Into the Fire

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 the first time For you, the one who is.

Brent: Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five for the first time. Searching out for those. that all sci-fi shows should do. We just tend to say Star Trek, but we're searching for how they're being done in a uniquely Babylon on 5 way. And oh boy, are we gonna hit that today?

Jeff: We are, we're gonna hit that in this podcast that is not a Star Trek podcast. And to keep us honest and not pull all those references in, we limit ourselves via the rule of three. That means we each get up to, and no more than three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. No substitutions.

Exchanges are really refund. Hey Brett,

Brent: Hey Jeff.

Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes, it's from Apple Podcast. I can't find a name. 27 says, great perspective. Started listening to this podcast as I am watching Babylon five for the first time myself, and I'm also a Star Trek fan, really enjoying their takes on the series.

They are so similar to my own perspective.

Brent: Awesome. I like when people out there share our perspective.

Jeff: Totally good when they don't also, but it's, it's kind of cool when they do. Well, we have another five star review. Oh yes. Also from Apple Podcasts that we got some great Apple podcast names today. This one's from Cam, cam, cam, cam says, and so it begins, these gentlemen make me feel as if I'm sitting in the room with them during their conversation.

It's informative, well thought out, and fun. I look forward to Mondays because of these two live long and, uh, Nope. Peace and long. I just have one more. Well, thank you. My good, dear friends, Mr. Allen and Mr. Aiken.

Brent: I like it.

Jeff: That's a good one.

Brent: it. Good stuff. I gave, he's like, and so it begins, and I kind of gave like a little smirk. The folks at YouTube would be able to see that. By the way, if you're listening to the audio version of this, go to YouTube, check it out. Lots more fun happening way over there than what you guys get here.

Although this is good too. Uh, but I did, I did give a little smirk and it's just because he said, so it begins, and I'm like, no, this is the one where it ended. So

Jeff: Also, I feel like we get the, and so it begins meme, I don't know, every third or fourth episode. Yeah.

Brent: Absolutely. Well, Jeff, do you know what we do every third or fourth episode?

Jeff: What's that?

Brent: Well, we get to the end of the episode when we predict what the next episode's gonna be like. But we don't just do that every third or fourth episode. We actually do that every episode. It just every three, the cycle resets.

Jeff: Every three. We get one

Brent: There you go.

Actually, that's. Yes. Yes. So, hey. Anyway, what we do, we get to the end of the episode and we make a prediction of what next week's episode is gonna be based on title alone. This is the spot of the show where we look back to last week to see what we thought this week was gonna be about. Jeff, do you remember what you said into the fire this week's episode was going to be about?

Jeff: I do. And I think we both got, uh, pretty specific in what we were thinking because clearly this was gonna be the battle. Like this, this is moving. And we knew it was gonna happen. My specificity was that, um, we're gonna get a lot of shadows versus lon pew, pew, pew, fight, fight, fight. A lot of the League League members we're gonna get killed and destroyed is gonna be rough.

And, um, and I believed that Londo would, uh, the episode would end with Londo being crowned emperor. So I, I was not, I was not that close on this one. What about you?

Brent: Uh, I basically just said it's a v. Um, going out, looking for the first ones and Sheridan's inserting himself into the middle of the VLAN shadow war, which is exactly what happened. I did take it a step further and say that at some point Sheridan's gonna be backed up against the wall, and here's gonna come Ava and the first ones, uh, over the crest to, to rescue them.

Jeff: Kinda,

Brent: really come over the que the, the crest and Ivanova was actually there way before the first ones were, but there was a spot where like, okay, let's call in the first ones. And then they came in and it happened. So yeah, sort of kinda, you know, but still a ivanova searching for the first ones.

Sheridan out there with the war. That's where we were.

Jeff: Now if you're wondering who the first ones are or why Ivanova was there the whole time, you should go back and listen to some of our past episodes. But if you are not quite sure, uh, if. Or if you just haven't watched this one in a long time, you're not quite sure what we mean by this shadow VLAN thing that happened in this one.

Brent, will you remind everyone what into the fire is all about?

Brent: Well, Jeff, I said in my prediction that this one would be ivanova finding out about the first ones and that Sheridan would be inserting himself into the Warun shadow war. And that's exactly what happened. So Jeff, what did you think of this episode? Into the fire?

Jeff: That really is the whole episode, isn't it? Like that was it.

Brent: Would you

Jeff: There are a couple.

Brent: I can

Jeff: There's a couple. There's a couple other things that happened in this one, though I

Brent: Fine. Oh my gosh.

Jeff: I know. I'm so demanding.

Brent: right? Gosh, how have I done this for 75 episodes with you? Geez. Well, lava is out there searching for the first ones with Lian. She's apparently been quite successful at it so far, and it seems that there's only one left. She's getting tired of waiting for this last first one because she really wants to get back to the fighting.

Lian is just marveling at how brave and stupid, I mean, human Sheridan's plan is, and before you know it, the final first one shows up and Ivan's mission is complete, and now she can get back to the fighting. But the fighting hasn't quite started just yet. Sheridan and the fleet from the United Federation of Non-Aligned Planets are on their way taking out a lon listening post along the way.

And it's about that time that Delin gets the message from Ivanova saying that she's on her way and Sheridan tells her to haul ass and get there. Hmm, lemme try that again. And Sheridan tells her to haul ass and get there just as soon as he engages the shadows blowing up some asteroids right there in their midst.

Well, while Ivanova and her people are hauling ass. Let's check on on Well, while Ivanova and her people are hauling ass. Let's check in on Prime Minister Londo. Well, he's busy getting right to work and the first order of business is getting the shadows off, sin off Sonari Prime before the VLAN attack, and a close second in priority is getting rid of all of cart's people because he really doesn't want a knife in the back.

About that time that Minister of Intelligence comes to meet with En Long, about that time, the Minister of Intelligence comes to meet with Londo privately, and he reveals that it was not Lord Refa who gave the order to kill Lady Adra, but rather it was morden. Londo wailing about being played like a puppet, goes all rage room sparing only a cute little five by seven picture of himself on the side table.

And he calls for Morton to tell him and his associates to haul ass off Sonari Prime. But when they refuse, Londo takes matters into his own hands. First, he has his guards shoot and kill the invisible shadow guard that is flanking morden. And then he blows up an island, the island that the shadow ships are on.

Yep, the whole island blew it up. And then he drags morden away and he calls for veer and sends veer out into the garden. To behold what is now my personal favorite moment of the entire series where Veer finally gets what he wanted to see. Morden's head up on a pike. As a warning to all who are gonna go too far.

And he would look up at the head and he would wave Rolando, send the Volans a message, letting them know that there's no more shadows or shadow influences on Sonari Prime, so they can just leave them alone now. But as the Volans literally blot out, the Sun Veer points out that there is still one more thing on the planet that has been touched and influenced by the shadows.

