kind of stuff, one of the things we like to do at this show is along with our rule of three game that we do, is we play another game. Now, this game doesn't usually happen until the end of the episode.

Jeff, at the end of the episode, you and I are gonna look at each other and we're gonna say, Okay, here's the name of the next episode. We will not have read any, uh, description, will not have looked at the thumbnail, like totally blind to what this next episode is, and we're gonna make a guess as to what the next episode is based on the title alone.

And we did that last week for this episode, and now it's time to pay up and see just how right or wrong we were. Groos.

Jeff: Yeah. Dude, we couldn't even pronounce the title last week. . I didn't even, I don't even know what it was a word. Right. What did I think? I thought it was gonna be some alien species or something that was gonna play a role moving forward.

Yeah. Uh, no portion of what I guessed even showed up in this episode. Do you

Brent: remember what you I, I don't, I don't remember what I said at all. I probably waffled on it like huge, like I normally do, and I don't even think it matters because as you said, there's no way This is the name of a, you said it right?

We couldn't even pronounce this word correctly. We didn't know how to say it. So,

Jeff: And people freaked out. People freaked as predicted. People freaked out about it. But you know what? Gimme a break. It was one, one word in one episode. It's not even a word, Jeff.

Brent: It's not even a word. It's a made up, uh, abbreviation.

Seriously, the

Jeff: guts it took to even name this episode, this is, I mean, just the sheer, sheer hubris of it. It's mind blowing.

Well, for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about whatsoever, or for those of you who wanna be reminded of what this episode is about, you're watching along with us. Maybe, maybe you're not watching it all, but you want to know what we are even referring to. Brent, can you remind everyone what Groos

Brent: is about?

Well, it's your normal, ordinary, average day on Babylon five. That is until the jump gate opens in a ship docs with the station. And we all know by now that that is the sign that this is the person who is gonna be the bad guy for the episode unless he's an old man, in which case he's totally cool. Shout out Rabbi Kolo Grill Hunter, dude.

Rest in peace. David Werner. This time he's only kind of a bad guy, sort of, and he's not exactly old, but he is definitely older. General Richard Franklin of the EASs Schwartzkoff, just in case you forgot, this was a nineties show and his 25,000 troops have arrived at Babylon five to use it as a staging area for operations.

Sudden Death, a forthcoming attack to quell a rebellion. Not because we care about quelling a rebellion, but because that world is a strategic place right between NA and Sonari space and the coming war that's happening over there. And oh yeah, Franklin is Dr. Franklin's ad bad guy, sort of the general order Sheridan defined building for all 25,000 of his soldiers cuz he ain't keeping 'em on no, gosh darn.

Transport chips for two weeks. Dang. This creates a nightmare for Ava and the station personnel, as people now have to double up and triple up and they have to, to have people staying with them in a complete and total violation of the third Amendment, by the way. And Franklin even has to give up his own in.

Jeff: Sorry. I just,

That's good. That's good.

Brent: And Franklin even has to give up his infirmary space to some of these guys so that he can quarter these ground pounders, aka. The Grow poses. Aside from that fighting is breaking out left and right all over the station, usually with the same dude involved in it. And that one dude even threatening ambassador to Lynn because she's a embar with.

But there's also some nice stuff happening. Keffer. Yeah, you remember him? The guy who's now in the intro of the whole show, but he's only had like what, three and a half minutes of screen time total for the whole season so far? Well, he's made friends with his new bunk mates that'd be large, and Yang and Garabaldi.

Well, Garabaldi has a girlfriend. No one tell Talia that is at least until his mouth can't stop talking and he screws it all up. Well, eventually the grow posts have to head out. Apparently they quell to rebellion quite successfully. And everyone that we've come to know over the course of this episode, except for General Franklin winds up dead.

That is literally the entire plot line of what happens in this episode. The rest of the episode is just general and Dr. Franklin hashing out their father's son. They have a drink, they talk. Dad says, Son needs to call his mom. Son calls dad a monster. Dad stops speaking to his son, son tries to apologize.

Dad comes back later to apologize for not accepting his son's apology. They hug it out. Dad says, Son still needs to call mom the end. Jeff, how'd you feel about gro pose?

Jeff: So I felt very seen in this episode. A hundred percent Garabaldi was me in high school in my early twenties, most of my thirties. And uh, but seriously, like the dude's been around.

He, he was a gro po. Right? He was a ground pounder. I think he said that to Famous Aus back in, uh, that one other episode that, that, uh, he was in mm-hmm. . I don't remember what it was called. It was not a great episode, unfortunately. But it's like, Dude, you know what's up and you're, you're gonna be, you're gonna be that.

That was my big takeaway, but that's mm-hmm. , I don't have a lot of thoughts on this episode. Yeah, it set a couple nuggets up a little bit. Um, mm-hmm. , I don't know. There's some new weapons they talked about a little bit, but I think I could sum up the whole episode. This would've been my, my recap and I would say Richard and Steven Franklin at Babylon.

Five before Act Door. How's my Tamari in reference?

Brent: Oh, Jeff, On, on my other, uh, by Star Trek podcast, which that's not a reference. Um, I do AKAs for the, for the show title. Mm-hmm. and my AKA for this episode was Dr. Franklin. The reason he still has a job . Seriously. Yeah. Uh, Jeff, I think we figured it out. Uh, speaking of quality of mercy, we talked about that a little earlier in today's episode.

One of the questions we asked then, and we asked it back in believers as well, is, how does this man still have a job? Right. Yeah. Also, dudes running an underground railroad, as noble as that is, I don't wanna take anything away from him for that. As noble as that is still very illegal. Um, how he is sleeping with his a job, how he's sleeping with his patience.

Jeff: I mean, right? Like let's, oh my gosh. It's just, And, and Sheridan even kind of calls him out in a, in a way that makes him sound cool. You know? Does daddy's like, Look, this guy, I'll bend and break every rule if there's a life on the line or a pain to be soothed, that's . Let's get our scales set up a little, a little better there.

Basically, that's Franklin's way of saying, Yeah, I would've fired this guy two minutes into my assignment here if you weren't his dad.

