Severed Dreams

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 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 first time. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five for the first time. And in this show, we are searching for what we like to call Star Trek esque messages in the series and just trying to decide how awesome this series is in and of itself.

Jeff: And what might become a problem for us later in this episode, we are not Star Trek podcasters, right? So we play a game.

Brent: No, we are

Jeff: the heck did I

Brent: I, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. We are Star Trek, podcasters.

Jeff: I'm gonna be okay people. I was, I was literally trying to run through, cause I wanna start talking about this thing. Okay. And what'll likely become a problem for us here lately, because we are Star Trek podcasters.

Brent: one more time.

Jeff: we are. I said, didn't I say that right?

Brent: said, you said, and what's likely to become a problem for us lately?

Jeff: lately? Cheese.

Brent: I don't, I don't even have the script. I just know that that's what you're trying to say. Try try it again. . See, I told you you guys would get the bloopers, the outtakes.

Jeff: What is likely to become a problem for us here later because we are Star Trek podcasters, is those references to that show. So we play a game called The Rule of Three that limits us to only three references a piece. That's it. No substitutions, exchanges a refund. Hey Brent,

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes.

This one is on Good Pods from Nico Mack, and it is very short and it is very to the point. Nico Mack says, loving the show, but you have no idea. I think they meant that in a cool way. Like we have no idea what we're getting

Brent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Nico, thank you. And you're right. We have no idea. None. Please don't tell us Don't give us the idea.

Jeff: Right. We'll come up with

Brent: You know, you know what? You know what? I've, I've, um, you know, I, I feel like we harp on this all the time, Jeff, but the truth is, is we have so many people who are joining the show right now who haven't heard us harp on this.

But when we talk about spoilers, guys, a piece of that, let me give you one piece that has recently cropped up for me, especially now that we're this far into the show, , right? Making all the connections of stuff that we've missed from season one and season two that are getting brought up now. And here's the thing, um, when, when Jeff and I ask questions, those are really rhetorical questions to let you guys know what's going on through in our heads.

We are not actually asking you to answer them unless we look into the camera and go, please answer this question. As long as it's not a spoiler. If we do that, then cool, but generally speaking, it's not really a question we're asking. And we would rather discover the answer than have the answer told to us.

Um,

Jeff: Well, there's real stakes here. Like people, we've talked about doing Babylon five for the second time, but if you give us all the answers, there's no point. There's no reason to do it for a second time. So don't rob us of that opportunity and don't rob yourself of

Brent: yeah. Don't, don't rob the community, because, because you're right, that second watch is where all of that comes in, where we go, oh, I can't believe I missed that. Oh, that was all this place into that. And, and all that. Like, like, that's gonna be that show. And,

Jeff: like 18 months, right? In 18 months, we're gonna watch Soul Hunter and we're gonna be like, oh my God, I can't believe we hated this.

Brent: Right, right. And, and so here's the thing that I would say to you guys out there who are just charming at the baby being, oh, but did you notice this? And what'd you think about this? Like, I love that Jeff loves that. We are a hundred percent in for that on the second watch. And when we get to the second watch, take all the reins off because we want every single bit of it.

We want all the background information, we want all the spoilers, we want all the lurkers guide. We want everything on the second watch for right now. Let's, let's stay in, because honestly, Jeff and I are just doing good to keep track of the names and just the overall plot point right now. Like that's, that's where we are right now in our watch.

Jeff: If you are desperate and you can't stop the flow of I know this and I know that and I have to tell you, we have a place you can do that,

Brent: good call Jeff. Good call.

Jeff: Go to patreon.com/babylon. Five first and number five, the word first. We have a discord server and there's a sector there. I believe it's red sector and we don't have access.

Brent: Yeah. We're not even, I don't, I don't, I even forget that it's there cuz it's not on my screen.

Jeff: Yeah, so go there. We don't have access. You can talk about anything, right? You can call us idiots. You can laugh. You can be like, how did they know this, that, whatever. It's all fair game. If you can't restrain yourself head, there also supports the show and we love you for doing that.

Brent: we do. And to all of you out there who are doing your best to help keep us spoiler free, thank you so much. Please keep that up. And, uh, to everyone who's new and joining us, if you feel like we've pointed a finger at you, thanks for joining us. Thanks for being enthusiastic about the show and come with us on this journey.

We love having you here. And Nico, you're awesome. Thank you. And you're right, we have no idea.

Jeff: Well, hey, over on our Twitter at Babylon, first Mand Drop, who's at sg? Danny MG has some pretty cool commentary on Londo says Londo is the perfect cast member to turn into the villain. If you think about it, he's a buffoon. He's easy to understand. He's hopefully romantic, which generally is gonna make him easy to corrupt.

Plus, we've both laughed at him and with him.

Brent: Jeff, I gotta be honest with you, man.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: I know I've said the words here on the show, but I still have a hard time thinking of Londo as a.

Jeff: really.

Brent: I really do like, I still like as, I don't want him to be the villain. I don't like him as the villain. He's the guy who got corrupted by the villain, not the villain himself.

Like that's, that's, that's the way I really kind of hold Londo. And I don't want Londo to be the villain. And, and I don't want people to tell me that he's the villain and confirm that he's the villain. Cause I don't want him to be the villain. I, I like Londo.

Jeff: He's a villain just as much as Darth Vader was like, he's doing horrible things and he revels in it a lot. But you're right, he was corrupted by Palpatine Palpatine's the villain. Right. And the holding Vader was, was a victim. We, we got that to come around and return to the jet. I don't know if we're gonna get that here in Babylon five.

And it's a metaphor I've been sticking to with the whole time. But right now, today in severe dreams, dude, it's a villain.

Brent: Yeah. Although he was also really funny in this episode too.

Jeff: Villains can be funny. It's, it's okay. It's okay. This, he got some comeuppance in this and we'll get to

Brent: He did. All this is so good. It was so good. . He deserved every bit of it.

Jeff: He did well. That's all I've got for, uh, sharing stuff today.

Brent: Well, Jeff, that's not all I got.

Jeff: Oh, really?

Brent: Oh, really? Because the time has come, Jeff, the time has come to pay the Piper. The time has come to take a look at what our predictions were last week, as we do at the end of every episode. Another game that we love to. And see how correct we were. So Jeff, I will ask you, do you remember what you predicted last Week's Ever Dreams would be about and how close were you?

Jeff: Hundred percent. This is the one I said Sheridan makes his stand and pulls Babylon five away from Earth. Brent, you and I both called this in the season two wrap up. We thought this was coming, it was gonna

Brent: I don't,

Jeff: here we are.

Brent: honestly don't even remember what it was that made us start saying that. Like, like overall it's the, this seems like the natural flow. It seems like we're the writing's leading, but I, I honestly don't remember what it was coming out of season two

Jeff: I

Brent: that made us kind of

Jeff: I think it was the name of Season three. I think our conversation, if I remember right, is when we were going, I'm like,

Brent: of no return.

Jeff: point of no Return. And we're like, well, gosh, that's the only point we could think of. And especially the Night Watch stuff was starting to ramp up at that

Brent: Yeah. And I like, and I remember like, I remember saying it in season two and then I think I forgot about it for like four or five episodes. And then I was like, Hey, you know, so I was thinking about this and I think this might be where it's going . Like it seems to be getting closer and closer to that, you know?

And, uh, yeah, I mean, I mean, Jeff, you nailed it. You nailed it better than I did. I also said this is the one where, where Babylon, five bricks away from Earth. That was, that was my prediction. However I said that the way it would work, because that's the thing that's been confusing. Is how, how does, how does a station which is being administered and ran by earth forces of government, how do they break away?

Like, what is the function of that? And I wanna talk about that later on in this episode. But what I said was, since the NANS have now come in as the new security force on board, the night watch, president Clark was gonna reaffirm the order for night watch to take over. And it was gonna be this war kind of between the Nans and the Night Watch, and the nans were basically gonna win.

And like, that's how we were gonna, I guess, like militarily seize battle on five, like, and take control of it, is what I was thinking. Um, but uh, but no, that's not at all what happened. However, the Babylon five definitely, I mean, in a, in a clear line of demarcation, said, this is it. We're away.

Jeff: it's time for you to just tell everybody that exactly. If you have not seen this episode in a while, if you're watching along with us and and need a little reminder, or if you aren't watching at all and just listening to us Anyway, Brent, break it down. What happened in severed dreams?

Brent: Well, two weeks ago, president Clark declared Marshall Law. Last week Sheridan used a technicality to defy earth gov. And this week earth gov is coming to get Sheridan and Babylon. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our episode opens on Lando complaining very loudly while standing in line as his mouth gets him in trouble with a local narn officer checking people in through customs. It's a very funny scene, but Londo declares, none of these would've happened if the humans hadn't started fighting each other. And on cue, we flash to somewhere else in the Galaxy General Hague ship. The Alexander is now commanded by the time traveling Captain Braxton. No, I'm, I'm sorry. It's just Major Ryan.

No word if he's related to private Ryan. But anyway, they're going mono I mono with the Clarkstown. Both ships are damaged pretty good, and despite his misgivings, major Ryan orders an open fire on the Clarkstown. And with all the precision of Luke using the force to drop a couple of torpedoes down an exhaust tube, the Alexander takes out the clarkstown in what should be a moment of celebration as actually a moment of sober reflection.

Because we knew these people on that ship. They were not some nameless enemy. They were our friends. They had families back home that we knew. No time to mourn, though the Alexander needs to get out of there super fast and find a place to make some repairs. In order to do that, there's only one place to go.

You guessed it. Babylon five. While the Alexander is on its way, let's check in with Delin and Lanier. They're attending to a Mbar ranger, I suppose he is, who is badly injured and has just been doing some recon in the non-aligned worlds. It seems that many of those worlds have aligned themselves with the shadows, but now they're actually fighting each other.

The great council is staying out of it because after all, the problems of others are not our concern, and Dalen being former Gray Council member herself isn't having that, and she sets out for Minbar to confront the Gray Council back on Babylon five. Having made contact with the Alexander Sheridan orders a comms blackout, all except for the Issn feed, which they watch as the news reports, that Mars is refusing to implement the Marshall Law Order. It's not long before President Clark has sent bombers. It's not long before President Clark has sent bombers star furries to Mars and they launch against the civilian populations and they break their way into the studios at I S N and shut that newsfeed down. This seems to be the final straw for a handful of colonies and outposts out there, namely Orion seven and Proxima three, or Orion three and Proxima seven.

I don't remember which order it was in. Whatever they have declared their independence from Earth. In protest of the Mars bombings freaked out by the possibility that Babylon five may join them. President Clark sends a big armada to come take Babylon five and arrest Sheridan and the rest of the command staff.

Thankfully though Captain Hiroshi of the e a s Churchill has intercepted that message and has come to warn and stand with Babylon five. And the Alexander Sheridan explains the situation to his command staff. They now have a choice to make you see Sheridan promised to lend that he would draw a line against the darkness and the line must be drawn here.

Here and no further. So will they surrender to the oncoming e a s ships or will they fight one by one? The entire command staff chooses to stand and fight. In tapping into draw's holographic comm system, Sheridan has a speech to give to everyone on board Babylon five. In it he lays out all of the atrocities and illegal actions that President Clark has committed and in a move that no one saw coming.

Sheridan declares Babylon. Five as an independent state free from earth gov. And okay, so with that under, under our belts, it's time to make preparations to fight cuz those guys are coming. Well, while they're doing that, Dalen has arrived at the chambers of the Gray Council. Citing Val's name and Du KO's name and my own name, N not mine.

Hers. She marches into the chamber and gives those hooded cloaked members a what for? Breaks a sparkly staff and urges the council members to break the great council and come with her. And it works All except for the Warrior cast members. We're back on Babylon five after a pep talk from his dad. His awesome dad.

By the way, Sheridan and his crew are ready for a fight. A fight that they won't start, but they will finish. And boy oh boy does a fight come. The earth ships arrive, and honestly, it is one of the greatest and lengthiest space battles that I have ever seen put to the small screen. Ships are flying back and forth.

Star furries are exploding. People are ejecting. Soldiers are breaching. The Babylon five hole fists are being thrown. The church hill is done for, and in a George Kirk type maneuver, captain Hiroshi orders what's left of her ship to Ram into one of the Earth four ships. a brief pause in the fighting, but that is until the jump gate activates and more earth ships come pouring through. It all looks lost because Babylon five and the Alexander have given all that they have. And then the lieutenant who just got a promotion a couple weeks ago says, captain jump points are opening just above the station, four of them, and with three simple words on your left.

