Point of No Return

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

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the very first time. Jeff and I are two veterans Star Trek podcasters, which I know has gotta put a little pen in the button of some of those, uh, B five diehards out there. But we are, we're two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching this show for the very first time, a show that we missed 30 years ago.

And in it, we are overanalyzing it for what we call those Star Trek like messages and trying to decide just how much we truly, truly are falling in love with this series.

Jeff: While this is not a podcast about Star Trek, we are veteran Star Trek podcasters, and so those references are sure to drop in. Also, probably, especially in this particular episode, if you've looked at the title, you, you know what I'm talking about. But to keep us honest, we play the rule of three, meaning that each one of us gets three references to Star Trek per episode.

That's it. Three one of those no substitutions, exchanges are refund. Hey Brent,

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: did you know that we have a Patreon?

Brent: I did.

Jeff: It's pretty cool and we have an awesome, we have an awesome community on the Discord, on the Patreon itself. P at an astonishing

Brent: Yes. Thank you to everybody who's jumped on and shout out to everybody at, at the Patreon because you guys are awesome. Like those, that's like the inner circle of friends, you know?

Jeff: Right, exactly. But over there you get a lot of stuff. You get access to our notes, you get unedited reaction videos from Brent and sometimes me as well, I fit 'em in. But we also get really great conversation that comes out of that. And I wanted to share Adam p on our Patreon shared some cool info about one of the more prolific Babylon five directors, Janet Greek. He says her episodes all have a similar vibe. I've noticed her episodes often feature a lot of flowing camera movements, which may create a greater sense of unease, which makes sense. But just to put it into perspective, this is my piece on this one. We so far have seen sky full of stars signs, importance, both of the voice in the wilderness episodes, Chrysalis points of departure coming of shadows, and the fall of night that were all directed by her.

And those are all episodes with pretty high levels of dramatic unease. So that makes a lot of sense.

Brent: I, I do remember hearing way back in season one that, um, we, we heard, we heard two things. J m s saved the big episodes for himself. As far as writing goes, now, I'm pretty sure JMS has written every single episode of season three so far,

Jeff: I think so.

Brent: and probably like the last half of season two. So they're all big episodes.

I get it. But I feel like he might've just taken on writing responsibilities, which is cool. Um, but the other one I remember hearing is the big episodes are also directed by Janet Greek. Like she's the heavy hitter director that, that he goes to. So,

Jeff: And it makes sense. Did you know that she actually directed weird Al Yankovich Premier music video? Hey, Ricky.

Brent: Did she,

Jeff: She did.

Brent: that's.

Jeff: It's kind of cool.

Brent: Was that like a, A film school project for

Jeff: I know. a little favor for somebody. Well, hey, I wanna share a message that we got through our website. We have a website, babylon five first.com, the number five and the word first.com. And I apologize for mispronouncing this, but this is from PAE or Polle, maybe Polly, who shares their B five story. They say, hello.

I am a great fan of Babylon five and watched it for the first time during the nineties here in Sweden. Then I bought all the DVDs and watched it on and off. Now, 30 years later, I'm watching the series. Now 30 years later I'm watching the series with YouTube. Great guys, your podcast and YouTube are great, and it's like kids at Christmas every day.

When I see the Brent watches and the reactions to the episode. Keep up the good work.

Brent: Thank you. We will. And hey, Jeff,

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: did you know we're great guys.

Jeff: I did not know that.

Brent: I think we're also delightful and insightful

Jeff: insightful. That's the one I will always remember. I'm gonna hold on to that.

Brent: Thank you. Shout out Sweden, by the way.

Jeff: Now I think I'm thinking that, um, obviously English not their first language, and so, I mean, thank you. I know that took effort to, to write that message in a, you know, in a, in a secondary language for you.

That was great. Very touching.

Brent: Love it. So Jeff, you know what else I love?

Jeff: What's that?

Brent: I love games.

Jeff: Yes, you

Brent: I love playing games. You know, what are games I really love? We've never talked about this one, we haven't talked about this one. Like, and it's been going on for a while. There's a game that there, you and I play a lot of games, but there's a game that somewhere around the middle of last season we started playing with the folks, uh, the YouTube folks here and occasionally the folks on Twitter where we asked them to predict their deltas and star furries and like get them involved.

Like that's a fun game. Anyway, um, I was just thinking about that. game that we like though, along with Rule of Three, is we like to play our game of predictions. That's why I was thinking about the predicting Star Furious and Deltas game, our game of predictions where we get to the end of the episode and we predict next week's episode based on title alone.

Never having seen any thumbnails, read any descriptions or anything like that. Well, this is the spot of the show where we look back on our last week's episode where we did that prediction for this week's episode and now it's time to see how close we were. Jeff, do you remember what you predicted point of no return was gonna be about and how close.

Jeff: I do remember, and I was about 98%. I am the king.

Brent: You, you, you nailed this one better than I did. You absolutely did. I'll

Jeff: Martial law will come to Babylon five and Sheridan will make his stand. Now I did think it was gonna lead to the secession. That's where I don't get a hundred percent. That's gonna come later where I talk about that. But yeah, I, I got, I got, this is probably the closest I've ever been on one,

Brent: Is it, is it

Jeff: I think.

I think at least it feels, at least for closest, I've been in like a season and a half.

Brent: Look, I'm not gonna steal that from you, man. I'm gonna let you win this week. Uh, because all I said was this would be the episode where Babylon five broke away from earth gov, which did not happen. Although, like, I, I gotta be honest, my, my faith in that statement, because I've been, I've been hanging on to this prediction for half a season now, right?

Like, my faith in that is getting a little shaken. I don't know if they're gonna figure out a way around it or what's gonna happen, but, uh, it, it still feels like that's at least where the writing is leading us.

Jeff: feels like it.

Brent: yeah, I'm probably just gonna stick with that as my prediction for every episode until it actually happens, or it, like it's never happening

Jeff: I always play the same numbers at the lottery. Eventually they'll win. It's one day. One

Brent: Right. Did you know that more people win lottery just doing like quick pick stuff than they do actually, like playing their own numbers,

Jeff: Yeah. Like nobody wins on their own

Brent: right? Right. So, Jeff, with that, uh, for those of you out there, For the folks out there who have not watched this episode in a while, or maybe they're listening to us and have never actually watched this episode at all, why don't you remind the folks out there what point of no return was about?

Jeff: Lady Morere is on her way to Babylon five. She's the former Emperor's third wife is also a prophetic and a Sr. Rondo's got some questions for her, but his timing could probably use some work. You see, general Schmitz reached out to Sheridan and the command staff Earth has officially declared martial law on Babylon five, and all hell is breaking loose.

He shares that the president has dissolved the Senate in station Security has been ordered by Earth's political office to Step Aside as Night Watch is now covering those duties, heartbroken. Sheridan shares the news with the crew in C N C prompting Lieutenant Corwin to ask an innocent, powerful question.

What did we do wrong? But there's hope General Hague is rounding up ships that don't agree with the President's direction, and is mounting a counterstrike? Will this be the saving grace in this nightmare? Or is it too little too late? While riots break out between stationed residents and night watch Garabaldi releases Kar, there just isn't the staff anymore to guard him. Telon the Narn with a sword shows up and offers to be Ja Car's bodyguard again. While Kar shows off the early draft of the book of Jaquan, part two, the Kar Testament.

Ultimately though Kars realized it's not him who's gonna have to be sacrificed. It's all Nans. They're gonna be sacrificed in service to the universe. And to do this, he's gonna offer his services to the humans. Star Trek security guy and Zach are working through all the security team members either affirming their membership and night watch, or collecting their badges and weapons.

Garabaldi can't handle this though. He busts in, throws some tables around, acts like a kid who isn't getting their way and storms out. He pleads with Zach to see it his way, but Zach is just going along to get along. Remember those riots that were going on? Well, Londo Veer and Lady Morere get caught in the middle of them and Veer gets hurt Earlier.

She agreed to do a reading for Londo and while tending to Vere's wounds, she gets a glimpse of part of the Londo vision that we've seen a few times now. More on that. Shortly distraught over the situation, Sheridan realizes that General Schmitz had hidden a message in what he said when he told them about the Senate in Night Watch. The General was telling Sheridan to respect the chain of command. He was also telling him the night watch orders came from the political office.

Huh? Is the political office in the chain of command? No. No, it's not. Well, the humans on the DVD v cover meet with Kar and they pull in Zach moments later. It looks like Zach betrays them to Star Trek security guy, but, but really, really, he's just setting him up. They get all of night watch locked up in a docking bay.

Sheridan tells them they have no authority in there to stand down pending confirmation of orders from Earth, which will probably take a couple of days with Zach appearing to be back with the good. The Night Watch team surrenders their weapons and are confined to their quarters. Problem solved. Well kind of cuz now, now there's almost no station security Enter citizen Ja car.

He is convinced the Nans on the station to step up, fill the gap, and Sheridan couldn't be happier. They're doing a fantastic job and he wants to repay Ja car for bringing them together. But how could you repay a profit in their pre-public phase? Well, simple. You bring him in. Jaar wants to be a part of whatever it is.

He and Len and all the others are a part of, and Sheridan agrees to take that to the team that reading from Lady More, well turns out Londo is on the precipice and will have just three opportunities to avoid the horrors of his vision. They're cryptic and Londo. Londo is pretty confused, but one thing was crystal clear one day whether he wants it or not.

Lonnda will be emperor. Not happy with that. He then gets what he considers even worse. News one day Veer will also be emperor. What? We don't know who will be emperor first or under what circumstances. What we do know, one will become emperor after the other dies. Brent, what was your initial reaction to point of no return?

Brent: So Star Trek security guy.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: That's your buzz by the way. You

Jeff: that is my bus, correct? Yes.

Brent: Uh, yeah. Don't take my bus. Um, have we ever heard his name?

Jeff: I don't think so.

Brent: Because I like, I was, I was just thinking about that. Didn't we see in the credits, like it's Vaughn Armstrong, security guy number one?

Jeff: I think it's number one. Yeah.

Brent: that's, oh, he's number one.

Jeff: No, no, it's security. It it? Yeah. Number one, no security guard, number one. SG number one. That's his new name. That's his non buzz name.

Brent: There you go. We'll, just SG one. Oh, no. Okay. So, um, I loved this episode. Loved I, this was, I I loved it so much. I can't complete a sentence. Like, this was everything I want in television except for getting my prediction right. You know, and I still feel like I'm getting there, you know? Uh, but this was, this was just good tv.

I can't say that I had fun with this episode, although I did. But I mean, Marshall Law's been declared, you know, it's coming, there's Sheridan reading. It just loathing every word. Although I think he read it too smoothly to be loathing at every word. You know, people are fighting. These guys have sticks.

They're beating people up. I mean, I don't know how you did that recap, Jeff, cuz there was so much. So much like that, had to have taken some work to, to nail it down and figure out what order to even say the words. And, uh, so congratulations to you. Good job. Very good job. But I, I mean, we're gonna get in and talk about everything with this episode, major Freaking Barrett in this episode.

Jeff: Holy crud.

Brent: Oh, like, like I'm, I'm watching the , I'm watching it, and I stopped it because I saw her name come up on the screen. I didn't even see her. I saw her name and I, I rewound it back and I went, is that who I saw? Yes, I did. And I've got questions about her, not her character. Her

Jeff: I have questions about her character as well that I think tie to

Brent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they might be the same questions, Jeff. I, I really do.

Jeff: wouldn't, wouldn't be surprised.

Brent: Um, you know, but listen, this gave us everybody but Dalen and Kosh, you know, and I don't know what was going on with Mira. Maybe this was just her week off. And why, I don't understand why we ever get an episode without Kosh, because all they literally have to do is set the costume up in the background.

