Point of No Return | For the Second Time

[0:44] The year is 2026. The name of the podcast, Babylon 5, for the second time. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the second time. My name is Brent Allen. My name is Jeff Akin. Brent and I used to be Star Trek podcasters. And then we watched Babylon 5 for the first time and everything changed.

[1:06] Now we're watching this incredible series for the second time because Babylon 5 is a series that you get to watch for the first time twice. Twice and just like the first time jeff and i are looking for sci-fi messages that we find in this series not star trek messages sci-fi messages no one's franchise owns the corner on messages but sci-fi is a genre that is uniquely situated to hand us messages and we are looking for those that are within the show that being said jeff and i have seen this entire show front to back for the first time that is completed. That is done. That is in the rear view mirror. As far as we are concerned, in fact, just scroll back up the YouTube feed or the podcast feed, and you'll catch those original episodes. If you have not watched this series for the very first time, here is your warning. This is your one only and final spoiler warning from this point forward. Anything from any point in the timeline, from anywhere in the franchise, extra canonical in canon, in universe, whatever is fair game for Jeff and I to talk about at any moment. So do yourself a favor. If you have not seen this show all the way through front to back, stop this show right now. I would never tell you to stop any of my shows, except this is the one I would be like, yeah, not for you yet. You'll get there. Trust us. It's better this way.

[2:31] Spoiler warning has been issued. And we're going to start diving into those spoilers right now. Brent, we're watching Point of No Return, the second in the trilogy, maybe quadrilogy, of this big storyline we're in the middle of. Do you happen to remember, from the first time we watched this one, what your thoughts were and what stood out for you?

[2:52] It's the middle of the trilogy. It's the one where they break away, but I've been saying that they're going to break away for the last like 18 episodes. So that's okay. Maybe not 18, maybe the last like eight episodes. I actually don't remember what specifically happens in this episode. Like I know I remember the three, I kind of have a good idea of what happens within the three, but like what specifically is contained within this particular episode, I don't really remember, but here's what I know. And if you've been with the show for any amount of time, you've heard me say this, and I will say it again. While I may not necessarily remember specifics and details about exactly what happens, what I always remember is how something makes me feel. This episode, this is what makes season three so freaking good. As good as War Without End is, as great as it was to see Sinclair come back, and as great as it is to get Zathras back in, and a fun time travel bouncy no no no listen messages from earth point of no return severed dreams maybe ceremonies but these right here like you could strip the rest of the season away be left with these three and it's phenomenal jms is at his peak during this set of episodes and as far as i'm concerned we're just right in the middle of one big large episode how about you Jeff, what do you remember? I remember one thing from this one, Lady Morella.

[4:18] Last week, you talked about in this trilogy, not only do we get the secession from Earth, but we also find out Londo is redeemable. That's this episode. Londo, Veer, Lady Morella. I have this little piece in my mind where this is where Vaughn Armstrong.

[4:38] Security guard number one, really starts leaning in, right? And it's because martial law gets declared, but I can't remember if it's this one or the next one where like they have everybody lining up and you got to declare whatever and all the stuff and the rough part for Zach, but I know there's a lot of night watch stuff, but the prophecy comes up in this one. We find out this is where we learned that Veer will be emperor. We had man, major bears in this one. Exactly. It's such a big deal. Such a big deal. But, uh, you're right. It's, it's hard to take each one individually because I remember the trilogy as well. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, like, oh, this one was okay. And this one was all right. And this one was amazing. They were all, these three episodes could be the entire season. It would be a better season of television than most of what's being produced today. If not everything. Great episode. I'm excited to watch it. Uh, Jeff, that's what we remember, but would you like to know what we actually said about this the first time around? Cause I did go back and listen and I made a few notes. Okay. Yeah. Let's, uh, I'm a little nervous, but yeah, go ahead. All right. Well, here we go. Listen, I loved this episode so much that I couldn't even complete a sentence. Brent just babbled about Babylon five. Wow.

[5:53] Um, yeah, this, this was everything I wanted in an episode of television. I loved this. That's the same thing you said last week. It's amazing. Turns out it's good writing. You also love this. You said that everything that happened in this episode was basically, well, of course they're going to do that, which means we've had good writing. Yeah. Like the stuff that has gotten us to this point. And now we're like, well, of course, that's what happens. And you said it felt so good. I'll bet. Yeah. You know, we started talking. That's foreshadowing. That's what foreshadowing. And it's paying off. And it doesn't mean a lot in the moment, but when you get there, it's so powerful. It's just like, I think there was a couple of moments like in this piece. And then when we get into season four, where we're like, yep, everything was set up. This is a great episode, but it's boom, boom, boom, boom. It's doing the things it's been talking about. That doesn't mean it's bad. That's incredible. Well, and, and to that, because I know what you're talking about there. And we talk about this quite a bit there, but this is where we really start talking about this idea of how, particularly in television writing today, writers love to subvert expectations and by doing that they do the shock value thing you kill the main character or, something of that nature you do something the bad guy wins in the end or whatever whatever it's supposed to be right it's become so.

[7:17] Ubiquitous with subverting expectations that if you really want to subvert expectations right now, just do the thing you say you're going to do, right? Just tell the story. Like don't subvert expectations, just do the thing. And this was a time when we really weren't doing that a whole lot back then. You were, you were surprising us, but there is such a thing as like, Hey, I'm going to prepare you for something. And if I don't fulfill it, then it's going to be unfulfilling and you're going to hate it, but no, JMS has been preparing. He's been setting the table. He has been, he has served just the right appetizers at just the right time. He's got our palates ready and now it's time to feast. And that's really where we are. Absolutely. You said that they misbranded this episode. Really? Because you thought that there was a point of return. Okay. For Babylon five. You thought Babylon five could potentially come back from all of this, from wherever we get to the end. And I said, ah, nay, nay, because this episode is actually more about earth than it is about Babylon five. Oh, earth has hit a point of no return. Not so much Babylon five. Then there's this whole thing with lady Morello and how she embodies the spirit of her late husband.

[8:27] And I actually, this was a really interesting conversation I thought between you and me, because so she's the, she's the, the wife of the late emperor Turan or like the chief wife or whatever. Yeah. The lead wife or whatever. Yeah. And so in their society, when a when an when an emperor dies, I don't know if this is true for all wives or if this is just for like the emperor's wives. That they embody the spirit of their late husband they kind of speak on behalf of their late husband, you were under the impression that she actually took on his soul and like his soul was in embodying in her being okay and speaking through her mouth whereas i was like.

[9:09] No that's more of like just sort of this metaphysical thing like she's she's taking it upon herself to carry his, it's kind of like, you know, I always, I always tell people Santa Claus is a hundred percent real. And you know why I know Santa Claus is real? Cause I am Santa Claus, right? Why? Because I take that spirit on. I take that, I embody that within me. Right.

[9:32] When I go to Disney, particularly for the thing, I'm not going to go through my entire history, but I embody the spirit of Walt Disney when I go there and I look at things and the things that It would have pissed him off, pissed me off. And yes, I can speak for him because I embody. Anyway, you guys get what I'm saying. Jeff, I've been on a tirade with Londo ever since he launched those asteroids into Narn. Yeah, before that even, but yes. No, but I really at that point was like, I'm done with him. He is irredeemable. First time I think you said that. It's only been 18 times since then, I think you've said it. You're all in on him being irredeemable at this point. He is irredeemable because I've been saying this has to be about the redemption of Londo Malari. I mean, so much so our council chambers folks made memes and t-shirts about the redemption of Londo Malari. They even like abbreviated it. Right. You know, R-O-L-M. Yeah.

[10:24] But I've been saying he's irredeemable. This was the episode where the first crack appeared, and maybe there is still something redeemable in him. Maybe there is. This was the one where, in this episode, you mentioned this earlier, I think, Lady Murillo did confirm to Londo that he would one day become emperor. Yeah. But then she turns around and tells Veer. Right? Now, I actually showed a clip to you of my Brent watches video for that episode where when she said that to veer, I started laughing and Stephen first as veer in the video also started laughing. And for whatever reason, our two laughs were like exactly the same. Yeah.