Delin and the Imbar have come to the rescue. She's direct, she's vicious, she's cunning. She goes eye to eye with the captain of the earth ship, and she doesn't blink. And in the most badass speech ever that I've ever heard in the middle of a war, she says, the only one who has ever defeated a imbar vessel and lived to tell about it is onboard Babylon five, and he is behind me, but you are in front of me.

If you want to live, be somewhere else and somewhere else. They went back on the station. It's really a sad scene. The bodies of both narn and humans are strewn everywhere, some dead, some barely gasping for life. Babylon five has lost nearly a third of its Star Fury Squadron, but Dalen and John reunite as partners or maybe partners with benefits.

If you ask me. In the end, the Alexander is off looking for other ships that are loyal to their cause and their movement and oh yeah, since the Churchill got blowed up real good, they left behind a bunch of orphan star furries and pilots. And Sheridan just happens to have room for them because after all, taking them in is exactly what Captain Hiroshi would've wanted him to do. As the episode ends, Sheridan and his staff step out onto the Zocalo where the residents of Babylon five are applauding and cheering for the captain who stood up to Tyranny and to President Clark. Jeff, what did you think of this episode? Severed Dreams

Jeff: God, it was so boring. Like, how could anybody be into this thing? Okay. I can't. I can't . I can't. Dude, this episode was awesome. This was, this was, this was so good. It was so good. I was

Brent: I'm sorry. This is the kind of an episode that makes somebody a fan of the show.

Jeff: right.

Brent: Like if you're, if you've never seen an episode of a Babylon five, you have everything you need going into the show. They tell you what you need at the beginning. Like it doesn't even matter if you haven't seen up to this point, this, this show will hook you.

Cuz now you gotta

Jeff: the gateway.

Brent: yeah, like you've gotta know what happened to get you to this point, but you also need to know what happens next.

Jeff: But you can go back and see what happened, like you watched this and this will hook you and then you'll go back and watch this stuff. My wife, who I've talked about a lot of times on this podcast, who doesn't much care, she is amazing. She's, we have amazing wives. Like let's just take a second and acknowledge

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: But she's not into Babylon 5, I don't think your wife's into Babylon 5. I think they both kinda make fun of us a little bit for watching and talking about Babylon five.

Brent: they just, wait, honestly, mine just waits for me to be done talking to you so I can actually, you know, rejoin the family

Jeff: Same. Totally the same. In fact, last week I did get in a little bit of trouble for

Brent: or come to bed like,

Jeff: some nights . But yeah, my wife,

Brent: three o'clock. Are you still up there?

Jeff: Yeah, we have more to talk about. We've only gotten through a part of it and we got so much to talk. But no, I was watching this on the couch and she's sitting next to me and she's working, she's got her laptop and she's doing some work and Sheridan Holograph Sheridan's given his speech and he is like, just like them, we are effective immediately succeeding from the Earth Alliance.

And she just goes, she stops and she looks and she was glued the rest of the episode. Yeah. Like, it, it, it brought her in.

Brent: Did she ask, did she ask you about Babylon five anymore?

Jeff: not, not at least not this time, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see what happens in the next couple episodes. Right. And that's usually my daughter who

Brent: right? Right. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. But, but no, I, I feel like, what I loved about this episode is that it's part of three episodes. Like I feel like you can watch messages from Earth point of no return, severed dreams back to back to back. And it's one episode, like it just flows, everything builds to something else. They, they feel fully included but inclusive, but they also feel like their own little wrapped together.

Like TV nowadays, you know, where it's 10 episodes and it's all one story arc. Like, you can't just be like, oh, I'm gonna watch this one episode of Wednesday. You know, or whatever. You're like, shoot, I gotta watch the whole stinking thing. You can watch any one of these three and be like, what a great episode.

That was good on off. I'm, I'm good to go. Or you can watch all of them. It all works. I think the two other things I really like. A couple things. I'd say two, a couple. I love that we met Sheridan's dad. Like I loved that his last like act as a human being was to call his parents.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: awesome. Like unbelievably awesome.

Brent: Yeah. Your mom's in town running errands. You know how she is?

Jeff: It was doing her thing. It was such, it was great. And Bruce Boxleitner brought so much to that

Brent: Oh, he really did.

Jeff: when he is like,

Brent: to that scene.

Jeff: at the end when he is like, Hey, love to you both. Like, you're like he does, he loves them . Like it's so clear and obvious and he's accepting he's never gonna talk to them again.

Like he knows this isn't gonna go well. I love, I I questioned Zach last week. You know, I, I didn't buy it. I buy it. I'm in on Zach. Zack is, is back with the DVD cover humans. Like he's in. That's good. Uh, gosh, what else

Brent: Wait, I'm sorry. Was Zach in this episode? I don't remember him at all.

Jeff: Yeah, Zach was in the, uh, so Garabaldi got hurt and when they were repelling borders. Yep. And he helped him out. He was wearing the riot gear and he helped him, helped him get back up. And that was the moment. I'm like, okay, Zach's in. Like Zach, he, he was firing.

Brent: Yeah, yeah,

Jeff: On Earth, earth force people.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: I am. I am excited for us to talk about the league worlds and the shadow stuff.

The game the shadows are playing, the shadow war that they're literally setting up. And I've got a lot of questions about Dalen and the great council stuff and ki kind of where that's gonna go. But what about you? What were your first reactions to this one?

Brent: Um, I loved this episode. I, I loved every single moment of this episode, start to finish. There wasn't a part, a part of this that I was like, okay, are they moving on yet? Um, I looked up at the end and I was like, that was 45 minutes. It felt like 15. Like, that's how good this episode was. The standout moment of the whole thing, or the standout sequence, I suppose I should say, is the, the space battle.

Jeff: Big

Brent: In this one, um, especially when you consider what we heard, I was it last week we had Major Barrett as a, as a guest star.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Um, and, and you had relayed something that she had said of, you know, uh, uh, this show and another sci-fi show that she's associated with are two very different shows. And what this show is doing on a shoestring budget is phenomenal.

I felt like I could see the budget in this one. Um, because like, you know, there's, there's graphics on, on the screens and in any other sci-fi show of this era, those graphics are moving. It's actually a, a monitor back there, or they've had some sort of No, no, they just have posters. Like that's what's on the screen is

Jeff: a poster and a light behind the poster. That's what you

Brent: looks like, it looks like a toy that we've got, and I'm putting a sticker for whatever's supposed to be on the screen. And that's just what the screen is like that, that's what it looked like to me. Um, but all that money, oh, and then, and then the, I don't know, Jeff, the, the, the laser beams from the PPGs and the rifles and everything looked awful in this episode. However, the space battle was beautiful and phenomenal to look at, especially considering this is 1990.

Jeff: yeah. I literally thought with the PPGs, like my immediate thought was, those are expensive, and there's a lot of them, and so they're literally just like, yeah, take all the sparkle stuff away, and like, what can you gimme for five bucks and, and do that? But the space battle stuff, I was, I was literally watching it and just thinking just the, the straight.

The, the balls of j m s to walk into Babylon five when it started and be like, we're doing cg. That's how we're doing R effects. And, and Brent, season one was embarrassingly horrible. The, the, the effects and the graphics. I, I have to imagine there were times in the first, maybe even part of the second season where he, because he knew we were building to this and is he just like, oh my God, I don't know if we're gonna be able to do it or not.

But they had, you know, episodes like the long twilight struggle and fall of night and stuff to like, Hey, let's do some other big ones. Voices now Vo there's one this, uh, this this season that had a, had a bunch of effect, uh, in it as well. It's kinda like test things, but they could not have done this in season one like this, this, this was the perfect culmination of the technology and the story coming together at the perfect time.

Brent: I mean, and Jeff, we've seen really good space battles out there. You know, we, we've seen it in other sci-fi shows. We've

Jeff: I think Battlestar Galactica, I love, I've always the new the, I've always loved the, the, the space battles there. And this was so Remini when the Star fire, the, the star Furies opened fire that just screamed Battle Star Galactic at me, galactic of me.

Brent: Jeff when, when the star Furies were going through their launch sequence. Now, I love the launch sequence when it comes down to it, and people ask me like, what's my favorite thing to see in Babylon Five? It's the Star Fury launch sequence. I love that. The, you know, I just, all the people listening to the audio version out there, like, what was that noise?

Jeff: Right. Just picture the large sequence. Brent did it with his

Brent: yeah, exactly. , my wife makes on me all the time because I asked use sound effects for everything. She's like, you really didn't need to do the sound effect. I'm like, yes, I did. Anyway, um, I, I love that launching, but this was the sharpest looking launch sequence I've ever seen in my life. Um, when, when Ivano goes out and she's joining them, which I want to talk about that, whether she really should have joined them or not.

Uh, I, I have, I have a for in and Against for why that she should have done that. Um, but they're out there fighting. She goes through the ejection piece, the Star Fury bangs into the ship. The, the, the Churchill bangs into the Roanoke. Um, I mean, these guys are just going after it, going after it. The, the, the, the, the cannons are, are shooting and moving and oh my gosh, like this is just, it's so good.

And, and you know, you, you just, you pair that with these, these. Amazing speeches that we got. We got more than one. Um, I, I had to bleep myself in the, the reaction video because I didn't even realize I said something and it was like, I dropped a full on F-bomb, like . Like, I was like, that's the most beep, bad beep speech I've ever heard.

Um, but I mean, she Sheridan's breakaway speech. His succession speech was on point. He delivered, he delivered a perfect speech. Here's what's happening. Here are the atrocity. I mean, it's what our Declaration of Independence does here in America. Here's what's going on. Here's all the things that he's done wrong, and therefore we're now out and here's our terms.

Like, that's, that's how that speech went. His speech to his staff of, of where he went around and he's like, all right, we got a choice to make. Are you or he out? And he let them all choose. And he, he gave his little, you know, uh, uh, he gave his line that he did about drawing a line. You know, we, we gotta hold it here.

And, and then I, I mean, and then honestly, Dalen coming out and just Mira Furland, oh my gosh. Like what she gave to the great council, what she gave to the one dude who was trying to stand in her way of getting into the great council. And then what she gave to the Earth Force guys when she came through the wormhole and was like on your left, like, I'm here Kap, you know, even Bombay, let's go.

Like, we're gonna get you, you know? Uh, oh my gosh. I was just, and, and, and if the Russo brothers were inspired in that, in that moment, in endgame by this particular moment in Babylon five, it would not surprise me. I know that they pulled stuff that they were inspired by Star Trek in to their films. It would not surprise me that they also did that with other sci-fi franchises, like Babylon five,

Jeff: Totally. Yeah. I loved the thing I loved about Dalen and, and like just, I mean, just laying it down was each time she took a very different approach, right? So when she's one-on-one with that guy, it was about invoking the, the big names, you know, Valin, the name of Duco, you know, like

Brent: her own name. Did you

Jeff: the name of me.

In the name of

Brent: the name of Duco and my own name,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: like, whoa.

Jeff: But she's hitting this guy personal in the beliefs, right? Like, this is what we believe and I'm gonna hit you in them. Then she goes to the great council, and that's more, more of a political speech that she gave, which was that whole the, the, the, the whole, like, this is who we say we are, this is our mission statement.

You are full of crap and you don't believe any of it, and this is what's going, give us impassioned speech about that, that you could see on the, the, the floor of Congress or the United Nations, you know, anywhere sort of a thing. Then she gets in the command chair or the white, the white star, and she just straight up military.

Brent: Was that the white star she was on?

Jeff: It was the white

Brent: wasn't sure. Yeah, I wasn't sure.

Jeff: It just flew by really quick, but, but it was, it was clearly different than the big war ships, the war cruisers that came through. But yeah, she's just, I mean, she's literally just going to the big bully and just being like, look cool. You want to pick on this guy? Fine. Yeah, he's beat up whatever.

Also, I will kill you . I will straight murder you. I'm gonna count to three. Yeah. I've

Brent: done it, and the only person who ever stopped me was that guy right there. And I, I am messing with him. He's under my protection.

Jeff: yeah. Like, she was amazing. Three very different versions of her and all perfectly effective,

Brent: The only part that I thought was a little lame was how as soon as she said that, the very next shot was the shot of the jump gate opening in the Earth. Ships running. Like that

Jeff: tuck in their

Brent: was a quick turn and I was like, that one felt a little whatever, but I also felt like they were running short on time in that episode.

Like I could see that being like, maybe there was another conversation that happened there. And they're like, we gotta cut something

Jeff: my, I I thought the, the first thing I thought the first time I watched it was, dude, I would run. I mean, they, they totally waltzed through earth's defensives defenses in the war 10, you know, what, 12 years ago, 13 years ago now. I mean, they, they didn't lose a single ship. A single soldier until Sheridan, you know, went and did his star killer thing.