Londo himself and just before Londo has veer, run him through the VLAN ship. Hightails it out of there. The vlan ship hauls ass out of there. Why? I'm so glad you asked, because Sheridan has called in the first ones, and the first ones are Oblating. Both the Volans and the shadows and the Volans have called for all ships everywhere to come and assist.

That's when both VLAN and shadows tap into Alita Alexander, who is on the bridge of the White Star and she zaps Sheridan and another one Zaps Delin and sends them both off to a place where they can well talk. And Lorian does some sort of magic thing where he's trying to make everybody see what's happening.

Well, often the weird talkie place Sheridan is talking to what is apparently a VLAN encased in ice. Dalen is talking to what is apparently the shadows appearing as members of the DVD v d cover, except for Gu Baldi, cuz he's been a bit whiny lately and nobody wanted him around the set this day. There's lots of talking back and forth and lots of intercuts between the two conversations, but here's the gist of it.

Sheridan and Dalin are pointing out the same thing to both sides. You are wrong and you've been fighting for so long, you don't even know why you're really fighting anymore. You don't want to help the younger species anymore. You just want to get the younger species to say that you were the ones who were right.

This is about you, not us. So we along with all of our friends, are going to refuse to participate any longer. We're not taking sides anymore. The volans in shadows don't like it, and in the real world, they start trying to destroy the white star. But since the younger races are united in a federation of non-aligned planets, they are stepping in between the volans in shadows in the white star to keep them safe.

As we said, they're united, not taking sides in this war anymore. Well, then the volans and shadows become aware of Lori's presence and they envelop everyone in a really freezing cold death cloud thing. And Kosh the original Kosh. And some random shadow guy both appear in astral form on the bridge of the white star.

Lorian says that we have stayed behind to help the younger races, but now the younger races are in control. It's their time now, not ours anymore. And he convinces the volans and the shadows and all of the gathered remaining first ones who have been in this battle. It's time for all of them to leave the galaxy and go beyond the rim and the volans or shadows are like, okay, but will you go with us because we're sc scared?

And just like that, Lorian himself will also go, thereby leaving the entire galaxy to the younger races. Well, now that that's over, Deen says it's time for them to make their own magic and create their own legends. To build the future and stop being afraid of shadows. And Sheridan reflects on the intro from season one.

This really was the dawn of the third age of mankind. All right, now Jeff, for real, this time, what did you think of this episode Into the fire?

Jeff: I call this a pantyhose, I call this a pantyhose episode.

Brent: What?

Jeff: Be Yeah, pantyhose because they shoved 10 pounds of fat into a five pound bag. Like this episode was loaded. I,

Brent: I I, same thought. I do not know how they got this into 43 minutes.

Jeff: it, it, it makes no sense. And, and it's, and I'm not saying this is not a, this is, this is me commenting on how masterfully done this episode was because when I watched it the second time, taking my notes, like, it starts out kind of slow, like with, uh, Lorian and Ivanova having some back and forth on the white star, Sheridan Dalen, kind of like, it's kind of slow moving and then when you get to the end, you're just like, holy crud.

This is like three episodes in one. They got, they got so much in, but Brent. Was it last week? I think it might have been last week or recently when I was talking about how often these hyper serialized shows in our modern times end and they're disappointing. Well, this one ended in the early half of the fourth season, and I am so satisfied.

This is everything. Everything I could have wanted. I loved it. I still have some questions. I still have stuff, but you know what? There's like a season and two thirds left, so I'm very hopeful. Many of my questions are gonna be answered, but this, this was amazing. It was so good, so good. What about you,

Brent: Are we sure? This was not the season finale,

Jeff: right? I

mean, are we? Sure?

This wasn't the series final.

Brent: Right, right. Um, Jeff, I'm gonna, I'm gonna simply say this, this is by far one of the best hours of television I have ever, ever watched in my life,

Jeff: Period. Full stop.

Brent: I don't know that I could say it is the best because I'm not thinking of all the hours of television I've watched. This would be top three I would think. If not number one. It was so good. As you pointed out, he packed so much into this episode. Like, I started sit back thinking when I, when, when I texted you before I started writing the review, I was like, I've gotta write this review.

Jeff: Yeah. How do I do this?

Brent: And you went, good luck, . But oh my gosh, Jeff, there's so much to talk about here.

There's so much. Everything in this episode worked because it paid off what we have been waiting for three seasons and five episodes for what we've been told is coming and it came and it's over the vo. I mean, as far as we know, the VLAN shadow store line is done.

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: Now we do still have several episodes left and there's more hanging out there.

And we do, we talked about this I think last week, Jeff, like there are some story threads that are still dangling that now get to get uh, uh, cleaned up. But I mean, for, for capping a series of episodes. This is, this is phenomenal. I will tell you though, I really hope that starting next week we kind of dial back from the hyper serialized portion

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: and kind of like the whole show has always been serialized,

Jeff: Right?

Brent: But these last, I would say these first six episodes of this season specifically have been super, like, this could have been a six night mini-series on tv. Jammed these together, make them a large movie, kind of a, a situation. Remember we did that with, um, uh, those three episodes back in season three, where, uh, uh, they wound up breaking away from.

Jeff: Yep. Messages from Earth, uh, pointed overturn and severed

Brent: Those three right there. Um, we've seen Star Trek do this particularly Deep Space nine, when they did the final 10 episode arc of the whole season. Um, there was a couple other places where they would do hyper serialized mini arcs. I'm kind of hoping we're back to a mini arc and that the rest of the episodes go back to the normal serialized format.

I don't need to go episodic, but let's go back to that normal serialized format cuz you kinda get a breath. It feels like we've been out of breath for the last few weeks and uh, I kind of hope we go there. But I mean, my gosh, this episode was na

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: And by the way, if those people who paid us to tank the reboot, I just quit

Jeff: Yeah, it's cool though, the check cleared, so it's fine. We can

Brent: We don't have to give it back. Right.

Jeff: Yeah, no, this, it was great. What I loved about it too, and what we'll talk we'll dive into is we get into some of our, our, our notes and our conversation is how well the seeds were planted earlier, right? Like just the things that came. In fact, if I were to say I had one complaint about this episode, it would be the flashback.

That they did to veer telling Morden that he wanted to see his head on a pike and he would wave at him like this. I almost wish that he just looked at him and waved. And then for those of us who've been watching, we're just like, he did the

Brent: you would know, right?

Jeff: yeah. And if you know, and if you didn't know then, but, but also like that's, that is a, that is a no basis complaint because the flashback totally made sense.

And also that was like two seasons ago, so,

Brent: And this is tv and people wouldn't understand it unless they had that flashback to know exactly what was going on. Um, this was a situation where this was not a clip show. It had a clip in it,

Jeff: Yeah. it made sense, you know? It was, it was good.

Brent: Absolutely. Uh, I meant what I said and when I said it in my recap, that moment you just talked about right there is my new favorite moment from the entire series.