[11:14] You were embodying the spirit of Stephen first in that moment. There we go. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which, you know, I've said for a long time, and I think I still maintain this, that if the reboot of Babylon 5 ever happens, Jameis, if the reboot of Babylon 5 ever happens, I would love to play Londo. It's just such a juicy role. However, the role I think I would be best fit for would be Veer. I always wanted to be a Londo, but I'm going to be a Veer. I'm going to be a Veer because that's who I am. Hey! But I think I could do a great, like, mm. Yeah, it'd be fun. I had a couple of predictions. I had a prediction, though, out of that, that the show was going to end. All right, let me get McCrown out here. You ready? The show is going to end with Londo's death and Veer ascending the throne after him. All right. Now, let's fast forward to Sleeping in Light. Londo has died. Londo dead. And Veer has become the emperor. Right, absolutely. He's become Emperor Scrooge, to be more specific. He's all in. He's living the good life.

[12:15] You thought that this might be the spot where Viri actually gets written off the show. Because remember Londo and Viri at the end are like sitting there staring at each other like going, oh, because like one of them is going to have to kill the other one or something like that. Like we didn't know what that meant because she's like, oh, we'll both be emperor one after the other. Like, well, who comes first? I ain't going to tell you that. So they were all we got a good spew reference in this one that we loved a lot. Uh, I had asked if Majel's involvement, okay, let's, we're backing up out of the canon of the show and just sort of overall, if Majel's involvement was kind of a peace offering between the star Trek and the Babylon five folks. And you did a really good job, Jeff, of sort of researching the whole thing.

[12:55] And, um, basically, yeah, that's exactly what it was. Yep. It's just pretty much. It's like, you can like both. It's okay.

[13:02] You said that after watching Garibaldi for nine episodes into this season, there are eight episodes in the season. Nine actually I guess with this one you couldn't believe he was your favorite character from season one because he's been so disappointing he has been an awful security chief this season so far have you thought about that at all during the second run oh I absolutely have because I remember we did the first season wrap-up and who's your I'm like Garibaldi he's and I and first season Garibaldi was great he was good at his job he you know what it occurs to me that like my favorite garibaldi was season one garibaldi we've talked about how peak ivanova was season one avanova and with the change from sinclair to sheridan it's kind of how we've attributed it she's kind of been chasing some of that that she had before i don't know what that means it's just an interesting thing that like they both i mean ivanova didn't become bad by any means garibaldi became bad like bad at his job like incompetent the opposite of good like he's it's so bad is it fair to say that in a similar way that did lynn just sort of become sheridan's side chick in the latter seasons of anova just becomes like sheridan's side commander in the in these seasons in a lot of shows you've got the character that's comic relief who occasionally gets something a little serious but i mean they're there for laughs.

[14:28] Ivanova is not that person, but Ivanova is like the, hey, you need something snarky and you need it coming from somebody in uniform. We're going to give it to her.

[14:36] And she's great. It's amazing what she does, but she doesn't like get much of the meat of stuff. Because you're right. There was a certain attitude, a certain chutzpah that came with her. And while we see it in flashes throughout the course of the rest of the show, it's so few and far between. Yeah. And it's more just, just want more. Like, I love her so much. I just want more is really all I'm saying. But maybe that's what...

[15:02] By design you know dunderdall dunderdall says this great over in our council chambers our council chambers folks are joining us live for the recording and they're chatting in with us dunderdall says that it's season one of honova hits so hard that it just carries through even with a reduced presence exactly yeah yeah it's it's one of the things i remember in our series wrap up one of the many things i took a lot of heat for was i was like zathras was about three minutes away from just being way too much but he wasn't way too much like he played it to where he's an incredible character yeah maybe it's kind of the same with ivanova we're gonna play her to this point not that you're gonna be like oh yeah there she is again oh my god more it's just i want more yeah of her um you said there's a scene where sheridan is reading the letter that he gets from earth declaring basically martial law in babylon 5 and you said that you feel like the show has probably 30 or 40 over the course of the entire run 30 or 40 scenes that jms like has had in his head since the beginning now it would have been shared or sinclair doing it not sheridan but these are ones he's had in his hair head since the beginning you're like this is one of those i'm pretty sure he's had in his head like we know the whole thing about um sheridan falling out out of the the tram and kosh going up to him as an angel like that was in his head from the beginning.

[16:20] Right you you felt like this was one of those as well that makes sense he's like this is the speech that's going to play at this point right you also said that based on what we saw in by any means necessary which that's the uh that's the union strike one right yeah okay based on how sinclair handled that situation you actually thought that that scene would have been far better with Jeffrey Sinclair rather than John Sheridan doing it. So let's watch for that as we get into this. Okay, like reading the martial law piece? Reading the martial law piece. Because remember Sinclair, he follows the letter of the law.

[16:59] But he he follows it so closely that he catches the loophole. And remember, Sheridan has I want to say it's a senator looking at him going or one of his commanders going follow the chain of command. Do you hear me? Follow the chain of command. Just telling him what to do. You had very serious doubts. This did Zach's change of heart. This is the one where he rips the armband off. Okay it is yeah and you had very serious doubts as to his change of heart and we i did not and you and i were like we we almost went to blows over over our boy zach i i love zach so much and it was one of those things where i'm like you're not like he's because i love him so much he's not going to be the thing i want him to be you know like that whole thing and so there's no way he can actually like be redeemed or whatever they're going to make him the big big bad guy just because that's how it works out for Jeff. I said, though, you watch starting next week. We're right back to Hickey's from Kenickie. Yep.

[18:08] We both had this conversation. I thought this was good. Where's Franklin's dad in all of this? I don't know that we have that answer. I think it's pure speculation. Unless you know something that I don't know, Jeff. Pure speculation. Where is Franklin's dad? Which side of it is he on? My guess is he's on Clark's side. I think so, too. All right, two more things, and then I am done, Jeff. The big thing coming out of this episode, and you and I examined this a lot during our episode. By the way, our episode on this first one, Richard, was a bit longer than our typical episode, right, as you might imagine. This is the episode where we get Lady Morello telling Londo he has three chances to be redeemed. Yeah. And you and I went back and forth on what those chances are. So for the record, before we watch the episode tonight, I want to lay down very quickly what you and I both thought during our first watch. Okay. All right. So there were three things he gave her. Two he had already wasted. There's three chances left. The first chance he said was something about the eye that doesn't see. Don't pluck out the eye that doesn't see or something like that. I said that that was the eye from Signs Importance. The little artifact. The artifact thing that symbolizes the emperor, right? It symbolizes the throne. You said that it was a metaphor for saving Jakar because Jakar doesn't have the eye, right?

[19:32] The second one was don't kill the one that is already dead. And I said, Jeff, the first one can't be about Jakar because that's actually what this one is about. This one was about Jakar. I say based on what Jalan was telling him that he had to sacrifice everything and he had to sacrifice himself. I said, it's either a metaphor because Jakar is now dead to himself and he's about something else, or.

[19:53] Jacar was literally going to die and he's going to come back as a space zombie because this is science fiction we can do that but he'd be a space zombie and when we see the vision of him in the future where he's all like mangled and everything like that that's space zombie jacar okay so don't kill the one who's already dead you said that that was actually more don't like tread on some dead person's memory like emperor turn like hey listen he's a great man we're just going to think of him as a great man we're not gonna we're not gonna kill him in death basically is what you were saying so that's what we said there and then the third one uh surrender yourself to your greatest fear knowing that will destroy you you and i were both in unison on this one this was about londo saying this was about the centauri dying yeah right he would have to surrender himself to the idea of the centauri population dying knowing that it was going to destroy him which is bad real quick do you remember what the real answer to these three is there's no real answer jms's answer is yes exactly yes sure yeah sure i personally i just i love the idea i don't typically love this i love i like authors to tell us what they mean when they mean it but this is one where he's going to intentionally leave it ambiguous what it means and not actually tell us and just let the fans figure like let the fans spin their own theory and i i really particularly love that. All right, Jeff, one more thing I want to talk about, and then I'm going to get off my high horse on this one. All right. Uh.