Brent: Yeah. And basically, this is why Dr. Franklin still has

Jeff: a job. That's our takeaway from this whole episode that's . This is to shut us up and have us stop asking that.

However, to

Brent: piggyback on your buzzer there a second ago, Dr. Franklin. The reason he still has a job, .

Jeff: God, If we had planned better, we should have done this whole episode in Ta Marion.

Brent: Oh my gosh. I don't know how long that would've taken me to script it out. Too long, Too long. I would've loved to do that.

Jeff: Challenge accepted right? This, this might happen on our Patriot. This

Brent: goes out on Monday. Tune in on Friday to hear Jeff and Brent redo the entire episode into Marion.

Jeff: Yeah. Or not. Or not. No. Did you have any other, uh, initial thoughts on this one? Look,

Brent: season two's been rough and we've had a good run of episodes there.

Like, like if I was it, soulmates was pretty good. Mm-hmm. or race through dark Places was pretty good. Coming of shadows was pretty good, but this one's right back there with a spider in the web and a distance star in geometry of Shadows and revelations. Like it's just, it's. This is an entirely skippable episode.

And I did like, I was bored through most of this episode, to be quite frank with you. I just, it was boring. It wasn't interesting. It, it, it didn't present a, a ton of, um,

I don't know what you call it. Uh, it didn't bring us a bunch of new information, like what really happened by the end of this episode, Earth is now in a strategic point between Nan and Sonari space. Mm-hmm. . That's

Jeff: really like, I think, I think one other thing that it added in the system speculation, but they talked a lot about these new weapons.

Oh yeah.

Brent: B five got

Jeff: an upgrade. Yep. Right. And then, but then these soldiers had new weapons because like, he's like, We're gonna make short work of this, this act door place cuz like we got these brand new weapons questioned. Are these the weapons that were developed as a result of the tech that they pulled back in infection?

Is this our infection call? Oh, the like organic

Brent: tech or whatever that is? Yeah.

Jeff: Oh, that'd be kind of neat. I loved though how Sheridan, So you know, General Franklin's all, you know, you're getting these great new weapons, this is awesome. And he is like, Yeah, we're a station of peace. Yeah. Like, why are we getting all loaded up?

But the other side to that question is Babylon five has been attacked a number of times now. . Mm-hmm. , Maybe they should have gotten these weapons. Well, I guess they're new weapons, but Yeah,

Brent: I don't, I don't have a problem with the station having those weapons, but I, I, I think Dalen said it best in this episode.

We have to have some place that is devoted to peace. And I thought that brought up a good point because it seems like a gross violation of the reason for existence of this station to use it as a staging ground for a military incursion. Frankly, even in a world that's not even yours. Mm-hmm. , you know, a gross, like, it'd be like,

Jeff: God, I, this would be like setting up a base.

This would be like a, like setting up a base, say, I don't know, going in and helping out in a country like, oh, I don't know, Turkey for example. And then just staying there and then using that as a staging ground for helping out in places like, oh, I don't know, like Vietnam and, Oh, Hmm. Wow. This seems really on point with some stuff that's happened in at least American history, if not other countries

is,

Brent: But I, I would add like, only if Turkey was like the seat of the United Nations.

Yeah. But Babylon five

Jeff: isn't, You know, I think that's some one you and I have talked about quite a bit is we call it the last best hope for peace, but really what has it done, you know, and not much. Yeah. They're, they're constantly told by their governments what they can and can't do. Mm-hmm. Sinclair would ignore.

Earth force all the time, you know, and go do this. He's like, That's not the right thing to do. I'm gonna do this instead. Mm-hmm. and none of it's really mattered. Yeah. In a big way, you know, I think Yeah, yeah. Lens's. Right. But I think she's right about the idea mm-hmm. Of, of a place for peace.

Brent: And that's, I think, I think it brings up a good point that it seems like a gross violation of the mission of the station.

Mm-hmm. . And I think, and I think, I think it is, uh, I'll close my closing thoughts or I'll close out my opening thoughts with this statement. The episode Grail with David Werner. Mm-hmm. , objectively a terrible episode, Absolutely saved by phenomenal guest star. Yes. I would put Paul Winfield up there in the same realm as I would David Werner.

He is a phenomenal guest star. Yeah. He did not save this episode, though, Not the way David Werner saved that. He, he, I love the idea that Paul Winfield is in this universe and that he has a role. I love the fact that he's Dr. Franklin's dad. Uh, and, and he is who he is. Like, like all of that's fine, but it didn't make, it didn't redeem this episode to

Jeff: me.

That's a great, cuz David Warner took what was on the page and just, I mean, made it, made it beyond real, you know? Mm-hmm. , I mean, just so good. Winfield read what was on the page. He gave you what was on the page. He did it very competently. Did it very well. You know, It was, it was, it was fine. Yeah. And that's, Yeah.

Yeah. You know which guests are I did, I, I, I liked two of the guest stars quite a bit.

Brent: Next one. Uh, let me guess, Let me guess. You liked large. I loved large, and I don't think it was the girl. I think it was the dude that was trying to start all the

Jeff: fights. It was the girl. It was Dodger. Oh, it was the girl.

Okay.

Brent: Yeah. They were great. I was trying to go with the not obvious one. . Yeah. Yeah. She was great. They both were like that scene where Garabaldi just put his foot in his mouth. Yep. And like pissed her off. And she's like, Look, I'm not looking to set up housekeeping. I know who I am. I'm just trying to get my rocks off.

Mm-hmm. and before I have to go do some unthinkable crap, right? Mm-hmm. , you know, and you just basically took that away from me, like, like done now.

Jeff: And seriously, I, I get it. Like I said, I was, I am garabaldi in so many ways in this situation, right? But when he's like, Hey, yeah, let's do it. Where do you want to go?

She's like, Good restaurant. And then you're quarters, she's, we're, we're getting right to this dude, but here you go. Look,

Brent: she doesn't have any time to waste, man. We got, And even even with that, he's like, I don't know. I want to, I want to take it slow. Yeah. This could be a real relationship. And she's like, Dude, I'm leaving.