Jeff: It's the cheapest character imaginable.

Brent: him, you know what? Oh, Jeff, did you ever watch the old Masters of the Universe, Heman, masters of the Universe? Cartoon.

Jeff: Oh heck

Brent: Okay. Do you remember Orco?

Jeff: Uhhuh.

Brent: And do you remember that Orco was hidden in every episode and you had to find, oh, no, no, no,

Jeff: That was lookie. That was Lookie and Sheira.

Brent: That's what it was. But it was orco,

Jeff: well, so No, it was, it was Lookie was the name, but I know what you're talking about. There was something

Brent: was hidden. It was like a special cameo. You had to try to find him in every episode. That's what they should do with Kosh. Just he's somewhere. You see him in a window. You see him on screen tv. It's, did you ever watch the show Psych?

Jeff: yeah. A couple times. Not, not big

Brent: Oh, Jeff. Oh,

Jeff: It's a great show. It's a great show. I regret it's never got into it.

Brent: Do you know about the pineapple?

Jeff: No

Brent: In every episode there's a pineapple every, it's random. And so it, and it becomes a thing like you just look for the pineapple in, in, uh, you know, like he'll just, he'll walk into the room and he will have like a pineapple with a top cut off on a straw, and he is drinking out of it. Or they're bringing, bringing a bag of groceries on a pineapples on top.

Or he's got a shirt that has pineapple print on it. It's just a pineapple in every single episode. Yeah. Yeah. That should be what they do with Kosh.

Jeff: Totally, and it would make sense. Shera was a Larry Delio, uh, creation. It's where he and j m s first met. So he had a hand in hiding lookie and then writing the whole like, Hey, kids hit you fight lookie in the episode. It'd be a natural transition for him to do the same thing with Kosh.

Brent: There you go. There

Jeff: Let me send that back in time.

See if he can put it in the show.

Brent: Jeff, I, I don't, I don't know if you believe in time travel, but I do absolutely believe that there are things that we have done now as we are recording this, 30 years too late, that have transcended and gone back in time, and affected things in the past,

Jeff: This will be one of them. Someone's gonna listen to this and be like, they already hide Kosh. That's part of the show. What are you talking

Brent: Right. And it's gonna be because we made it happen. Uh, phy it's physically possible. And by that I mean in physics, uh, we don't know how yet, we haven't discovered it, but it's just there.

Jeff: It's

Brent: Uh, so yeah. But I, I quite enjoyed this, this, uh, episode. I can't wait to get in and talk about this episode with you, Jeff.

What did you think?

Jeff: Oh, same. This was fantastic. We shouldn't have had a good time watching this horrible stuff happened in this whole thing. But it was a blast. It seemed natural, right? Like all, everything that happened just made sense. You know, of course Lando is bringing her on to do this right now. Of course, they said Night watch is gonna be secured.

You know, like everything just felt right. It's the natural kind of conclusion and climax of all the stuff that we've seen so far. But I have one big beef

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: this one, and that is, there is, I feel like there's still a point of return. Like at this point all Sheridan is doing is what any upper officer would do and that's confirm an order he could easily back off and support the whole thing.

I don't think they've reached the point of no return yet. So I call Misbranding on this episode. I also don't care at all, cuz it was still a great episode.

Brent: I mean, I dunno, maybe Earth has hit a point of no return.

Jeff: Yeah, it sounds

Brent: no return for Earth having hit.

Jeff: Dude. They are, they are our soldiers attacking and shooting senate building. Like, like they are killing politician. Well, might not be the, nevermind I didn't say that at all. But

Brent: That's, that's, that's not Marshall Law. That is a coup.

Jeff: it's just violence. It's, it's a revolution. It's a coup. Call it what you will, did you catch the, the line, the, the, the news person said about the Russian. Like the senator from the Russian consortium saying, Hey, citizens should make a human shield around the building. I'm in . Like, wow.

Brent: I did not

Jeff: We have a lot to talk about in this

Brent: Well, well, sure. I, well, I'm sorry. I just, uh, while you're talking about that, because it, it's just appropriate. Y a a more, this is our new T-shirt. Jeff. This is our t-shirt for the episode. Make a note. Put it in the thing.

Jeff: I'm pulling it

Brent: Intelligence has nothing to do with politics, right?

Jeff: That's so good.

Brent: Oh, okay. Real quick, just so I know, I mean, my notes are all over the place, man. Um, Emperor Teron, the Lady More's husband. That was the dude who came on the show and had a heart attack last season. Right, okay. Because I wasn't sure who he was. Um, at first I thought he might have been the current emperor, and then I was like, oh, maybe he's the emperor who just died.

And then I was like, well, maybe he's just some emperor who died at some point in history. You know,

Jeff: So, so they didn't name him. Was that uh, the coming of shadows? Is that what he was in?

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was last year. It was last season's namesake episode.

Jeff: Yeah. And so he came in, he was just the emperor. He didn't have a name. And so I kind of had that a similar, at first it was like Emperor Turrin was there, cause I thought he was long raining or whatever. And so how is his wife around? That was the name of the actor that portrayed him. His name was, his last name was Turhan, or

Brent: Oh, really?

Jeff: or Turre.

So, yeah, so literally they're just like, emperor Teran, this guy was super cool. Let's just, let's just use his name,

Brent: Okay. There you go.

Jeff: which is great.

Brent: Yeah. I like it. I like it. Um, mm-hmm.

Jeff: she is seen as like in like his spirit inhabits her.

Brent: Yeah. I th well, so I, I heard that, but I think I understood it a little bit different. Right. Um, cuz because Vera was asking for all of us, for our sakes, why does she speak in plural? Right. And. He said, because she speaks for Chiron, she embodies, it's assumed that when the person dies, the wife assumes his spirit or something of that nature.

And, and what I, what I kind of took that to mean was not that she's literally inhabiting, or not that he's literally inhabiting his wife. Right. But that she takes on hi, who he was. Uh, not really, but more like metaly, like symbolically.

Jeff: Symbolically.

Brent: And she is supposed to speak as he would have spoken, spoken, spoken, have spoken.

Yes. She was, she's supposed to speak how he would have spoken. She is supposed to, uh, kind of be his voice beyond the grave, you know, uh, despite her own deal. So I, I don't know that it was a, like his ghost comes and embodies her body. I don't think it was that, that's the way I interpret it. Just

Jeff: I like that. I like that better because for his ghost to come in, inhabit her, I think just adds a layer of mythology to the centara that doesn't line up with what we've learned so far.

Brent: But I, my, my first hearing was like, oh, he's like living insider. And I was like, no, that's, I don't think that's what they meant. I could be wrong. People out there in the comments are already correcting us, Jeff.

Jeff: Right, exactly. But I think regardless, like if I'm Emperor Cari or Lord Refa, right, who's kind of puppet mastering everything, I'm gonna go outta my way to get, get her endorsement. Cuz her endorsement in something is basically the former Emperor. And I think, and I think that's partly, like Londo said, he wanted to, he wanted to find out that his vision was not gonna happen.

Like he wanted some confirmation of that. But I think in a way too, he was looking for her endorsement in whatever he's going for because now he's got Lord Refa backing him up. I got Emperor Turhan backing me up, like

Brent: he has Refa backing him up.

Jeff: Well, Refa’s backing him up as far as like he's his puppet master, like Refa is positioning him to do things.

Brent: Oh, yeah. But he, but I don't think he and Refa are like on the same page about stuff.

Jeff: Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think they ever, I don't think they ever were. And we saw that, if I remember right, when the emperor died and Londo was like, oh dude, he called us on our stuff. And he's like, yeah, so what? He's dead. We're good. Walked off Skippy and happy that he gets to go rule the galaxy now.

Brent: Mm-hmm. . Um, so do, do we want to talk through her and, and Wado and this whole part of the story, uh, because this certainly was, was I think some of the most compelling parts of the episode. Uh, but my first question in a really not compelling way is how often is Veer going back and forth between Minbar and Babylon?

Five.

Jeff: Well he's, he's shooting for that like diamond status. He wants to get the free upgrades and everything.

Brent: to park really close.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Um, because like I'm sitting here going, if he's gonna be around all the time, then why effectively write him out of the show? I mean, he might not have actually gotten out of the show. This might be part of his character growth and development or something, but it felt like they were writing him off the show,

Jeff: did feel like that. But then yeah, it's, it's, and I think too, he literally comes back just to have Londo beat him up.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: This is the second time. Second time we've seen him rip apart one of his reports, you know, and, and it's just so petty, so petty.

Brent: Well, but, but no, but think about it though, because like, I, like I was looking at, and it seems really petty, but if the Royal Court, if this is the way it works in the Royal Court, right? Dear, does not understand how the Royal Court works. Londo does. And, and if you sit back and you actually listen to what Londo is saying, he's not saying, Hey, this is the right thing to say.

He's just saying, here's what the Royal Court is gonna read. And they're gonna hear, oh, by the way, remember what happened the last time a guy published a report like this? They tried to sterilize him, then he had a really ugly wife, so we realized we didn't have to right? Like, like there is a bit of Londo kind of looking out for revere in this, but he's doing it in a very londo way that just kind of makes him seem like a big jerky jerk, big jerk face.

Jeff: Yeah. And I think too, where Veer Veer sees everything differently, we saw that way back in the Winnie, the Winnie Cooper episode, where you know, Hey, I'm the ambassador Norm, I'm not, but I'm gonna help you not have your arranged marriage. I forget what episode that happened in, but

Brent: Oh yeah. I don't know. It was a season one episode.

Jeff: Yeah. It's the one where

Brent: That's the, I forgot how to dance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That

Jeff: Great Lando moment. Great veer moments in

Brent: right? That, that part where you're like, okay, Londo man, he gets it. Like he's, he spent his whole life chasing after this and he realizes that's not it. And now he is gonna do something good with his life and then he goes and mucks it up

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: and becomes like the villain of the show.

Jeff: And I think what he's doing is he's taking Veer who has this fresh look on life and he is trying to be honest and talk about things and whatever, and he's, and he's shoving them into that tari box and being like, no, this is how we talk about things. This is how we think about things. This is what you're going to do.

I know that your, your value is that you see things differently, but nope. Tow this line

Brent: Yeah. Cause

Jeff: and Veer, veer got, finally got sick of it this time. , I'm outta

Brent: tired. VE was tired. He's been up for two days writing that reporter however long it was

Jeff: Yeah. And he is

Brent: he just needed to go to bed.

Jeff: and he is getting tired of being picked on. I think he wants, I mean, I don't think he sees this as support, but

Brent: he doesn't. He doesn't. So, but I gotta tell you though, if this is what the Royal Court really is like, and I think about that, that, you know, Lando says he is like, they don't actually want the truth.

They want to just feel like they're superior to everybody else. , and that's how you wanna write your reports. Just make 'em happy. And I mean, Jeff, if you ever, you, you're in positions. Have you ever written a report, not necessarily based on the entire truth, but you're just writing it just to make people happy so that they never come and talk to you about it again.

Jeff: it's actually, I've, I've, I'm not gonna tell the whole story. I, I talk

Brent: Don't get yourself fired, please.

Jeff: I know, right? I actually talk about this a little bit in the Star Fleet Leadership Academy, but I've gotten really good at kind of the next level of what Londo is saying, of basically, I'll say the words that you want to hear, but I'm also gonna say these other words that let you know that there's a lot more to this story. You know, like, yeah, yep. These things are, are, are trending as expected, however, expectations are not what they should be, you know, or something like that. You know, I'll be like, oh no, things are great. They're awesome. Here's your sound bite. Here's your thing you need. But also we're not aiming at the right target, and so even if we do hit it, it's not gonna help the project be successful or whatever.