Jeff: Let me just read you verbatim my note in capital. Bolded. You can see this on our Patreon. We post our notes up there, the greatest scene in all of Babylon, five veer waving at Morden's severed head. Yes,

Brent: with no words. More veer just walked. Looked up. Yes, there was the flashback, that head words. He just looked up, he looked around, and then he waved and it was perfect.

Jeff: I was worried. So Londo set that up. He calls Veer in. So Londo is throwing his weight around. He's Prime minister, he's cleaning house, getting rid of car's, people, he's getting fired up, you know, because he learned about the, the Refa stuff or the the Morden stuff. And he brings Veer in and he's like, I got you a gift.

And my immediate thought was, oh my God. That's what Caria said to when he brought Kar in, is Londo slipping further. and he's gonna do something sick and twisted and yeah, maybe it was a little sick and twisted. Also, greatest moment in Babylon. Five.

Brent: So to that point, there were places where I really thought Londo was. Fully embracing what it is to be sonari and the the crazy grittiness by which they do things. Especially because I, the note I had right before, this is the greatest moment in Babylon five history says, I'm surprised Londo didn't execute him right away. And when he looks at me, he goes, I haven't even begun. Or something, whatever he said, whatever that quote was, I was like, dude, he's gonna go like, rip his eyeballs out and

Jeff: Viv section and the whole thing.

Brent: right? Like, I was like, oh my gosh, this is how the Sonari do it, man. They're, ooh.

Jeff: Yeah. I, I got definite like carta vibes

Brent: dude, he blew up his own island. He blew up at an own island on his own planet, which that kind of an explosion to blow up the whole island.

I don't know what kind of nuclear winter that's going to cause around the, the, the globe, but. Hopefully not. I did appreciate where he said, listen, I got all my people out last night, except for a few that were willing to stay to maintain the ruse.

Jeff: that told me just how much power Londo actually has

Brent: and he could execute that in one night.

Jeff: in one night. I love that scene though, too. Morden. I, I, I have a hard time believing that we're completely done with the shadows. Morden's reaction told me there's more to his relationship than just even Cyber Zombie or whatever. There's something like, he was physically impacted when he blew that up, but just his, his morden arrogance, right?

Ah, we're not gonna leave our ships are this, and Wado was like, . Okay. Boo

Brent: Well, I mean, what is Morden supposed to say? He had, he had his two shadow guards right next to him. I mean, what would they have done to Morden if Morden was like, okay, we'll go. Like he had, he had to do something and he played his card as best he could and was like, Nope, we're not going anywhere. When, when those two guys got killed.

And he it like, he kinda goes wild morden, like, I'm gonna get you. I'm like, that seems unhinged. That does not seem like

Jeff: That's why I think there's something, there's, there's more of something like he's some dependent or we'll never know. We'll never know for sure unless there's some sort of a story,

Brent: Well, let me, let me give you a po a possible theory, a possible something later on in the episode when we get the um, uh, the, the astral projections of the vlan in the shadow,

Jeff: recognize that voice.

Brent: was Morden doing the shadow's voice or Ed Wasser or whatever his name is, the actor he was doing the shadow's voice. What if he actually is the shadow

Jeff: Oh, wow. He's, he's the big harbinger, the, the, the eyes

Brent: yeah, yeah.

Jeff: just happened to be in that

Brent: Embodying his. Yeah. So, um, one more, one more note about this. When the Prime Men, or when the Minister of Intelligence revealed that it was Morden who was responsible for Lady Ad's death, I was not shocked at all. And I, I said I was gonna go back and watch that part of the episode just to see, but I legit remember thinking when we found out that Lady Aira had died, I remember thinking it could have been Morden.

There was something else else that happened in that episode that it could have been Morden

Jeff: well, we saw Morden paying the, the dock worker or whatever. He, they had the crystal meth that they were paying people

Brent: Uhhuh

Jeff: and like, so you saw the bribe that went down. I think we knew, we knew at that point that Mor had done it, but he had propped refa up as being the, the patsy for it.

Brent: Is that what it was? Because, because I, I mean, I remember leaving and just saying, okay, SOFA ordered the death and fine. Like, that's what they told us, and I'll go with you. But to come back and rewrite that and say, no, no morden, but to not be surprised like it was Morden. I thought it was morden.

Jeff: Yeah. And I'm pretty sure we landed on that even in, in that episode.

Brent: But yeah. But that's one of those like little details, like as the next episode goes and the next, you don't even think about it anymore, you

Jeff: Most people, most people don't.

Brent: yeah. You

Jeff: I do. all The time, but you know, with that inte, I love that intelligence guy. I thought he was great. I loved how he just present. He's like, I'm just giving you the report. This is just the information. I can give you more. But it makes me wonder, what else does the intelligence group know? that's some pretty, pretty deep stuff.

Brent: they, they know a lot. It would not surprise me at all to know that they know that Lando killed the car, killed Carta or Veer or whatever. Um, and they're okay with it probably. Like that's what they do and somebody's gonna come londo eventually and somebody's gonna kill, and they're fine. You know?

Jeff: speaking of veer,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: his hair is a lot bigger.

Brent: A lot bigger.

Veer Crest has gotten super big

Jeff: He was awesome though. He was so hard. Right in that moment when Lando was like, I got rid of the shadows. I the rid of them all. And, and then fear's like, um, um, no you didn't. And he is right in his face. I mean, he was

Brent: And he, and he's, his, his old little new skinny fingers just dangling out there, you know, and he, he wasn't even straight, like, he had it kind of, kind of crooked a little bit, which just made it pop out even more like ew and Londo. You know what? When Lando sat back and went, you're right vere, you have to kill me and let them know.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: In no way, shape, or form. Does that redeem Lando

Jeff: I was gonna ask you, I was gonna ask you that. Is that, is that redemption

Brent: No. No. It does not redeem him. But it is the right thing to do. Like Lando Lando was right in the last episode. When I die, there will be a reckoning that will have to come. He's going to have to account for this. But I think you can maybe minimize or mitigate the reckoning a little bit based on what you do now.

But I don't think it goes to full on redemption. I gotta be honest. I kind of hope that in the next how many episodes we got left,

Jeff: Uh, 16?

Brent: plus 22, however many that, what is that? 38. That somewhere in the next 38 episodes that j m s does something that just totally brings Lando back. I kind of hope he does and proves me wrong, but I don't think it's gonna happen

Jeff: Well, we know that he's gonna ask Ja Car to kill him, and he is gonna let Sheridan go free in the war

Brent: if, if that future is the one that comes true and stays true. Because, you know what we didn't get in this episode? They're little friends. They're associates. They're people like the, the people that didn't get wiped out. The

Jeff: We did though. We did Well, we got, we got the opening for it, Morden's getting drug out after, after they blasted his shadow guard and, and is getting drug drug out. And he says, even if the shadows are defeated, we have allies. We will come for you. That right there, as soon as he said that, I'm like, there's War without End.