Yeah. I will not see you again after this.

Jeff: Yeah, she was great. But the fight scene with her, like, uh, so there was her stepping in. I'm Stop ju just that, that scene mm-hmm.

Brent: the way that the actress did that scene when she got to that part, I thought was phenomenal. Mm-hmm. , like, I was like, wow. Like she sold that, that angst in that pent up, uh, stuff on the inside.

Like, like she sold all of that. I was like, Wow, that's, that's a good

Jeff: actress right there. Like when she slammed out the dude, Don't gimme your pity and walked out. Cuz he did. I mean, one, he was an idiot, but two, he straight up like belittled and insulted her in how he was trying to talk through his own stuff, right?

Yeah. Yeah. She owned that.

Brent: Hey Jeff, can we talk about Aldi's big ass Daffy Duck poster on his wall? over his bed?

Jeff: Yeah. Over like, and, and, and, and the fact that Dodger was still willing to roll

Again, feeling very seen in this episode. I'm sure there are people watching or listening to this that are gonna resonate with this as well, but you're like, Oh, I'm gonna bring this person over. I just met. Please don't mind my action figure. Um, collection my funko pops and my framed posters. It's fine. I am a professor.

My light

Brent: saber's on the wall. Yeah, my, uh, my Starship collection right over there. Mm-hmm. ,

Jeff: which by the way, I say with a framed poster right here and my action, like, so not

Brent: say anything. Oh, if you, But see, but see, look, I got, like, I've got, I've got the sports stuff right here behind me. You know, that's the good manly stuff, right?

And then, although it's a crappy football team, but whatever. Historically, they're awesome right now, or at least they have been. And then I've got all the nerd stuff, , like I get the whole thing,

Jeff: but man, good on Gary Baldi. He's owning that fandom. Like, that's great dude. Second favorite

Brent: thing. You know what that is?

That's his first and his second favorite thing in the universe. In the same space. Right.

Jeff: And you know, every time he's thinking that, like, he's just like, Yeah, I got 'em Both.

Brent: You know, I will say this though, I'm gonna move on from this whole topic. Uh, all of these grow poses, all of them. Particularly, What's that dude, Not Keer, Uh, Keith. Keith Clayly. Oh, yeah, yeah. Guy,

Jeff: Guy. The

Brent: the jerk guy. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. All of them. Look, I think they all just need to get laid seriously. , like that would solve a lot of that tension

Jeff: right there. Well, and that's so like, I have to own, I, when I first watched this episode, I was so, I had so much aversion to how they were portrayed. I was just like, Uhhuh, That's not real, man.

But I wasn't a Marine, so I don't know. Mm-hmm. my, I in the, so I was in the Navy and people. Thoughts, you know, well, Marines go, go go or whatever. What I know is when I was in boot camp in the Navy, like I had pe like I, I've, I've never seen it rain indoors. Mm-hmm. until I was in boot camp in the Navy and they were able to make it rain inside with us beating each other up, basically.

Um, or they called it cycling, right? So I entered the Navy on the heels of the time when they could still, you know, pop you with one. In fact, they still did sometimes and then threatened you if you, uh, were gonna gonna tell anybody. But they'd have you cycle. So it would happen is you'd coming to command to walk in and he'd yell, abandoned.

and then you'd push the racks up against the wall. And then sometimes they'd give you these instructions like load your C bag, put on your watch gear, which was a sweater and a watch cap like a beanie. And then you do jumping jacks, pushups, uh, what do they call 'em now? Burpees, we call them self-destruct, whatever,

Right. But I'll never, like when you're told face to face by another human being, self destructs until you puke. Mm-hmm. . And then they stand there and they wait for you to make yourself throw up from working out. And then you do that with like a hundred people in the room and then you have the hot shower actually have you turn the hot showers on.

So you got humidity. Yeah. It'll start raining inside. So that was my world in bootcamp. I show up to my tech school. Mm-hmm. and, and a guy picks me up and I'm like, Oh, hello, hello Petty officer. And he's like, Dude, my name's Gary. Like, just call me Gary. And then I said, Hey, uh, which cars have the blue stickers that I'm supposed to salute?

Where's the sticker? And he's like, Dude, if I see you saluting someone on base, I'll punch you in the face myself. Like you chill out. That's not how we roll here. Take that life with me. But very unique, right? Navy submarine whatever to this. We're like, you got Sergeant Major, what's his face running around, you know, playing dude from full metal jacket the whole time.

And I'm like, Is this real? Do people, do they really get in fights like this all the time? Like, I don't know, maybe it's Hollywood. Maybe it was real either way. You're right. Those people need to get laid .

Brent: I hate to boil it down and be so CRAs about it, but it's. At some

Jeff: point, man. Well, and it's one thing when you got like a jerk in the bar and then like a fight happens.

They're all on the same team. ,

Brent: right? Like, yeah, right. Like good night man. Good night. Okay. Uh, I wanna talk about this cuz this struck me as just unnecessarily bad. And you can tell me if things in the military are really like this. They're coming off the ship, they're all standing in these big, long lines and the person walks up and they stick their hand through the ring because apparently they have like microchips in their hand or something.

Now, I don't know. And it's like, do, do so and so is this person and their serial number is number, number, number, number, number, number, number. And then it goes to the next person. It took 30 seconds per person to get them through that. I don't know how many of those lines they have With 25,000 people, that is an hours long line that needs to be a boo gone, boo gone, boo gone.

When I get on and off a cruise ship, that's all I gotta do. They poop my card and I walk

Jeff: off. So when I went to my tech school, it was in Grotton, Connecticut and you, you go in, you go through what's called Basic Enlisted Submarine School, or Best, it's a five week program. I don't know what it is now, but way back it's five week program where you learn the basics of living on a submarine.

Then you go to your actual tech school and mine wasn't ready to go yet. So you go to this unit called ACU or a waiting class up, and that's where you just kind of hang out on base, like you clean the barracks or do landscaping or whatever. I. After I was cleaning the barracks for a while, I got called up and I got to stand watch at the potential nuclear engineering officers school, p n e.