Brent: right. So here's a question about Londo that I have. Oh, oh, do we wanna talk about veer? No, let's talk about Londo. Um, we've been saying how Londo has turned to an irredeemable path.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: Now to say that you're irredeemable means you cannot be redeemed.

Jeff: It's the definition.

Brent: Is is Londo actually irredeemable? Cuz his whole thing with her today was, do I have to go this way?

And she's like, you have three chances of redemption. She's like, you've already burned two,

Jeff: So we had five

Brent: left. So he had five. You are down by two, boy. Uh, he has three. Those three are, well I wanna talk about what those three are, but she says he has the ability to be redeemed. Is he still redeemable?

Jeff: I think this goes back to a conversation you and I have had on a lot of conversa on a lot of episodes, right? The conversations about justice and things like that is, is anyone truly irredeemable? You know, like if we go back to passing through Gethsemane, that was one of the points I think of that episode, is that even when you have done the absolute worst, there's still hope of redemption for

Brent: sure. As long as we erase your memory,

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. We kill your personality. But no, I think the point of the episode was like, that's the mechanism, but even for, was it Brother Edward was, yeah. Like you had your death of personality, but you as Chucky still killed all these people and you're still able to be forgiven for that. Like it's, it's okay.

I think that's the, like I never connected that dot, but I think that episode might have been a way for us to say, Hey, Londo, horrible, horrible. Also might be forgivable.

Brent: be about the reason that, that, that might be the reason that episode exists, because we have to do this thing where we understand. He has the entire story plotted out. Five seasons, 22 episodes each season. Each episode has to mean something, right? So what does this particular episode mean? It can't just be a waste.

And that that could be a, a, a thing in a storytelling deal. Um, if anybody out there has JM S's number and you wanna text him and and ask him, that'd be cool. Uh,

Jeff: Hey, is passing through Yosemite all set to make us know that Londo could, could be redeemed? Don't tell us if he is or not. Just tell us if it's set up to make us think that he can be.

Brent: So she comes in and she, she eventually says, uh, well, oh, Lando says, he says to her, all I have ever wanted is to serve our people. Now, Jeff, I don't know about you, but I believe him here.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. . I

Brent: I believe him that for Orlando's sake, it's not about him. And it's not about his ascent to the throne as emperor like it is for so many of his other people like Refa and all those other folks. Uh, what, what was, what was the dude, uh, from the first season who came to see him? Q2?

Jeff: yeah. The guy in signs in

Brent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That.

Jeff: forget his

Brent: Yeah, uh, yeah, he died. Um, , you know, those guys are really about themselves and Londo really says, he's like, listen, all I've really ever wanted to do is just serve my people. I I Did you believe in there?

Like, I bought that.

Jeff: if you go all the way back to the Gathering, midnight on the firing Line, he and Garrett Lando and Garib Baldi. Paired up. Right. You know, it's back when they were still buddies and a lot of that was Lando not talking about the greatness of Lando Maari, it was talking about the greatness of the Sonari Republic.

Like that's been his character forever. He fully identifies as, you know, the greatness of being sonari. So yeah, I, I completely bought that. In fact, like when we start talking about these three opportunities, I think that directly plays into one of them.

Brent: I, we'll, we'll get there, here in just a moment. He makes his, ask her, cuz she's like, okay, what do you really want? I want you to do your, see your thing and tell me if this vision, if I'm stuck on this vision, that's really what he wants to know is, is, is, do I have to follow this? Can I, is there a way off?

Right? And she looks at him and he's, he basically says, is there any hope? And she says, and I wrote the line down. She says, there's, oh, he's like, do I have any choice in the matter? She said, there's always a choice. We only say that there's no choice to comfort ourselves with the decisions that we have just made.

If you understand that, then there's hope. Jeff, please. Let's break this phrase down because it sounds so true.

Jeff: Yeah. And it's so much of what I have in my closing comments as well, you know, I mean, because like when we get to the Star Trek message in this whole thing and every like, It's al you always have a choice. And I think what the thing that has always just really, I don't know. I've never understood, even as a kid when people are like, well, I had no choice.

I had no choice. Y you, you literally always do, taking no action is a choice. Well, I had to do this thing. No, you could have done nothing. Like that's an option for you. There's consequences to every

Brent: Well, because do you, do you remember your, you remember your response whenever people would say that as a kid? Oh, what? Did they have a gun to your head?

Jeff: Right? Exactly.

Brent: You had a choice. Right?

Jeff: And even then you Yeah, even if they had a gun to your head, you have a choice.

Brent: have a choice,

Jeff: Uhhuh , there's always a choice. I I, I look for any opportunity I can to quote Rush anytime. And this is one where in their, their hit free will. He says, when you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: There's a choice. At no time in our existence was in the, in the movie Lean On Me. Um, I think it was, yeah, lean on Me. Morgan Freeman was in that one. He's in prison. And, and, and the you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And he looks at, at me, he is like, all I gotta do is stay black and die. And you, and I remember when I was a kid, I'm like, oh, that's kind of fu wow.

You're right. . Like, that's all.

Brent: Yeah. Apparently you don't actually have to pay taxes. Cause that used to be the thing. Cause I just gotta pay taxes and die. But you know, as

Jeff: That's

Brent: seen, you actually don't have to pay taxes, I guess.

Jeff: My, my daughter often pulls you, you have to do this, you have to do this for me. And I'm like, you know, sweetie, you'd be surprised at how little in life I actually have to do

Brent: right. Um, what, what do you think about this a, about this concept of, we only say that there's no choice to comfort yourself for the decision that you've just made that, think about that. That's, that's something else, man.

Jeff: and think about the decisions that Londo has

Brent: Yeah. Well, I had no choice to do that. Yeah, you did. You know, but I mean, when was the last time you felt like you had no choice in, in something

Jeff: I, I personally,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I, I, I don't think I've felt that way because, like, I think of myself as an empowered, enlightened individual, and I understand that I have a choice. The choice is often sucks.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Oftentimes, the choice I know I should make is not the choice I want to make. There's a, there's a real divide there sometimes, but I still make a choice.

Brent: So I can tell you the last time for.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: All right, so last fall, um, my, my dog of 10 years got cancer and died. And it happened within like two weeks. Like, it went, it went so fast. You, you remember this?

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Loved her. She was, uh, she was the worst dog ever. She really don't , she's joking. She, I mean, she was just, she was a good dog.

She was a super easy dog, super amazing. But still, she was a dog, right? Loved her kids, loved her. Um, you know, we got her while my wife was pregnant with our first child, which is always an awesome time to get an animal, by the way. Um, don't do that guys. But, uh, uh, so when, when she did pass away, like there was another spot where I was like, you know what?

I'm kind of okay not having an animal in the house for a while because we're busy. We go places. My kids are involved in sports every day of the week. We like to go travel when we get a chance. And there's always, you gotta figure out something to do with the dang dog, you know? I was like, I, and I'm okay not having a room in my house smell like dog food and having to check for accidents in the house and all this kind of stuff, you know?

So I was like, no, no dog, no animal, no animal. Now you need to know something about Brent. I'm a dog guy.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: just, I am, I'm a dog guy. And I, in my head, I was like, we're going to eventually get a dog. I'm just going to enjoy not having one for a while. Like, and I was like, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe after a while, well, shortly after h.

My wife sends me a text message with a bunch of stuff and she's like, Hey, here's this newborn litter of dogs that were just born and they're trying to give them all homes and stuff. And I'm looking through at these just adorable, cute puppies. And I'm like, and the kid, the kids, we want a dog. We want a dog.

And the wife's like, we really probably ought to get a dog. And I was the one going, no, no. Right. And she's like, how about one of these? And I went, fine. Okay. And I used the excuse, I really wasn't given a choice. The, my family wanted a dog I didn't like, they overruled me. It wasn't my call. But to be honest, the only reason why we actually now have one of these dogs, cuz we got her for Christmas, Jeff got her for Christmas.

The only reason we now have one of these dogs is because I said yes.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Because we would not have gotten that dog if I continued to say no. But I kept saying, but, but like I, this is a very sm minuscule part of this whole deal. But I, I agreed and said yes, but I used, well, I didn't have a choice to justify what truthfully was my own want because I'm a, I'm a dog guy.

I, I wanted it,

Jeff: you wanted it

Brent: I really did.

Jeff: wanted it. Yeah.

Brent: I could blame them for wanting it and not have to take responsibility, you know? And then I

Jeff: That's the thing.

Brent: now I get to be the Wow you wanted the dog not.

Jeff: right. Yeah. This, there's poop all over the place because of you. It's, but that's the thing with, with choice comes responsibility. Responsibility and accountability. And that sucks. Like it, that is a heavy, heavy burden to bear. And so instead, oh, I got no choice. Not my fault.

It's not this, not it, is it, it's you still, you still made the choice. And I feel like for Lando especially, like that was a slap in the face when she a necessary slap in the face when she said that. It's just like you are responsible, just like techno age said, you know, you're responsible for the death of millions, if not billions.

And it's because of your choice that you made and you're just trying to comfort yourself and feel better about it. Yeah. She said some hardcore stuff in this episode. Hard stuff that I think Londo has desperately needed to hear,

Brent: Yeah. Right. Uh, Anne turns out he might actually be redeemable. She says, she said, I think Orlando's request is an honorable one. And she did too. Okay. We'll, we'll do this for you. Right. Um, so she eventually gives them the thing and she gives them three options for redemption. Now, do you wanna save these or, or do we want to go through 'em?

Because I've got, I've, I, I need some. What are these gonna be?

Jeff: Yeah, let's go through 'em. Cause I, I have thoughts on what all three of

Brent: Okay. I, the first one seems to me the most easiest. Save the eye. That doesn't see. What is

Jeff: What, what do you think it is?

Brent: eye from signs importance that they, like this is the sign of the emperor and everything like that.

Jeff: You know what? I think it is

Brent: What's that?

Jeff: Ja car's eye. So in the vision where Kar has that, I like, he's gonna have to like not pop out his eyeball or he is gonna have to sa he's gonna have to somehow save Kar to get himself off of this so he doesn't lose that eye.

Brent: right, Jeff, time out.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: This one is to all of you out there writing comments right now. Okay. Jeff and I just put it out as far as like, which one? We, I think it's the I, the, the, the jewel. Jeff thinks it's Kar. I know you guys are on your keyboard. You're, you're, you're firing it off. You're blazing your keyboard right now.

This is your reminder. No spoilers. We don't wanna know which one is correct until it is revealed. Thank you. Time in.

Jeff: But I think it could be the other one as well. It's weird that they introduced the eye back in signs importance. We haven't heard anything about it since then.

Brent: Well, so what, well, I mean, that's what Morden rescued it. He gave, well, he's already saved the eye because isn't that eye in Lao's possession?

Jeff: Is it, I don't, is it in Orlando's possession or is it in dudes that got killed? I don't remember

Brent: No. No, because Morden rescued the eye and he gave it back to, to Londo at the end of the episode.

Jeff: right. Cuz dude took it and then he got killed and then he is like, Hey, here's the eye. So he has it somewhere.

Brent: Yeah, so Lando has the eye. He's, he said, unless Lando did something with it, and I just don't remember. Um, I, I kind of, I kinda wanna go back and watch just at least the end of that episode to see

Jeff: Yeah. Just kind of what he did. I could see it either way, but, but I What I what I heard that like I had the same initial shot, the thought, and then I was like, Ooh, Kar has an eye that won't be seen. Maybe he has to save that.