So yeah, these, these people are captains. They've been around, they've fought in the Earthman Barr war. They remember they're gone. But on my second watch through, I remember in and now for a word where the senate oversight guy was like, we got these cool new weapons. Now, you know, I think we'd hold our own in a war against the Menari.

I don't think we necessarily need a space station for this stuff. We'd, well, your soldiers don't think you can hold your own, cuz they were out of there

Brent: Right, right. Um, but uh, yeah, this was just, this was a, a cool episode, Jeff. I don't even know where to start.

Jeff: Well let's, let's talk about the Menari stuff cuz we're, we're in it right now and I, the whole thing started. I ha I made the same assumption that you did that, that, um, beat up minbar in the early part was a ranger. Cuz that's their job. Right. Going out and, and listening to the stuff. But, uh, I wanna talk about the shadow stuff he, he shared afterwards, after we get through the other minbar stuff.

But just one ridiculous thing with, with, with, with, so she bus in to the gray council, the chambers there, all the dudes are just standing there in their light circles with their hoods drawn. Like, is that what they do?

Brent: Well, so, I mean, I, I know they have the hoods. I know they have the cloaks. I know their official meeting thing is in this circle with the lights, which just seems ridiculous cuz like, listen, we're gonna be here talking, gimme a chair or something, you know, , and it's, it's like, dude, it's just the nine of us.

It's okay. Like, we know who each other is. This is not a secret. Um, but in this particular case, like I, Jeff, I, I feel like more and more I am seeing the production of the show as I'm watching it. And in this one I just went, you didn't have the money to put these guys in makeup, so you threw the cloak over 'em.

Jeff: Yep. And you just put him in a room with a blue screen and some lights, like, how can we just, how, how can I do this on five

Brent: yeah. And you know, like, I thought it was, I thought that particular scene, and this one stuck to me as a little weird. Like, there's the eight members of the, the Great Council and there's one light that doesn't have anybody in it. And Dalen walks straight into the middle of the circle to a light that's right in the middle.

And then the guy closes the circle and comes in around like, I was like, wait a minute. Why wasn't he there to begin with? Was he late? Did it just happen to work out that way? Like,

Jeff: Did he step aside so she could walk in and that seems pretty cool of

Brent: right. It, it, it just felt very convenient. Blocking, which I'm sure actually is what it was in real life.

Jeff: well the, the, the lighting wasn't good, you know, in that scene when she's giving her speech. And I loved it too, cuz she goes individually, person by person and gives him a piece. But the lighting took away from it a little bit. And then the scene where she goes and grabs dude's staff

Brent: Okay, so the, so, so let's break that down. The guy with the staff, apparently the leader of the great council, we assume, or just somebody in the gay, great. But she goes and she breaks the staff and it's got this electricity sparkly thing. What is that staff? What is it supposed to be? Why does it sparkle with electricity

Jeff: How could she break it? Just, ah, like, just total strong. She didn't even do it over her knee. Like, she just snapped it like, like she had a Twix bar and it was like, yeah, you want a piece, here you go. But she, when she's doing that though, she's talking about the prophecy that the council must be broken.

Have we heard this prophecy before?

Brent: We know, we have asked what this prophecy is. We've never actually heard the prophecy. We know pieces of it. The, the, the mbar are gonna have to reunite with the two halves of their souls in order to defeat the coming war. Somehow the prophecy has to do with Dylann getting the tri luminary and going into the chrysalis and growing. It has to do with her doing like, and she forced it on them.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Right? Because this is the time, um, I, I, I didn't catch that. The prophecy said that the council had to be broken. Although now that I think about it, that might be something she was saying. What I, what I interpreted it as was she was saying, uh, you know, the prophecy, you know what's upon us.

You guys as a council have failed and refused to do your job, and now you must break the council to come with me because these guys aren't gonna go as a council. You can't go because these warrior cast guys over here, they're not gonna do it. So break the council and come with me so we can fulfill the prophecy.

That's the way I interpreted it. But now that you say that it

Jeff: Yeah, cuz she says just, I I it was either just before or just after she took the staff and, and busted it. She says We must break the council as has been prophesied.

Brent: did she say that? Really?

Jeff: it was this big declaration and then she drops the ultimatum. We either do this now together or we don't do it at all. And I'm like, really?

Like I feel like that ultimatum doesn't fit here necessarily. I mean, I get, you know, getting her and getting the ships to go save Babybel on five. But there I, if they cut out a scene where there was a back and forth between the earth ships before they tucked tail and ran to the jump gate. I feel like they cut some scenes or some moments in this gray council piece cuz it just didn't, it doesn't all connect.

Like all the dots don't connect in that scene. For at least not for me.

Brent: Yeah. There, there's definitely still some questions left out there about what's out there. For those of you watching and listening, please don't tell us

Jeff: Yeah. Don't wanna know. We'll find out.

Brent: we'll get there. Um, but these are the questions in our mind right now. I, we definitely don't know what the entirety of that prophecy is.

I, I hope we get it before the end of the show. That just means by the end of season five, like, unveil it as you need to.

Jeff: it feels very convenient right now. Like, well, we'll just, we'll pull out this prophecy, we'll pull out this plot need right now and call it prophecy and then, and then make it happen. But

Brent: except, except though, Jeff, I wanna push back on that because we've known about the prophecy. The prophecy has been around like

Jeff: Well, we've known about

Brent: like the right next step.

Jeff: We, we've known about the prophecy of, of the souls and the coming together, the shadows, like all those pieces. But this whole breaking of the council thing, like that's, that's brand new, I think.

Brent: Yeah. Hey, Jeff. Hey, Jeff. I need just a moment. Okay. Um, I'm going to turn my camera off here.

Jeff: Perfect. Hi, YouTube.

Brent: Uh, I don't, I don't know if you want to edit this video later or if you just wanna leave it like this, but I'm, I, I just need a moment.

Jeff: Well take a moment. We'll see how long he is gone. I might edit this out. I might not. Depends on how much, how long it takes him to take care of what he's taking care of. This is what we do. It's a cool thing. The thing I love about working with Brent, honestly, is that we un, we both understand that our families and our, our lives are the most important things that are going on.

So we make space for each other to do that. You know, I guess. Since we got some time, I am going to completely make two pitches to you. So I'm gonna make one. And then if he's still not back, I'll make another one. And if he's still not back after that second pitch, and I'm gonna cut all of this out and edit it together. And you'll just see a weird jump when, uh, when he goes, cuz I'm not gonna edit it smoothly.

That's our whole thing. We talked about it like two or three weeks ago where make it look good. Don't add any extra work. Pitch number one. We have analytics on YouTube that we're able to dive into and we're able to see some stuff. We actually had a really cool, uh, conversation about that not too long ago, a couple weeks ago.

Um, but one of the things we know is that almost half of the people, well maybe it's not so much anymore, but almost half of the people that watch our, um, our videos here on YouTube are not subscribed to our channel. Take a second. If you're one of those people you're watching this, especially if you're still watching me, just ramble right now and not talk about Babylon five necessarily.

And you're watching this still, just take a second and subscribe. I'd love if you kept the bell turned on and got the notifications. But honestly, just the way the YouTube algorithm works and all that stuff is you have a high subscriber to viewer ratio. You get served to more people and it's cool to have more people join our community.

So my pitch, take a moment, I'll wait. Go ahead, subscribe. If you're a new subscriber and the comment below say, Hey, I'm new hi. Be cool if I don't respond to you. Like Brent said, we read. We saw it and I appreciate it, but I will do my best to respond to all of those. Pitch number two, I mentioned it earlier on, but we have a Patreon and we have a really, really cool community as part of our Patreon, like really cool, some awesome people, some great conversations.

And one of the cool things about the Patreon is like we've got a couple tiers and some of the tiers you get access to the Patreon itself, the community. I think we even have like a lurker level where, hey, you're helping support the show and that's great. You see some of our posts that come through. But you can still communicate with others on the, on the Patreon community at another level.

Um, you get like Brent posts his unedited Brent watches, so you see the whole thing. I also do some reaction videos. I don't do all of them. Brent and I have a pretty defined separation of duties on this, but I do some, uh, reaction videos on there so you can check those out. But the other cool thing is the community we have on our discord.

We talked about that a little bit ago. So I'll wrap the pitch up cuz Brent's back. But head over to patreon.com/babylon five first and join a really cool exclusive community. I'd love to see you there. Hey Brent.

Brent: Hey, sorry about that. I just had to take care of some dad duty real quick. So,

Jeff: It's what you gotta do. And that I was telling everybody like that's, that's our, our initial, our our number one agreement when we started this whole thing. Our families are always gonna come first.

Brent: Because I, I don't know about you, Jeff, but I have been in a situation where the podcast took pre precedence over my family and I had to stop that podcast because of it. And my, you know, my family always will come first, so.

Jeff: how it should be.

Brent: Mm-hmm. , you're, yeah, absolutely . Cause you know what? I'm not gonna be one of these people that, uh, they make a biopic of who loses his family in the midst of everything.

Like, I just, I'm not gonna be that guy. You know, shout by the way, to Garth Brooks and Rick Morans, two guys who both stopped their careers at their height to take care of their kids,

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: you know? And then, and then with North Brooks, once his kids were grown, he started touring again and didn't miss didn't feel like he missed a beat.

And Rick Morans is, his kids are now grown, and he is like, I'm good.

Jeff: Yeah. This, this is, all right, What were we talking about?

Brent: I apologize for cutting you off. You were in the middle of talking about Dalen and the Great Council, and I was about to ask you, or maybe I did ask you about snapping the staff and why was it all sparkly,

Jeff: Let's, let's, why don't you ask that question. We'll pick it up there in the ed, the audio edit.

Brent: Jeff, I have a big question, and I didn't understand this. Dylan grabs that staff from dude, I don't know if he's the leader dude or not, but she grabs the staff.

She's like, we're gonna break it. And, and you said a second ago, like it just snapped like a twig, but suddenly it had all this sparkly electric energy in it. What was that? What is the deal like? Is there some sort of, is this a magic staff and the magic just got broken, like I don't understand

Jeff: I didn't get it at all. And literally in a scene that they're trying to do on five bucks, for them to take a minute and do that electric, like it had a purpose. It definitely had a purpose. There were scenes, if I remember right, and the sky full of stars where sin, we got the insight into Sinclair and his time on the menari vessel. The first time

Brent: Uh,

Jeff: we saw they had like the little triangle, um, pew, pew things they would use. And sometimes I think they even had it on a staff, but it, this wasn't that, like, it wasn't the triangle, it was like a diamond shape on the top.

Like, cuz I'm talking through like, I was like, oh, maybe it's this thing that we saw way back then. But no, it's a totally different thing.

Brent: yeah. You know what else we haven't seen in a while? You remember when the, the, the triangle would appear in their head and like Dylan like couldn't control it. She had to hide it, uh, when she met Morden and then, um, the, the dude who was like hanging out in her closet, that one time was when Sinclair was figuring some stuff.

Jeff: yeah. And he had it show up.

Brent: I'm assuming that that's just a, a thread that JMS was like, yeah, I'm not gonna continue that and just dropped it.

Jeff: It was like in the miniseries for Battlestar Galactica when Baltar and number six were in bed and her spine lit up. And then it's like, well, we never saw that again. That was a cool teaser scene that they did, and, and that was

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: But yeah, I don't know. I, I, I think for me, I can wrap the whole thing of the Minbar and Dalen coming in on the calvary, breaking the council into one single question, and that is, what are the consequences to this gonna be?

Brent: Well, I, I mean, you, you clearly have two thirds of the ruling body of the Mbar with an active mbar slash human Ranger force, um, now actively protecting Babylon five and, uh, going against what the Warrior cast has done, it occurs to me that we could see a fracturing of the Mbar Society and that the warrior cast winds up joining up with the shadows. Right? That's what occurs to me that could wind up happening. I mean, it, it makes sense writing wise, you know, because otherwise, what, why even have the Warrior cast there? Um, I will say this. I did notice when Dylan walked out. What we saw on screen was three members left of the great Council who did not leave with her.

One of them like grabbed somebody's arm and they like shoved his arm away. But when we last saw the, the Great Council, there were four Warrior cast members. So was there a fourth guy that we just didn't see who was off screen? Or was that who got his arm grabbed and the Warrior cast guy was like, nah, screw you.

I'm outta here.

Jeff: First time I watched this, I left with the mindset of there are three left. Who on the Warrior cast left

Brent: Uhhuh.

Jeff: with them? That was my thought. The second time I watched it, instead of counting the people that were left, I counted the people that walked away. Five people walked away, including the guy who stopped at the end and who was like other, because I think other dude was literally just like, are you sure man?

Are you sure? And he is like, yeah, I'm sure I'm outta here. So five people walked away, plus Dalen, which would leave four. So I think, I think that dude closing the circle like you were asking about earlier, was they probably only had eight people who they could get robes on and they had to do some like blocking and positioning.