And what that meant is I sat at a desk, which is pretty great for a little 18 year old kid to sit at a desk, had a phone, big deal. And then these potential, these officers who wanted to be engineering officers on a boat would come in and they'd give me their ID card. And I had this green bar report that I had to pick up every morning that had been through multiple layers of security and I, with a pencil, I had to look at their ID and I had to mark on top of each letter and the number to make, make sure that what was on their ID match what was on the green bar report.

Um, that scene a hundred percent made sense to me. Really? Yep. Yeah, it was, it was the dumb, I'm 18 and I'm like, This is, and especially cuz I'm seeing right these people every day I was seeing these say people every morning and they're like, Like, I see Akin and I'm like, Oh, you know, Lieutenant Soandso. Let me make sure.

Yep. That's the, that's the military for

Brent: you didn't change

Jeff: since yesterday. No, it sure hasn't, but I get like, it'd be a thing to look the first time and then look to say, make sure they're still on the list. Right? Like maybe they got discharged between, you know, here and there, whatever. But nope, every letter, every number.

Brent: I wanna talk about AANA for a little bit. A couple things about aana, they kinda made me laugh a little bit. One thing, did Ava only have one earring in this

Jeff: episode that I could tell? Not that I paid a lot of attention, but Yeah. Like there

Brent: was one scene and I'm like, Yeah, there's one earring in, and it just, it, it was like, just subtle enough that I was like, What's that

Jeff: all about?

Yeah, I think so. Cause she put her hair back a little bit and Right. Yeah. But,

Brent: but it was like, like she kept like turning her head, like to the camera where her one earring was showing, and I'm like, Did she lose the backing of the earring? Like while they were filming it and she just like tried to purposely like hide it,

I don't know what's going on

Jeff: with that. Yeah. And no, didn't, I didn't, Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Brent: Oh, well the other thing I was gonna talk about was their, uh, the naming for, as, for as much go guff as people have given us and, and even some of the other podcasts out there that have, you know, newbies about how to pronounce Ava's name correctly.

General Dad walks in here and he calls her Ivanova. Now it's not Ivanova, that's not what he said. He said Vva. But still, I wanna know if everybody freaks out over Paul Winfield calling her the wrong name. Cause it's not I Vva it's of Vva, right? Like that's what we're told. We've seen it enough times now,

Jeff: Well, I think it's, and it's such a. Oh, God, it's such an American thing to do. Right? It's like Ivanova or Yvonne or whatever they, they, and, Nope, Ivan. Ivan. Oh, it's not Ivan Ova, then it's Ivan Ava or I, I can't even say it. It's Ivan. It's like, No, it's a Ava. Ava. No, it's Ava. Right. And that's like twice, I think so far this season though, like someone has blatantly like mislabeled her.

Mm-hmm. . That's gotta feel good. Right. You know, in that opening scene when she was just like, Dude, this is the life. This is awesome. Uhhuh do you, do you know? And there was like, dude, dude kind of came behind her a little bit and was like, it was just, you know who I missed? Do you remember the lady in the first season who like, every time something with a jump gate happened, she turned around and looked up and was like, Commander, there's four ships coming through.

It was like that same way. She was the

Brent: Walter Herriman of, of uh, Battle on Five. You don't get that reference. I don't, don't laugh. You don't know that reference. You know when you'll learn that reference. On our next podcast, it's about Stargate sg. Oh, okay. And you'll totally understand what I'm talking about then.

And you're gonna love Walter. He's

Jeff: amazing. Well, I loved her. Like I didn't realize I loved her. Yeah. Until the moment of Ava was just like, Well, this is easy. And then somebody said, There's six chips coming through the jump gate. I'm like, Where's, where's my lady? Like, where is she? What, You know, maybe she just works a different shift, I guess.

But I do, I do miss her. I liked in that whole thing though, that the doc, the Doc Guild, Dockers Guild, got its first mentioned since, by any means necessary. Right. So that was, that was cool. Right. And Sheridan even followed through later on. Well, you know, we'll try and get them some time off with paid cover.

The, like those labor relations are still going well. So well done. Sinclair still paying off.

Brent: Uh, I really, I really enjoyed, uh, the moment when General Franklin walks into the room now they, like they already knew who he was. He had already been introduced. He went away, do whatever. They came in and it's, it's in the room is Sheridan, Ava, and Garabaldi, and Dr. Franklin walks in and keep in mind, Sheridan and Ava have the same uniform on.

It's that blue. Garabaldi has the gray. Mm-hmm. , whatever. Right. Sheridan and Ava Snap to attention. Garabaldi is just sitting there looking like he's Ron Weasley, he's got his shoulders slumped, his hands are in his pockets, . He's like, Whatever dude, I ain't doing that. . And then they called it out. But I was just like, Garabaldi man.

Like you're still a part of this world.

Jeff: Like Right. We call that unsat, unsatisfactory. The unsat, Come on, shape up. Let's do this. There you go. with, Which reminds me this, the, the, the sergeant major guy dropped this line. It would've been cool. I. , what General Franklin did was like next level insulting him sort of a thing.

Mm-hmm. , but I love, like Sergeant Major was in there. He would've dropped another awesome babble on five cussing line , which was what the stroke in H is going on here. . Oh my gosh. He

Brent: said it in here, said, Get your stroking butts in here. He said, You'll curse your own mothers for bringing your stroke and butts into the world, or whatever.

He said. I was like, Really? Wow. That's our one to one word

Jeff: here.

Brent: Okay. Yep. That's gonna be it. . All right. All right. I still say we need to have that, like that cut reel of every time they try to like avoid a cuss word and just give it a different word to say

Jeff: altogether. That'd be so good. I think, honestly, one of my last things without diving into any sort of meat on this whole thing was at one point Garabaldi and Lou are talking Uhhuh, how you know what's going on?