Brent: Now let me, let me make a case for you why the first one is not Jaar, because the second one is Kar,

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: don't kill the one who is already dead. Now, what has Kar been saying to his naar buddies? What did he hear from Ka shshsh? Jalon, you're gonna have to die, you're gonna have to sacrifice yourself, right?

Kars gonna be the one who's already dead, so don't kill the one who's whatever. Like that obviously has a metaphorical or metaphysical meaning, you know, unless it's zombie kar, maybe that's why he is got the eye and everything and like, it's, it's space. Zombie kar. That's what we end this year with. Uh, but he says, yeah.

Jeff: I thought it was gonna be more about, it's gonna be more about, um, condemning someone's reputation, right? So he's gonna come to a point where he has to like condemn Emperor Turhan, like publicly. You have to say this thing about Emperor Turhan to make whatever work and so don't kill him. He's already dead.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Don't kill him. Which speaks a little bit to some of the other stuff that Lady Morrell was saying about greatness and how like when you're dead, then people can say you're great. So don't kill him again. Just let him be great.

Brent: Hmm. Interesting. All right. And the third one says, surrender yourself to your greatest fear, knowing it will destroy you. What is Longo's greatest fear?

Jeff: Losing the Sonari Republic, the thing he wants to serve being gone.

Brent: Yeah. I think it's, it's going to have to be something of that nature, right? Um, I think, I think that's it as well. His, his greatest fear is the, the centara dying or whatever. Yeah.

Jeff: What do you say the odds are

Brent: Uhhuh.

Jeff: of him? Um, how many of these do you think he's gonna blow of these three chances?

Brent: I mean, from a, from a storytelling standpoint, I, because she gave them in a specific order, right? So from a storytelling standpoint, it, we should see him try the third first one and then fail, try the second one, and then fail, and then try the third one, and finally succeed because it's got to get to the redemption of Lando Malari by the end.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Unless they're gonna subvert expectations and there is no redeeming milando. Um, which I don't think we're in that, in the mid nineties like that just yet. So it's either that or he does all three of them.

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: And I, I given the first two in the, that those are in, in a specific order. I kind of feel like all three of these might be the thing.

Like he does all three of em.

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: You know, that's, that's my guess. I could be wrong. I probably am no spoilers folks,

Jeff: Yeah, I feel like I, there's two subversions of expectations there. There's the one where it's like, Nope, he's a bad guy and he's evil and horrible. I agree. In the nineties we weren't telling stories like that. If this came out now, today, yeah, we might, we might have that ending to this, but the other one is, hey, he nails it.

Three for three or three for five. Because, because I agree. Like the story, just classic writing is this is your last chance and he's about to make a choice. And then there's a flashback to, to lady, you know, whatever her name is. Lady Morrell saying, you have three Cho Oh my God. And he makes the call and Yay, Londo saved.

That's pretty paint by numbers, but I mean, it's not bad.

Brent: then that means he loses the eye that that doesn't see, and he has killed the one who is already dead, you know? And, and I, I don't know that I want him to do that, like,

Jeff: Yeah. But it's literally, it's literally, um, what was it, uh, John and denying Jesus three times on the night he was crucified, or was it No, that was, that was uh, that was, that was Peter. Peter. Yeah. Same thing where it's like, oh, I'm just gonna do this thing. I'm just gonna do this thing. And then you hear the cock crow and you're like, oh no.

Brent: I just did it. Right.

Jeff: Yeah, I can totally see it being

Brent: Yeah. Now John was the one who like stayed so close that Jesus was eventually like, take care of my mom, dude.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like, um, anyway,

Jeff: John the beloved.

Brent: right. Uh, so Londo is gonna be the emperor. We have confirmed that, at least as far as the vision goes, but she did say with pretty good certainty, like, you will be emperor.

You're not getting out of that one.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Like, so despite all the, you know, the future's unwritten in, because remember I had a big problem with that back in signs importance. And she's like, oh, this is the vision. I see. This is the vision. I see. And then she's like, well, it might not be. And I'm like, you take all the teeth out of a, out of a prophecy when you do that.

Like,

Jeff: Well, I wonder too if like, if he had not blown the other two things. Like is that like he Yeah, he, he, exactly. Yeah. That's a good question. But I wonder if like, if he had not blown one of 'em or not blown both of them, would there then be a chance he wasn't gonna be emperor, but it's like, nope, you blew these things and so now you're on this path and this is gonna happen.

Brent: Yeah. So he's going to be emperor. Uh, we, we saw, again, the vision of him coughing, which by the way, you remember when he saw him cough that one time back in somewhere in season two?

Jeff: that was the fall of night.

Brent: was, was it that it was that late in the season? And we're like, he's coughed. Oh, that's a, that's a thing. We haven't seen him cough once,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: know?

So anyway, but, uh, uh, he's going to be emperor and then she turns around and she goes, oh, by the way, Vera, you're also gonna be emperor. Now, Jeff, I've got, I've gotta show you something.

Okay.

You, you have no idea that this is coming. For those of you out there that are watching the, or listening to the audio feed, I beg you, go to our YouTube channel and watch this. I'm gonna play for you a clip from my Brent Watches video

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: of this moment when she tells veer that, uh, uh, he's gonna be emperor.

Jeff: So real quick, just so people know, I generally don't watch the Brent watches videos until after we record this, so I haven't seen this. So this is, this is gonna be new for all of us. Cool.

Brent: Yeah. So, uh, Jeff's never seen this one. All right. You ready here? I, I realized in the middle of laughing that I was matching Vera's laugh,

Jeff: Yeah. You have a very veer, very veer laugh.

Brent: Oh man.

Jeff: Wow. It says so much though that like that was your reaction. That was his reaction. That was your

Brent: Well, and then when she's like, I'm not joking, like he stops laughing and so did, I was like, oh,

he pointed, I pointed it was, oh. Um, so, so she basically gives him like the, the professor Tani prediction, like neither can live while the other survives. Like one of you is gonna be, you're both gonna be emperor, but one of you only be after the other one dies.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Right. Um, my assumption is Londo is the emperor first and then he's gonna die, and then it's veer later on.

Uh, my All right, you ready? Prediction time.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Get it out. And, and I hate to say this, but I believe that this show is gonna have to end with Longo's death and veer ascends to the throne afterwards. Okay. I hate the idea that Londo dies because that means that anything past this point, Londo is not a part of it.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: And we know there's a few, a few, uh, movies and stuff like that, but I really, there's, you know what this feels like to me. This feels like rom becoming the Grand Nagus at the end of deep

Jeff: a hundred per, I was just thinking the exact same thing.

Brent: Yep. Just, of, of all the people to get that spot. It's this guy right

Jeff: Well, and the thing is too, cuz like Vere's gonna do the same thing. Ron becomes the Grand Negus and he starts putting all these reforms in place and, and, you know, changing the, the, the course of Ganar and the Farge veer is gonna do the exact same. As the Centara emperor, he is gonna start rolling stuff back and changing things.

It, it is, it is very much gonna be the same difference being that like quirk would have to die for rom to become Grand Naus, you know, like a beloved character in this and that. I agree. It's like, I don't want Londo to die. Also, like he looks super old in the vision is Lando and there's only a year and a half left, or two and a half years left.

Brent: a time jump, Jeff?

Jeff: We have to,

Brent: Oh my gosh. I

hope we don't get a time jump. Ugh. I hate time jumps because it's like, that just feels like cheating.

Jeff: or it'll be like the end of the first season of Kaka where they're like, okay, episodes done, we're canceled. So I'm gonna give you a 20 minute like narrative on all the cool stuff we were gonna do after this sort of a thing.

Brent: Basically. Season four of enterprise,

Jeff: Exactly. Hey, here you go. Can it be this? Nope. Nope. Oh

Brent: um, the, the ending scene between Londo and Veer sitting on that couch was comic gold. They're both looking at each other. Eye ain't each other down. Cause they don't know, they don't know who's first. Right? like, you wanna go to dinner? No, I'm not hungry. I made your favorite. Sp they said sp we got a SP reference.

Jeff: But dude, like this is gonna color every interaction they have moving forward. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the moment that Veer is written off the show, you know, not written off, but written part-time where he's, he's gonna go hide out in Minbar.

Brent: I, I hope not cuz I, because Londo needs vera's his conscience and it doesn't, it doesn't need to always be sli, you know, uh, filtered. Are you trying to kill me? know what I mean? So I hope they figure it out. I, I'm, I'm confident in j m S's writing to have that figured out. Even if that's not the way he goes with it.

I'll be cool with it when it gets there. But I, you know, veer veer needs to be longo's conscience. It doesn't need to be this weird, awkward, but the comedy of that long was so

Jeff: great. And I think do what they have going for them is neither one of them wants to be emperor. You know? So it's not like the traditional, like I Claudias sort of a thing where constant assassination attempts and whatever cuz they want power. Like they're both gonna be dodging the whole thing cuz neither one of like, they're both hands off like, no, I don't want it, I don't want you take it.

I don't want it.

Brent: right. Jeff, do you have anything else about, uh, lady Morere, Lando Vir, this whole situation?

Jeff: Well, I've got, do we wanna talk about Major Barrett? Yeah. Yeah. Cause that, that's what I, that's what I have left. Anything else I have around all of this

Brent: you can buzz yourself once and it will cover everything of this conversation.

Jeff: I don't know that I'm gonna have to buzz myself

Brent: Okay. Fair enough.

Jeff: Because I'm gonna look at Major Barrett as the actor, not Major Barrett, as the

Brent: Star Trek reference.

Jeff: matriarch of Star Trek.

So,

Brent: Fair enough.

Jeff: so you saw her name in the credits. What, like what did you think when you saw, saw her name?

Brent: So, I, I thought it was really cool that she was gonna be in it. And my question was, why is she in this? Because what we know, whether or not you believe that Deep Space Nine ripped off, babble on five, we do know that that was the belief and that there is some bad blood out there. Right. Um, I said a couple weeks ago that there's, that what really is going on between Babylon five and, and Deep six nine is not really this like, um, super high-end animosity as much as just they're taking shots at each other.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: You know, because Star Trek wants to be the only kid on the block, you know, and they're, they're just gonna try to throw around their weight and push people out and, you know, B five is just gonna slap back and they're going to, they're gonna go back and forth. So, like, I really, I was like, my first thought was, is this a peace offering type situation?

Or like, cuz bringing Major Barrett into the Babbel on Five World is not, Hey, she was looking for a job and, and she went and auditioned for the casting agent. That's what a a Vaughn Armstrong. Jeffrey Combs, uh, Paul Winfield, uh, I mean, any of these people that are Star Trek folk, um,

Jeff: Walter

Brent: Walter Kig. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, like, you don't, this, this was a, it felt like a very intentional. I don't know if you said it here when we hit record or if it was before we hit record, but you said you looked up Major Barrett and she only has a handful of credits to her name outside of Star Trek,

Jeff: Yeah, I was

Brent: like she's a prolific actress.

Actress out there working.

Jeff: It's in her IMDB page is fascinating in that, you know, up before Star Trek, she's got a, a handful, you know, like in, in the sixties and then after Star Trek in the seventies and early eighties, she's got a couple, you know, the, the Star Trek movies in there. But she was never like, she was definitely a working actor, but she was never like out hitting it, you know, all the time getting everything.

But then she was on, you know, cast for Star Trek, the Next Generation, both as locks on a Troy and as the voice of the computer from the next generation all the way to the end of her career. She has seven non Star Trek credits and she has like 20 credits after t n G video games and uh, you know, web series or whatever, all this Star Trek stuff, but only seven.

That are non Star Trek and Babylon five is one of those. So you're right. Like it's a big deal that she's here.

Brent: What did you think when you first, because did you catch the name or did you see her?