And so when they walked out, well, shoot, I guess we're gonna have to do it like this and hope nobody notices.

Brent: right, right. Yeah. So I, my, my thought was is that there's a fourth member, it's just someone who was off screen. We just didn't see 'em. They were offscreen. That was, that was what I assumed. But there was that guy who was like, got his arm grabbed. I thought maybe he might have, he might

Jeff: but I think with the, with the Minbar coming in under the, the, the umbrella of Babylon five, there's a real, that's, that's we, this started a little while ago. Back in, uh, comes the inquisitor when they introduced, was that when they introduced Sheridan to the Rangers? Was comes the Inquisitor I think,

Brent: Oh, no, no, no. Oh, wait a minute.

Jeff: I don't remember. It was one of those like later season two episodes where after a whole bunch of stuff happened, Dalen and Kosh brought Sheridan in and showed him the Rangers and decided to share, uh, command of them basically. But so, and then in that, in that similar episode or when close to it is when Draw came on and Draw says, um, Hey, I'm here to help you.

Epsilon three is here to help Babylon five. Like that's gonna happen. So now what we end up with is we've got former Earth Force people, we've got Epsilon three, we've got the Rangers, we've got the Narn. Cuz even the Narn, we're like, yeah, we're gonna be loyal to Babylon five. And then we have the potential of Mars, Orion seven and Proxima three all landing under this umbrella.

Of Babylon. Five. So like Babylon five is going to Babylon, five is gonna be the universe, right. That everyone comes and connects to, I think is where this is going.

Brent: Yeah, I, I, there's, there's gonna have to be something where Babylon five has to like, part of developing their, its independence. They're now gonna have to decide who they are, what they stand for, what they're about, who's who they're gonna interact with, like, all that sort of

Jeff: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

Brent: the idea that, that, you know, what was Babylon five?

They were this great meeting place of everybody in, in the, in the Stars. So these guys are all gonna have to come, like, where you said everybody's gonna have to come to Babylon five, like that, I, I almost wonder if that's gonna be renewed in the new government, whatever that is of like, this is the new last best hope for peace

Jeff: Well, what it becomes, what it becomes is you'll have all these different factions, these different races and places from different, uh, different governments. Proximus three and all those all coming together in the big meeting room that we have for the council chambers. And you're gonna see shared and wearing this really nice dress uniform, and he's gonna be giving this impassioned speech about how now that we're all.

We can bond as the United Federation of Planets.

Brent: right.

Jeff: This is where the federation starts. at Babylon five.

Brent: Right. Yeah. It's, it makes sense to me. You know, we've been told that, uh, uh, I'm gonna carry off yours cause I've already used all three of mine that, you know, star Trek is like, here's the picture of the Utopian Society in the future, and Bob all on five is, here's how we got there, . So

Jeff: what? Literally ba b between the, uh, what the Terrafirma enterprise episodes, the, the, the real finale to, to, to enterprise. And then the, these were the voyages or whatever. Babylon Five happens in that space.

Brent: it makes sense. Hey, I'll buy it. It makes sense.

Jeff: But I do think, I, I'm, I'm fascinated by your thought about the Warrior cast allying themselves with the shadows, but it checks out. I mean, they just want to fight. They just want to be in charge. And knowing what that ranger shared with us, that the, they're making these alliances with League worlds and then making them fight each other essentially.

Totally makes sense.

Brent: So I can we talk about that? Okay. Sha how do, how do worlds make alliances with the shadows? Because

Jeff: through Anna Sheridan is how they do it. Anna Sheridan shows up on the drossy

Brent: She is dead.

Jeff: She and Morton are out signing treaties in agreements. With all these league worlds. And what's fascinating is they're doing it, telling them that they need protection against the growing sonari threat. When the shadows are the force behind.

I mean,

Brent: Right.

Jeff: it's so brilliant.

Brent: well, but, but they're not because they've broken away. But even though Refa and the shadows still have their kind of deal, uh, there is a line, you know, and we heard, uh, in an episode or two ago there, the shadows are amassing their forces on the Sonari border. You know, so there's, there's, there's all of that.

But, you know, imagine the, the pompousness that people don't think they can be defeated as long as they have the shadows at their back. But like, I'm, but I'm sitting here going, how do they know what the shadows are? Because that's the whole thing is people didn't really know what the Sha like Kar apparently knew just fine.

Delin knew. I loved, did you hear what Delin called? All the other worlds, the younger worlds.

Jeff: yeah, yeah.

Brent: I was like, okay, wait, are you an old, is Minbar an older world? Are they, are were they around in the, the, the first one? Were they, are they first ones?

Jeff: I don't think they're first one. So if we look at the, the timescale, the last big huge war was 10,000 years ago now. Well, the big, the big one was 10,000 years. That was the volans and the. All the ancient ones and the first ones, and then the, the next big one, big one, not huge was a thousand years ago. And that's where the narn, where Ja Jaquan came up and whatever, but they, the, the narn were just farmers up on their northern continent, you know, whatever, and happened to observe some, they weren't space faring yet.

I think the Menari were the younger world in that one where yeah, were, they were space faring. Like, but they were the, the, they were the earth, right? The new kid on the block. And so in, in mass effect terms, they're the asari. They're the old race that are still active and galactic politics and are, and are there, but everyone looks to them.

And in the last reaper, uh, sweeping the asari were the only one of the current races that like had sentient people. And so that means nothing to you. But like, there's this great line where they talk about how the Solarian who are one of the races, who have a character named Morden, by the way, who's very different in the Morden, we know.

But, uh, they say, yeah, the, the Solarian ate flies. Like they were just these like amphibians that sat in eight flies, but the asari, like, they weren't space faring or anything, but they were there. So I think that's the minbar. They were, they've been around a while. Th they'll be the next first one, if that makes any sense.

Brent: be the second ones.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: all right, so I have one more Dylan question and then I'm done with Dylan. Not even a question, just a pointing out, uh oh. She has this singular moment with Kar where she says, you know, I don't think you're the person that I met four years ago anymore. You've become something different. That's a, that's an interesting line. That's a cool line. And it, it makes you think like, okay, wait, who was Jaar and what is he now? Because there's, there's the recent experience he's had where he had this vision of, right. But he has been on this trip, like this path for a couple of seasons now too. Like, this isn't just new, but uh, like, again, not really a question, just a, a note.

Like

Jeff: Well, I made a similar, a similar note, cause I noticed in, in point of no return when he kinda shared his idea, you know, Hey, I've got this idea, let's go talk. And then when they, and then once they said, Hey, here's the security force, you know, and he kind of like saluted and whatever. He had this kind of spring in his step, you know, was kind of stepping a little more lively.

He's got the support of the NANS on the station. He's helping out the crew on Babylon five. Everything's great when he shows up. Creepily out from behind a bunch of crates where like they're secretly talking to this ranger and he is like, oh, hi. Yeah, I've been here the whole time, just, uh, watching you with this guy bleeding.

I, I'll just deadlift him and carry him for you. Well, how far can you carry him as far as you need? And even as he is carrying Ranger guy, he's got this little spring

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: in his step and it really is to me, I think like he's all in on, like serving others where the Kar, we used to know midnight on the firing line, Kar who went where the Narn attacked Radish three and he's in the council chambers blaming the Zari for the whole thing.

Like he was a conniving terrible politician, an orator who could make anyone gaslight anybody into thinking they'd done something wrong that was old Kar New Kar will deadlift a dude who can't bear his own weight and carry him as far as he needs to.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. And he'll, he'll bend the rules and get done what we need to get done for what we got here, because this is the right thing to do.

Jeff: It's the right thing to do.

Brent: Um, Jeff, I don't even know where to go next, man. Uh,

Jeff: Well, let's, let's, let's talk about, um, let's talk about Major Ryan and, and all this stuff that went

Brent: Braxton. Let's got it. Let's

Jeff: right? Dude, not only is he Captain Braxton, dude is a legend, Bruce mcgi.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, dude, his IMDB page, you could stack it and go to the moon. Like he's done everything. He was in Animal House with Steven first.

Brent: Was he really? nice,

Jeff: D-Day is who he played back then. But like, this is like, he was just starting to kind of come into his own. But a long time ago, somebody shared with me a clip on YouTube. And here's the thing, again, if you're listening, if you're watching and you wanna share with us a YouTube clip, tell us what it is.

Don't tell, don't say, Hey, it's cool. No, whatever. Don't give us any, just say, just tell us exactly what it is. Cuz someone said, Hey, just check this out. It's fine. It wasn't fine. Uh, it was from a season three blooper reel and it was Bruce McGill, uh, in the scene where they're like, Hey, what, where's General Hague?

When's General Hag gonna come in? And Bruce McGill, major Ryan says, general Hague is doing Deep Space Nine

Brent: he didn't.

Jeff: He did,

Brent: he didn't.

Jeff: he just, and he goes on, he's like, yeah, apparently he was double booked and he took the, the Star Trek gig. And that's true. Like he was double booked. He was booked to,

Brent: Uh, that's way that happened in real, like that's, that's why Hague didn't come back because he was, I guess shooting What, what is that? Home front over on Deep Space Nine. Oh my gosh.

Jeff: So fun. A couple fun facts. So one, he was signed up. This is my understanding again, and this is from a rabbit hole. Someone, I, I, someone gave it to me, I jumped into it, but I know it so I'll, I'll share it. But he, he, uh, was booked to come and film the, uh, severed Dreams. Same time Home Front was filming his, uh, his representation was like, yes, star Trek's a two-parter.

Like, let's double the money. Go do that. I'll cancel the thing for you. That's why j m s killed him.

Brent: No, really? I can't blame him. I honestly can't blame him for that. Like

Jeff: Yeah, but here's the cool thing. If you are familiar with the home front, two-parter, para Wait, home Front and Paradise Lost, I think are is the two-parter. It's where, uh, Cisco gets recalled and he's on earth and all lot of stuff happens on earth. He, uh, Robert Foxworth, who's general Hag plays Admiral Leighton.

Do you remember what Admiral Leighton was doing in Home Front?

Brent: yeah. He was the, he was the bad admiral. He was trying to, to do the coup. He was trying to be president. Well, I guess not President Clark, but he was, he was trying to take over. Yeah.

Jeff: He, you, so he, so he was an evil version of General Hag

Brent: do. I remember what happened in a Star Trek episode. Really? Jeff

Jeff: right? You've seen everyone at least 47 times.

Brent: 48 now.

Jeff: Right. Yeah. But no, it's, it was a rhetorical question, but I just thought it was great. The parallel where he's evil guy staging a coup against the federation president in Star Trek, but over here he's good. General staging a coup against the evil president and I'll take it. But yeah, so that's why we got Major Ryan, who I loved. He was great.

Brent: He really has, Bruce Mcal really has been in. Everything , like he has so many credits to his name and it's, it's ridiculous. He was in my cousin Vinny, that's, that's I think the one that I really, really know him from.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: You know, honestly. Oh. Hmm. This isn't a reference because we're talking about the man.

This isn't the first time that Bruce McGill comes in to replace a, a character either, because that's where we got Captain Braxton. Yeah. That's where we got captain. He be, he came in to replace the old captain Braxton. Uh, I don't know why, but just he did it better, you know, like

Jeff: was great.

Brent: he really was, and now he's replacing general Ha.

Okay. But he is a amaz. Okay. I just wanna say this. You're a military guy, Jeff? I'm not former. Right. Um,

Jeff: guy. Don't ever define me

Brent: you, you have, you have General Hague, and the next highest person is Ager Ryan.

Jeff: So I got a lot of problems

Brent: I, I don't know. I don't know how all the ranks go, but that seems like a pretty far drop.

Jeff: Well, I gotta imagine there are colonels and other things like that, but also maybe not. So it, it's weird. There's a blending of what I'll call ground, uh, military ranks like the, the marines in the army and Navy ranks. So Captain Sheridan, captain Hiroshi, commander of Ava, these are naval ranks, a captain in the Navy Right.

Gets to command a big ship. I was on a submarine fast attack. Our commanding officer was a commander. Our XO was a lieutenant commander. If you're on a ballistic missile submarine, this is back in the nineties, your commanding officer is a captain and the first officer is a commander. So, and we, and we see stuff like that in other sci-fi, right.

The smaller ships go to smaller ranks, but captain, but then major like ma, there is no major in the navy. Like you go lieutenant, commander, commander, captain, and then you're into the admiralty from there, you know, so you're a full bird captain, full bird colonel to go. But it's, you know, major to lieutenant, colonel, colonel, and then the general ranks.

So I don't un, I don't understand how they, they do their ranks in all of this. It does not make a lot of sense to me.