And Lou's like, Yeah, you know, a couple fights, whatever. Then he's like, Oh, there's a dancer from Dark Star that's missing. . He just drops that. Nothing, No follow up, No nothing apparently. Whatever. Apparently kidnappings, cool. Kidnapping and beating people up is just fine.

Brent: Right. It just happens all the time.

Like whatever. She's probably working or whatever. Uh oh. I got one more. Ava one. So Ava and Franklin, like Dr. Franklin, they're on a first name basis.

Jeff: This whole season is that new? So, no, I think this whole season they've been, uh, shining a different light on Franklin. You know, like he hangs out with them now at Ear Hearts and he has dinner with them.

Yeah. Like they've been trying to be like, Hey, Sinclair's gone. So our little buddy Trio has broken up and Franklin's been here the whole time too. We still love Franklin. I, yeah. It was weird. I loved, I loved their scenes. I loved those a lot. Sure, Yeah, sure. But

Brent: she's just, he's Stephen to her. Mm-hmm. like.

Okay. All right. Let's talk about Franklin for a moment. Jeff, did you know before this episode Dr. Franklin is a mad scientist? ? No, seriously. Look at, go back and watch. I mean, just fast forward to this moment cuz it's the only part worth watching. Uh, they're in. I'm, I'm near positive. It's the scene where Ava comes into like, Hey, you gotta put these people up in your infirmary.

And he's like the hell. Well, and there's a wall that has a shelf and on this shelf, Jeff, this is like professor snap's thing. He has a bleached white skull that they probably bought at the Dollar General around Halloween time. All right? He's got vials of various colored liquids. He's got a jar with some organ floating in a liquid in it.

This is mad scientist. Stuff. This is not doctor, this is not medical . This is, you are experimenting on people and things. .

Jeff: I wonder if it's uh, Oh my gosh. Who is that? That daughter of somebody he tried to date in one of the episodes.

Brent: Yeah. Wrote that quality of me's. Was that quality of Mercy Smart Rose, what

Jeff: her name was.

That's her skull. If things didn't, Oh no, He's like, uh, he's basically . They were going out to dinner and then Right. Franklin is the much darker version of Jordy laforge when it comes to women. Right. Hey, I'm really bad at this. Also. I'm gonna collect your skull. , keep your organs in a jar.

Brent: Um, okay. Paul Winfield looks really weird in his glasses. . They like, they didn't fit his face.

Jeff: He looked uncomfortable. Yeah. Just in the whole

Brent: outfit. Yeah. And they looked prescription cuz like, it, it looked like, it, like distorted his eyes. Like I don't know if they were his real glasses in real life or not, but yeah, it just didn't, didn't, didn't look right.

Um, Jeff, as far as little comments, that's really all I had to say outside of the father son

Jeff: stuff. Yeah. And did you the only, No, Everything I have outside of that is really the, the, the father son stuff. And then there's a, the piece around Dalen, um, one other great line that she had that was uh, what was it?

We're all slaves to our past and for a brighter future or something like that, we have to learn to break those chains. I love that cuz it's a great quote on its own, but it also hearkens back to what she said back on, uh, midnight on the firing line with the Sentar nan stuff on Rag Ash three. And I decided it was really great.

Pretty powerful. You know, when you think about where we are today as a society and then apparently where they are in the 23rd century. Mm.

Brent: There I thought that particular scene with the Lynn, where she's getting roughed up by Christ, I think that was his name. Mm-hmm. . I'm sitting here watching this going, Jeff, this still happens today. Yep. This is stuff that I thought we resolved back in the fifties and sixties, but it's not. This is stuff that it like, It's gross.

It's ugly. It is disturbing. It is not. Okay. It is wrong. Sit there and go. You are a embar. Now you've got hair and now I'm offended. Mm-hmm. . Okay, Now this isn't something I thought we got solved back in the sixties. People look for a reason to be offended. And if I could just, if you are one of those people who just take offense at anything.

Listen, this is just Brent talking. I'm not talking for Jeff. This is just me. This is you and me Here. Stop it. Stop looking for reasons to be offended. You are picking it. You are choosing it. That is no way to live life. Not everything is meant to be an offense. Delin had was in no way, shape or form trying to offend anybody.

In fact, she was trying to do the exact opposite, which is bridge the gap. But he's looking at her going, Oh, you're a Mumbar. He called her a bone head. Yeah. Or something like that, right? Bony said, Oh, you got this hair. You're trying to, This is insulting to us, and now I'm gonna take out all my frustrations on you.

It's not okay, Jeff, not.

Jeff: You have to ask. I mean, do you have to ask? But you know the answer. If she wasn't hybrid human and was just minbar, what would've happened then?

Brent: I have an answer. Yeah, we saw it with Lanier. God, we keep going back to that episode. Quality mercy. I think it cuz it, remember it was lawn, it was the corruption of Laa or the corruption of Erland took him out and Lanier turned it into Yoda from episode two.

Right? Yeah. Delin would've done that same like old Delin, bald Delin would've done that. I don't, I don't, Maybe she lost some of those fighting skills in her chrysalis thing. . But that's what would've happened. Like Delin would've taken care of, it would've popped up. I

Jeff: think she was so taken aback that it was even happening.

Well, yeah.

Brent: I mean, you know, and you talk about a girl who played, who played a part great. Like the look, what's her name? Miana something or other? Yeah, I'm not sure. Um, the look in her eyes. When they like had her cornered was so real, like it was so visceral. I don't know what she was drawing on in her life and acting in that moment, even through the weird makeup and stuff like that.

Like it was, I mean, well she fled, she

Jeff: fled Cro Croatia in the nineties. And so, I mean, she was, she was in the middle of all the war and the brutality that was happening there. And I think it would be naive to think she wasn't exposed to some of it, you know? Sure. So definitely drawing on that. But I think for me, that scene really hit hard, cuz what was it just, uh, gosh, three or four months ago, it was like September or October when there was the person who they found was like basically a serial killer who was abducting women of color and killing them for the sole purpose that they were black.

Mm-hmm. , uh, yeah. And, and that, that's, that really rang for me in that scene when he ju I mean, there's nothing dilin could have done other than turn into a dust moat and float away that would've avoided that confrontation. He, he was. Like you said, looking for something to be offended about and, and looking for blood.