[21:21] I made a prediction, Jeff. I made a prediction. This is a different kind of prediction than I've made any other time. It's an incorrect one because everyone you've made before has been correct? False. Okay. This one was about the show. I don't mean Babylon 5. I mean about Babylon 5 for the first time. Okay. It was about our show. Getting very meta here. And I'm going to play. I pulled the clip, Jeff. And I'm going to play the clip for you and all you good folks out there right now. And jeff i want you to tell me did we nail it okay okay did we nail it now i also want to point out that this is in episode what episode nine of season three we are two episodes away from the exact midpoint of the entire series that's where we are in the run all right.

[22:11] I said, and I'll quote, and you'll hear me say this. I'm going to spoil the ending of Babylon five for the first time. Here we go. But you and I spent so much time, particularly in that first season, we haven't really had to do it much since of really kind of defending the premise of the show. Like the premise of the show is not comparing the show to star Trek. The premise of the show is watching. It is putting ourselves in this, like you, your phrase owning our bias. Putting ourselves in the spot for where we are right now in our lives going hey here's this other show we've always heard about let's go do our thing with that show and watch how it stands on its own two feet and Jeff what you and I are discovering as we go through is actually exactly what we thought that would happen as we went through this show this is going to be a fan freaking tastic show totally by the time we get to the end you know what for let me spoil the end of Babylon 5 for the first time for everybody out there you want to know what we're going to say when we get to the end of the show, Jeff? What are we going to say? This show is not Star Trek. At all. At all. Like, that's where we're getting to this point. We're just going on the journey. I'm going to spoil it for you. Right. The name of the show is Babylon 5 for the first time. Not a Star Trek podcast.

[23:26] This is not a Star Trek show. There's a reason we started with Deltas. We have now added Deltas and Star Furies. Jeff, you and I have never talked about this. it wouldn't surprise me if by the end of this season or next season we drop deltas and we just go with star furies right i don't know if we're gonna do that or not we might, But that's my guess as far as where the show is going to go. I am reminded Brent of a moment that would have been just over two years ago. Okay. You and I are standing on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, an exact replica of the film set, which was incredible to go see. In that moment, of course, I was reveling, you know, in the captain's chair, whatever, wearing my Star Fury T-shirt.

[24:15] By the way, just something that I didn't do, because you may notice there's a bit of a difference from Brent back then to Brent now, right? Like, like, it's a little bit of a difference. I was scared I was going to break that chair and I just didn't want to break the chair. That's why, that's why I didn't do it because I thought I'd break the chair because let's, let's face it. As glorious as that set was, it wasn't the most sturdy thing. That's very true. Yeah. Sorry, continue. You're sitting in the captain's chair, reveling your time. Go for it. And we're like, this is amazing. We should rent this out and we should film a piece where we're on the Enterprise. And on the view screen, we come up to Babylon 5 and we have a little dialogue. And then it ends with us in C&C of Babylon 5 because that's where we belong. That was our plan. And we were not done with our first watch yet at that point.

[25:08] I feel like we should still make that though. I think we should too. I feel like we should still, because while that particular set no longer exists an hour down the road from my house, we can fly. There's airplanes. Yeah, it still exists. Yeah. It's still there. They did set it up in a new location. When there's something absolutely amazing and incredible and worth every moment of my time, I will fly to it. No question. Yes. Like, let's go. Yes. Anyway it i mean the end of the show babylon 5 for the first time not star trek nope stargate is still not star trek we don't even mention it this time around you want to know why because it's had nothing to do with it there's nothing to mention because we got there we had to go on the journey anyway jeff that was all the stuff that we had at least the stuff that i pulled out uh from the first time that we went through this is quite a bit of stuff now i happen to know you have found quite a bit i know jms i'm sure said a ton about this episode good luck boiling it down to anything what'd you find out there for us that's of note there is so much and i did boil it down so i'll just say there's a ton i mean a ton do your go on look you can go to there's the lurker's guide there's the scripts there's a bunch of stuff out there that's easily accessible if you're interested to go in and get some more, but I grabbed a couple of pieces and I want to.

[26:29] Respect our time and everyone else's so i'm going to move as many of these as possible into the episode itself when things come up but a few that pop out he had a lot of praise for majel barrett he says that the role lady morella didn't exist until he met her it was written specifically for her he said he hustled to get it finished prior to the wolf 359 convention he gave her a copy of the script she read it overnight and fell in love with the story the character and what it is going to do with Babylon 5. The next morning, she reached out and said, yeah, I'm in. Let's do this.

[27:04] Afterwards, he says, I'd like to say that Majel did a great job. We're hoping we can come up for other opportunities for that character to return. I know that Majel is interested in pursuing other acting gigs outside Star Trek, and I wish her all the best. I think other shows would do well to utilize her abilities. Everyone had a great time working with her, and she should be recognized for work other than Star Trek. I wanted to bring that last point up because so many people it's the curse of working on star trek that's who you are forever and there's so much great work that gets missed because of that he says that if a word comes out of a character's mouth it's his that's jms's words that we're hearing okay the bit from lady morella about greatness was one of them and had a number of different subtexts going on behind it and there's probably a fair amount there that could apply to gene roddenberry so to real way, all of the lady Morella stuff is JMS saying, this is Babylon five, not a star Trek TV show, but saying it as Gene Roddenberry through the voice of major Roddenberry playing lady Morello on Babylon five. Yeah.

[28:12] Tv's a wild place man like we actually talked about that yeah i kind of remember that we talked about if whether or not like by her embodying her late husband lady morello if that was not actually just meta for major barrett embodying her late husband of gene rodden yeah shifting tones this is there's a lot to this one it's the last one i'm going to bring up before we get into this stuff in the episode but there were a lot of comments we've talked about this he's you know he's on message boards and stuff and he's responding to a lot of comments that were made and there were a lot of them about the about night watch and how the stuff's just not plausible the stuff that's going on isn't very believable but he says it is a historically accurate predictor of the future i'm just going to read what he said here is some pretty powerful stuff it's easy safe and reassuring to dismiss night watch and the whole political climate on earth at this time as referring to Nazi Germany, the SS, stormtroopers, informers, Gestapo, et cetera. But if we know our history, it shows that this is not so isolated as we might think. If we say it was just the Nazis, then this is a non-repeatable phenomenon and we don't have to worry about it again. But of course, it does happen again. It did and it will, to varying degrees. Go back to the Inquisition, forward to Joe McCarthy in the House on American Activities Committee, which destroyed lives and reputations based on associations, past history.

[29:40] Social contacts, and party affiliations, the items specified by Masante to the EA folks in Nightwatch. Stalin, and to a lesser effect Lenin, would have been right at home in Nightwatch. Several of the leaders speaking for parties in the ruins of what was once Yugoslavia would also fit. When a culture becomes factionalized, when it becomes us versus them, everyone starts setting up consistently smaller camps. First, it's Democrats versus Republicans. Then it's mainstream Republicans versus conservative Republicans. Then it's conservative Republicans versus religious right Republicans, with the Democrats having equal problems on their side as well. As soon as we forget that we're all the United States, it begins to fall apart. Yeah. To be clear, that's very American-centric piece. And he wraps it all up with a very JMS thing to say.

[30:36] Ultimately, it's all a socio-political pull my finger and we all just keep falling for it. Brett, I got a couple more for during the episode itself, but that's it. So what do you say we dive into this? I think we absolutely should do that, Jeff. So what's about to happen is Brent and I are going to bring up the episode. We're going to watch it right now. We're going to react to it, make comments as we're going through it. And if you're joining us for the first time, I want to say welcome and just want you to know what you're getting yourself into. If you're watching this on YouTube, you're going to see the edited kind of cut up reaction style video to this thing. You can have access to the full, the unedited version of this by visiting our Patreon page at patreon.com slash bad nerds. And if you're listening to us on an audio podcasting app, you're going to hear that reaction because we don't want you left out. And there's going to be some great conversations. And Jeff has already told you he's got a lot of stuff to say during the middle of the episode. And we don't want to rehash that later. And it's better if we don't. After that, though, we will be on the other side. And we'll be talking about those thoughts, those messages that we discovered. We're going to rank the episode. We'll put that in our ranking for the season three on our second watch. So, Jeff, let's hit that magic button and watch this episode. Once we hit it, we will have reached the point of no return. Accessing file. Now this report is totally inappropriate.