Jeff: I didn't, I I saw her and it took me, I heard her before I saw her. Yeah.

Brent: And that's the way works. You hear her before you

Jeff: yeah. And it was funny cause I heard her and I was like, is that, and then I saw her and I'm like, oh, no, no it's not. And then like, it spent a second honor, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, it is holy crud. And that's, so I went on this journey where that was my, the, the, the whole thought process.

How, why, what, so I, I didn't wanna start Googling, you know, oh, major Barrett and Babylon five, because who knows what's in that minefield out there. So I went to her IMDB page, found this stuff out. But in that, I found a news article in the Chicago Tribune that came out just about the same time as this episode came out in early 96.

Brent: so that should be spoiler safe,

Jeff: Yes, yes. Yeah. There's nothing, nothing afterwards on this. And it really talks about, a lot of it talked about just Major Barrett and, you know, the, the, the work that she had done and that she was married to Jean Roddenberry and, and, and all that stuff. But what it said is that she had met j m s a handful of times at conventions and they'd gotten to know each other a little bit and had a level of respect.

The script for this came across her desk and because she knew j m s, she's like, yeah, I'll give it a look. I'll, I'll, I'll look at this thing. And she thought it was a great script. Yeah, I'll take this.

Brent: for her?

Did he write this

Jeff: didn't say that. They didn't in the article, it didn't say, but that almost makes sense. If, if he had, and it's weird, I don't know how many scripts come across her desk, you know,

Brent: Right.

Jeff: Yeah.

But it did, and she was into it. J m s sent her a handful of episodes cuz she wasn't really watching it, but she was aware of the noise out there. And so she, she chose to take the job for two big reasons according to the article. One was she liked the script, thought this was gonna be a, a meaty thing for her to, to dive into.

But secondly, to show people that like, it's cool to like both shows. she actually had a quote, um, well she talked a lot and there's a number of quotes in the article where she talks about one, she's like, their budget is a fraction of a Star Trek series budget. Like it's a whole different ballgame.

And what they're having to do creatively is wild, she says. Then secondly, that star. Is a wildly different show than Babylon five. Like there's not a comparison. They're not even on the same plane. And that doesn't mean one is better than the other. She says Star Trek's about individuals and people and the stories of what people, you know, have to do and become or whatever.

Babylon five is an intergalactic universe spanning novel, na dramatic story that's being told at the beginning with a middle and an end. And her big quote that I thought was great was that both shows are excellent unto themselves. And so really the whole thing was just, hey, it's cool to like both shows and also they're both great.

Brent: which that actually sounds very familiar, Jeff.

Jeff: It does kind of,

Brent: I wonder if there's anyone I know that has said that out there to anybody

Jeff: or kind of kind of made it like the point of their creation they

Brent: lit. Literally, you know, Jeff, uh, we've, we've talked about this a little bit recently. Um, jms is, he's out there. Uh, and from, from everything we can tell, we try to stay away from a lot of JM S'S stuff because we are, we understand that it's, spoiler, you don't have to warn us guys. We got it. Okay. But I, I do know that he's fairly active out there with the Babylon five community and that, uh, he seems to be somewhat aware of the talk that's going on out there, you know, and, and given that Babylon five does not have the same, uh, I dunno what the right word is.

There's a million Star Trek podcasts out there. When we started this show, we counted like three, and I think two of those were inactive . Like, you know, uh, I don't think it was that low, but it was, I mean, it was on one hand, you know, um, it would not shock me if j m s was at least aware of this show. I'm not saying he listens, but it also would not shock me that as soon as he sees not a Star Trek podcast, or he hears our opening, which is we are two veterans Star Trek podcasters looking for Star Trek like messages in Babylon five.

And he just goes, ah, these guys. Like I, I don't know. In my head, that's the way he does. Like in my head, we are not JM S's favorite people.

Jeff: Yeah. I don't, I don't think he, if he heard us, I don't think he'd be a fan

Brent: I don't, I don't either. 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 this show is watching i i is putting ourselves in this, uh, like you your phrase, owning our bias, putting ourselves in this 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 the would happen as we went through this show. This is gonna be a fan freaking fantastic show by the time we get to the end.

You know what, for here, let me spoil the end of Babylon five for the first time for everybody out there, you wanna know what we're gonna say when we get to the end of the show. Jeff,

Jeff: What are we gonna

Brent: this show is not Star Trek

Jeff: at all?

Brent: all. Like that's where we're getting to this point. We're just going on the journey. I'm gonna spoil it for you.

The name of the show is BAB one five. For the first time

Jeff: Not a Star Trek podcast,

Brent: that this is not a Star Trek show, there's a reason we started with Deltas. We have now Ed Deltas and Star furries. Jeff, you and I have never talked about. It wouldn't surprise me if by the end of this season or next season, we drop Deltas and we just go with star furries. I don't know if we're gonna do that or not.

We might, but that's my guess as far as where this show's gonna go. Where we are right now in the life of the show, star furries and Deltas are sitting side by side. Right.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: All that being said, I love, I thank you so much for finding that article about Ma Parrot. Both shows are good, both shows are individual and they're not the same thing.

And that's okay.

Jeff: It's

Brent: I saw a comment, gosh, I don't know how long ago it was, but somebody, uh, might have been like our Discord channel, uh, with, with our patrons or, but somebody was like, it was to the effect of I'm an old school Babylon five fan and I keep trying to watch DS nine and I just can't bring myself to it because of all the stuff, you know, and listen, if, if you are listening and that's you, if, if this was the Paton or if it's not, I don't care who, whoever you are, I would encourage you get over it because they are not the same show.

Jeff: People don't watch Deep Space Nine and watch Babylon five and be like, oh my gosh, there's so many comparisons. I can't watch this. They watch Babylon five and go, man, this is a great show. This is awesome. Do the same thing with Deep Space Nine. It's a great

Brent: think, I think that's what the comment said was, it's easier for people to go from Deep Space Night to Babylon five than it is to go from Babylon five to deep night to, to be fair. That was, I think, the, the premise of that, of that comment.

Jeff: I, I, I think it's easier because of your own stuff and the own, your own baggage you're carrying into it. Let yeah, bring, let it go. Just enjoy the show and let it

Brent: because you know what, if you're carrying that baggage, that's a choice you're making to continue to carry it.

Jeff: Exactly. And if you think you don't have a choice in making that choice, that's only to comfort you for the decision you have already

Brent: to keep that baggage. That's the decision you made to keep the baggage you can choose to not do it. Anyway, Jeff, we're supposed to be talking about an episode

Jeff: Yeah. Hey, real quick, programming note. We're an hour and 11 minutes in. We still have two whole plot points to talk to, talk through before we even

Brent: this was a massive episode. Not surprising at all. And there was still all the ending stuff we have to do for the

Jeff: Ah-huh. . YouTube. You're great. Thank you for sticking with us. We got a lot more great conversation coming, just acknowledging that you're amazing and that you're sticking through us.

Brent: So should we go to Gar Baldy next? His might be a little on the easier side to get through.

Jeff: Um, we, we can do, I dunno about easy cuz I have a lot of thoughts about

Brent: Do

Jeff: on this one. I have a lot.

Brent: cuz it, because the, well the, the two plots I've got is I've got Gar Baldy and then we've got Sheridan and, and the stuff with the Marshall Law. Is

Jeff: I also have, we have a little bit on Kar, but I, I think that wraps into the Marshall Law stuff.

Brent: okay, let's go to Garabaldi then. Um, so, and, and specifically with Garabaldi, this kind of reps in the Marshall. Earth Force, the political office has said no more security force. It's everybody who's, uh, it's everybody who's Night watch. Night watch is basically filtering out people. Only one person said, no, I'm out.

Okay. Uh, which I do want to ask about that, but then Garabaldi goes down to bust some heads and try to beg 'em not to do it. He yells at Zack a lot and nobody agrees with him. And then he walks out with his head down like he does a walk of shame out of the room effectively. Right. What do you think about Garabaldi in this whole situation? I'm gonna let you just talk. Go.

Jeff: Brent, if you and I were in this situation, and all of a sudden you're like, Jeff, you're wearing an Earth Force shirt. Where's your night? Watch Armand. Where's your, where's your Armand? Dude? And I was like, Brent, we've been working together for so long. Look at me. What? How could you do this to me? How could you wear that armband?

That's offensive to me, me, me, me. Eventually you're gonna be like, dude, I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about us. Like, why are you freaking out about me? Garabaldi walked in there like the most toxic, aggressive, horrible boss you have ever had in your life. It doesn't matter. That you joined Earth Force because you wanted to be in the military.

It doesn't matter that you joined the security team because you wanna protect the people that live on Babylon five. All that matters to Gar Baldy is that you worked for him and that he did. He goes to God and he is like, dude, no one else would give you a job. I gave you a job. You owe me. You owe me. What do you, this is a personal betrayal to me.

I, I had a job a long time ago and I left it for a promotion and I got fired from that promotion. It's actually the best thing that ever happened to me. It was a terrible job. I wasn't cut out for it, but my old job let me come back and take my old position back. It was very generous to them. It was great and I liked the job.

It was okay. But it was became a thing where the, the, the director would say to me, well, you know, Jeff, I didn't have to bring you back, didn't have to bring you back. But I did whenever she wanted me to do some like, horrible stuff. And it took me, I don't know, four or five months to like gain the internal confidence to be like, you know what Lady F you I'm here because I'm good at my job. Yes, you gave me a chance. I have earned that back. I'm good now. But Garrett Baldy ran in there like a child and it was immature. And and and pointed. If he walked in there and he was like, people look night, watch, you're all members of night. Why are you a member of Night Watch?

Because you care about Earth. You're a member of Night Watch cuz you want to protect the people around you. Well, you know what we do here on the security team? We protect people. We watch out for the interest that we do those things. You don't need an arm band to do that. We can do it together. We've been do point him to the bigger cause, but man, he failed huge failure.

I wouldn't have followed him. Especially when you have Star Trek security guy sitting right there who was way, way into his power trip. And it's like, yeah, that guy has authority. You don't anymore and you're being a jerk. I'm out. right, I'll jump off my soapbox.

Brent: So the first thing I noticed in this, uh, particular instance, and I, I loved the way j m s set this up. It actually started with a conversation between Sheridan and Garibaldi. Garibaldi was about to go half cocked off into the, into the, you know, blue yonder to, to go get these guys. And Sheridan pulls 'em back and he said he cast vision, he lays it out.

He says, I need you. He tries to bring him into it. Sheridan is leading great gu. Baldy is not following at all. Gu Baldy is so wrapped up in his own stuff, and I think you're right. He took it personal when he needed to not take it personal, and Sheridan was just trying to calm down. We got a great picture of what it should have looked like with Sheridan.

Jeff: right there.

Brent: You know what I mean? Um, and then he goes down and he gets, uh, intercepted by Zach. Right? And Garabaldi just chews out Zach. He has no time for Zach. Nothing Zach says is correct. And my first thought there was he never leads. Zach, I'm thinking back over the last bunch of episodes, he doesn't lead you. Now, leadership is your, is your situation and, and little bit of mine, but mostly yours.

You have the whole show about it in Zach's words he doesn't trust. And by him, I mean Garabaldi, Garibaldi doesn't lead. Garabaldi doesn't trust. He just barks and barks. And then he has the gall to act hurt when Zach doesn't comply when Zach is a grown ass man. Right? . And, and you and I both sit back and think like, cuz we see the look on Zack's face during this whole night watch stuff.

We've seen it for multiple episodes. Like, why do you still have that armband on your on your arm? Why are you there? What reason has Garabaldi given him to take it off?