Brent: I missed that line.

Jeff: He laid it all out and which is one of those things too where, oh, I just thought it was great. Like everything we're talking about, you know, was laid up. This is everything paying off and there's still planting seeds for the future that we think that we know we're going to see.

Brent: I, I am still on the train of that future that we saw as not the future that we're gonna get. It's going to change, I think. I kind of hope it doesn't, but I kind of think it is.

Jeff: We'll see. I did love to kind of close out the, the lawn conversation on this very end

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: veers heading back to Babylon five Londo kind of feeling where he is at. They look at each other and they

hug.

Brent: that was so good

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like that. That was a truly heartfelt moment, you know?

Jeff: It calls back. You had talked about. That really great interview the Gray 17 Podcast did with Peter Juris, and they talked about him and Kozek and their relationship, and you were like, I wanna know about him and Steven first. They spent so much time together and it paid off in that moment. Like that was real.

That was real.

Brent: I think they did talk about Stephen first a little bit, but still the vast majority of interviews I hear it's always about Andreas and, and Peter, and I want to hear more about Peter and and Steven,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: So the other part of the whole episode, right? Like that was the one part. The other part is. The war or wasn't really a war or

Jeff: The battle, I'm, I'm gonna, I don't know if this is what it is, but I'm gonna call it the Battle of Corian six, and that's

Brent: more of a mouthful than Wolf 3 59, but hey.

Jeff: a little bit. I loved just to kind of kick things off, I.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Sheridan's leadership through so much of this episode, but immediately it was like we got that really cool scene where they blew up the listening post and they all popped into hyperspace and we saw all of like the different league and race ships together.

And, and he and Del are standing on the bridge of the white star and he is like, he says, uh, you put together a hell of a team, Tolen, you should be proud of yourself. And the whole time I'm like, dude, you did it. You did it. But you know what he's doing? He's uplifting the people around him.

Brent: Leaders lift. Right? Leaders lift. Yep. Yep. Um, I'm gonna talk about that a little bit later, Jeff. I'm a, I'm a. I'm gonna let you say that and I'm gonna hold my comment on it. Uh, I will tell you this about Dalin, though. You brought her up. Dalen cussing will never not be funny.

Jeff: I agree. It's so good. Whole ass

Brent: Right. Okay. Well,

Jeff: So his strategy right, was to bring them into the Crucible

Brent: yep.

Jeff: and he had nuked. They'd nuked a bunch or put nukes on a bunch of asteroids around it, lure 'em in, start blasting

Brent: you remember where those nukes came from?

Jeff: Yeah. That was from Jaar.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I was like, oh, ah, I, I didn't catch that till my second watch through.

Jeff: Do you remember, do you know where that strategy came from?

Brent: No.

Jeff: That's how he blew up the black star.

Brent: Oh, really?

Jeff: up a distress signal. He mined an asteroid field,

Brent: Oh.

Jeff: brought it in. And so part of me was like, brilliant, right? Like you, you know, at work also, you're doing it on a minbar ship, which I don't know if it's a reconciliation or if it's a slap in the face.

That was probably a reconciliation, but, uh, yeah, super effective.

There was a, in the battle, we got a cockpit scene, I think of a star theory, kind of go around and pew, pew, pew,

pew.

Brent: don't remember where the star furries were in this like, uh, wait, when was the last time we actually saw a Star Fury doing

Jeff: it's been a long time. It was when, it was, when Garabaldi got hauled off at the end of, end of season three.

Brent: Alright, fine. It wasn't that long ago, I guess, but still

Jeff: It feels like it,

Brent: it feels like it.

Jeff: but we got, I, I think it was a star theory. We were in the cockpit or a fighter of some kind and all I thought, and please don't answer this question, not yet, wait till the, we get through with this.

But if that wasn't set up to roll out a video game, I, I don't know what was like that was, that's literally just like, Hey, here's gameplay footage

Brent: are you telling me that's not from mass effects?

Jeff: There's, there's no, there's really no ship to ship battles in mass effect. Not that you play, they just, they play out cinematically, which is too bad.

Brent: Interesting. Interesting.

Jeff: So hot take.

Brent: Yep,

Jeff: Well, let me ask you this before I give my hot take. What did you think of the battle? Just overall,

Brent: Um,

Jeff: like compared to other ones we've gotten?

Brent: I, I liked the part where the first ones came in. I really wish that we would've been able to see more of their ships, because the ships seemed very weirdly. Shaped and we only got to see them like from one direction. I kind of wanna see what the rest of the ship looked like, cuz they looked very, um, I thought they came in and made the VLANs and shadows look silly

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: when they came in, when, when they sliced through that one big like mother vlan ship, like it was hot cakes.

And I mean, consider what the volans and shadows are doing to us. And they're doing that to the volans and shadows. And, uh, I, I thought it was really pretty, but I will, I will say this for everything that they have, I want to give a quick shout out to, uh, and I don't know if this is the right term, so forgive me to the scenic artist who painted space.

Jeff: Oh my gosh.

Brent: Painted the backgrounds to this whole thing. It was gorgeous. The opening shot of the white star flying in, in a nebula, hanging out, uh, when the battle's happening, the red, uh, I guess nebulas, whatever the clouds around them, like it was, it was gorgeous on multiple levels. I'm just like, this is so pretty.

So well done On a production level, what held up would hold up in any sci-fi show today on tv, which is crazy to think about.

Jeff: It is. It did. It looked so good. All of it. That was honestly, I was underwhelmed by the battle. I mean, I knew we weren't gonna get a, a lot, you know, I mean, just because it's expensive to put that on. But even, even the verbal back and forth, it was like, oh, they're battling, they're blowing up passwords. Oh, they're backed against a corner.

It's not working. So I guess we have to call in the, oh, they called in the first ones and oh, they're gonna call lon reinforcements. Like it, it felt like, it felt to me like it almost ended on a stalemate to where the shadows and volans were like, well, we're not gonna win this in space, so let's go talk to sh.

Let's go talk to Sheridan and Dalen and then try and convince them. I don't

know.

Brent: but that was exactly Sheridan's plan was to get him involved and then force something and, and I guess the Volans and the Shadows bath both had the same idea at the same time and said, let's both go take over Lida and she'll shoot one of each

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: and they're gonna go, like, I, I, it was weird. I'll be honest, like I, I will 100. that for the sake of the story and just accept it and go with where j m s was taking us. You know, like, I'm not criticizing it. He had 43 minutes to cram in so much. I'm gonna be cool with it. It was a little weird though.

Jeff: Yeah, it felt like I've done songwriting before where we're gonna move from this section to this section and maybe the time changes or there's something, and we can't come up with a smooth way to make it happen. So we're gonna have a big hit break for a bar and boom, come in with the new section. And at first it kinda like, well, that kind of felt a little weird that it changed.