[31:54] I remember the scene. Yep. Orlando, why? I've spent weeks working on this report. I didn't even sleep on the flight back from Minbar so I could go over it again. Yes, but say instead, they are decadent people interested only in the pursuit of dubious pleasures, dubious pleasures. It's almost as if the things that we hear from our leaders aren't always the correct and true things. Every time I make a report, you do this to me. When I was a young manager so many years ago.

[32:28] God, a lot of years ago. Let me sit on that for a second. My God. But I was a data. Like I ran a lot of data for our leadership. And I remember doing – we had a metric of our cost per claim that we ran. You know, how much did it cost for us to process a claim? And we had ended up farming out some of our IT work to a vendor, and it was very unpopular. And we wanted there, our leadership wanted there to be a marked increase in our cost per claim as a result of working with this vendor. So I run the numbers, and it comes up, and we're still within, I mean, a fraction of a difference from where our normal was. Like, it literally had zero impact on our productivity. And I took it to my boss and she said, um, this isn't the number that I wanted. And I was like, but it's the number that it is. And she's like, nope, you need to come back and give me the number that I want. And it needs to be bigger than this. And I went back to my desk and I'm just like sitting there. I'm like, what, what do I do? And I learned a very nefarious, awful thing that is very true.

[33:36] Numbers never lie and they'll say anything you want them to. I was about to challenge you on that Because in the football realm We always talk about that Like stats don't lie.

[33:52] No, but you can make them say Whatever you want them to say Yeah I can take stats, real stats And I can show you why You know, Aaron Rodgers is the worst quarterback To ever put on a uniform Easily Yeah Just take these It's all the subset of data. The whole point is, can you work your way backwards from what I did and see that there's veracity to this? Yeah, absolutely, because I constructed it with the end in mind. The same applies to what we say, right? And so what we're seeing here is, like what Londo is saying, the facts are still there, right? Like the buildings haven't been made, whatever. But it's the view, the commentary, the editorial, the story, right? People hear the story and remember that. And so there's just a lot to consider that. There might be, you know, 16%, only 16% of people, blah, blah, blah. But there's more to the story than just that. Well, I mean, it's the same thing like when you hear, and I'm not pointing to anything specific right now at all. This is just a general thing. When you hear someone's report of a situation that happened, they may put a new spin on it. Now, the fact is the fact. Like what happened is what happened, but the spin they put on it or the, the, the way they say it in such a way.

[35:15] Can really change the impression of what was happening. Was it a Kurosawa film, right? Where it's like there's the murder and there's the four different perspectives of it and there are four entirely different stories of the exact same event? Yeah. Intelligence has nothing to do with politics. Intelligence has nothing to do with politics. You know what he sounds like? He sounds like he's buffing a resume right now. You're not a dishwasher. You're a dish machine operator. You're not the janitor. You're the environmental engineer. Uh-huh. From now on, things must go smoothly. Maker. You. What is going on? Haven't you heard? The Earth Alliance just declared martial law. Where's General Haig? He's on Star Trek right now. Oh, no. Somewhere close to the home front. The Star just opened fire on the Senate building. Everything's gone to hell. You're on your own. What an episode open, man. Like, hey, it's just, hey, it's Londo and Veer being Londo and Veer. Yeah.

[36:22] You know, it never ceases to amaze me. And we'll see this with Von Armstrong and his character with Nightwatch. President Clark couldn't do this without those being complicit. Exactly. Yep. And not just complicit, but in support of and furthering. And I would even dare say it's not really President Clark doing it. President Clark is a mouthpiece. He's a puppet. There are other powers behind him that are orchestrating this. They're putting information in front of Clark and giving him words to say, knowing he's going to say it, knowing he's going to do whatever he does. They're manipulating him to do the thing they want him to do to serve their own ends. It's the thing, we've talked about this before, and I want to be really clear, this is not specific to the current U.S. Administration. This goes back further. But watch a cabinet meeting, like many, many cabinet meetings in the U.S. It's a bunch of people feeding information to the president through their eyes, through their lens, through their agenda. Like that's how it works. And that's, we talk in this, in this program quite a bit about the concept of an echo chamber.

[37:29] Imagine the echo chamber the president lives in, in today's world and here on earth force. Hey, I've got this idea. Now I'm elected and I'm caught in this whole thing. It is not possible for reality to get to me because there are a hundred people surrounding me feeding me their version of things that feeds my vision ultimately that ultimate this is this is the way i think things are going because that's the information you know hey what's the report out of such and such city today here you go oh my god this is awful what's going on well we got to do this move right here and send all the we got to quell the whatever i don't know jeff okay i will talk about the current thing that's going on your hometown yeah we're gonna send people into your hometown because all hell's breaking loose and just in there like drinking tea walking barefoot in the middle of downtown like i we're we're good i took my kids to go stand outside the in the middle of the war zone right like ground zero we went and stood there and people were literally doing jazzercise in the streets.

[38:32] There were three dudes up on a balcony. They were armed and they were staring at us. And that was it. I mean. That's all hell breaking loose in the war zone. Right? Yeah. And now in Portland, I mean, it's not the safe city. It's safe of a city as it once was. And things have escalated since those days. And especially elsewhere in this country. Any questions? Captain. Oh, this is huge. How did this happen? Yeah. What did we do wrong? What did we do wrong? We talked about, he's only allowed to speak because he's a lieutenant. I love the wisdom in what they just did, right? Like, hey, this is coming. Be ready. And we have to be the straight ahead. I've never seen it any worse. It can be demoralizing to hear reality. But there's so much power in what Sheridan just did. I've never seen it worse. When your leadership can actually be honest about what's going on in a way that's not panic-inducing, right? He could have said that and be like, oh my God, you're right. It's some, and fed, you know, whatever. But instead he's just like, yeah, I've never seen it worse. He validated Garibaldi. He said what it just inspires a tremendous amount of confidence in the people that you work with. And so like, that's my Babylon five leadership academy moment is just when stuff is going south, say it, just say it. Make sure you bring some extra caps for your PPG.

[39:57] Hope we don't need him. Never know. He's salivating for that chance. Look at his face. Can we just say this right now, Jeff? There are people out there that receive badges in guns, and they salivate over the idea that they get to go shoot someone now. Yep. And they can do it with immunity. Yeah. And they're just looking for any excuse.

[40:28] Whatsoever to pop them off in somebody's face. And I, I don't care what side of the aisle someone comes from. Anytime citizens of a country are being shot in the street, it's all, it's unexcusable. It's unimaginable and inexcusable. There is never, never a purpose for that. And that's exactly what Von Armstrong is excited to do. and that's exactly what happened over the weekend before we recorded this yes and everyone has a right to defend themselves what you don't have the right to do is to go oh you made me scared so now i'm defending myself and now i get to shoot you right all right let me be clear everyone has a right to actually defend themselves where i'm from i believe in castle law you roll up in my house, you're whatever and you're putting my family in danger some stuff may go down but what that doesn't give me the right to do is to just go out and say oh you're putting my family in danger, and pop two off on you i can't do that nope doesn't give me the permission to shoot someone in the back of the head to put my knee on their neck until they suffocate it doesn't no not okay you're absolutely right absolutely right of that you and i are one accord my friend.

[41:45] How do we go from what we just did into this to this a little whiplash here little whiplash Where are the earth? There has been a problem with the Earth Alliance, a local thing, nothing to do with us. It's an interesting perspective, because Londo's not wrong. It's a local thing. It's just a little local thing going on. For us, it's central, right? Like, it's everything in the world. But to the Centauri, does this kind of have any impact on them? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah. Might have a little bit of trade impact, but that's probably about it. At worst. Our job is to follow orders from the Commander-in-Chief and respect the chain of command. Okay, respect the chain of command. I suggest you file them in the deep dark. Okay, stop. I'm sure the show explains this in a little bit better detail, but help me out right now in this moment, Jeff. Okay. When he's sitting there going, follow the chain of command, he's clearly telling Sheridan something.

[42:47] What is he actually saying here? They outright say it later on, but what he's saying is follow the chain of command. Garibaldi, the political office has made this order. Hey, guess who's not in the chain of command? The political office. So it's not a legal order. So that would be like as a citizen, a department of the government that actually has no authority over citizens telling me something to do. When they have no authority over me to tell me to do that. Yes. And using only the authority of a weapon. Now, if you've got a problem, I suggest you look upon this as an opportunity. This is the opportunity that we've been working towards since the beginning. To serve Earth to the best of our ability. Who wrote the episode TKO? Larry Dottilio. Is it fair to say that Larry Dottilio and Joe Michael Straczynski kind of are two sides of the same coin?