Brent: Yeah, I, I mean, I just, my biggest reference for this frame of reference is from Stargate SG one, where there's a major and then there's a colonel and, and there's a spot where the colonel gets taken out and people are like, well, why don't we just let the major lead it? And the general who's in charge of the whole thing says to them, like, says to the, to the, to the non-military person. It's a far cry from major to colonel. Like, we need somebody else in here to lead this cuz that major's just not ready, like,

Jeff: back in the back in the day, a major would be, um, a silver leaf and then you become a lieutenant colonel, which is a gold leaf, and then you become a full bird colonel as it moves up. I don't that, that might have changed. It's been a long time. Like I said, former former military guy and also, spoiler wise, if I'm wrong, like I could be misstating this, I could be misremembering.

Feel free to correct. That's a total Okay to correct me on this one, but, um, but yeah, yeah, it is a far cry from major to Colonel

Brent: So, but anyway, all of that, it actually really doesn't have much to do with the episode. Uh, they, they come in, um, I mean, Jeff, it, he's in there. He, we know this guy. He has a wife and three kids.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: This isn't some nameless face who's across the enemy lines. Right? Uh, one, one of the things that, that, uh, I've talked about on my other podcast is the idea that if you can dehumanize someone, if you can take their identity away and just put a label on them, right?

We do this in politics all the

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Take the person away and just say, you're a lefty. You're a righty. You're a liberal, you're a conservative, you're a whatever. You take away who they are and, and all the complexities that make them a person and boil it down to this one thing that's much easier to hate than a person.

And when you see the person now, it's real and, and the like. I loved the, I don't wanna shoot any more of our people. Yeah. But if you don't, we're going to die. I understand. And yes, we need to do that, but there was a real moment of recognizing the gravity of this particular situation, and I very much appreciated it in an episode that has jam-packed, that they took that moment and just expressed humanity in that

Jeff: I feel like, I feel like they took three specific opportunities. There's that one, which was beautiful because it's, it is literally him saying, Hey, I killed this guy and I'm gonna take two minutes and I'm gonna acknowledge him. And the impact that we have made by doing that, like that was awesome. It reminded me really of, um, the big battle in return to the Jedi when they get the star destroyer and it crashes down and the Superstar Destroyer and it crashes down to the Death Star and ACT bars. Heartbroken because that pilot of the A Wing had to die for it to happen. You know, everyone's like, yeah, we got an Adam Rock bar. I was like, yeah, but we lost one of ours to make it happen. And oh, that hit me like that. But the second time was when the, the destroyer came through to take him on and shared and reached out.

It was a Captain Drake, I think it was. And he is like, dude, brother, brother, man, come on. Like just captain to captain. This is not cool. You know, it's not cool. Come on dude, let's not do this. I thought it was ne like, I wish they had done, taken a few, a few more steps, like maybe they knew each other, you know, or something.

And he's able to be like, come on, you know, and, and called him by his first name or whatever. But the third one, which I thought was a beautiful, really well done, uh, callback to Groose was after the fight with the borders, when they were done repelling the borders. And there was just that, that wash of bodies that it showed that was so similar to that scene showing the attacking force on Groose that had all died.

But you had Narn, you had, um, Babylon five security, and you had Earth Force all laying with each other, bleeding on each other. And it was just like, we are all the same. We're all the same.

Brent: But there was a difference though, Jeff, when we saw that scene in Groose, it was, it was a slow panning shot over a death field in this one. A lot of those people were gasping for breath. They were still, they were going to die. Those people are done. They will die momentarily. But for right now, they weren't just dead.

They just didn't take a shot, and all of a sudden they're dead. No, those people are bleeding out. Those people are in, are hemorrhaging internally and will not recover.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: You know what I mean? Like that's the gruesome side, and they're all doing it.

Jeff: Together. Death is not clean. Right. There's actually, there's a theory of this in television or whatever of like, you know, oh, I shot the guy and he went, oh, and he is dead. And that's it. And that's not ever how it works. You know? It takes, I think it's like if you get stabbed in the stomach, it can take three days for you to die.

But in a movie or TV show, it's instantaneous, you know? And they showed us that and I thought that was brave. And I thought it humanized again, just, and not j And in this case, in that scene, it wasn't just humans. There were nans there as well. And it's just another thing of like, we're all bleeding

Brent: Yeah. And both, both sides lost something, know? Uh, both sides lost something, so

Jeff: on the borders, the, that come in on board. Can we talk about what. Stupid, dumb tactical choice Garabaldi made, Hey, let's, let's, let's set up here so we can, we can blast them. And they give them a whole like, long length of hallway to get themselves organized. And then they just sort of blast. And then it's like, how do you have this job, man?

Like, how was I ever such a huge fan of yours?

Brent: he's not good at his job. I mean, either he's not good at his job or jms isn't good at writing his job. I mean, this, I, this really could just be, this is the difference between what somebody would do in real life. And here's what we're doing for plot reasons and character development. So Garabaldi gets.

We see 'em hobbling around on a, on a staff now. Last time we saw somebody get, get hurt and hobbling around with a cane, the actress Claudia Christensen had actually like, broken her foot doing something and so they wrote it into the story. I don't know that we know that anything's going on like that with Jerry Doyle.

Jeff: Jerry Doyle. Yeah. Nothing that I know

Brent: Um, I'm curious how long we're gonna see him hobbling around on Kane though.

Jeff: If you remember after the assassination attempt on him, when he healed for a while, he was using a cane also. So I wonder if this is like exacerbating an old injury now. This is gonna become like his trick knee, you know, sort of

Brent: yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta tell you, I did you think for a second Garabaldi was gonna get it, that he was done?

Jeff: Yep. I thought Zach would,

Brent: I was like, does he leave the show? Oh,

Jeff: Like I expected Zach, almost like it's okay, it's okay. And then like cover his

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: and Zach to walk away and like that's the moment Zach would become a man, you know, sort of a thing. although that happened last week, to be fair,

Brent: that happened in the movie Grease, uh,

Jeff: it did couple times. had it since I was in the eighth grade.

Brent: Right, right. Um, yeah, I mean it just, you had that. Okay. What else did we have? Um, okay, let, can we talk about, can we, let's just get to the meat of it. Talk about Sheridan.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: The show's already running long, so let's get to where we need to be. Sheridan being once again, Absolutely the best leader you could possibly imagine, right?

And, and being the absolute right guy for this. And I wanna start with his conversation with his dad because in that moment, John Sheridan felt a lot more like Johnny to me, talking to his old man. You saw him as a kid in that moment going, Hey dad. Uh, and, and you all of a sudden you get where he gets it.

Cuz his dad is just like, Hey, listen, I know you've got a lot of decisions. He says, he says at some point he is like, I'm sure you're making a lot of tough decisions because all the important ones are always tough, you know, he is like, don't you worry about us, we got, we're good out here, we're okay. Water, water's sucking up the heat, but we're gonna be all right.

Our neighbors are gonna help take care of us. Uh, and you gotta imagine is, is Sheridan concerned for his parents,

Jeff: It's gotta be,

Brent: right? I mean

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: that they're gonna go do something to his parents for because of

Jeff: get to him. Exactly.

Brent: Um, but his dad just looks at me and he says, son, you got a lot to do. I'm gonna let you go do it. Right? Um, and, and he is like, they do the salute thing. And I, all I wanted for his dad to say in that moment was, I love you, son. That's all I wanted him to say. And eventually like Sheridan, like just before he goes, he goes, love you. Like he, he throws it out, but his DA and all his dad does is he just goes a little head nod.

Like that's all he does. I'm sorry. Side note, fast forward to when Dalin comes back on the station and they meet at the end and you're like, Sheridan needs to say something right now, and he doesn't. Oh. And then, oh, the other one was when, uh, Ivanova leaves c n c to go join the star furries and they stop and look at each other and Sheridan.

All Sheridan needed to say in that moment was, Hey, take care of yourself. Hey, come back, whatever. And they just stare at each other. And I'm like, what is it with the Sheridan men not saying what they actually need to say in the last moment?

Jeff: Well, I feel like that's a, that's a, that's a good commentary on masculinity in the mid to late nineties in general, and how it's impacted people. I loved, so it, it hit me, the, the dad thing hit me in a couple ways, but the big one was he didn't say, I, I I was waiting for the, I love yous as well, you know, and my family we're big on that.

Right? My, I was told my parents, every time, I love you. I love you. So it is a big thing. But what he did say to Sheridan the, to John that I thought was great was, I'll talk to you when I talk to you. And it reminded me, my grandpa, who was in World War ii, he was in the Navy in World War ii, and he had a thing where he, he would never, ever say goodbye, and he would never let you say goodbye to him.

He, he'd actually say, he is like, I've said goodbye to too many people. You know, I'm, I don't wanna say it again. He said, just, I'll be seeing you.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: I'll be seeing you. Because one way or another, he is a man of faith as well. And so he is like, one way or another, I'll be

Brent: I was seeing you. Right,

Jeff: next, or whatever.

And I, and I thought like that was kind of like, you know, uh, Mr. Sheridan's thing was like, Hey, I'll talk to you when I talk to you. You know? It's like I'm not saying goodbye. I trust you. I know you're doing great stuff. And look, we're good. You do you and I'll talk to you next time I talk to you.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: good.

So as I feel like that was toxic nineties masculinity, caring dad way of saying, I love you.

Brent: I, I mean, it, it was a fantastic message. It was just this one little bit. I'm like, and you're right, but bigger than that, and Jeff, this made me think about myself. If I were to ask my son this question, what would he say? What is the first lesson I ever taught you?

Jeff: yeah.

Brent: What, what I like, and I, okay, let's substitute not what's the first lesson?

What's the main lesson I've taught you growing up? Right. Like, like what, what is that? Like, what, what would you say, Jeff? Like, what, what is the lesson you've taught your kid? What if they're, if they're talking later, what would they say?

Jeff: What would they say that's, that's a, like, that's that's a tough one. What, what I, I'll tell you what I hope she would say, you know, because I think it's hard to say what she, she would say, but what I, what I hope that she would say is that it is important to take care of other people. Let me rephrase that.

It is important to take good care of yourself so that you can take really good care of other people. That is what I talk about to the people I work with and to her

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: all the time. Now, whether she's hearing it or not, I don't know. She's seven, right? So like, shoot almost eight, like a couple weeks. But it's,

Brent: you keep repeating it and repeating it. Lessons are not lessons taught once,

Jeff: right? Well, the thing

Brent: sorry, lemme say that again. Lessons learned are not lessons taught once.

Jeff: Exactly. And I I'm gonna ask you the same question in a moment, but like, I was probably in my early thirties before I could verbalize the lesson my dad taught me. You know what I mean? Like, it takes a lot of time. But what, what, what do you think, what do you think, uh, your, your son would say?

Brent: I would, I would hope, uh, he and my daughter both, uh, would say, uh, they, they would say one of two things, and I'm okay with either one of them being, first one would be, uh, I am my dad's son, or I am my dad's daughter. Like, that's who they are. Who, who am I? I am your. That's, that's the, the existence that they live in.

You know what I

Jeff: I am, me son of Brent?

Brent: no, like, like it, it, it's that, that they, and that has nothing to do with me as much as that has to do with who they are does not depend on what they do, where they go, how much money they make, what their job is, what clothes they're wearing. It depends on their identity of, of who they are, who loves them, who's a part of their life, who, what, what's around.

Like, that's what I mean by that. You know what I mean? Uh, your identity is wrapped up in who you are, not what you do.

Jeff: Yeah. Almost

Brent: talked about identity a lot on this show over the, the last two and a half seasons,

Jeff: Almost turn it into I am me son of Brent, father of so-and-so. Right? Like, like that, that whole connection to everything and what's important to you and what you love. Yeah, I get that.

Brent: Exactly. So it would either be that or it would be, Hey, uh, we're the Allen family. What do we do? We love people. That, that is our mantra. We love people. People matter. People are the number one thing. We, we are concerned about people over all else. I don't care if you are, I don't care if I'm right.

What does this do for people? You know what I mean? We are about people in this family and, and we l like, I would be okay with either one of those two as an answer. Right? Love people.

Jeff: But I also love never start a fight, but but always finish

Brent: Hey, that's a great one for my now 10 year old. That's an appropriate lesson for him.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I love it. I, yeah. Never start a fight, but I love that that's what played out in the fight. Like Sharon's like, look, I'm not gonna start this. You're gonna come in here, you're gonna, you're gonna run on this. You can, I'm gonna make you throw the first punch, but if you throw the first punch, I will throw the last punch. you know?

Jeff: There was some, I forget, I forget. I, it might have, I don't remember the movie. It might have been Breakfast Club. I'm probably wrong. But somebody's like, uh, like, yeah, we're gonna fight. He's like, if we do this, there's gonna be two hits. Me hitting you, you hitting the floor. And I remember too, it was my grandpa who told me, he is like, no, there should always be three.