Jeff: None at all. In fact, all he's doing is pushing him. He, he's actively not ju I wouldn't say pushing him to night watch, but he's pushing him away. But guess who's welcoming him? Guess who's making sure he knows when the meetings are? You

Brent: Security guy number one. He's like, Hey, come on. He says, Hey, you're gonna be the security guy now. You're the guy. I'm gonna promote you. I you have all these questions, but I'm still gonna bring you in and give you real response. Come sit at the table with me while we check everybody.

Jeff: because I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna listen to you. I'm even, I mean, I'm gonna blow it off a little bit, but I'm gonna kind of explain away what we're doing. I'm gonna, at least, I'm gonna at least make you feel like you're included.

Brent: not saying that that guy was good, but he was doing something that Gar Baldi wasn't. But then I'm sitting here, Jeff, and I'm watching this whole line of people, one person turned in his badgeing gun, everybody else accepted the arm band. And then you see everybody out there who is a part of night watch, right?

And the thought occurs to me, why are so many people on board, the station on board with night watch? Why? Why are more people not being like, Hey, this, this isn't right. This isn't okay. This isn't why I signed on to be a security person, unless it was, to be honest with you. Is it for their own power trip?

Remember what security guys, number one, Babylon five belongs to the night Watch. Now , right? Is it, is it really their own power trip? Uh, Zach clearly wasn't comfortable, but he stayed. Or is it because if Gar Baldy was a better leader, more of the security folks would be not okay with night watch.

Jeff: If everything you do is a leader you expect to get paid back for if it's transactional like it apparently is with Garabaldi. Dude, I hooked you up with your wife. Where's my payback for that? Yeah, I'm gonna go anywhere else. But I think quite a few other ones turned in their badge and gun. I think they just showed us the one when Garabaldi flipped the table, there was a small stack of weapons on it.

And then I think near the end when they were talking about when he locked up night watch when Sheridan did his, his super cool thing at the end, uh, I think it was Franklin made the come, he's like, our security forces cut in half now and I think, I think it was in half. So like half went night watch, half didn't.

Brent: Fair

Jeff: that was the gap they had to fill. But still, if half are down for it, let's just run it by the numbers. Half of security is down with night watch. I'm gonna say at least a third of them. Are, are Zach going along to get along, like whatever, there's a third that are just like, Hey, they pay me 50 more credits a week.

A week, whatever. And then a third of 'em are SG one. You know, just like, yeah, let's go beat up some aliens and beat up some shopkeepers.

Brent: if I could amend what you just said, they're the middle third, the, hey, they're paying me 50 x I think more of that Middle third is like, Hey, this is our job. This is what we do. We are Earth Force people, and this is what our president is now telling us to do.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Like, like it's, it's not a, Hey, we're on a power trip.

It's just No, this is actually what we're here. Like, we're being told by our commander-in-chief to do this.

Jeff: yeah. I'm security. They're telling me we gotta do security. This is what I

Brent: and this is my job and this is how I keep my job, so I'm gonna do that. You know? Uh, but I really think, you know, if Garabaldi was a better leader, that none, this would not have been an issue.

And I get it from a writing standpoint and even from a thing of like, Hey, not so much that you owe me, I hooked you up with your wife. I did this, I brought you in, I gave you a chance as much as, Hey, we have an established relationship, you can trust me. But what he didn't do is he didn't cast a vision for why they shouldn't be a part of night watch.

He didn't tell them why what Earth Force is trying to do is wrong. He didn't tell, like, he, he, it was just a, Hey, just follow me. Just be with me because as you said, you owe me. We have the relationship. Stay with me. And they're like, no,

Jeff: You know, I I, the second time I watched the epi, third time actually, I watched, I watched this. This is a great episode, by the way. We've talked about that a little third time I watched this episode. During that scene, I was just thinking to myself, this was my favorite character out of the first season.

Brent: Gar Baldi.

Jeff: Yeah. Gar Baldi. I'm like, I can't, I can't stand this, this season so far, what? Nine episodes in? And I'm just like, it has been fail after fail after fail with him.

Brent: That's, that's sad.

Jeff: Yeah. But I think, but, but like the saving grace in a lot of it, like he said, it was Sheridan. Sheridan was both amazing in this episode and a really great example of one of the biggest dangers of leadership as well. Um, I think he was outta touch with some stuff in this one. That was not his fault in any way, but for the most part, he was fantastic.

I loved, loved when he pulled the group together in the C N C and just told him like, Hey guys, this is what's going down. This is what's happening and what it means for you. That was, that was it. Excellent leadership, great management.

Brent: him what he expected. I, I want you guys just to keep doing your job as normal. And then he told them why that was my favorite part. He said, because people out there are gonna be freaking out and we need you to help them just feel like things are normal so we don't flip everybody out. You know?

Uh, again, that casting that vision, letting people know why they're doing what they're doing so that they can keep doing it. And, you know, the part that I found most compelling was, uh, the lieutenant that just got promoted.

Jeff: Yeah. Corwin.

Brent: he's down there. He's the only one on in C N C who's allowed to talk, by the way, he's the only

Jeff: You gotta got, gotta be a lieutenant to talk.

Brent: Right, right. Or, you know, part of the actors union , you know, uh, right, right. Uh, his question goes, what did we do wrong?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I'm like, that's, I mean, can you, what are people thinking? Like, why, why are we doing this? What did we do wrong? How did, how did we get to this spot?

Jeff: yeah. Well I think,

Brent: usually, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Jeff: oh, I was just gonna say like we can talk about that a little bit, but more than that to talk, to pick up on the Sheridan as a leader thing, he's created this safe space where Corwin can ask that and not be afraid. If this was Zach asking security guard number one about that he, he'd be terrified of what was gonna happen to him, but Corwin feels comfortable asking that.

And was it last week or the week before? A week before where Ivanova had to feel him out and see if he was cool with like the stuff going on, the pro anti earth stuff. And she asked him two questions and is like, . A guy who's not, a guy who is cool with the stuff Sheridan and crew are doing is the guy who asks questions like that.

Brent: yeah. So what that brought to me though, when he said, what have we done? And my answer for that usually is, because you didn't do. Because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. And in my own life, uh, there was, uh, several years ago I was a part of an organization, very large organization. Lots of people.

Lots of people. And it was a great organization, but it slowly started being not great. And it slowly started focusing in on, uh, leadership. Leadership went bad, basically, you know, and I, I was very much kind of like middle part of that, maybe upper middle, like, you know, like I, I was there, but I was kind of an arms distance away, you know?

And there, I remember like within the organization, like there was some stuff you're like, I don't know if that's cool or not, but that's not my job, so whatever, I'm gonna let it go. And things just got worse and worse until all of a sudden everything just blew up. And, and we all kind of had to deal with that, that those, those people in leadership were removed and gone.

And we had to deal with the fallout of this, you know? And when you sat back and you go, well, why is this happening? Why are we having to go through all this stuff now? What is going on? And the answer was like, what? It was this question, what did we do wrong? Well, you didn't speak up

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: now in a political situation, how do you speak up? Is it protesting? Is it, you know, are you just gonna protest every single thing that a leader does that you don't like? No. You know, I, I don't know what they could have done differently, especially the guys out at B five, like they're just doing their jobs, you know? Um, but you know, I think back to a couple years ago in America, in our own country, and we hear it's not just Americas, we've heard about this in various countries all over the world.

It, I'm just closest to the one that's my own country, where basically we had a leader who tried to take over and stay in power beyond his time. And a lot of people jumped into that. And you sit back and you go, how did we get to this spot? Because certain people didn't do, and frankly, how did we get there?

Because certain people, particularly those who were in power, didn't step up and say, no, you know, uh, and, and that's what we did wrong. That's typically the answer. I don't know what the answer is here, but when I sit back and go, what did we do wrong? Well, you let Clark get in office,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: you know?

Jeff: the, and we saw the warning signs, right? We saw the warning signs when they were reading that newspaper article that said Cyco was breaking election rules by endorsing a vice presidential candidate. We saw the signs when he was gonna get off the ship, you know, at at io we saw them. Of course, you know, we're watching this show.

I think, I think it is a good question of what could the people at Babylon five do? But I do think it's important, like, as a message to, to, to build onto what you're saying is that, You can always do something, you know, and we've seen this over the past six, seven, well, gosh, 8, 7, 8 months now in Iran with the women finally standing up against the oppressive religious regime there and, and, and, and, and being tortured and, and murdered and killed to stand up for this, the, to, to the message that Kar had that, you know, NANS must sacrifice themselves for, for this to happen.

People take those things to that level. But what takes you there, you're right, it's, it's generally inaction. You know, the people who are like, ah, it doesn't matter who, my vote doesn't count, so I'm just not gonna vote. Whatever. Or the all I vote for this one, cuz they're, the, the, the better of the two horrible choice,

Brent: Yeah. The,

Jeff: better of the two horrible choices is still horrible.

Brent: yeah, yeah,

Jeff: and, and we do those things that leads lead to that. But I think as a, again, as a leadership guys, as a management thing, every leader should create a place where people are, are, feel open in questioning. Not necessarily disobeying, but just asking the question, why? Tell me why we're doing this. Great.

Please question me. You know, I always tell people that I work with question because it will do one of two things. It'll either help me help you understand the course we're taking, or it will help me understand and see that we're making some bad choices and need to shift. Course. There's no bad that comes out.

Brent: right. And you know, so to Corwin the man himself, what is it he could have done differently? I don't know that there's much he could have done except maybe ask his boss, which was Sheridan. Hey. So, uh, did he actually kill him?

Jeff: right?

Brent: Did Clark actually kill the president? Because that's not cool. Hey boss, why are we letting night watch be here on the station

Jeff: You know, I would

Brent: really, that's the limit that Corwin could do.

Jeff: I would say for Corwin could, it's like of everyone and, and this, this might, this is probably dramatically oversimplifying it, but I think one person we know did the right thing to stop all this from happening. And that's Ivanova because a Vva did not vote for Santiago because of Clark running.

Remember she said she didn't like a guy with, she said, uh, I'm not gonna vote for him. His running mate has two. I don't trust a guy with so many chins.

Brent: really?

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I remember her saying that, but I didn't realize that it was about Clark not

Oh,

Jeff: about the vice president, so she made a choice. One one, this is the big one. She made a choice to vote one, two, she made a choice to vote against the guy, so she's used everything in her scope of.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: to stop this from happening. You know, I mean, because, and, and maybe, maybe that reasoning isn't great, you know, not voting for someone cuz of their chins.

I don't know. She saw it as a, you know, reflection of his personality and character. But, but yeah, it is hard because I think that's the thing. It's really easy to boil a down and say, well, what can I do? I'm just one person. I'm just a lieutenant junior grade and the c and c, what could I do? Whatever. But if you and then sort of someone coming through the jump gate lady who also works in C N C and the guy at this Olo and all these people do something, well then it could make a difference.

Brent: right, because then that acts on Sheridan to be like, actually, we've gotta do something here. You know? And Sheridan talks to whatever, and, and this is happening. Imagine that's now happening around all of Earth force in the various things. And now you have the military captain saying, Hey, this isn't right.

And they're talking to the senators. And if the senators get a backbone and stop playing the political game. What, as Lando told us at the beginning of the episode, intelligence is not a part of politics.

Jeff: exactly. And that's, and that's what we see

Brent: with politics. What'd you have on Ja?

Jeff: really. That, that his, his, um, the two things I had is one that he, he's really starting to hone his vision down into understanding that it's gonna be a full, like Nans have to give up everything, but the other big.

Brent: I'm sorry. Do you think it really means that they have to sacrifice themselves? Like physically die? Or is this, is this a, a metaphor for something else? Just be willing to, like, what is, what does this actually mean that we have to be sacrificed to save stuff? What, what is that?