[43:44] They definitely compliment each other i mean they shared an office for christ's sake yeah like these two guys like okay jeff this is at least the third time the third time that i can recall and i don't remember what the other episode was and i'm sure this has actually happened before now we you know we talk about foreshadowing there might even be foreshadowing in the way that they were writing slash editing the episodes just that in and of itself yeah you go back to tko where i Now, and I picked up on this from the very beginning with TKO, they're intercutting the fight that's happening in real life with the Muay Thai versus the internal fight struggle that was going on with Ivanova and the way they're cutting back and forth. And what was happening with Walker was actually what was happening with Ivanova on the inside, and they're kind of showing this, right? We saw this in another thing but here how they're cutting back and forth between what the commander guy is saying to sheridan and then what this dude's saying here and they're going back and forth not necessarily marrying each other but definitely marrying just showing different intent yeah even using the same words to what we said earlier you can take stats you can take numbers you can take words they're not going to necessarily lie but you can also make them say whatever you want him to say babylon 5 belongs to the night watch, dude that's incredible acting this whole thing from vaughn armstrong like this is peak.

[45:11] Dude, you should have asked your Babylon 5 question to Vaughn, not Jeffrey Combs. I know. I dropped the ball. And you have been doing this since my incarceration. Talon, you're my angel. You're my dog.

[45:24] Just touch my cheek before you leave. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The shaggy version. Oh, no. She was there through my incarceration. Want to show the nation my appreciation. I have sensed an opportunity. There's so much about you and me. You went there. I went to Carly Simon. I didn't want to miss it. Jeff Scarley Simon Brits. Sugar! We stand at a moment. Shaggy and Ribbon.

[45:57] So we talked about this, Jeff. Suit yourself. About how many... Next. We only see he's the only one that actually turns in his gun. And I'm going to stop this. But we actually said the real number is like 50-50. I want to say that when we talk about conflict, we often talk about a villain and a hero. Yeah. And we've talked about before, there are multiple heroes in situations like this, and they play multiple roles. In the scope of the Earth conflict that leads to the Earth Civil War, that guy that we just saw, he's the hero. That's where the war is won. We're going to watch Sheridan, and we're going to see him in a week do this incredible speech and all this stuff, and it's going to be amazing and incredible. But it's those small actions that just everyday people take when they resist in small, meaningful ways. That's where it's won. And it takes courage. I mean, that guy just lost his job. That guy, he's going to face ridicule, isolation, lots of stuff. Well, he also could even face retribution. Absolutely. But it was the right thing to do. And that like jumping ahead to the end of season four, that's the moment.

[47:22] The good guys won. Start your tour of the station. Our people here are looking forward to meeting you. So JMS says he made a very, very long, I mean, substantially long statement about Trek versus Babylon 5 and how people can like both. Okay. So I pulled these two pieces from it.

[47:41] It says, Major Barrett has gone on record saying Babylon 5 is the only other intelligent science fiction series out there. She urged Star Trek fans to support it, while nice-mouthing B5 various cons. And if perhaps you've been turned off by some of the more vigorous messages from Babylon 5 viewers. Actually, I want to reframe this one a little bit. In our first time viewing, you and I to this day joke, I mean, I did it just a little while ago. Brent, it's foreshadowing. How can you not see it? The Babylon 5 fan community is both incredible, inclusive, welcoming, awesome, and so frustrating at the same time. It's like, I get it, man. I get it. So he says, if perhaps you've been turned off by some of the more vigorous messages from B5 viewers, I'd only ask that you consider those comments in light of the fact that Paramount, not the people doing Star Trek, but the studio itself, jms's words has done everything possible to hinder the progress of b5 which engenders.

[48:53] Certain reactions from everyone major's comment babylon 5 is the only other intelligent sci-fi out there this episode premiered in 1996. Okay that's what i was just looking up stargate sg1 did not premiere until 1997. So she wasn't talking about stargate sg1 that's all i'm saying she just wouldn't start around stargate stargate sg1 is intelligent sci-fi as far as You and I were in the exact same spot where I was like, I just needed to have started before SG one. I needed it to look at this. Dylan over in the council chambers chat points out that Paramount used to offer stations free Star Trek episodes. If they ran in a competing time slot to Babylon five, I'm going to offer you this for free just to just like.

[49:35] That just doesn't seem like a business to me, but whatever they got a lot of money. So the greatness is never appreciated in youth called pride and midlife. Dismissed in old age and reconsidered in death. So powerful. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst. We do all we can to destroy it. Wow. This place has become a memorial to his unfinished work. We talk about JMS and his skill ability as a writer. Something we've never talked about, I don't think, is his skill as a poet. That's what that was. What she just said. Beautiful. Beautiful poetry. Man, what if we treated Straczynski a little bit like Shakespeare and quoting in the way we quote? I might start doing that, Jeff. I would say, Brent, that a lot of people, even just in our community, let alone the greater Babylon 5 community, already do. We say there is no choice, only to comfort ourselves with a decision we have already made. I quote that so often. If you understand that, there's hope. What are you, nuts?

[50:38] All right, Jesus, settle down. Right. Oh! I took care of you. I looked after you. Pastor Ray, I fixed you up with your wife, right? If anything I've ever said or done has meant a damn to you, then stop this. Stop this now. Are we supposed to feel like that was, like Garibaldi's a hero in that moment? Like, what are we supposed to feel? I don't think we're supposed to necessarily feel like he's a hero. Okay. I do think we're supposed to feel like Garibaldi has been stabbed in the back by so many of these people. I think, I think the scene honestly though is not about Garibaldi at all. The scene is about Zach. Yeah. Yep. This, this whole thing is a part of Zach's story that ultimately culminates in him ripping that damn band off his arm and throwing it on the ground. And that like so many times when we've seen scenes that are all in the about veer but it's londo doing most of the blustering this is a scene that is about i mean this where you where you paused it right here with zach looking over his shoulder and i mean jeff conno is acting his ass off right now too i mean you feel this is this is about zach, observing this interaction between garibaldi and the rest of the security staff and particularly.

[52:00] The vaunted security guard number one that's what it's about and it's about going maybe garibaldi is not necessarily a hero but garibaldi is not necessarily wrong and this is not right this this is not the way we want to be this is not how we do and hearing this line you don't work for them you work for the captain you work for the station you work for me yeah i don't really care about working for you, but we're here. We belong here and we're going to do what's right here. And I think that's, that's a big piece of this. Now I know this role, Zach, Zach's role was created as a result of Jeff Conaway and him being great. Like it wasn't part of the plan. But when I see this moment, I think ahead to him getting fitted for the uniform when he becomes chief and he's like, this doesn't fit this itches. I don't like this. Mm-hmm.

[52:55] It's moments like this that validate that moment. I'm interested in your response to a question asked by one of our council chamber members. Andrew says, Jeff, why are you upset with Garibaldi's reaction here, but you liked it when the nameless extra also quit just a few moments ago? It's very simple. Garibaldi, it was all about him. It was selfish. It wasn't about something greater or bigger. It was you betrayed me. I hooked you up with your wife. What about me? You don't work for Nightwatch. You work for me. It was me focused, nameless dude who did it was quiet, walked away. Didn't make it about him. It was about something bigger. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't go in and bust these people up or whatever, but him making about him was immature at best. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made on my management path was I created, I create really great work cultures, but before I had maturity in the management space, I did it focused on me. I created a cult of personality. And when I left, what I built fell apart. And I've learned since then how to actually build structure and support so that it's not dependent on me whatsoever. Yeah.

[54:07] And that, it lasts. What Garibaldi is doing here is making it about him and a cult of his personality. It's not that you, you know, you swore an oath to this. You serve this station. You know what? No, me. He made it about him. You choosing this is a personal affront to me. And what it tells me is he's built his entire security force on a cult of personality. And clearly that won't sustain when there's any pressure put against it. I see, I hear what you're saying and that you're saying that Garibaldi is making it all about him, right? Like I really do. I hear what you're saying there. I'm not sure that I agree with that sentiment though. Yeah. I think what we might be seeing is Garibaldi appealing to them based on his relationship with them or rather their relationship with him, the personal relationship appealing to them on that level, but not necessarily making it about himself. I just, that's, he's just trying to reach to, to that particular common point. But you said something a second ago that really got me thinking of here's a guy who they, they sacrifice Garibaldi's character to be able to elevate a guy like, like a Kinnicky here. Right. But I also have been thinking, uh.