There should be the one they throw that you dodge, then the one where you hit them and the one where they hit the floor. Like,

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: but I still like that there'll be two hits.

Brent: there you go. There you

Jeff: pretty rough.

Brent: So Sheridan talks with his dad, makes a decision. Go. Like he, he's processing all of this. He's watting up the Marshall Law order in the last episode and throwing it away. And he, he gets to a spot where he has to look at his command staff, his guys, they're coming for us.

They are coming for us. They are going to arrest us now. We can either surrender and they'll court martialist or we can fight and if we lose, they're going to execute us. And he said, I, he, he, he appealed to this, which I thought sounded cool, but in reality is not cool because I think the rest of the people would be like, I don't care what you promised her.

He said, I promised Delin that we would draw a line and be a thing of like, and if I'm sitting there like Franklin, I'm like, dude, I don't care what you promised to Lynn. Let's talk about us

Jeff: Well, and frankly in, in the face of earth force coming to blow you sky high, the whole light versus dark thing just sounded corny and cheesy. It's like, eh, I get that's important to you, dude. No one else at this

Brent: Yeah. But you know what made it sound way cooler When you go, the line must be drawn. Yeah. And no photo that made it sound cool.

Jeff: And then Niva says, you, you broke your little ship. That's, I'm writing your, I'm writing yours on that one.

Brent: Fair enough. Fair enough.

Jeff: But I loved, I loved though, cuz he gave, he gave them a chance to enroll in what he was doing. And then two times in c n c he gave people a chance to walk away

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: and be cool. And, and one dude did like the second time he is

Brent: did you see the look of disgust on Bruce boxer's face when

Jeff: Anna Ivanova too? Yeah, both. They're both just like, like he, he, the guy, I mean, good for him. He took his headset off, he walked up, but they both watched him just like you Scum of the earth garbage. Yeah.

Brent: yeah. I need to have that conversation with that guy. Like, dude, what do you not understand what's going on here? I mean, I guess people, people could still sit there and be like, no, no, no, but we swore an oath and he's the guy and that's what I'm following. And

Jeff: Well, and, but it all goes back to what he said a couple episodes ago. There's respect for the office and then there's respect for the person in the office. And those are two very different

Brent: yeah. Oh, you must have been the guy who voted for him.

Jeff: Uh huh. But again, I think I said it last week, I'll say it again. Ivanova totally dropped the ball on Corwin,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: you know, Hey, I asked him two questions.

He answered it the way anyone would. So he is not in. He was totally in, and he, I feel like he had a fire, like during that fight when he is calling out what was going on, like he was in it, you know? And I don't know, I, this has not been a great season for Ivanova.

Brent: Ivanova is not who Ivanova has been. You know what I mean? Like, you think of season one Ivanova, even beginning of season two, where she's like, look, if you guys don't like it, I'm gonna throw you in an airlock and I'm gonna open up the ceiling and we'll see who, who likes it. Then, you know, like, you know, she, she, oh, I do hope you're gonna resist.

Ivanova is God. I am not just kidding God. Like that's the avan, that Ivanova does not exist right now.

Jeff: No.

Brent: You know? Uh, she's worried about Marcus hitting on her too much, and honestly, she's just doing her job. Like that's, that's her lines are her job.

Jeff: And not even doing it. Well, again, like the Corwin thing, that was not done well. You know, and she's been given some diplomatic things that she stumbled into to make

Brent: Well, I, you know, and I go back to, you remember that dude that she was supposed to sign lines with and like you wanted to sleep with her at the end of

Jeff: yeah, Lu uh, the Luma, I

Brent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. And she just had to act like an absolute buffoon. I almost feel like since then, like she's just lost her edge and I want her to get it back, you know?

Jeff: Well, I think, I think she got a piece of it in this episode when she's like, I need to go out with the Star Ferry crew.

Brent: Okay. So was that the right call for Ivanova or not? What do you think?

Jeff: So you can defend both sides. I can as well, but I think it was the right call.

Brent: Okay, let's go with why do you think it was the right call first? No, no, sorry. Take that back. Why was it the wrong call?

Jeff: It was the wrong call because it puts her a, an important person in the command structure of everything that's going on at Extreme Extreme Risk. And it also undercuts whomever is commanding the, the, the Star Fury squadrons. It's basically saying, yep. It's basically saying, Hey, when it's day-to-day, you're great, but right now it matters.

So I need to step in and take this over. Like that's the reason to not do

Brent: Right, right. And that, that was honestly my reason for not doing it, was that that whole squadron has a commander and y that commander has worked their way up to that. And it's, it's not, uh, listen, in a moment like this, I'm not worried about your feelings, Jack. You know what I mean?

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: Ivanova was not there to command the troops.

Her presence was there for one of solidarity of, Hey, we're not gonna ask you guys to go do anything that we're not gonna do ourselves, and we're gonna be on the battlefield with you. And that's, that's good. I'm with you on that, because nobody likes that guy sitting up in the office in the ivory tower just being, uh, being safe while we're the ones putting ourselves online.

I'm gonna be here with you, her taking the command like that. Although it may have been Right. Given, you know, uh, or the hierarchy. But one of the things I know from watching Sci-fi. Now, I don't know if this works out in the real navy or not, Jeff. You can, you can enlighten me. But in sci-fi, when an admiral comes on the ship and the highest person is normally a captain, the ship is still the captains.

Now the admiral can come in and, and, and counterman orders and, and go over the captain's head, but typically the admiral still lets the captain command the ship. Right? The only person of honor a should have then actually been talking to should have been whoever their fleet commander was, you know, uh, in that moment, or I, again, I don't know how it works.

I'm not out there in star furries. Those guys are moving so fast. You don't have time to play nice with people's feelings. I get it.

Jeff: Well, I think I, I, I thought I thought of her in this scene as, as a flag, right? You know, I mean, when you think about the old, like Revolutionary War battles, and there was always the flag bearer and the drummer, you know, and the fife next to them, you know, playing a song, holding the flag. They weren't shooting anybody.

They weren't fought. They were literally just like holding up the thing that says, Hey, that's what we're fighting for. Right there. I, you know, I can dig deeper. That's was, that was her role in this, or, or should have been her role, maybe not commanding anything. If anything, um, building up the command commander says, uh, you know, get, get on my sex, do this, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And she's like, yeah, great job. You know, whatever, cheerleading, whatever context makes sense in that really hot dog fight kind of mentality. But her role is basically saying, Hey, all of you have agreed to essentially counter an order from the commander-in-chief. Not only are you putting yourselves at risk physically in this battle, but if we win and get out of this, your career is on the line.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I'm gonna be there with you on the frontline. And I think that's, we, we, we've seen that, uh, with, with Zelensky in Ukraine. He's not necessarily fighting, he's not necessarily giving orders, but he's walking the front line and he is talking to soldiers and he is being there as a flag to remind them what they're fighting for.

That's why I felt I was all for Ivanova doing it until she started issuing some orders. But then when she had to e. She bought what she bought with that mo and it wasn't intentional. Right. Like literally she was distracted by what was going on and then had the collision and, and, and everything went south from there.

But for her to have had to eject in battle and come back in, that Star Fury team will straight murder anyone and will take any bullet for her. Cuz she, she died for them, essentially.

Brent: Right, right. I, I gotta tell you, when she did that, I 100% thought she was about to get, uh, captured,

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: you know what I mean? Like, I, like, I really thought that she was, she was going to, uh, uh, wind up like in Earth force clutches, and they were gonna run away with her or

Jeff: Oof. Yeah. And then it turns into a personal, like, rescue mission. They waited way too long from, it wasn't even clear that she hit the eject button. Right. Like she was getting ready to, and then her

Brent: Well, I saw her, I saw her, I saw her reach up. Like as soon as she reached up, I was pretty confident that that's

Jeff: for me, I was like, so she reached up, she was getting ready, then her ship blew up and then it was like five, eight some odd minutes before they were like, oh yeah, she's in med.

Like no one even mentioned her. And, and it would've been great if someone was just like, I don't know, as soon as things settled down and been like, yeah, yeah. We we're, we're scooping up the people who ejected. We got a vva, she's headed to med lab. Okay, cool. But it went on a long time of just. Did she make it?

Like, what happened,

Brent: she okay? What, uh, what are we doing

Jeff: are we gonna lose Garabaldi, anavan, Ava in this thing? Like,

I felt like Sheridan

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: missed an opportunity. So at the end of the episode, right, he's talking to Major Hayes, and Hayes is like, Hey, we're gonna take care of, you know, Hoshi, uh, Hiroshi crew and all

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: And then as they were walking in, I was like, Hey, you're forgetting something. Cause he didn't have his uniform on and he's like, Nope, can't wear it.

Brent: Saw, saw that coming. A hundred percent. Saw that coming. Yeah.

Jeff: Everyone else was wearing them,

Brent: I

Jeff: which I thought was, yep, I thought was really poor taste. But what I wish would've happened is when he was doing his address to everybody using the holo, uh, draws hologram thing, is he, he, he, you know, he's walking through the Declaration of Independence and when he got to the line that said he sec succeeded, I wish he would've reached over and pulled off his earth force insignia at that moment.

Just a punctuation mark. And then I wish again, everyone who stuck around took it off in the whole rest of the episode is people with their stat bar and no Earth Force Alliance thing on their lapel or on their, on their chest. That would've been big. But the last scene to be everyone there wearing their Earth Force uniform with their earth force insignia felt pretty disingenuous.

Brent: did. It, I, it was, it's something weird, like on the other side of it, I still think that they feel very earth force. They're still connected to Earth. In fact, even in his succession speech, what he said was, we are going to be an independent state until Clark is removed from office. And then we'll, we're, we're, we're right back.

Like, we're still a part of this, you know? Um, and,

Jeff: yeah. In fact, it's not them who are leaving Earth Force. They see President Clark is the one who has

Brent: them? Yeah.

Jeff: Okay. Yeah.

Brent: And, and so I kind of see why they would've kept that on also. What else, what other uniform do they have right now?

Jeff: Right. They've got their, uh, you know, little mare d outfits from the, from the pilot episode,

Brent: Right. Right.

Jeff: I felt like it was pretty, like heavy hand. He kept throwing around the term unconstitutional. And I think for us in, uh, I'll say a post nine 11 world, as we talk about things like the Patriot Act and blah, blah, blah, and these things that term constitutional and unconstitutional carries a big weight for it.

So I went and did a little bit of research on martial law in the United States. So this is, this is through a United States constitutional and legal lens. I don't know what it's like in other countries. In the United States in the nine, early, early, uh, or after the Civil War in the late 19th century, there was a lot of concern about the government powers and exercise throwing the military in to go basically run martial law.

So they passed a law called the Insurrection Act. And in the Insurrection Insurrection Act, it defines when and how, and puts a lot of boundaries around when the president can activate the military against American citizens on American soil. So you can declare martial law, but it is excruciatingly specific as to how and when.

That's been challenged a number of times in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has upheld what's in the Insurrection Act, and that was, um, it was updated, uh, gosh, about 10 years ago. I think They, they, they amended it a little bit and just added more clarity to a point where, like, back what, three years ago when during the, after George Floyd was murdered and there were the, the riots and things going on, and then President Trump was like, we're gonna send the National Guard out and we're gonna activate the military.

He would not have legally been allowed to send the military, like it wouldn't have lined up with what was in the Insurrection Act. So we couldn't even do that. So through the lens of the United States, Sheridan's a hundred percent. Right. Every Clark cannot dissolve the Senate. Clark cannot turn on CI like bombing Mars.

Like you can't bomb citizens on Mars. You can't do that. That's unconstitutional. So through that lens, legally, maybe major, uh, what's his name? ? Uh, major Ryan is like the ranking Earth official at this point. Really?

Brent: Major Ryan,

Jeff: Yeah. Cuz it would've been General Hague. Right. But General Hague's dead and now it's

Brent: no, but now it would be Captain Sheridan or Captain Hoshi Hiroshi or someone of that nature. Like

Jeff: major's above them.

Brent: A major is above a captain.

Jeff: Yeah. Apparently. Didn't you see the little, like all this stuff on his lapel?

Brent: Major's. Above a captain.

Jeff: No, but apparently depends on how, how, how , how you're shaking your stuff out. I saw Major

Brent: in the Air Force it is, but captain's a low, uh, a low rank in the air.

Jeff: Yeah. In the Air Force Army Marines captain is basically a full lieutenant in the Navy,

Brent: But in the Navy, a captain's a captain.