But then after you listen to it for a while, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That totally, totally works. And it, yeah, if you just step back 20 feet, okay, yeah, this works. But if you step forward that 20 feet, you're like, this doesn't quite make

sense. But it works. It gets us where we needed to go.

Brent: And if I could criticize any effects, the, the, the electricity freezing effect on Sheridan and Dalen. I've seen better,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like if I could, if I'm gonna criticize something, I don't wanna just heap adulation on a, on an episode that deserves all the adulation that it's getting.

Uh, if that's really what I'm complaining about. Jeff, this is very small potatoes,

Jeff: because it was good. I, I loved that they made 'em different colors, you know, and so it was kind of clear who was where, and, but yeah, there was a lot there. I, you mentioned in the recap how, um, Thelen, when she was talking to the shadows, had the DVD cover coming to talk to her. That bothered me. It should have been draw, it should have been SHA and all these people that we know are so important to her coming and speaking to her.

But instead, like, I I, I, I kind of get ivanova, you know, that they bonded back in the second season, but Franklin, what's Franklin doing there?

Brent: Well he hasn't been in the show so far, so we had to, you know, give him something to do.

Jeff: Although I, I appreciate that was, Hey, I was glad, I was glad to see him. . I liked seeing him . I liked how he over acted the piece because like it was that it made sense.

Brent: thought it was weird that he was in, in uniform,

Jeff: yeah, that

Brent: you know? Um, I, yeah, I, I just, I thought it was very weird. Um, can, can we talk a little bit about what they were talking about and where they got to, to the whole piece?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I love the spot where they said, what if the right choice is not to choose at all? What if we reject the idea that we have to decide which one of you is right? What if we simply walk away and they both bow up and one says, no, there is only chaos and evolution, and the other one says, no, there is only order in obedience. They're both saying, do as you're told. what they're both saying, like they're literally saying the same thing.

You're gonna fight because we tell you to fight Jeff A. Long time. I do not remember where, but I posited a theory now it's, this is a little bit different than what the theory actually was, but it turns out it actually is the exact same thing. I posited the theory that the volans and the shadows are two sides of the same coin. That they're actually kind of the, like I was saying, that they're literally the same race and that's not the case, but they are of, they're sister races, I suppose, you know what I mean? But they're from the, they're cut from the same cloth, they have the same ideas, the same, uh, they're, they're the same, just they approach things two different, but they're literally, it's like two sides of the same coin. And that absolutely, I think came to fruition here, uh, watching that.

Jeff: Well, Sheridan said it. They are two sides of the three edged sword. There's your

way.

Brent: gonna be the third way

Jeff: Exactly. Yep. We're we're changing it. I, I had two big thoughts on what you said. One, and they're both two of my favorite things. I was losing my mind to this whole section because first, last week, right here on this, on this podcast, I said, , I said, uh, Hey, I'm gonna sit in my leadership chair for a minute.

I'm gonna tell all you managers out there. It's not about being right. Stop trying to be right. It's about, you know, helping the people do the best and be the best they can. And then that's where Sheridan starts going. He's like, it's not about being right. And I'm like, oh my God, look at that. Another great Sheridan leadership moment also little crazy.

I brought it up last week. Like, that's pretty wild. But the second thing, the answer to the question, the understanding, right, or as Lorianne said, uh, Sheridan knows. We just hope he knows that he knows well. If he listened to the 1979 record, permanent Waves by Rush and the incredible track free will on there, he would know that even when you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

And in this case, it was the right choice. The answer to the Shadows and the Volans is Rush. I love this show

Brent: I have to save the rest of my thoughts. , just so you know, like there's so much more I wanna say, but I've, I've, I physically have to say it. I loved Lori Ann's parting words though. When everything came down. He looked at them and he said, and I, I love this. He goes, this is yours now, and you have the same obligation that we did.

Like, like he's like commissioning. You know, as the old goes out and the new comes in, he is like, here it is. I'm handing it to you. Teach the younger races and when the time comes, step aside and let them grow into their own destiny. Jeff, that's parenting

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like with a kid. Like teach them what they need to know, guide them and when the time comes, you've gotta step aside and just let them go.

And he says this, I thought this was so interesting, and if your races survive, if you don't kill yourselves. And he goes on. And I just sat there and I thought, and you know what that means is we have the capacity to not survive.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: We have the capacities. Really screw this up.

Jeff: I loved,

Brent: it up.

Jeff: I loved that Lian wasn't a de sex machina.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: The war is ha, the battle is happening. The shadows in the Volans poll. Sheridan and Lennon the whole time. Lori Ann's just like, Gotta let it happen. You gotta, and then, and then when they, the, their astral projections come on board. He just tells, he just says to share.

And he is like, just know the, the thing you say next will spell everything that happens. I'm not gonna tell you what to say. I'm not gonna coach you. I'm just literally telling you this is your moment. He was willing to let it all burn

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: it was. If it's not time, it's not time. The next round will pick it up.

Right. Or the one after that. I, I loved that about Lian cuz it would've been really easy for him just to come in and been like, we're done. You're gone. You know, he's gonna let it roll, he's gonna let it, it causes me to ask this question though. So Great. We have the universe now with a galaxy or the whatever we have inside the rim.

What happens in a million years? Who's lorianne in the.

Brent: Draw because he absolutely did nothing.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: We're gonna, there's this great machine and we're watching and we gotta put the battery in. And Zs is there and he appears to Sheridan at the beginning or somewhere. Oh, towards the end of season two, I think it was. And he is like, I'm going to devote my resources of the planet to you to help things happen. And we ain't done nothing with it since.

Jeff: yeah,

Brent: The most we've heard about it is, Hey, we're gonna evacuate some people from Babylon five down to the planet because we're getting a little full up here

Jeff: yeah. We have space,

Brent: that. Like. That whole storyline to this point right here, which I thought it would've been a part of, this big war, has been completely dropped and forgotten about

Jeff: so I

have a

Brent: now.

People out there are either going just wait or, yeah, we kind of forgot about that one.

Jeff: So I have a small list of things like that. So I, I, I kinda left these as like my big questions that are left hanging, that I hope in the next 38 episodes they touch on. But there are a couple of these I was just like, but wasn't this a thing? So they made a big deal out of when Ava was in the Great machine and she was going through and tracing to see where the first ones were. And then the Harbinger Shadow saw her and she's like, he knows my name. He knows my name. Fast forward to when they went to Zaha, Dom took for it and big guy. He knows our names. He knows our names. So what, who is dude that never, that went away and there was all this, why was it Lend the Shadows talked to when it seems like they've got a little touchpoint with Ivanova.

Maybe it should have been Sheridan Ivanova that were there.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: What happened? To all the Cyco people that were flying the shadow ships. Where are they? Um, what else do I have here? Oh, remember the Veres?

Brent: my assumption is they're all dead. Like by the time they got plugged into a shadow ship, they're not like, I don't know what the deal was with Morden, but when we saw Anna, that clearly was not Anna,

Jeff: Right.