[55:27] Isn't this also Garibaldi's character? Okay. So, and here's what I mean. So like we, when, when he got shot in the back back at the end of season one, right. And he comes off half cocked of just, oh, it's all about me. You know, it's, it's, I got to fight. And he just, he goes off and he does some wildly inappropriate stuff. Yeah. Right. Here's another example of where we see this. When he comes back after his secret mission and he goes on a tirade to get Bester.

[55:56] Another deal. So when he's going just even bigger than that, his alcoholism, his drinking, he's doing good, he's doing good, he's doing good, he's doing good, and then he just falls off a wagon one day. Now he gets back up. He's doing good, he's doing good, he's doing good. He more than falls off a wagon in season five. He jumps off, wallows around in the mud, digs himself a hole, pours some more water in, pours some hot sauce on top of that, wallows around in that, Cuts open some sores on his body, rubs the hot sauce in, and then go wallows around more in mud, and then he comes back up out of it.

[56:33] Professionally, it also seems that Garibaldi follows that pattern. He's great as a security chief, but then something happens where this shows the limitation of it. I don't know that it's necessarily a sacrificing his character as much as it actually is his character. One of my favorite guest stars of all time was brought in in the first season to establish this. Liana Kemmer? Yeah, when Liana Kemmer came on board, they made it crystal clear Michael Garibaldi is a complete s*** show. Completely. Uncle Mike. Yeah. That was a stirring reply, Citizen Jakar. Unfortunately, while all answers are replies, not all replies are answers. Wow. He did not answer the question that I asked. What do you understand now that you did not understand before? Now, I'm going to dig on this one. Are you ready? Okay. What was the moment that pre-season three Jakar changed into season five Jakar? That started it or that it actually changed? Well, take your pick. Started it. What was the catalyst for that whole thing? Kosh and Dust to Dust. Oh. Of Vorlon. Influencing.

[57:54] And appearing as an angel or a deity being influencing the direction of an individual and ultimately a culture. Sure. But they're the bad guys. Touche. The announcement. We need to grab a screenshot of that. I want to read that. Enhance it. Not right now in this moment. Well, actually, I want to go back to it because I have a thing about it. Uh-oh. Okay. Look at that. I'm like a professional pauser today. There were a lot of fans of the show within the U.S. Armed Forces.

[58:25] JMS got a call from the Pentagon and from the Secret Service both and they said within the Secret Service and the Pentagon as a whole lot of fans but in this moment here the Secret Service called and told him that the the top secret document covers and stuff that he uses like all this stuff was over a decade out of date so they sent him a new one and so what we're about to see in a jacket coming up later is an actual like modified version of a true top secret document jacket. Okay. Now, now I'm just going to read it because it's here. As of this moment, Babylon five is under martial law. A curfew of 1900 hours will be maintained until further notice station personnel reserve the right to intercept and monitor communications in and out of Babylon five. There will be stiff penalties against anyone caught inciting to riot or taking any action against the security of the station, earth, or any of its forces. Holdings copies of the notice will be posted in all public places inquiries should be directed to the command staff wow that's incredible you could read that i don't even have my glasses on, you have been transformed my friend.

[59:41] Go along nothing to see here zocalo is a human world okay so now we have police walking through the civilian area with open weapons just tapping them in their hand eager to bust somebody over i mean i'm i'm now great i'm i'm reading and i'm reading a motive into this they're just asking for an excuse to bust somebody overhead and they're letting people know with the way they're holding it out there like that yep and on that jms as you can see in the background there's one of the night watch posters the traitors whatever we saw that earlier in the episode yeah he he got a lot of feedback on the message boards that they those those posters seemed over the top and ridiculous so he said they're actually taken the designs and much of the verbiage is taken directly from genuine world war ii propaganda and war support posters that were in use made some slight modifications but the gist is there he says as a society yes we do fall for these things. We do go for these things. We always have. Wow.

[1:00:51] First time since the early days of the market. We'll get them. Yep. Putting their weapon right in their face. Hey, let's break it up. Break it up. Let's go. Come on. Let's move it. You're inciting to riot. Now I'll be out of here. Now let's move it. Let's move it. You are inciting to riot, they say. Yep. This is exactly what I was talking about earlier. When you, it is not okay to just go out there and be like, oh, now you're excited to riot. Now I can bust you over the head. No, we can't let you incite to riot. But you can't go out there and just use that as an excuse. Right? Okay. And again, I'm not talking – I will talk directly about this because this is something we have seen on video for years in this country. You know something that's illegal to do, Jeff? Resist arrest.

[1:01:33] How often have you seen video of cops violently taking somebody down? The person is contorted into something, and all you hear the cop doing, stop resisting, stop resisting, stop – You can't just start yelling stop resisting for the sake of the camera. If I say it enough, it will be true. And, and just be like, yeah, well, you're resisting. That gave me permission to do literally whatever I just did to you. That's my protection is just by yelling, stop resisting, whether you're resisting or not that you cannot live in a spot where, Hey, uh, peaceful protesting. Oh, you're not peaceful protesting because you're yelling at me. That's not peaceful. Or, uh, you know, uh, I don't know. Somebody has a, has a gun. Oh, now I'm fearing for my life. You can't, that's, that's not okay. It's just wild to me that this exact scene from 1996.

[1:02:30] 2026. 30 years later. The only difference is we're seeing it in real life on our TVs or our phones or whatever. So the only difference is this is scripted. It's so sad that this is overly relevant today. This was made in time when it actually wasn't that relevant. Right? This was unimaginable at this point. I want to examine what this guy does here.

[1:02:55] We're going to do this. Now, this is a work of fiction, right? Let's classify it as a work of fiction, but it is a mirror to society. Right? Okay. So I want to just point out, who is the agitator? Who is the one who is putting hands on other folk? Yeah, the night watch guy. It's the night watch guy. And right now he is cocked up and ready to go. Right. Okay. And he's pushing people and he's about to push. There's one dude who's now going to push back okay all that guy did was he pushed him off of him, he didn't come forward he pushed him off of him and now he's resisting now he's inciting a right and the guy with the badge and the gun or the guy with the baton whatever by the way and what we're probably not going to see here i'm guessing but what we do see in real life is oh now that gives permission for 10 other people to collapse on top of this guy that's a good dodge yeah.

[1:04:05] So i'm gonna say this this was a riot that was incited by night watch had they left it alone people would cheer and they would disperse and go home when you see this happening just understand And the riot was incited by Nightwatch. I haven't thought about this scene probably since we watched it last. This might be, this is, this has to be in the top tier of most brilliantly written and performed scenes. We talked earlier about TKO in this, we're going to watch two different sides of the same thing, cutting back and forth here. They just put it together into one scene, shared it in the background, laying it down while this is happening. Intercept and monitor communications in and out of Babylon five. He is reading that document for exactly what it was written. Citing to riot or taking any action against the security of the command staff or myself. Thank you for your attention. That's what he was trying to tell me, but he couldn't say anything because he knew it wasn't a secure channel. Who? General Smith. Our job is to follow the orders of the commander in chief and respect the chain of command. The political office is assigned... Respect the chain of command.

[1:05:26] But i can't i just can't do it you can see the torment ship comes in we'll catch them in the act of sedition before they can organize so well played you did the right thing i can see why i questioned him in the moment like he's he is wrestling in the time i have been here i have asked little of you for myself i have tried to give you the guidance and support that is my responsibility as one of the carrie but i come to you now at a moment of great need i want to juxtapose that really quickly with garibaldi okay i did this for you why can't you do this for me i did this for all of you why as opposed to i rarely ask anything from you and there are times when things are really important and you have to do the hard thing and ask and i'm now asking Go in as soon as a ship docks.