And you're right. It's so much more true today, I think, than it was even when this first aired. Just so disappointing. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Um, oh, I, I got one thing that's not fathers son. Uh, I thought this was real, real impactful. Sheridan says at some point, uh, I think when he is talking to General Franklin, he says they're talking about war and you almost feel like he's gonna go on this big diatribe against war.

Then you remember Sheridan's a soldier. Mm-hmm. too. And he goes, I, I, I, I don't have the exact quote, but basically he said, Death is the only reality of war we get to the end. And all of the gro poses that we came to know, even the bad guy mm-hmm. died. Like, that's the reality of war. And we have that moment where like they're looking at the casualty list, both Keer and Garabaldi, and he, they're seeing their people that they know.

Like that was an impactful moment, I think, out of this episode. It didn't save it or redeem it for me, but like, yeah, the, those two pieces fit together really well.

Jeff: And it was a great scene because Sheridan was kind of trying to play, play the pragmatist, I think, in it. Yeah. And then it set up the impact of that final scene, which was done really well for what they were working with.

You know, just having the bodies kind of, kind of strewn, strewn about, But it also served that purpose where, what was it that the general that Franklin asked, he says, uh, do, do people when you destroyed the black star or the, was it the black star? Um, did you feel like a murderer, you know, for that? And so it.

It was Franklin trying to justify that , my son thinks I'm a murderer and it's ridiculous. He shouldn't think that about me. And then shared in kind of being like, Well, you sort of are, um, when you do it, but also that's war, you know? So like, yeah, I'm a murderer, but it's also what happens. Not that it's good, not that it's bad, it's just when there's war, this happens.

And hopefully he said something else too. That was great. Hopefully when it's all over, whatever it was for was worth it. And that's, that's, that's an accounting personally I would never want to have to do.

Brent: Right, right. Okay. Let's talk about dad and son, uh, in this episode. So they're not estranged, right?

Yeah. Like they can still talk. They still have a, Hey dad. Hey mom. Hey son. Uh, they're, they're not estr. , but they certainly are in two different realms.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. , is it wrong of me though, to, to say I don't care about any of the, this, you know what I mean? Like, there's some stuff to look at from just a father son or parent son, you know, kid relationship.

But it's, I I don't care about Stephen Franklin and his dad's relationship at, you

Brent: know, that. But here's the thing. So let, so I wonder if that is a product of not really liking Franklin not really caring about Franklin. Because what this also didn't do was it didn't give us any insight or justification for why Franklin is the way he is.

Yeah. You know, like, like, like do you remember when, uh, when we met Dr. Bashir's parents on Deep Space nine mm-hmm. and all of a sudden we. All this backstory for why Dr. Basher is the way he is, why he doesn't talk about his parents, why he has this drive to, to go be out there and be good. Why he kept his, his, uh, actually that that was the episode we learned.

He was a, uh, he was

Jeff: genetically engineered.

Brent: That thing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know why he kept all that secret? Like, like why he was really creepy in the first couple of seasons. Like they, they gave that a reason. Same thing when we met worst parents. Same thing when we met Captain Picard's brother. Does all that count as one reference?

It does, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Very good. Cuz I might have just used all three in the same big example, but my point being, a lot of times when you meet family, you get an idea of why a person is the way they are. That is not what we got with Dr. Franklin here. No. And we don't like Dr. Franklin here at Babylon five for the first time.

So. You're right, Jeff. I didn't think about it until you just said it, but you're right. I just don't care. Yeah. Cause I don't like him. I

Jeff: think I, if I'm charting the course of this show, Right. If I'm jms, if I'm helping write this, I think people like Franklin now I've, I've, I've shown that he believes in bigger things and will, you know, defy the odds and do whatever.

But, but for us, you know, I mean, for me it, it, no, it

Brent: doesn't work. Not yet. Not yet. I'm not, I'm speaking it open. I might change my mind down the road, but for right now, cause to me, like

Jeff: the two things that came out that give him a little background are one, his family are all very high achievers. Right.

Like his sister's working on her second PhD and blah, blah, blah. So of course he's pushed and driven. Yeah. And the second thing is his dad is antia. So he's gonna be that rebel who's now pro alien. Not because I believe they're good and better, but because my dad is antia like to me, to me it actually made Franklin a worse person.

Interesting.

Brent: Interesting. Um, Jeff, I don't know what kind of relationship you had with your father. A very good one. I'm really glad for you. I had two fathers. I had my biological father and my stepfather. It wasn't great with either one of 'em. Now I say that out of full love, respect, and admiration for my stepfather.

The man who came in, you know why, cuz he never left. He still wasn't really present in my life. He didn't do the dad stuff. He didn't teach me how to shave, he didn't teach me how to drive. He didn't teach me how to, how to talk to people. Like, like that's just, he just sort of did his thing. But he never left and he was always there.

He was the, he was, he was a coal miner son. In that community. Dad's basically the guy who brings home the money and he's the disciplinarian. Mm-hmm. . That's, that's just how that worked. I didn't understand that growing up. I do now, by the way, he is also a wonderful grandfather to my two children. Yeah. I say it's cuz he knows he's about to die and he's just trying to get into heaven.

But whatever. no. He, he is, he is a wonderful man. I don't mean to speak bad about him, but it was a hard way to grow up and my biological father was just never around. Right. Um, I found myself represented in a lot of this conversation. Really? Okay. Yeah. Like, like even on both sides, like me and my, me and my stepfather are wildly different people.

We have very different values. We come at things from two very different places and there are frankly conversations we just never need to have. Mm-hmm. cuz things don't go. Our conversa, you know, like I go to their house, our conversation's like, Hey, how are you doing? You doing good? How was that? Doctor's visit?

Okay, we're good. All right. I'm gonna go talk to mom for a while. , like, that's about it. , you know, Um, that's what this felt like to me. Like they're not estranged, but they're not close. Mm-hmm. , you know? Uh, and, and actually I really kinda like the way the recap went. Like, Hey, you need to call your mom. Okay?