Brent: right? Like that was, yeah. Yeah. Uh, Morden seems like a different animal altogether. That other old dude that was in that room with them, I don't even, I, yeah, I don't even understand what that is.

Was he the laurean for the shadows or something like that? Like, I dunno,

Jeff: It, yeah, it, yeah. These things that just kind of came up and went away or whatever. Do you remember the ve Drei in Exogenesis?

Brent: I remember, but, uh, what did they do?

Jeff: well, they were the one, the keepers of all the.

Brent: Oh, yeah,

Jeff: this, where, where was all this? Where was all that? Which brings me to come my, my, my last big question on it.

In, in the shadow of Aha doom, we got kind of the breakdown that led to this, right? There were the ancient ones and the, that's, I'm assuming was like Lorianne and, and his crew. Then there's the first ones and we saw eight of those, the sixth that Lorianne and Ivanova went and got, plus the shadows plus the four lawns.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: So 10,000 years ago, and then a thousand years ago, the shadows rose up and all the first ones got together to push the, the shadows down. But if that's what happened, why is it the shadows and the volans trying to convince the lesser races to either fight each other or like those two stories don't reconcile for me the story we were told, which admittedly was probably from Volans telling Minbar the story.

But it was all about, yeah, we gotta shut, we gotta shut the shadows down. They're bad. We're gonna destroy. Remember, we've defeated them in the past. This time we have to destroy them. So it's like, oh, so may

Brent: But we didn't destroy them. We didn't destroy them. We just let them go.

Jeff: we let 'em go off

Brent: Now we're also assuming that they all went, what if there's a shadow ship buried on some planet over here that's gonna emerge in a couple years and be like, Hey, it's just me. Awesome. Let's take

Jeff: Right. I got this. There's no volans left here. No one else. It's mine.

Brent: I gotta say, uh, there was a part earlier in the episode when Lori said to Ivanova talking about the first ones, he is like, yeah, they've not spoken to anyone outside their own race for centuries.

And I was like, only centuries feels like that should have been millennia . You know, like if it's just been a couple hundred years, that's a really short amount of time given the time span that we're talking, uh, for, for ancients and, and first ones and all that sort of stuff.

Jeff: Well, I think that lines up. My last thought before we get into the real meat of this, I mean, we're here, we are way into this. We saw this is just a huge episode with a lot, but Lorianne talked about like the physi, the physiological history of, of sentient life, you know, where he's like, yeah, we were created, the universe created us and we were immortal.

You know, we could get hurt, we could get sick, you know, we could die, but we didn't age out. And then the universe decided that in order for us to appreciate the finer things in life, we needed to shorten our lifespans. Shorten your lifespans. Wasn't Kosh like a thousand years old, didn't he fight in the other war?

Like and is that what's happening as the races get younger, are the, the timeframes compressing so that they can appreciate. That much more, which I think is a great question to pose. As I think we've reached that point of the episode, we're gonna boil this all down. There's a lot to boil here. We're gonna talk about all the great messages in this episode and just how Babylon five they were delivered.

Brent, I feel stupid even saying this at this point because holy cred we have a lot to talk about, and frankly, that doesn't get any more Babylon five than into the fire. But Brent, you have the responsibility of rating this episode from zero to five Delta theories on the weight of these messages and how Babylon five, they were delivered.

I think we've got a lot to, uh, converse about as we dive into these. I've got notes on 'em, but Brent, why don't you lay it.

Brent: So for the first time in the history of this show, I really hate the idea that we're doing anything. Star Trek here, that we're using Delta Furies and not just calling these star Furies. I'm not saying we're gonna change just for this episode because what this episode does is what I want and what I think all good sci-fi does not.

Star Trek sci-fi, that's holding up a mirror to society, giving you hope that you can be better in the future. Uh, uh, showing us how we ought to be and how we ought to live and, and showing that we can do it. That we as humanity have the capacity for greatness to be better than we are right now. That's what good sci-fi does in my opinion.

We, we. Kind of side eye it saying it's Star Trek throughout the course of the show, but that I really want to focus on. This isn't about the Star Trek thing. This really is about what sci-fi does. That being said, uh, and there there was more I could have taken, but I pulled five things, five from this episode that are not, Hey, I'm trying to search for messages.

And there was this one little thing over there that if I take it and I pull out this idea, I'm gonna get this message. No, no, no, no. I think these are intentional messages that j m s and his philosophy of how things ought to be, how humanity should be, how humanity is right now. And he laid them up on a platter and said, this is it.

This is what we're doing. I bought five things. There could have been more. Here are the five. , and these are some Star Trek ideas too. The first one is this. I'll put it in full Star Trek terms for you. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few Replete. Lorian says about Sheridan's plan. He's making a crucible that will force out the truth.

It's very brave, but very human.

Humanity has the amazing capacity to sacrifice itself for others for the truth. It is very brave and it is a uniquely human aspect. Now, I'm saying this in the real world when we don't know about other aliens that are really out there, if they're really out there, but this is a capacity that we as humanity have.

To sacrifice ourselves for the greater good, for, uh, for people that are other than ourselves. It was an amazing message I thought when he said he has, this is what we're doing. It's very brave, but very human. Number two, humanity is the hope for the galaxy speaking to the potential that we have as humans.

Star Trek Enterprise, I really think pushed this idea more than any of the other Star Trek series out there, that it was humanity. That was the catalyzing force for uniting the planets and bringing them together before the humans went to the stars and enterprise. The Andorians were out there, the Vulcans were out there, the tele rights were out there.

They all existed and they were all at war with each other. It was the new guys on the block. It was the humans who were able to bridge the gaps and bring those three species together. To form a Federation of United Planets that were at one point Nonaligned. Literally what we saw happen in this episode, a human came in and not a mbar.

Not anar, not a sonari. A human came in and united and yes, he gave Dalin the credit. You mentioned this earlier, Jeff. He gave Dalin the credit, but he is the one who actually united them. It's almost as if saying that humanity is the hope of the galaxy. We are the hope for the future. Jeff, I believe this.

This is, this is core to who I am as a treky. This is core to who I am as a sci-fi junkie. This is core to who I am now as a Babylon five lurker. What are we calling ourselves? I don't know. Uh, I don't wanna be a lurker. I don't wanna be somebody who's

Jeff: the last ones, the

Brent: last one. There you

Jeff: the next ones

Brent: The next one's.

Okay. There we go. I like it. Um, but it is, it is us. Think about that for a moment. It is, humanity is the hope of the galaxy. That we can be the ones who, it just speaks to the incredible potential that we as humans have. It calls us to be better than we are even now. Here's the third one I got. Death is what gives life meaning in Lori's talk.

It is in death that life was found to be valuable. You just referenced it talking about the, the physiology of how this worked of Yeah. When we first were in, we were immortal and then they realized that nothing was really worth it. And Lian, he, he talks this bitter like, we learned not to love because it turns to ash, cuz they'll go away.