[1:06:25] I guess I thought this was going to be in the next episode. Proof will arrest Sheridan and anyone else involved. I thought it stretched a little longer, but I'm glad it's happening. The order for Nightwatch to take over Babylon 5 security came from the political office. The political office, despite its connection to the president, is a civilian agency outside the direct chain of command. This is an illegal order. Jeff, here's a good question. Debra points out in our council chambers chat that this echoes the season five talk of where the senator is coming in to arrest Clark and the voiceover that's happening there. I think it's to just the physical setup where I get him and then just like there's that cadre with the senator leading them. It's kind of a forced slow motion. That would be on the whole thing. That would be I don't know if we can make a note or whatever. That would be great to pull both clips and do a side-by-side comparison because that's a great pull, Debra. That's a really great connection between the two. And I don't know if that's something that you just came up with or if that's something that people talk about in the community a lot. But that's neat. That's your cue. Look at him. You're kidding.

[1:07:43] You're not kidding. Always plant a lie inside truth. Makes it easier to swallow. What we are about to say is for your ears.

[1:07:55] We will not repeat it to others in the royal court. I just want to point out, she said it's for Ambassador Malari's ears only. And there's Veer standing right there. That says to me one of two things. One, you're an attaché, you don't really matter. Or two, I already know how I'm going to end this thing. And so all of this is actually for your ears too, but I can't tell you that yet. You still have three opportunities to avoid the fire that waits for you at the end of your journey. You must save the eye that does not see JMS says there's another way to look at this Which occurred to me as I was writing it That's a little bit of insight into how, But he structured it accordingly You must save the eye that does not see The letter I? The word I? E-Y-E? We never saw how she spelled this Given Londo's background One could almost make the case the discussion was about him. Not saying that's it, but it is possible. I don't like it. Yeah, that's interesting.

[1:09:00] It occurred to me while I was writing, which means that's not what I meant, but it was kind of a neat idea. She says to avoid the fire that is going to come. What he ends up facing is a version of hell. How he lives out the rest of his life. Does he not avoid the fire? In fact, what is was it what was it that kosh said emperor turin how will this end in fire, and it ends for londo in metaphorical fire right but i think don't we all generally accept well i don't know that like so there's that vision from the first lady, whatever her name was yeah for season one that was basically the station blowing up yeah we accept that as being what happens at the end of sleeping in light right i do yeah okay.

[1:09:52] But what Emperor Turin said, how does it all end in fire? That necessarily, that is not necessarily the same thing. Right? Yeah. Right? Like to your point, like for Londo, it ends in a virtual hell. That fire could certainly be a little bit more metaphorical of how it all ends. And I like the idea of interpreting at least what Turin said as very different than what that we see happen at the end of sleeping in light next time emperor turn i kind of don't care how babylon five is going to end you're right what's it's how is this all going to end not physically the station we're talking about everything that's happening here it all burns to hell right right paul in the castle chambers chat uh it was about turn specifically he uh he got cremated.

[1:10:46] Well done paul well done from a pure acting standpoint i think i see major about to make a mistake but then correcting herself okay okay in that when she first walks up to veer here she looks at veer as if to say you will be emperor and she goes oh no i'm actually supposed to direct this to him first and then come back like watch and see if you don't see her kind of be like, like a little self-correcting a little self-correcting piece, yeah see it yeah that part of your destiny cannot be able to nope nope not supposed to look in yet you will also be.

[1:11:32] Why are you laughing? That's that's how it happened the first time all right i totally did that one on purpose but But I promise you, Jeff, I will never watch this episode and not do that with him in that moment. These guys come in. I want you to notice what they're taking off and putting in the box versus what they're not taking off and putting in the box.

[1:12:00] His gun, his badge, his link. Not the arm. Yeah, he still walks away with the armband on. I wanted to thank you again for so okay here's a question what does she think of the narn, i'm this looks like a little bit of derision to me i have to believe that she believes much of what turin believed but also even if she doesn't personally believe it she does now because she has to embody him so yeah there's probably some because there's a lot of socialization around like yeah they're filthy they're dirty they're awful they're all these horrible things she was subject to that as a kid they they might even smell a little bit to them right you know we do know that they have a natural musk the narn do i have often talked about is very deep-seated and you can cognitively think about something some way but there is still the the initial response that you have to take control of but that initial response is still there tomorrow All right, this is great. This is great. It's playing the awkward up so, I mean, look how far apart they're sitting. It's comedy gold, man, I love it. One of you will become emperor after the other dies. It's comedy gold, but it's also so dramatically serious.

[1:13:15] Nonsense what's funny is londo is worried about the idea that that veer is going to shank him one day yeah when in reality veer shanks cartagia wow yeah so it's here's the thing, londo is right to be worried about this man across from him having the ability to shank the emperor four of the five cruisers that defected with general haig have been shot down, you say he's on the run well he won't go down without a fight he'll be coming for us next you know I know never thought it would end like this.

[1:14:02] I want to offer to everyone to take a collective moment to just kind of like breathe, breathe and take that process that a little bit. My God, I know we enjoyed this the first time around, Brent, but I mean, it's brilliance. It's prescience. It's accuracy. It's perfect and horrible. I mean, Jeff, this episode is I don't know that I could say so much better, but it is certainly so much more relevant now. Than it was the first time you and I watched it just a couple of years ago. So much more. And it's that much more provocative now. Great episode of television. But I am floored, flabbergasted, angry that this episode is eliciting the kind of response from me that it does. Jeff, we have people who watch from all various backgrounds and all various different beliefs.

[1:14:58] While i do not hold this position i know there are those who would have looked at our looked at us the first time around when we watched this and felt that this was just as prescient then as we feel it is now yes that's a great point and i want to acknowledge that and i'll simply say i'm not there that's not where no i am this i felt like what i watched in this episode is what i see on my facebook feed in my phone today yep in real time and what when i saw the the guard instigate a riot that's what i see on my phone today in multiple places multiple times repeated time and time and time again now we're getting comments that say stay out of politics stay out whatever just stick to stick to whatever you nerd or whatever and to which my response is basically, F you. Yeah. The show said it, not me. It said it. Also, I'll say this. Shooting people in the streets has nothing to do with politics. That's pure evil. Pure evil. Yes. Yes. And if you are making it political, maybe watch this episode and think about it a little bit.

[1:16:10] I feel in many ways, Jeff, like, frankly, like we just are continually beating on the same drum. But that's where the show is freaking going. And it's what you and I at least are seeing. I wish. I wish beyond everything that we were just making, you know what we want to, we're hip, cool podcasters who want to like make this relevant for people. So we're going to say stuff. We're not, we're literally just telling you what all of you see every day. And I want to jump on a point you made earlier that I think is profound and something that through our limited American lens needs to be said, but we are experiencing right now in the United States is horrifying. There are other places of the world that have been experiencing this for decades and this is their norm and they've watched this since it came out going, oh my God, where's our Sheridan? It doesn't minimize or make it worse or better but there are, this is not an America thing, I'm afraid. This is a world thing and we're just, we're just new to the party and I'd like to leave. Jeff, outside of that same old, same old drums that we constantly beat.

[1:17:19] Was there anything new you picked up in this? Any new messages or anything like that that you saw that you want to dive into? Not really. I think message-wise, we have hit this repeatedly through the watch itself. I imagine a lot of it mirrors and reflects a lot of what we talked about the first time, just much more on the nose and time appropriate. I do want to say that just as a piece of Babylon 5, I'm almost ashamed at first time watching Jeff of how how can i not have remembered how's the only thing i walked out of this with was oh yeah lady morella there's so much that happened in this episode that's huge and granted i thought it happened in the next one it happened in severed dreams but we'll get to it but like i for i for i'll be honest with you i forgot about the line where they were handing out the the yeah the armband completely forgot about that i forgot about zach's whole storyline in this whole deal um i forgot about uh i remembered the martial law order and i remembered sheridan on tv and the chair smashing it right after i remembered all of that i couldn't have told you that it was this particular episode that it happened in but i certainly remember those pieces but yeah there's a lot that i actually didn't remember happening you know and this is as we say.