You're a monster. I don't like you. I'm sorry. Okay. I accept your apology. Hug it out. I do love you. I do love you, but I don't like you. Like, you know. Yeah. And I mean, there's, there's something to that, but,

Oh, are we ready to move on to the next part? Cause this is where I'm kind of starting to knock on the door of the, the message.

Jeff: Let me just make sure. Yep. We can totally do it.

Brent: So if I can kind of jump ahead to the, the messaging. Jeff. Yeah. Yeah. What I found with Dr. Franklin and his father, and I also found it to be shown in Garabaldi and Dodger in both instances, they both had beef with each other at some point, but it wasn't until they both did the Star Trek thing, Jeff, and sat down and talked about it and had a conversation and stopped being so in their own stuff, that they were able to listen to what the other person was having to say and to acknowledge that their feelings are real and that their experiences are legit.

When they were able to do that, despite their differences, can they still, they still existed. They didn't just vanish despite their differences. They were able to come together and mend a relationship and move forward with a, Hey, listen, I'll see you when you get back. Take care of yourself. Cause I really don't want you to die and call your mom

Jeff: And yes, you should call your mom. Like, seriously. I, I had the best relationship with both of my parents. Like they were That's so good. I'm glad for you. Yeah, they were incredible people and I'm so thankful that I had them in my life. If I could do anything different, it would've been that when I grew up I called, literally called my mom more.

Like that's the one thing that's like, oh, that's, I should have done that more for sure. So the general, general was correct on one thing. I have friends who call their moms every single day, and I always thought that was ridiculous until my mom died. And then I was like, Wow, I should have called her every day.

I should, I should have done that. Yeah. But so he's, he's, he's, he's, uh, yeah, definitely. Right. I think it's time. Brent. Let's, uh, let's, let's do our deep dive. Let's do, um, let's get to Delta. All right,

Brent: Jeff. Well, with that, we have then reached that part of the show. I already started it, but this is the part where we're going to boil everything down and see if this show has any of that Star Trek quality to it.

Is there a deep moral message? Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope that we can be better in the future or just better? Right now, I am going to rate this episode on a scale of zero to five Deltas as to how Star Trek this episode is. But Jeff, you get to do the much more fun side of it and rate this scale, rate this, rate this episode on a scale of zero to five star Furies, to how much you enjoyed this.

Jeff, I'll let you go first. All right.

Jeff: Well, I think this was a, a necessary breather after the last couple episodes. You said earlier how, like we're kind of back to the, uh, the slog of season two. I don't, I don't disagree, but I also think the last couple have been super, super intense. But this one, it added some pieces to the board.

Um, modified them a little bit. Maybe it, but that's about,

Brent: It's a question. Yeah, There's a question. Could this episode have existed in season one and you wouldn't have known a difference? Yeah. It's that kind of an, it's a world building. Like I can see that in the comments right now for the people who are Well, but you don't know about the world building that this episode does.

Yeah,

Jeff: it was boring. Yeah, it was kind of boring. I think what it did, right? If you look at what it did, it did the weapons upgrade, there's, that's a hundred percent gonna turn into something at some point. We're at war, right? The Centar and Narn are at War Earth is position in itself to somehow be involved in all of that.

So I think this, this was meant to show us the horrors of war. Um, you know, just like this is really bad stuff. But I think, I mean, we've talked about this a lot. I think if I liked Franklin at all, I probably would have enjoyed this episode more, but I, I don't like him at all. And so almost all of this episode to me was just like, Okay, okay.

Get back to the cool Dodger stuff. Cuz she's, she's awesome. In fact, like she and, um, she en large and that large Yang keer little group mm-hmm. , they saved this for me. And they were kind of, I mean, especially large Yang and Keer, they were, you know, kind of a joke over on the side and mm-hmm. , it's like the most entertaining part of the whole episode.

Sure. And like you said before, I loved that this paid off. Almost all of the soldiers we met died. This is, there's no, this is babble on five. There's no silver lining. This is filthy, filthy war. Yeah. So there's some stuff to enjoy in this one. Um, not a lot. I'm going one and a half star theories on this one.

Brent: I wonder how it would've been different if you just take Dr. Franklin out of this episode because General Franklin, his scenes with Sheridan were great. Yeah. Like the, like in the command center where they're, you know, uh, plotting their, their battle moves mm-hmm. when they're talking to each other about the realities of war.

You know, when you have a general who's coming in, like, you're gonna bill it. All of my men, uh, I don't have space, fine space. Cause I'm not leaving 'em on the transport trips. Like, like those were, those were legit scenes. I was like, Okay.

Jeff: Yeah. I feel like it's, this is a three star theory episode. If you take Franklin.

He literally cuts it

Brent: in half. Yeah.

Jeff: I, I just, That sounds about right. Everything about him, just like God. Yeah. Stop.

Brent: Stop. I can see all the comments right now though, Jeff. You could love Franklin. Why don't you? And I'm like, Okay, we're not there yet. Yeah, we have. Yeah. Ill, The information we have about Franklin is up to this episode.

We, we don't have it any further than that. Yeah. Um, as far as Deltas,

I really like the, hey, once you guys sit down to talk and we saw it in an alo and we saw it in a b plot. Honestly, we even saw it with Keer in large and Yang cuz Keer comes in all like, you can't be in my, And they, they got into it until they started talking. Like, that is a quintessential Star Trek idea.

Like a how we need to operate if we stop worrying about ourselves and just listen to the other person's deal and the other person's story. , it's gonna bring you guys to a spot where you at least can communicate and work together, even if you're two very, very different people. That's a huge Star Trek message.

Mm-hmm. , was that the point of this episode? No. Was, was that contained in there? Yes. Also, I thought we came really close to a, Hey, war is absolutely horrible with, you know, the real death is the only reality of war or whatever. Except nobody talked about how awful it was. Like, they just sort of seemed to be like, Yeah, this is just what war is.