Right? Like I was so sad for him in that moment, like, This sucks. It is death. The idea that it is limited is what makes this so valuable right now. This literally, Jeff, is what data taught us as an Android and Star Trek. First in Star Trek, the next generation, then through the movies, and then eventually in Star Trek, Picard.

This is an entirely Star Trek message. This is an entirely sci-fi message. How many times have we seen the idea of immortality Sounding pretty cool, but not being cool at all.

I think we also saw that in X-Men with Wolverine and sabertooth and those guys.

Jeff: In Highlander,

Brent: There you go. Right, right. More sci-fi, right?

Jeff: Weird.

Brent: Weird how that works. Uh, number four, conflict is not resolved through force, but through dialogue and understanding. Can't get much more Star Trek than that idea. Right. Um, you cannot win this one with force.

Lian said, you have to understand your way out of this. It's not fighting. It's through dialogue and discourse. It wasn't out there. In fact, Sheridan walked into the battle saying, we're gonna lose this. If this is up to, if this is sheer strength, we're done. Our only hope is to get these people in a room and have that conversation and come to an understanding with them.

The idea that they showed up to talk there at the end, after they pulled the death cloud out was really phenomenal. The idea that we got Kosh back. Kosh Noran, Kosh won cuz he was supposed to be dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, whatever.

The last one, number five, and this one I think does the best job of holding up mirror to society right now. Here it is. Refuse to take part in the madness anymore. Now, I don't know that this was actually a specific Star Trek message, but I can totally see Picard doing this in an episode. I think I could even see Kirk doing this in an episode.

I don't think I see Jane. We . I could see Archer doing this in an episode. Uh, pike doing this as an episode. Refuse to take sides anymore and I'm gonna speak directly to my fellow Americans out there in the next year as we record this. Jeff, we're gonna be electing, uh, our, our next president. We're in that round, right?

Um, the current climate is highly charge. I could not watch this episode and hear what the, what the volans and the shadows were doing and how they were, you must obey, you will fight because we tell you to fight. And he just sat there and said, what if we don't take sides anymore? There are powers that be, that are not even remembering why they're fighting anymore.

They're just fighting to get us to say, you were right. It is about them and not about what's best for us as a country. And when you turn us in on each other. By the way, I hope this rings out to our brothers and sisters across the pond over in, in England and over, maybe even north of us in Canada, where I know things can get a bit touchy sometimes.

Um, in other countries that are facing the same thing. Refuse to take part in the madness anymore. I'm not, you're not gonna pit me against each other. I'm not taking sides on this one. I'm not going to capitulate to what you're saying. I'm not gonna get in as much as you can, scream and yell and tell me that we're in the middle of a war for the soul of our country.

I'm not gonna participate in anymore, refuse to take part in the madness anymore. And guess what? If you do that, they have no more power. Again, I don't, I can't think of any specific instance where we saw this in Star Trek, but I think it's a phenomenal message that is solely and uniquely Babylon. Five, Jeff.

But I 100%, like I said, could see several of our star Fleet captains doing that. I gave you five. Messages, star Trek, quote unquote messages that I found in this episode. I don't know that I've ever seen them that clear or that replete or that chock full in any episode of Babylon five to date. And I don't know that we could have, because these messages weren't just in this episode.

They have been seated. They have been talked about, they have been been, uh, uh, watered grown, sprouted, and come to fruition. And now is just the, the episode that we're harvesting them in. So I'm gonna give this one star fury for each, or one delta Fury. I'm sorry for each of the things. This is a five Delta Fury episode through and through.

And Jeff, you probably even have some more things that I.

Jeff: First of all on number five, I was, I was so with you. That was my Delta Fury message for the summoning. The other side of it, right, was just people. The masses just just jump from one side to the other. Just whoever's yelling the loudest, right, and fear of looking dumb or fear of missing out on something, they just jump, jump, jump.

When finally shared and threw his understanding from that moment to now, he's just like, no, no, no more, not anymore. But as far as like the seeding of things, I think the one theme that you and I have spoken about more than any other theme throughout all of Babylon five, is the concept of, of who we really are.

Our true self. I use the term be, do, have, right to talk about that, but Sheridan just laid it out in front of those astral projections. You ask, what do you want? You ask, who are you? Well, who are you and what do you want? You can't even answer those questions anymore. The volans and the shadows lost who they are.

They lost their bee and that's what caused everything to fall apart when they stopped being who they were. So I loved that. I also loved the peace not only about humanity or mankind or whatever, you know, that we're the, the term we're using. But for us, we'll say humanity is the, the galaxy's greatest hope.

But where it's greatest hope. Because our ability, as Lorianne said, our ability to believe that love is eternal is what becomes our greatest gift. Because we can believe that he knows it's not necessarily true cuz he is eternal, right? And he's seen it fall apart. But we can believe and we can, we can act from that and we can make amazing things happen.

And that ties to my last big piece. We all need love

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: all of us. Even the high and mighty shadows and Vos Brent, when, when they knew they had lost in that moment, when they knew that the man, mankind, which is God, I wish there was a better word. We'll call it all mankind or whatever, but when they knew that they were gonna go off on their own, and Lorianne kind of talked him down, you know, a little bit.

When he finally stepped in Sheridan demonstrated understanding,

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: and he and Lorianne said, go, go be with those people that we miss and wanna be with us. Go beyond the rim and be with them. They both asked, are you coming with us? Will we be alone? My heart broke when I heard is just like, oh my God. They just want their mommy and daddy.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: Oh, and like, and, and selfish. Over the last three years, I lost both of my parents. I just want my mommy and daddy, you know, and I'm an old man, , and that's all I want. And I, and that just hit me so hard and, and to think of the billions of lives that were lost, the trillions, if you look at it over time, because they wanted that love that existed.

If we can just, if we as humanity can believe that love is eternal and then we can love,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: we can do that, Brent. Oh my God. I'll give four, I'll have 5,000 Delta theories to

Brent: Oh, I would, yeah, if more far scale went higher. Uh, it, it is, it is jam packed. There's so much in this episode that, I mean, Jeff, this episode could be talked about for hours. Upon hours. Upon hours. we will not talk about this episode for hours, upon hours, upon hours. It is now time, Jeff, to move this along and you have a very difficult task.

I had the easy one of doing the recap and pulling the messages out. They were so easy. You have the incredibly difficult task of ranking this episode and our 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of season four Babylon five, Jeff, our current top five. This is the first time we're gonna have something fall out of the top five.

Our current top five are in order. The long night, whatever happened to Mr. Garabaldi, the summoning, the hour of the wolf and falling towards apotheosis.

Jeff: apotheosis.

Brent: Yep. That's the word. Jeff Apotheosis. Yep. Jeff, take your time. Think about it really carefully. Where are you going to rank this episode? Into the fire.