Jeff: So I think it has to do with his, the, the, the key that flipped in his brain where he understood that that great other that's out there is the universe itself. And we heard that in another episode here recently. I forget which one, but someone else talked about the universe being a thing and we heard back in passing through Yosemite.

That's the minbar belief that the, we're all, all of our life forms, our souls are the universe working to figure it out. I think the Nans have to sacrifice their identity as a singular racial group, as Nans and understand they are part of this bigger, greater universe. And it's not about advancing the Narn regime, it's about improving the universe.

Brent: You know what it could be, this occurs to me right now because you, you said you thought that, uh, don't kill the one who is not, or, or the one who's already dead. You said you thought that might be Kar himself, right?

Jeff: Turn, turn. I thought the, I was gonna be

Brent: You thought the eye was gonna be, oh, save the eye. That doesn't seem you thought it was Okay.

Well, okay then let me go to my other thought then. What I thought you said, what if, what if that thing we saw of Kar with the missing eye and all that, what if that is space Zombie? Ja. And literally in order for the, for the Nans to save the universe, they all have to die so that they can be resurrected and now be this like massive army military that they've never been able to be before.

They all gotta die.

Jeff: Right. Babylon five, season five Dawn of the Dead I could totally see that, but no. And then I think the other big thing with Shakara, of course, is that he just called Sheridan out straight up and he is like, look, I know you got something going on. I want

Brent: loved it. Loved it should have happened a long time ago, in my opinion. Of all the people on the station you can trust to bring into this, Kar is the one,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: you know,

Jeff: I mean, look what he's accomplishing on Narn from a desk as just a dude. Right. You bring him in as a citizen. Yeah. Bring him in to the war council and just like plug into everything he can accomplish. Oh my gosh.

Brent: Although to be, well, especially given his knowledge of shadows, right?

Jeff: Yeah. He's the only one.

Brent: yeah, exactly. If this was an earth force, hey, we're really just against Cycore and the stuff that's going on back home that has absolutely nothing to do with Jaar,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: but this is a big piece about the shadows as well.

Here's my biggest question about Jaar, and this is really light. There's not deep at all. They keep calling. Citizen Jaar. Citizen Jaar. Now, I understand when Lando first called him that it was to emphasize he was no longer ambassador. And then the second time we heard him was when that guy who was supposed to come like replace him also said, no, no, no.

Your Citi, you're not ambassadors or your citizen Jaar. They like it. This was being used to say, you're not an ambassador anymore. It was really a negative thing. But this guy is Citizen Jaar. Citizen Jaar. He's just continuing to call him Citizen Jaar. Why do we keep referring to this guy? Citizen Jaar?

Jeff: I think he sees it as an honorific.

Brent: Now

Jeff: Yeah. No, like they, like, I think that other dude and Londo were like little C citizen jaar. And Telon is capital C

Brent: one of us. One

Jeff: Well, exactly. Yeah. Not only one of us, but the best of us.

Brent: Mm.

Jeff: Maybe not the best, but like the one who represents all of us.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: You know, I, I mentioned, I mentioned talking about Sheridan, that I think he made a mistake, and I don't think it was an intentional mistake.

This is a mistake of what happens with high powered leadership. So he gets the order, the Babylon five's going under martial law and he is like, yeah, I'm gonna share this when I can stomach it. Which is great. You want to make sure when you got a message like this, you want to be on your game, right? And put it together.

But the way they put that scene together, where the riot was starting, and the riot notably, was when residents of Babylon five were cheering on General Hague's ships. And then the riot was these residents against night watch. Like it's totally, the government is totally disconnected from the people and they're fighting.

But this riot's going on and you see these TVs everywhere and it's Sheridan reading this very well prepared speech laying down that, hey, don't start a riot night. Watch is in charge. There's martial law, like reading the whole thing. And then it, then like people are getting beat up and it's horrible. And then it gets done and it turns off and Franklin walks in and he is like, oh dude, that was hard.

Oh man, I've got it rough. And I was like, what a beautiful, beautiful illustration of ivory tower syndrome, right? Where, where he's living, the worst thing he had to do was deliver bad news. There are people getting physically beat up while he's just delivering this news and he has no idea. He's completely outta touch.

And that's not a negative on Sheridan at all. He had no idea he, there's no way he could have known, but that's just. that level of leadership is always going to have a disconnect with reality. The reality of the one of us, there's always gonna be a disconnect there. And I thought that scene was gorgeous in how they put it together.

Brent: So I guess let's get into this and talk about the main piece with Sheridan and Marshall Law. Uh, the citizens you just mentioned, the citizens of Bawan five seem very pro Hague, like Bawan Five as a people, we don't often talk about Bawan five as the 250,000 people who live there.

Jeff: right. Like that community, the,

Brent: right, right. But for the very small group that we saw there, first of all, apparently nobody has TVs in their quarters or something because everybody's gathered around the shop window watching the 18 inch screen , you know?

Um, but they're cheering like when General Hague is doing his deal and, you know, so it seems like a lot of people really aren't a big fan of, uh, old President Clark and his folk out there. And we saw in a previous episode the dude with the shop who's like, yeah, we're, we're gonna get, get this outta here.

I mean, gosh, Babylon five, almost like Mars is a hotbed of anti earth gov people

Jeff: I think everywhere except earth gov is anti earth gov. Right.

Brent: even on Earth.

Jeff: Exactly. They, they just happened to be the ones with the guns.

Brent: What did you think about Sheridan? Actually reading the order. I didn't think he was gonna read the order. I thought that's where that was gonna be. The dividing line when he goes, Nope, I'm not. That's the point of no return, right? Nope. I'm not doing it. We're like, I, I, I kind of thought where this episode was going to end was, it was gonna be the ultimatum of you either do this or we're coming to get you.

And he's given a choice as far as what, like what the next step is. It leads us to, I, I, I'm still on, dabble on five's, breaking away from murth gov. I don't know how it happens. I, I, it's in my soul, Jeff, like, I can't let it go. And it might not happen at all. I could be, everybody out there could be laughing their heads off at me right now, but I just, I, I can't let it go.

Kind of like, you remember how long did I, how long did I last on Londo Malari being redeemed

Jeff: Oh, a long time. It was well into

Brent: was like a whole season. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A whole long time. Um, uh, so I, I might eventually come to a spot where I say, okay, it's not, but , that's

Jeff: no, you're right. Like he got the order, said he needed to stomach it. And I thought, I, I thought first time through I thought the same thing. He's not gonna be able his stomach at, he's gonna pull in Ivan Van Garibaldi and be. Crumple it, toss it.

Brent: which he did, but only after he read it,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: you know, Because like you, you keep almost expecting the, okay, he's gonna take the jacket off.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: He's gonna, he's gonna remove the, the stuff. I can't be a part of this anymore.

Jeff: they even teased that, right? Like before the big, the big moment. Like he's sitting on his, on his couch, he's got his jacket unzipped. Like they teased it a little bit like Oh, oh no. He actually zipped it up.

Brent: yeah. Well, because they had to have it set up so he could do that whole Rambo getting his, his stuffed together

Jeff: right?

Brent: and the music. He grabbed the bandana around his head. He put the eye black on, got his 15 guns.

Jeff: Big old knife.

Brent: Right. Hey, who did it better? Rambo or Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando?

Jeff: I think. Weird. Al Yank evicted it best in U H F.

Brent: Yes.

Jeff: There you

Brent: Yes.

Good,

Jeff: weird owl references for

Brent: good. Pull. We need to change the name. This is Bad Onfi for the first time. Not a weird Al podcast.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Uh, I learned something today. I didn't

Jeff: Okay. Yeah.

Brent: hand link thing is apparently a remote control.

Jeff: Yeah. And it's really inconvenient. Yeah, really inconvenient to use. Like that. Looked uncomfortable to like advance and rewind stuff.

Brent: right. I also thought it was really funny that he had to bring his hand to his mouth to go pa on and then he could just talk like normal and he had to bring his hand back to his mouth, PA off like,

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: wait,

Jeff: got some omnidirectional mics that he has to activate from the link apparently. Like that's

Brent: right. But everybody should be able to hear at. PA off

Jeff: when he says that. Yeah. Like, oh, he is done apparently. But that was pretty slick. General Smith's kinda like working, working that stuff

Brent: You know what? I really hated General Schitz. When I first saw him. I was like, you just, you're right along with this, whatever. And then, and then he's like, no, no, no, no. He was sending me messages. I love, I love when people hide stuff like that and, oh, I was eating that up. He said, no, he told me, follow the chain of command and this was the office.

Follow the chain of ca and you like, you're, I went back and rewatched it. When you see him a second time going, you have your orders.

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: Follow the chain of . Like, he's

Jeff: It's an opportunity.

Brent: like do it this way.

Jeff: I feel like, I feel like the scene of Sheridan the Night Watch locked up in the docking bay and Sheridan just being like, you're, you don't have a legal order. Here's how I've interpreted things. Here's, I feel like j m s had that scene, like in plotting this whole story out. He's prob, he probably has, I don't.

40 scenes, 40 moments in his head, you know, that he builds to throughout everything. And I feel like that was one of those early, early visions that he had. And he had Sinclair delivering that message and that's why, and by any means necessary. And in the other just Sinclair, they set him up without like, I'm gonna go read the letter of the law and I'm gonna come back and be lawyer Sinclair for you.

They set that up in that first season for this moment now where he's like, actually, you have no legal authority to be doing what you're doing.

Brent: right.

Jeff: Like that was, we, we've talked about that. Like what's the Sinclair moment? They had to sub shere it in n four. And I, this is a moment like, I feel like, I feel like Sinclair might have been better in this moment.

Had he been allowed to build up to it. I don't know. I'm just guessing that based on like the, by any means necessary stuff that he did.

Brent: That's, I hadn't thought about that at all, and I love that. I absolutely love that idea.

Jeff: I have two last notes.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: One is on Zach. I don't know if I buy his, uh, change of.

Brent: Oh, really? Okay.

Jeff: He says, uh, Garib Baldi tells him at the end, Hey, you did the right thing. And he is like, yeah, people keep telling me that, but I don't know who means it anymore. Like, I, I feel like he's literally still just every guy, he's just a dude looking for the path of least resistance. And this felt better to him than the, than the night watch stuff that was going on.

Like, I don't think he's all team, we'll call it Team Sheridan or whatever. He's just like, well, this seems a little better than the night watch stuff. I think he's still on the board. I also got some real insight into Dr. Franklin in this

Brent: Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on. I wanna

Jeff: Okay. Oh,

Brent: Um, I totally, I, he, he told completely faked me out. I thought he was absolutely sucking him out, you know, and then it became really obvious he wasn't, you know, but that moment that he ripped that armband off. And while I hear what you're saying, what my heart tells me is that was just bad acting and No, no, no.

He's really like, that's, that's what my heart tells me. Like, Zach's in, Zack's a part of the group he's in, he's in it now. Like, you know, we're back to hickeys from Kki, let's go.

Jeff: Right. And it took Sheridan to make that, like Garabaldi couldn't get it done. It took Sheridan to step in and make it happen.

Brent: right. But I might have actually cheered out loud when, when Zach ripped that Armand off. Cause, cause I was just, I've just been waiting for that to happen for episodes.

Jeff: it was awesome.

Brent: You were talking about Dr. Franklin.

Jeff: Yeah. So we've talked about how much, like he'll break any rule as long as he thinks it's serving the greater good, right? Which is that which is a troubled phrase when after, um, after Sheridan delivers the martial law message, Dr. Franklin's there, and Sheridan's like, it's so bad. And Franklin's like, no, no, man.