Awesome. Like, no, like, this is why it's really bad. And they, they didn't go there. So that kind of knocks it down. So, I'm gonna give this when Jeff, two star theories, not two deltas. Yeah, it's two Deltas. It, it was there. It wasn't intent. They had some opportunities with some other things that they didn't capitalize on, which is okay because Babylon five isn't necessarily trying to be the algo.

Hold that up. We're

Jeff: just seeing if it does. Yeah. Now that fits. I think one thing I liked about the communication aspect of it, and it was Franklin who brought this up, so, hey, don't like the guy gonna say something nice about him, so layoff . But

Brent: please clip that. Please let that be your clip for the highlight of the other episode there. It's

Jeff: lay off, but he says, he says it's uh, yeah, but we're not gonna talk about what we say. We need to talk about what we don't say and how what we don't say is just as important. Like there's real power and meaning in that.

Yeah. Um, you know, so, and, and the way I thought about that too is you hear that trope all the time or that situation of, you know, well, I, I never told them how much they meant to me or I never got to say, so just say it. Just say the thing, and I think there's a, there's a great message held, held in that as well, but I think, I think two deltas is a, is a very, uh, very generous ranking.

Very, very well done.

Brent: Well, Jeff, here in season two, you and I have started a new thing. We like our games, We like our, our little side things to just make these episodes go longer. We are ranking all of season two. This is our absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of Babylon five right here, talking about season two, Jeff, our current ranking stands as follows, Starting at number one and going all the way down.

The coming of shadows. Erase through dark places, soulmates, points of departure. A spider in the web are in the top five, followed by geometry of shadows, revelations, distant start any other episode in the season, and then the long dark. Jeff, where do you put groos? You get to do the ranking. I

Jeff: think I'm looking at the list here.

I'm gonna put it just below Geometry of Shadows Above Revelations. This will be our new number seven.

Why, Why? Yeah, why? There were parts of this episode. I enjoyed watching, uh, Revelations and the other ones down. I, I, they just, I I don't ever wanna watch them again. I could watch this, I could watch this one and have a good time with the, the Ground Pounder stuff. Like I, I enjoyed that part of the episode.

Brent: I think if this episode came back on, I just would change the channel to be honest with you. But it's, I mean, it's right there with the other episodes that I would change the channel . So I, I can't argue with your

Jeff: Yeah, there's stuff in Geometry of Shadows, like, because that had, um, that one had the drowsy stuff in it.

Right. Which to this day I'm a little furious that we're not seeing drowsy walking around with Purple sash on, or

Brent: the awesome Michael and, sorry, Wizard Magi guy. Like, I want more of those. Yeah. What's

Jeff: going on with that guy? More techno age stuff going on. Yeah, that's a techno age. Yeah. So yeah, that's totally, that's there.

But those other ones, yeah, that's just, this has some neat stuff in it, but nothing. Nothing too. Great.

Well, Brent, that's it for Gro Pose. Thank God. Next week, . Next week we're watching All Alone In the Night. We're gonna watch that for the first time. We didn't look at thumbnails, we didn't look at synopsis, we didn't look at any recaps or anything. All we know about this episode is the title. Brent, what do you think is gonna happen in all alone in the night?

Brent: What I, what I want to say? I, Let me tell you what I know it's not gonna be, but I kind of want it to be okay. Garabaldi all alone. In the night he screwed it up and he just found out his girl's dead. And he's just all alone. He's having himself. I don't wanna see him fall off the wagon. I really don't wanna see that.

But he's having himself a little pity party cuz he's all alone. And this will be an episode that focuses on like all of the Iba, like, you know, one is the lonely nu, like it's gonna be everybody just kind of doing their own thing. Like the war has separated everybody, you know. And, uh, it's, it's gonna be a depressing episode, Jeff.

All right. I don't think he's gonna follow up on that, but I, I, that's my, that's it's a depressing episode. Everybody, like, nobody's talking.

Jeff: Yeah. Uh, everyone's in their own little thing. Do what I, what I almost visualize is Garabaldi sitting on his bed, a glass of water, looking at Daffy Duck. . . Where'd I go?

Wrong? Swear I go wrong, Daffy. Like, this isn't

Brent: what it was supposed to be. And then the, the episode ends with, he gets a call from Talia because remember her, they're supposed to have a thing going on right now, aren't they?

Jeff: Yeah. He, he's trying, he's getting closer. I don't know if she knows it or not, but, Mm.

I I'm on board with this not being a happy episode, but I think we're going back to the Centar and Naru war, and I think this is gonna be, um, lawn, It's time for that. I think this is gonna be where we start. It's either gonna be, it's gonna be one of the two, either lawn do. doing this stuff to be a tough sent, you know?

Yeah, go get him, whatever. But then the all alone in the night part is him. Maybe him and veer. But I think mostly just him being like, What am I doing? Oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing

Brent: this. Is it? Is it like with that, do you mean it's like the start of the redemption of Lando? These are the, Because Mondo's been, been a jerky mc, jerk face here over the last

Jeff: couple episodes.

He has been. I think this is, It's either gonna be that or it's we're gonna get the beginning of, What am I doing? How am I, how can I keep doing this? That'll give him that rebound point here pretty soon, I hope. Yeah. Or this is where he turns the corner and he just goes, Total Darth lawn. Darth lawn, Darth lawn.

Touch, ease,

Brent: right? ,

Jeff: Oh, we're gonna find out next week right here. Thank you all so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're on YouTube, you can also subscribe by clicking the button right down there. If you have not done this yet, please pop over to Apple Podcast, give us a rating, a review, and I will gladly read that right here on the podcast, Audible two, and on Audible and Pod Chaser.

Those are the places I get notified. Well, actually, I don't get notified it. We go to Audible, but I get notified if you leave us a review, an Apple or Pod chaser. So those are Sure fire ways to get Red here on the podcast. So, Brent. Hey

Brent: Jeff. Yeah, Jeff. You know, it's like Old Buffer used to say there are two types of fans out there.

Those who subscribe on YouTube and leave you a review, and those who don't.

Jeff: Yeah. Okay. Uh, yeah. Uh, Peace and Long Life.