Jeff: Let me think about this. Uh, number one. Number one, yeah, this is our number one, and if I was anything less, you should unsubscribe. You should block me on all the social media and never, never communicate with me again unless it's asking or offering me professional help. Brent, this is the, I think, I think this might be the greatest episode of, um, Babylon Five.

Brent: Wow. You think so? It's.

Jeff: just possibly. Possibly.

Brent: is. I, I mean, well, I said earlier, I don't know if we were recording or if this was in our preamble, um, this might be a top three episode of television period. Yeah, it was, it was my opening thoughts a year. This might be one of my top three favorite episodes of television all out there.

And I'm a, I, obviously, I'm a big fan of tv. I, I like a lot of TV like this. This is an episode that'll stick with you.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: You know,

Jeff: Yeah. This is so good. It get

Brent: you're, if you're gonna show, if you're gonna show one episode so far of Babbel on five to somebody who's never seen it before, just to say, show you how great this episode, this show can be, this might be the episode to do.

Even with all the, without having all the back I won, I wonder would it be just to jump into this without three and a half seasons

Jeff: I think about, what was it, um, was it n now for a word or one of 'em? I forget which one it was, but we were just like, this would be a great episode to just show somebody

Brent: and, and now for a word, certain.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I don't know if that was the one we were talking about there. There's been a few episodes that are like, this is just a good episode of TV to show someone.

Jeff: And could really hook somebody in and give 'em the pieces. I would be fascinated, like I almost wish I could turn back time and before we watched the Gathering, we watched this episode and saw what it was because like my one complaint was that, you know, veer and Morden flashback without that. You know what?

I don't know. Yeah, it'd be an

Brent: you know Jeff, I happen to know somebody that is a fellow podcaster who I know has never seen Babylon five and is completely unspoiled to it

Jeff: huh?

Brent: Now. He's a little retired from the podcasting game right now, but I wonder if I could get him to do a special one-off episode.

Jeff: be pretty cool.

Brent: A buddy Matt

Jeff: Yeah, I was gonna say, also, I'd love to be on a show with Matt. That'd be

Brent: Matt's phenomenal. You would love Matt. You really would. He's a phenomenal dude. We should try to make that happen.

Jeff: I think so. I think that'd be great. That'd be really cool. Well, you'll know here pretty

soon

Brent: be Patreon exclusive or would we put it out for everybody?

We gotta make people jealous. Depends on how

Jeff: Hmm,

Brent: that

Jeff: Hmm. . Oh, Brent, Brent, Brent. That is it for Into the Fire and to all of my music fans out there. I just want to say, I hope you appreciate the self-restraint that I showed up to this point in not referencing mega death's jump in the fire, uh, this whole time. It was, it was not easy to leave that out. But next week, Brent, next week, we are watching epiphanies for the first time.

We play a game here on Babylon five for the first time, where we don't look ahead, we don't look at thumbnails, at Synopsis, anything. We don't know what's coming up next other than the title alone. And then we like to guess what that episode's gonna be about. So, Brent, what do you think epiphanies is gonna be?

Brent: Well, Jeff, I. I think what we have just seen is a six episode arc and I think next week there's gonna be a drastic shift in tone, in pacing and in direction of the show. Um, and so I think this next week is really gonna serve to kind of set us off in the direction, as you mentioned the other day of wrapping up all these dangling threads.

So now that the whole shadow thing is sorted, uh, I think we're gonna get a lot of revelations or epiphanies about what's going on with earth gov, how they were in bed with the shadows and now that's not there. And the Cy core situation, um, I think that's gonna come to light out there and it's gonna start us down this road of not Babylon five and Earth reuniting.

I don't think that's ever gonna happen. I think Babylon five is going to stay neutral and they should stay neutral, but like the Babylon five personnel. Sheridan, Ivanova, Garabaldi, uh, Zach, all those guys, they're gonna kind of return to Earth service. It's gonna start us down that road of getting them back in Earth Force or whatever that new situation is gonna look like.

Cuz this is the fallout of this is going to blow up. Whatever's been going on on Earth, home Guard, ministry of Peace, Cyco, president Clark, like it, it's gonna blow all that up and this is gonna set us down that road to clean up all of that. Um, deal. What about you?

Jeff: Yeah, I think we're gonna slow down a little bit. It's gonna, things are gonna get smaller

Brent: Yeah. And we should,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: it should,

Jeff: Well, you don't get, it doesn't get, how does it get bigger than this?

Brent: Then saving the Galaxy, I mean, what is the Star Trek Discovery

Jeff: Seriously? Yeah. Who takes a whole season to do it? We're gonna, we're gonna make that shift in the middle of a season, not even the middle of the first, third of a season.

We're gonna, we're gonna make that shift, but I think we're gonna get a lot of people reflecting on the new reality. I think we're gonna pick up on Kar and the Narn situation. But I, I agree. My note here is also that the earth, earth is gonna become a thing again. What I, what I kind of thought was that, uh, We had the episode back in, um,

back in the hour of the Wolf

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: where Ivanova was just like letting all of her voicemails pile up . And I think she's gonna go back and she's gonna start listening to some of them. And it's gonna be like Commander Ivanna, but this is general so-and-so. I need you to call me back on Gold Channel. And you know, this is very important.

Uh, we're withholding your paycheck, uh, pending this thing, but however it looks, we're gonna, we're gonna get pulled slowly back into the Earth stuff. And I think I said it last week, but I think that's kind of the next chapter in this. And I agree this is gonna be. I don't know if it's gonna be a battle or a war, but I think it's gonna be much more political than anything else.

But the, the delineation of Babylon five, the demarcation of Babylon five from earth gov in a more official manner. I think this episode's gonna be the one to kind of launch that. And we're gonna find out right here next week somehow, Brent, we did this in less than 90 minutes. I told my beautiful and amazing wife to expect me to be in here for a couple of days and, uh, Cause we had a lot to talk about. But thank you all so much for joining us. We, I can't express one, how much it means to us to have you here, but also how just stink and excited Brent and I were to get in here and have this conversation about this episode.

There were questions about Jeff and Brent from the beginning about will they stick, stick around? Will they make this happen? Are they just gonna tank this for Star Trek? Nope. On five through and through. Holy Crud, this was amazing. Thank you for

Brent: I am. I am. I am officially ready to say, Jeff, and I think I speak for you when I say this as well. I am a big fan of Babylon five.

Jeff: Huge.

Brent: Huge fan at this point of Babylon, five.

Jeff: Love it. Hey, leave us a rating. Leave us a review. We'll read it right here on the podcast. Share our show with people that will appreciate it. You can do it from the app you are watching or listen, listening to us in. Just hit share, send it to somebody, and let's share some Babylon five. Love. Hey, until next time.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Uh, yeah. What's up?

Brent: Oh, this actually was the season finale, right?

Jeff: No, no. We have a, we have 16 more episodes to go.

Brent: Really?

Jeff: Yeah. Uh, 16. 16 more.