[1:18:36] Like watching it for the first time twice yeah exactly i loved what you said about how this episode is built like the other ones tko but how it's all the storylines support each other and that moment when it all comes together in the riot just i mean from a just filmmaking perspective i mean next from a right i mean and let's say we often we often tout the writing of the episode And certainly it all starts there. But to what you just said, as a filmmaking, the cinematography, the direction, the lighting, the camera work, which is the cinematography, the special effects, the costuming, like everything landed in this episode. What about you? Did you pick up anything new? Two things that I just briefly want to go through that really stood out to me that I kind of held. Uh one i just want to say this out loud because it bears repeating and we talked about it at length in our first our first watch so i won't necessarily go into it too far here but later morella says there's always a choice yeah we only say there's no choice to comfort ourselves with the decision that we have already made no further comment necessary you know exactly what that's talking about i'll just say there's a there's a new show sci-fi show out that's controversial amongst, uh, fans of the longstanding franchise. And there's a line in it at one point where the guy says I had no choice. It was this or prison, bro. You just laid out the choice.

[1:20:06] Like there it was. Frankly, this is a line that's found. It sounds like it should be found in mass effect for like this makes me so happy or, or found on a rush album somewhere. Yeah.

[1:20:21] Well, it does. When you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. There you go. What album was that from? That's from Permanent Waves on their – it's Free Will. What year? Permanent Waves was 1979. Of course you know that. What track was it? I think Free Will was the – no, Spirit Radio was the opener. So I think it was two or three. I feel bad I didn't just know that one.

[1:20:42] Talon talking to Jakar. Was it Talon? Yes, Talon. It was Talon. Well, all answers are replies. Not all replies are answers. We stopped on that one. We didn't stop on this part though, his next line. He asks a really poignant question that I think we would all do well. Stop where you are right now in your life. Take stock of where you are and ask yourself this question. What do I understand now that I didn't understand before? That's a pretty provocative question. We should all ask ourselves from time to time, I might add. When you have changed your position on something, in the episode, Jakar used to be one way and he is now something new. And Talon says, okay, so what, what do you now understand that you didn't understand before that has caused this change for you personally, person who is listening under the sound of my voice? Where are the things you have changed a position on? Where are the things you have changed or more, maybe even more so where are the places you have drilled down into and really dug your heels in on? And I want you to think and ask yourself a question. What has changed in your understanding? What do you understand now? That you didn't understand then. I'll give you an example. Two examples from my own life, Jeff.

[1:22:01] Being raised where I was raised, I was raised in a very conservative family, a very conservative home, and a very conservative community. So I was also very conservative. And not just very conservative, but I mean, I was, I mean, poster child for this, you know. As such, whenever something happened with law enforcement, I was always immediately on the side of law enforcement no matter what. Well, you shouldn't have been there. Well, you should have just complied. Well, you should have just whatever. No, law enforcement is not racially targeting anybody. That's an individual thing. Fast forward a whole bunch of years. We start seeing videos. We start seeing stuff. We hear people's stories. And what happens is I start listening to people's stories. And I will tell you today, no, law enforcement is oftentimes the instigator. They're oftentimes the aggravator. They are oftentimes the ones who are in the wrong. They just have a badge. And then they come in and they will spin the story.

[1:23:02] They will spit facts, certain facts in a certain way that will tell the story a certain way. But that's not actually what happened. Wow, we started this whole conversation talking about that earlier tonight. Right. They'll bear the lie and the truth. So what do I understand now that I didn't understand before people's stories that they've actually been telling me? Because you see, as I stopped and started listening to the people and people's stories, then I began to understand. I began to understand what, oh, what's his name? He's the guy that played, he played Rhodey in the Marvel movies. Oh and he was in the Ocean's Eleven movie anyway he was that guy right there he was a guest star back on the Golden Girls okay.

[1:23:53] Don Cheadle. Thank you, Don Cheadle. There you go. Coming through for me. Don Cheadle. He was on a guest star. And in that episode, he was a victim of racial profiling against law enforcement. Okay. Fast forward. Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith and Alfonso Ribeiro, Will and Carlton, victims of racial profiling from police. Okay in that same journal era most every other rap song out there right yeah a certain song by nwa that got them banned all right all right ice cube ice tea they all had songs talking about the racial profiling that they received as black people from law enforcement these are people in the social consciousness.

[1:24:46] I naively grew up believing we've conquered racism as a society. And I truly believe that we've conquered race. The only bits of racism that exist are the old people who were like around in the forties and fifties. And as soon as they die, we're solid, we're golden. And I understand now that that's not the case. And the racism is very much alive and well. And I see that specifically and interactions that we now see with law enforcement. I ask you, my friends, I ask those of you within the sound of my voice who are tired of listening to me talk, what are the things you understand now that you didn't understand then?

[1:25:24] How has that understanding changed your position or how has it caused you to dig your heels into a position or perhaps the best question of all, Jeff, how is it? That understanding what you know now versus what you knew then will cause you to change your position on something. I take that one step further from Jakar. Change your position and do something about it. Jeff, there's so much to dive in. Meat on the bones. You and I often talk about we come into these episodes and we're like, oh, there's not really a whole lot to talk about. And then they wind up being the longest episodes. and then you have episodes where there is a lot to talk about and a lot more gets said and there's a lot more that could be said but jeff with that why don't we turn the page on this okay let's turn our thoughts and attentions to more entertaining maybe lighter topics one of those is one of our favorite things to do which is to take an episode and place it in our 100 completely accurate and definitive ranking babylon five season three jeff it is up to you this week about where this episode is going to fall in said 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of season three of Babylon 5. Jeff, our current top five.

[1:26:42] Yeah, our current top three. Let's go there. Number three is passing through Gethsemane. Two is dust to dust. One is messages from Earth. Jeff, where does point of no return go? And there is only one actual correct answer here. What say you? Oh, it's number one. It's number one.

[1:26:58] You're like top five, top three. What are you doing, man? Like we all know what's up.

[1:27:04] Come on You could make an argument that messages from Earth could potentially be over this episode Maybe not, but I could see the argument Yeah, there's an argument to be made It would be wrong, but I could see the argument.

[1:27:17] When we watched this the first time, we ranked these in the order they came out. Messages from the point of no return above it and then the next week's episode above that. Okay. Yeah. All right. So we're following that pattern again because I'm assuming. I'm going to put on my turban and I'm going to make a prediction. Point of no return, as good as it is, might not be number one for very long. That's probably a good guess. It's probably a good guess. Probably. but I mean as Ben says in our council chamber chat with season three you hit a stretch where we are right now we're almost every episode is going to be the new number one that's why season three is so good I've heard from so many people that season three is the best season of Babylon five Jeff I think you said season three is your favorite season absolutely and this is why it's so good that messages from earth isn't even in the top five of our final ranking is it really of season three wow did we have war without in and war with parts one and two pushed as one episode in our ranking we did yeah but we did yeah wow that means there are four other episodes that we put higher than than this particular set yeah wow well jeff that's going to do it for point of no return next week the.

[1:28:34] I always think of these as a trilogy. I know you talked about the quadrilogy with the next episode, but really it's the trilogy. It's the conclusion of this mini arc, this trilogy, Severed Dreams. Jeff, I need you to think back when we first talked about this. You didn't know what the episode was going to be about then. What did you say the episode was going to be about? I said, and I quote, this is the one Sheridan makes his stand and pulls away. He severs from the dream made form and from what earth could be. Oh, I loved when you said that and what earth could be. You added that. I loved that. What did you predict? Well, I said that this is, you know, they, they left it with, um, you know, all Clark's going to do is come back with a command clarifying what's the, what? And I'm like, yeah, he's going to come back with that command clarifying. Then I watch is actually in command and I watch is going to come back and try to take their quote-unquote rightful spot to be in command of Babylon 5, and basically that was going to turn into a Nightwatch versus the Narn battle for control of the station, where finally Babylon 5 breaks away, because I've been predicting this every week until it happens. Babylon 5 is breaking away from Earth. At this point, you've been predicting nearly three months.

[1:29:49] Yeah, that's about how it goes. Any minute now. Any minute now, and it's going to happen next week. I'm excited to watch it. Normally here we kind of do a go home it's got a little tongue-in-cheek humor to it but we this is a heavy episode and i want to end this one a little more seriously and i just want to say to people out there that we are living in horrifying times that are reflected in a very real way from this episode i want to name that and acknowledge it be safe take care of you and take care of others, the only way out is through and the best way to go through is together.