Jeff: captain is a full bird colonel, essentially in the Navy. Yeah. We talked about this here a little

Brent: look, all, all due respect to our military, can they align their words

Jeff: Seriously, seriously.

Brent: as different things? Like, let's align our words or just get different words. That'd be cool with that. Um, I'm, I probably just pissed off like all the military people out there or they're all like, yes, please.

Jeff: please, for goodness

Brent: One of the two. Um, but sh I mean, Sheridan's speech on the Hollow, which by the way, the only time I, this is the first time I have ever seen somebody be on a hollow like that. Like this big, huge, gigantic, I'm delivering a speech and have that be a good guy.

Jeff: right,

Brent: That's always a bad guy. Move right there.

Jeff: Yeah. And it was awesome. It was so, it was amazing. And clearly everybody was forth that that final scene of the episode of everyone clapping

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: for them on the Zocalo, like he has United this group. But I think, and this is kind of my last thought on on all of this, was they dropped this one little piece at the end of, Hey, we got our prisoners rounded up.

We're sending everybody away except the people who we don't know our night watch or whatever. And I think Sheridan even says, he's like, we're gonna have some sabotage. We gotta watch out here for a while

Brent: Yeah. They had a line of night watch people getting kicked out.

Jeff: with their armbands on and

Brent: And so here's the thing. Is there not a spot where you, where you look at those folks and you say, Hey, I'm gonna give you one chance to drop that armband. If you want to go back, you can go back.

But if you want to stay and you're a part of this, like, do you not give them that opportunity to to do that?

Jeff: I don't think so. Not at this point. I think that opportunity was last week when they were lined up with SG one and Zach,

Brent: Okay. Fair enough. So apparently all uh, uh, what is Babylon? Five to Earth, let me ask you that. Why can they declare independence? Because they're a station? Are they considered a colony? Like a col? I could see a colony declaring independence, an outpost, maybe not so much. And I would think the Babylon five would fall way more into an outpost rather than a colony.

Like

Jeff: I think about like, is Fort Dicks gonna say, oh, we're our own independent state

Brent: Right. Except Fort Dicks doesn't have 250,000 people on it.

Jeff: exact exa. Yeah, it's not that big. And, and really what we, what we learned in, and now for a word and a couple other episodes in there, really Babylon five was just a money sink as far as a lot of people saw.

It's just a dangerous place with the waste of taxpayer dollars. I actually found it interesting when the Menari showed up, and I think it was Captain Drake says, or somebody said, you don't ha, you have no authority here. Like, we don't recognize your authority or something. Like, I very keenly remember the minbar uh, throwing.

At Babylon five to, to make it a thing. Being a part of the selection committee for Sinclair , you know, and like there was a lot of things that Minbar had to do with this. Was that just like one lump sum payment? Was it like, we're gonna give you x million credits so we can pick your commanding officer and then, and then we're out and it's all on your earth force or I think, I think there were still questions cuz ultimately, God, if I'm Babylon five and I've just seceded from Earth, we now have zero credits. Hopefully everyone's cool working for free. Those dock workers sure. Haven't been

Brent: I mean, I mean your, yeah. Your money no longer means anything now. Right. Uh, we're gonna have to make our own. I mean, that, that was the same thing. Um, again, for, forgive me to our international folks. I, I know our history when, when the American Revolution happened, they had to figure out money. That was a thing.

Like what do we do? How does this work? Is it actually gonna be worth anything? Um, here's a, you just mentioned Captain Drake. Okay. Now, I, I don't know if how often you pay attention to these, to these names. Like there's the Churchill and the Alexander, and then there was the Roanoke and, and all this. But you had Captain Drake come in.

Do you know who, do you know who Drake is in real life? I wonder if this was a, a real connect for J M S V did this

Jeff: I didn't, I didn't connect

Brent: So Sir Francis Drake

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: was a, a sea ship captain that was a privateer. Now privateer is just a fancy word for a legal pirate. Okay. Um, and he would go out there and he was, he was a bad muk.

Like this guy would go out and, and do not great stuff, but he had conscription papers from, I wanna say it was the king or queen of England that said, what you are doing is fine as long as you don't do it to our people. Right? But all those other folks out there that are doing it, they're like, no, no, you are actually just a pirate.

So depending on who you're looking at, Drake was either a hero or he was a criminal. This Drake who's coming in, depending on who he was, who's talking to him, is either like a pirate who's gonna jack you up, or he's the hero.

Jeff: Coming into take down Babylon five, the evil Seditious Babylon. Five.

Brent: I, again, I don't know if J Jms meant that when he named him.

But I like, I, I see it kind of fitting. I like it.

Jeff: that is kind of cool. And I don't think he's one to just throw a name out for the sake of having a name. You know, we, we talked about that with, uh, Maccabe's dude, you know, way back with the night watch. Like these are intentional names that he's choosing. I like that.

Brent: So, okay, let's where we are in plot, because I think we need to move on. Um, Babylon five has now declared its independence. They have won the first battle. That does not mean that, that all the battles are over. Like I don't, I I would be shocked if they had to keep dealing with Earth Force sending ships out to try to retake babbel on five like that.

Honestly, that would, that would be a plot line that would just get really old really fast from a, from a drama perspective. Like, like, they've got to move on. Um, I, you know, spoiler alert, the next episode probably has to be, okay, now we're an independent state. What do we do now? It's gotta, it, it has to go into that question is what I think they're, and I think next week's episode is gonna be a, a come down off of the intensity of this, of this episode.

That's, that's just my guess. But still Earth Force just can't be like, oh, okay, we're just gonna let you go. They're not gonna let 'em just go, right. Is

Jeff: I think it's gonna get, it's gonna get dirtier now. Cause if those minbar vessels stick around, they can't send ships and Earth knows that. So this is gonna turn into,

Brent: are the Imbar presenting a blockade, a protective blockade on on

Jeff: In, in front of, uh, in front of the wormhole.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Maybe they'll mine, maybe they'll mine

Brent: Oh, geez, Jeff. Oh, I wasn't even going there. You went there. I wasn't even going there for that.

Jeff: I did.

I went there. I, I gave myself the buzz. But I, I do think they're gonna stick around and so we're, we're gonna get more, I, I think Sheridan said it at the end. We're gonna get more sabotage. We're gonna get more tension. There's gonna be more questions about, cuz it's someone that we can trust, they've sewn some seeds around the narn, you know, and who can, Hey, are the narn gonna be okay with this?

And so I think that's gonna be some of it, it's gonna be more of that dark tension that we have to deal with.

Brent: Uhhuh . All right. So they're an independent state. That's what we've, is she, what is Sheridan gonna become now?

Jeff: Well, he's the governor. He even said he is like, as

Brent: the military governor.

Jeff: of this, so Yeah, he's, he's like

Brent: So I, I mean, I'm just, I'm, I'm sorry. I'm just pulling this, I'm pulling this from our, again, our own history. Is he gonna become a president? Like, are they gonna establish a constitution and he becomes a p.

Jeff: I

Brent: Or will they do elections and maybe it's not Sheridan.

He stays as the military guy and there's somebody else who becomes the president and we barely ever see them on the show, just like another sci-fi show that we do.

Jeff: Well I think if, if that's. If President Clark and Earth don't go down, then I could see it going there. But then, but then we, but then we get Battlestar Galactica, right. That, that turned into a, into a big political, you know, who's this and who's running that.

Brent: right,

Jeff: so I I, I don't know if we'll ever if we'll go there.

I think it's just gonna be Jake Sheridan's the man. Like he's, he's the guy in charge all hail, all the Sheridan. And it's cool.

Brent: right. Um, last thing I had, uh, holy hell, that was a lot of star furries out there in the battle. I was like, wow. I didn't know there was that many out there.

Jeff: when it was the Alexander and the Churchill were kind of next to each other and they're like, you know, launch the fighters. It was just like this con

Brent: yeah, yeah.

Jeff: like got a fire hose of star furries flying out

Brent: I, I gotta say, I really hope moving forward that we meet some of the Churchill Star Fury pilots and that they maintain some sort of a difference from the Babylon five Star Fury pilots, or that there's something about them integrating and, oh, Jeff, do you have, do you, can I borrow one?

Jeff: I got one. Yeah, you can

Brent: Can I, can I have it?

Um,

Jeff: I have one, but I'll, I'll say Yeah, you can have one cuz I know where you're going.

Brent: I hope this isn't a Machi Voyager thing, where all of a sudden it's like, okay, we're all good. Like, like these, these groups need to come together and it might, it, they're not gonna be, they're not gonna have animosity towards each other. At least they shouldn't not like the way the Machi and the Voyager crew did.

Um, but I want to see like, no, no, no. We are actually from the Churchill group, not just, all right, we're here on Babbel on five now, so now we're babbel on five. Like they just lost their ship and all their buddies and all those, their captain, they lost everything. Those folks need to deal with that and not just be okay being on Babbel on five now, filling out their dead ranks.

Jeff: I think, I think it might be more like Battlestar Galactic. Uh, I, I've referenced Battlestar Galactic

Brent: You have, you're making me want to go rewatch that show now.

Jeff: I know. It's so good. There was this, the, the little, um, mini, mini movie they did, and then it led to some people on board. They found the other, the other battle star, the one that, um, I don't have any

Brent: Yep. I know who you're talking about.

Jeff: yeah, I forget the name of it.

But some of them joined the crew of Battlestar Galactica

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: and they had this ongoing stuff like, well, on our ship we did things like this. And, you know, you, and just, I think especially within the flight groups, they had, they had some of this. So that would be cool to kind of have some of those, those, uh, those ongoing.

Brent: All right, Jeff. Well, I think we have officially come down to it, and even if not, we're at an hour and 50 minutes. We need to, we need to get,

Jeff: It's a lot of hours in a couple of weeks that we're

Brent: Yeah. Uh, oh. Oh yeah. We've had a couple of these back to back to back. Uh, so anyway, it's time to boil this all down and see if the show has any of that star treky quality to it that we keep looking for.

Is there a deep moral message? Is there a mirror to society? Are we giving us hope that we can be better in the future? Jeff, I'm gonna start this by rating us on a scale of zero to five deltas as far as how Star Trek this episode is. And you get the fun one. You get to rate zero to five star furries. As far as how much we enjoyed this episode, I'll go first with the Deltas.

We've talked a bit about it, but there was one line, one line to me that stands out above the rest, and it hovered over the entire episode. This wasn't a throwaway line. Okay. A lot of times we get a Star Trek line and it just, it just sort of slips in there and then they move on. But th this really, I think, covered over the whole thing.

Uh, Sheridan says at one point, our humanity got us into this, and it will be our humanity that gets us out, our, our flaws, our fatness, our selfishness, all the, all the gross stuff that comes with just being human. Because we're not perfect. We are, we as a, as, as a race are a race of flawed individuals. Every single one of us, not a one of us is perfect. You know, there might have been that one guy if, if you're in that spot, but not a one of us is perfect

Right? Right. But at the same time, that that same thing that makes us flawed people is also the thing that you can hang your hat on. It is also the thing that gives you hope to be better in the future. One of the things I loved, loved about going through Be Me Up was going through the, um, uh, going through the series and I was it when we got to Enterprise, I wanna say it was when we got to Enterprise and what you realize is the universe was a mess.

The Vulcans were a mess. The Klingons were a mess. Everybody was a mess until Earth came on the scene. Now we were young, we were stupid, we were a little cavalier, but it was when Earth got on the scene, the earth ships that all of a sudden we started to be able to shift and move towards a better, uh, us.

In the future. Right. Some people accepted it and accepted the challenge like the Vulcans, because the Vulcans, particularly in the early seasons of, of uh, uh, enterprise were jerks. They were not good people. Objectively. They were bad people. They were not this ideal Vulcan that we see when we first meet Spock back in 1960 something or other.

Right. There's the war going on between them and the andorians. The tele rights are just out doing whatever the heck they are. But it was humanity that brought everybody together, right? That the humans are the hope of the future. That, that because we have this capacity Yes. Of flawed, of being able to do evil.

We also have this capacity of being really good and being a powerful, positive influence. And that, I think is what Sheridan slash JMS was appealing to with this line. It is our humanity that got us into this, but it's also gonna be our humanity that gets us out because we're, we're not gonna start the fight.

We'll finish it, or we're not gonna start it. We're going to care about people, we're gonna value people, uh, and not just humans, but we're gonna value all life. Right. Jeff, this, I mean, that is, that is quintessentially the whole Star Trek thing. The mbar, you're gonna come to the rescue, like, we're going to come together because we're working together.

You now have, think about where we are now, Jeff. You've got the humans that are on board, Babylon five working with the Nans, who are now part of the security force, and now you have the mbar who have stepped up adding protection to the, to the, to the whole deal. The Centara are out there still kind of going off half cocked.