This will pass if the Senate does this and if General Hague does this, and if, and if, and if like, if is enough to launch him on a crusade, right? Like if the second Tuesday of the month has a 14 inch blue moon next to the sun on the Wednesday following this, then maybe this could happen. So I'm gonna put it all on the line to make this thing go down.

Like I feel like this gave us more insight into Dr. Franklin than Groose did, where we had a whole episode on him and his dad. Just that one moment.

Brent: that was not a good episode.

Jeff: It wasn't a, wasn't bad,

Brent: It was a mid, it was a Midland episode. It just,

Jeff: was

Brent: I think it, it is one of those ways that like, it felt like you have 22 episodes, you gotta fill one in. Like that's

Jeff: speaking. Although speaking of Groose, Where does Franklin's dad stand in all this? Was he on one of the ships of Hags is he towing the line?

Brent: that is a great question. You know, here's.

Jeff: was a soldier.

Brent: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The grow post thing, the whole thing was, is that they were gonna go out and take over this colony that was on the border of Na Sonari space. Right. And all the stuff with the Nan Sonari war happened. We never heard like, why did we need that planet?

Jeff: You, you know what

Brent: on out there?

Jeff: you know what else is happening there? On the edge of Centar space, the shadows are built. Yeah. I wonder if that the same area and with earth being allied with the shadows in the sonari and then them all having a, a treaty, that could be what that's about.

Brent: yeah. Do you think Franklin's dad knows about the shadows and, and how bad they are and the treaty and he's like, perpetuating it? Or is he just a good soldier following orders and he happens to be really high ranking?

Jeff: I think he's a good soldier, which was, which doesn't give me a lot of hope for him in this moment.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Well, I think, are we there?

Brent: No, not yet. Got two things. Uh, one, um, Sheridan had a fantastic line that I have. I re recognized this since I was probably in fifth grade. Okay. And somebody, I'm gonna say it in a little bit of a different way. Okay. Um, the, the Good Liars know how to not tell the truth, but the Best Liars do. Right when he says, he says his line, always plant a lie inside the truth or always plant a truth inside the lie or what I would, that's the way I'd say you put a truth inside your lie. You keep, you keep the truth as close as you possibly can, and then you twist the little thing that does what you need it to do.

That's, uh, that absolutely, I just, it's, it's just one of those things you're like, oh yeah, maybe, maybe go, go Sheridan. Uh, but the, the other thing, Jeff, we really haven't talked about this, the naar are now station security.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: a cool thing. And I, this is where I went to this, Jeff. This gives me hope that my theory is right.

This is how Babylon five breaks away. Because now you have the Narn under the command of Sheridan. You've got the night watch who are like, you know what's gonna happen in the next episode is we're going to get the order from President Clark that yes, night watch is in control. What are you doing? And by the way, Sheridan, because you did this, you're now being deposed and the Arnor gonna be like, no he's not.

And this is how Babylon five, like, they're gonna take control of the station and push these guys out. And that's how they break away. Like that's my guess. Um, I finally found out how they did it. Cause I didn't know how it was gonna happen. Like what function, what method are they gonna use to break away?

Uh, but I think that's gotta be it. But you know, he says, he says at the beginning, like, crime is. Because the Warner already in charge, like, and they, and they've actually been good with this Zari.

Jeff: That scene with Lady Marella in the elevator, I thought that

Brent: Oh, that was so funny.

Jeff: It was great for a couple reasons, cuz one, I think it was Telon that was there and he was fine. He didn't look at her in a hateful way. He just, he's doing his

Brent: Oh no. But he smiled at her like he was just like, this is great.

Jeff: He's like, hi, here I am, but it's cool. I'm cool. She looked over and she kind of smiled too, you know, because one, I don't think she's ever supported the war in the, in the place.

But secondly, she's also like, well, this is how it works on Babbel one five. Here we go. That was a great scene.

Brent: Okay, so we're there.

Jeff: So I think this is the time, Brent, where we start to wrap this all up. We boil it all down. We see if this show has any of that star treky kind of quality to it. Does it have a deep moral message? Is it holding up a mirror to society or giving us hope that maybe we'll be better in the future? I'm gonna do

Brent: J's favorite part of the show.

Jeff: Right, exactly. This is it. He loves this jms. We're just gonna start rating this. How many JM ss there are?

Brent: Oh my.

Jeff: No, it's not gonna happen by way How many deltas there are. And that's how, how star treky this episode is. I'm gonna do that, Brent, you're gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five star theories as to how much we enjoyed the episode and how Babylon five the episode is.

And I'll go first. We've, we've actually talked about a lot of the stuff in here, but there were a couple quotes almost all from Lady Morell that really wrapped a lot of this up. I think that Corwin's message, like we talked about his question of, you know, how did this happen? Where did we go wrong? We talked a lot about that, but I mean, I mean, look at the Bolshevik revolution, the Nazis, McCarthyism, all the, like, this, this isn't a new thing.

You know, that's happened and, and we, we've talked about this quite a bit, but I think for me, the, the two messages from Lady Morrell that really carry the, the Star Trek message is the discussion around choice that we had earlier. But then her conversation about greatness, she said, I got the quote here.

She said, greatness is never appreciated in youth. It's called pride in midlife. It's dismissed in old age and reconsidered in death.

Brent: Say that one more time. Say that one more time.

Jeff: greatness is never appreciated in youth.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: It's called pride in mid. And dismissed an old age and reconsidered in death.

Brent: Wow.

Jeff: She goes on to say, we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, so we do all we can to destroy it. And she was talking about emperor Turan and you know, her husband, we learned from Sheridan back, uh, coming of shadows that, you know, he gave land and property back to the nans. He did everything short of apologizing for everything that happened, and he was about to do that. He was a great man who ironically feels that he never made a choice in his whole life.

But like she said, very close to that, he clearly made choices. And the biggest conscious choice he was ever gonna make was, was to apologize. But I think that like the message there for us, this is, this isn't a message in like holding up a mirror or giving us an example. This is challenging us with a question and that like, why do we beat up greatness?

Why do we suppress people with great idea? For me as a leadership guy, I think about this at work, right? Why do we take that entry level person who's questioning our processes or whatever and shut 'em up and tell 'em this is the way things are. I think about Jordy laforge in uh, Q who, when Sonya Gomez comes on board and she's asking questions and she's excited and he's like, shut up lady.

We do this all the time. We know what we're doing. Like, it just squashes her. Why do we do that? Because we can't stand other people being great. But if we could, like if we, if we, if the Sentara had supported Teran and being great, what a different series we'd be watching now. You know, I mean, it's a, it's a lot to consider.

I think we've talked about a lot of the things in this one. When I first considered the Deltas, I was gonna give it like two, cuz I felt that this was that thing of they dropped a couple of lines and now here's a cool thing to think about. But as we've talked about this, I really feel like the core win piece of what did we do wrong?

And the conversation around choice pervades not only this episode, but so much of the entire series to date. And so I'm gonna give this one, three and a half Deltas,

Brent: Wow. I think you're gonna surprise a lot of people with that rating, Jeff.

Jeff: surprising myself a little bit, to be honest.

Brent: Because, and, and here's the reason why, because I, I think historically these big episodes like this, people are just going, it's a five and five. You're, you're getting five, five Deltas, five star foods. You can't go any lower than that.

Cause it's just that good. That's actually not the analytical lens. We gotta give

Jeff: Exactly. And good doesn't mean Yeah, good doesn't mean five deltas, right. It just, it, it doesn't mean that

Brent: right, right. Uh, you know what good does mean? Star furries. And this is a five star Furies episode.

Jeff: hands down, it's six, seven, it's all the star furies.

Brent: Hey, you know what, this is a very Babylon five episode. Even if it's only Midland, A Star Trek episode.

This is a Babylon 5 episode through and through.

Jeff: Well, hey listen, let's cut right to the chase then. Let's see how much you like this one. Cuz we are developing the definitive ranking of season three. Brent, do I need to go down the top five or are you ready

Brent: it's really just the top one because that's, that's what we're asking. The top one is Messages from Earth. That was our episode last week. Hands down the best episode of the season so far. Um, the rest of the season has been really good. That was far and away above last week's episode. And you said last week, Jeff, I remember this.

I have a feeling that this might be the only week where this is number one. Jeff, what would you do if you were wrong?

Jeff: I'd be pretty darn shocked to be honest right now. Cause I just watched the same episode. You watched. Yeah. This, this, this definitely belongs, there's a right answer to this ra

Brent: yeah. Here's the thing. You weren't wrong, and this is our new number one and Messages. Earth only gets the one week at the top. So I is, this is no disrespect to messages of Earth, uh, from Earth. This is just how great this episode was and if next week takes this one out of the top spot, cuz I don't think this story thread is done. You know what I mean? If, if, oh Jeff, you know what I'd be so great with, and I don't think it's gonna happen. If every week it replaced

Jeff: Oh. Could you imagine? Could you imagine Point of no return being in the bottom third of this series,

Brent: nuts.

Jeff: be wild.

Brent: Nuts. Because the, the show has, I mean, you have to take a breath on some point in an episode, right? Like, um, but yeah, no, this, this is clearly our, our number one

Jeff: a hundred percent. Well, that's it for point of no return. We like to play a game here on Babylon five for the first time. And I think we've been teasing at what this is gonna be. We are gonna, I'm gonna share the name of the next episode. It's severed Dreams. We're gonna guess what the episode's gonna be about based on the title alone.

Brent, what do you think Severed Dreams is gonna be about?

Brent: Jeff, do you remember Parliament of Light

Jeff: Parliament of Dreams. Yeah, I think I might remember it better than you

Brent: And we were like, you're like, it's neither a parliament nor dreams,

Jeff: right?

Brent: right? I, this one might be, it's not really about dreams, although it might be like, I could say, what is the dream? This was a dream given form. This is the last best hope for peace, right?

That's the dream. And that dream has been severed. I like the word severed because severed means a cutting away. A breaking away. And Jeff, I'm probably just gonna make this my, my guess until it actually happens. Cause I'm manifesting it 30 years ago in the past. But I think this is where the president comes back with his command that yes, night watch is in command and Sheridan has to go back and deal with.

I think Hague is gonna be captured in debt. I don't think we see Hague anymore in this show. Um, but I think this is going to be a, a, a night watch verse, nans battle for control of the station. And this, this is the episode where Babylon five breaks away from earth gov. How about you?

Jeff: I'm just gonna read you word for word, my note that I made. Okay. This is the one Sheridan makes a stand and pulls Babylon, five away from Earth. Severs from the dream made form and the dream of what earth could be

Brent: Oh, good. Addition to that.

Jeff: because I, I'll, I remember the end of season two. You know, I used to be proud of this uniform.

Like there's a dream of what that stood for. He is cutting that off and it's gonna be Babylon five versus Earth. And we'll find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you're with us on YouTube, I think this is our second longest episode to date behind one where we talked about an entire season. We appreciate you sticking around, but thank you all so much for being here. If you haven't already, please follow us or subscribe wherever you're listening and watching.

And if you haven't already, head over to Apple Podcast. I'm gonna do that whole thing over again. Cause I said if you haven't already a whole bunch of times, well, and I guess we'll find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you haven't already, please follow and subscribe wherever you're listening and watching, and hop over to Apple Podcast.

Leave us a rating and review and I'll read it right here on the podcast. So, until next time.

Brent: Jeff,

Jeff: Yeah. What's up?

Brent: uh, hey, it's been a long show, so I made some dinner. If you want to eat.

Jeff: Oh, I'm not, I'm not hungry.

Brent: Really, really, because I made your favorite sp

Jeff: I think I'm just gonna order in peace, victory, and long life.