We don't know anything about them. The non-aligned worlds are kind of mis, mis uh, uh, mismatched. They're, they're kind of a little here, a little not there, but the, the main ones are there and obviously the four lawns are, are in on this whole thing as well. Like they're, they're keeping an arms distance, but you know, we've seen Kosh now insert himself a few times, you know, um, the station is becoming what it's set out to be, right.

It's not just, Hey, earth is running this, the humans are running everything and you guys are just coming here playing in our backyard. The station is becoming more integrated among all its people, and I love that. Right. I love that. That to me is a great, great Star Trek message. So much of this episode was pew, pew, pew. So much of this episode was action, action, action, action. But I think this one idea, if you look at it that way, that our humanity got us into this.

Sure did, but it's also gonna help us get us out that pervaded everything throughout this whole deal. That Pervaded Dylann going to talk to the great council that pervaded Sheridan talking to his dad. That pervaded the big scary holographic bad guy image where he declared his own, uh, uh, independence.

That, that did the way that they chose to fought the way that they accept the, the, the orphaned star fury pilots from the Churchill. Now at the end, to the people clapping with Sheridan at the end. So, uh, with that, Jeff, this gives me a solid three and a half star furious. It's not bang you over the head with all the Star Trek stuff, but it is front and center.

It is right up there. And then there was a lot of pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.

Jeff: I'm gonna challenge you a little bit

Brent: Do it.

Jeff: and I'm gonna do it with four words, infinite diversity and infinite combinations. I guess that's five words, right? I D I C, which is really one of the foundational pieces of Star Trek, and what it basically says is that you can only create true beauty, which is a theme through Babylon five, but true beauty, true, true strength through diversity.

In fact, even this symbol, the I D I C symbol, which is a circle made out of one type of material that's smooth and whatever, a triangle made out of a different kind of metal that's bumpy and kind of rough with a jewel in the middle. It takes different things to create amazing pieces and that the theme of this entire episode was that when left alone went in complete darkness,

Brent: Uhhuh.

Jeff: beauty.

In their diversity. So Kosh way back in there, well I think it was there all the other honor li I don't remember a lot of the season two ones. But when he took him to, so you know, hey, even in darkness there's real, there's beauty to be found. He took Sheridan and showed him that. We saw that in action here, and this is part of my star theory piece as well, on how Babylon five everything was.

But it took infinite diversity to beat the unbeatable force and that scene with everyone on the solo clapping. What struck me in that scene wasn't that everyone was cheering for the little command group and for Sheridan it was that there were drowsy, they're cheering, there were Narn there

Brent: there. I, I was wondering guys, I, I, I really didn't see, but I was also, look, I was looking, honestly, I was looking at that poster in the background before they gave us the closeup of it, you know?

Jeff: yeah, that poster was a big thing. But that, that, that, that sea of people that they were able to get that I'm sure was a bunch of crew, you know, whatever. And they put like a little bit of makeup on. But that was a very diverse group of people, of multiple races, species and, and factions that came together.

And that's how they've been able, that that's why they could succeed. That's why they could push back Earth Force because they flexed infinite diversity in infinite combinations and created beauty in darkness.

Brent: So

Jeff: dunno if that's worth more deltas

Brent: oh, is it worth more deltas? I see, I see. So here, here's, here's an interesting thing. I, because I, I hear everything you're saying. I think we said basically the same thing, because what is infinite diversity and infinite combinations with humans and all these aliens, that is a metaphor for infinite diversity and infinite combinations here on earth right now with humanity, given all the different people groups, all the political groups, all the religious groups, all the, everything that makes us different.

And Jeff, you said it amazingly just a second ago, we work best in diversity. Right? Like bringing that together. That is, and, and when Sheridan said, yeah, our humanity got us in this, but it's our humanity that will get us out. It's us being able to, to uh, come bring everybody together. That's the thing that's gonna get us out.

That's infinite diversity and infinite combinations. Just without the Star Trek reference words that you said. I will do this though, because I, I agree with you and I, I struggled with where I, I really try not to just go oh five Deltas. Oh, it's all there. So I may have graded it. I've always been a, oh, you know, I'm a teacher.

I will say this, I think I'm a great teacher. I'm also a tough grader. I've always been a tough grader. I will give you another half delta and make this a four delta episode.

Jeff: Love it. I, on the other hand, yeah, say I on the other hand, I'm gonna do the thing you're avoiding. Just this is five star fears,

Brent: Cuz that's what it is, right?

Jeff: yeah. We, we, if, if you're on the audio piece, this is different. But right now on YouTube, we just cro crossed the two hour mark and all we've been talking about is how incredible, how amazing, how fun, how challenging, how great this episode was.

Brent: Just at pre predict something for me, Jeff. Right now for the, for the audio folk, we don't, we don't usually do stuff exclusive to the audio folk. The YouTube folk won't ever get this at all. When you go in and you make all your edits and you suck out all the pauses and everything like that, we're right at two hours right now.

Where is this? In the audio feed. Make your guess.

Jeff: This'll be at an hour. 42

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: is my guess.

Brent: All right people, I want you to go back, subtract one minute from right now.

Jeff: 42. This is a long

Brent: I know it's subtract one minute from, from where you guys are right now and then, uh, tweet us at and tell us where this winds up.

Jeff: That'll be fun. That'll be fun.

Brent: Oh yeah. Five Starfuries is awesome. Awesome. Uh, episode. So, Jeff, two more things and then we're outta here. Just like last season, we are creating the absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of Season three Babylon five. The questions, where are you gonna put severed dreams? You get to place it this week, two weeks ago, you said, Hey, we're gonna put messages from Earth at number one, although I suspect it's only gonna be there for one week.

You were absolutely right. Last week, I replaced messages from Earth with point of no return, and that was the correct move. The question is, are you gonna replace point of no return and only give that one week in the number one slot as good of an episode as that was, and replace it with severed dreams? Bearing in mind, point of no return is the, the, the particular episode of season three,

Jeff: This should be an easy answer. It is not, and I have been literally since I took my notes earlier today, I have been stressed out about this moment. I'll just tell you right from it. This is number one, or it's number two. This is literally a question of where it goes in relation to point of no return. And so we, we, uh, we, we look at this in two ways.

How Babylon five is this episode and how much did we enjoy it? That's star furious actually. So, but I'm gonna use that as, as, as kind of a guide in ranking this. Holy cred. These, these two episodes, these three episodes. I, I would argue that to this point in the series, you don't get more Babylon five than these three episodes.

I remember a season ago, almost exactly a season ago when the Coming of Shadows, when we did, we did that episode and the community was incredible. They were, they, they were in unison of this episode is Babylon five. Like this is what you do. And Yeah, at that point, a hundred percent at that point, but then in the shadow is Aha.

Doom kind of eclipsed it. And, and I, if I remember in our ranking

Brent: night and

Jeff: it, yeah, it, it kind of fell and, and, and outside of the top five in that, I think these three are much more Babylon, five than even that.

Brent: This, this is definitely Jeff, where Babylon five stands on its own. There is zero need to compare Babylon five to anything else. Now, we often say, we're not comparing it to Star Trek, we're just using that analytical lens to see what messages lie within. Uh, and I still hold that, but I mean, this is Babylon five standing shoulder to shoulder with Star Trek, Stargate Battle Star Galactica.

Star Wars. Yes. I'm, I mean, it's shoulder to shoulder with all Dr. Who, all of them,

Jeff: Well, we made all those references, like we used up all of our Star Trek references. I used up twice as many Battlestar Galatica references. We brought in Stargate, we brought in Star Wars, we brought in all those, because this is just big. And in fact, I think, uh, that's helped me make my decision

Brent: gonna, can I stump one more thing? Can I just one more thing. We have been predicting for 10 episodes now, something that was gonna happen. This is the episode where it finally pays off. And you know what? There is no better feeling when something that you have been looking for and predicting actually pays off.

Yes, there is a thing about usurping expectations, but also sometimes you just gotta give people the stick that they've been, that you've been dangling in front of them. You know what I mean? And this was the episode that, that everything, everything before this episode led to this episode, including the last two episodes,

Jeff: And directly. So everything, and I think there's two big things that are gonna land on my final ranking for this one. What we said very early, either in this episode or even before we went on Mike, I forget which, but that was, you could show this episode to someone who had never watched Babylon five before, and they would be hooked.

They wouldn't have all the answers. It wouldn't be, you know, the, the end all be all, but they, this would hook them into the series. And two, like I shared, my wife, who is not a fan of Babylon five, was moved by the big aha, the big succession. In this episode, Brent Severed Dreams is the number one episode of season three so far.

Brent: I literally added that to our ranking about three minutes ago.

Jeff: you know me so well.

Brent: Well after 56 episodes, you know?

Jeff: Right. Well, hey, Brent. That's it for Severed Dreams. Next week we're gonna watch another episode. I think we're gonna drop out of this little, uh, this little arc that we've been in. And all we know at this point is the name of the episode. It is Ceremonies of Light and Dark. So all we know is the title We, the game we like to play here is we're gonna guess what the episode's gonna be about based on that only.

So Brent, what do you think ceremonies of light and dark is going to be about?

Brent: Well, I said earlier in this episode that this has to be about Babylon five. Now figuring out how to live as an independent state. You know, maybe they figure out what the constitution looks like and what, what does it mean? Like what are they gonna be, are they still just gonna be a, an ambassadorial space station?

Are they now a military thing? Like, like what are they? Because they still have 250,000 people living there. Right. But ceremonies of light and dark, I really want to try to be careful not to just be drawn in by a title, because we know sometimes that doesn't matter. But when, like I think of ceremonies of light and dark.

We talk about being the separating line between light and dark, but also there's a lot of dead people on the ship right now, or the station right now. And there we're talking about ceremonies of, of stuff. I think that this is gonna be a post-war, or post battle. Uh, get everybody back together like we might see some funerals.

That's the ceremony of dark. That's the, the sad stuff. Uh, we might see, um, I don't know if there's relationships that might break because of this, you know?

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: but then there's also ceremonies of light. We mentioned maybe Sheridan becomes a president or something like that. Like what are the, what are the ceremonies that now need to happen?

Um, because does, oh, are Sheridan and Dalin gonna get married because now they're partners? Uh, like, like a, it'd be so fast. Oh, they're, they are slow playing this relationship. There's absolutely no way that that happens. I don't even know if they're gonna get married by the end, but they're gonna be a couple before whole things said and done.

Um, I, the way he pulled her in at the end of this episode, like, he didn't do that to anybody else. He

Jeff: Well, and she's hanging on him like the like, yeah.

Brent: yeah. Like that's, he kissed her hand when she tried to like, shake it and he was like, anyway, um, but I think that's gonna, it, this is gonna be a lot of the cleaning up the fallout.

Uh, and I, I think maybe the, figuring out how the station runs might be the episode after that. But I think this is the, the immediate like, bring out the, bring out the broom. We gotta clean this up now. What do you think?

Jeff: So I agree at the high level this is about cleaning things up and moving forward, but I think this is gonna focus on Dalen. I think that she has broken the council, she's got the warrior cast that are upset. And so I think when I hear, when I hear the light and dark and dalen even invoked that, you know, we are all that stands between the candle and the star

Brent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff: that, you know, that place of the, of the gray.

So I think that the four that didn't walk away on the council, who I'm assuming are the warrior cast, are gonna invoke some sort of a right. And this will be, um,

Brent: Oh,

Jeff: like a trial for Dalen and, and the council members that left that will, ultimately what it will do is codify the break of the council.

And then this is a new thing I, I hadn't even considered before you brought it up. We'll set the warrior cast on the path to ally with the shadows and then bring the rest of them in Bari under the Babylon five umbrella.

Brent: interesting. Okay. Yeah, I really, I really do think that, uh, the warrior cast is gonna wind up with the shadows.

Jeff: Yeah, they're bad

Brent: They have to, I mean, like, yeah, that's, that. You talk about them inari breaking, I mean, good lord, uh, draw set. He's like, I don't even recognize memoir anymore. Right.

Jeff: Yeah, well, we'll find out next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. Please don't forget to follow us or subscribe wherever you're listening. And if you're on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. And if you haven't already, please stop by Apple Podcast. Leave us, or, or good pods like, uh, we, we talked about earlier here or anywhere else.

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

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Yeah, Brent.

Brent: You know it, it's strange. Um, I'm not getting a match on your identical card over here.

Jeff: Yeah. I don't, I don't think it's a big deal, dude. Like, you know, you know who I am.

Brent: Of course I know who you are. It's the computer. That's the problem.

Jeff: Hey, no, no, . No, no, no. Look,

Brent: stop. Stop, stop. Listen, I've got other people waiting behind you. Just step aside, please.

Jeff: Peace. Victory. Long life.