Soul Mates

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

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babybel On Five For the first time, we are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babybel on Five for the very first time, searching for Star Trek like messages and trying to decide how much do we just love this series.

Jeff: While this is not a Star Trek podcast, we are Star Trek Podcast s. So there's a good chance that those Star Trek references. They're gonna worm their way into this Babylon five podcast, but we have the rule of three. That means each one of us gets three no more references per episode. Every time we make one of those references, you're gonna hear that sound, Assuming , assuming I have my hand on the button and I'm uh, and I'm paying attention to what's being said.

Hey, Brent. Yes. I've got some awesome news. Uh oh. We've got a five star review. Yes. This comes from Janice fourth on Apple Podcasts. Janice fourth says, You guys are doing great. It's wonderful that you're falling in love with this little gem of a show. Love your speculations. I've gasped a few times when you nailed it.

Not gonna tell you when or what, and laughed when you haven't. Brent, spoiler alert. I think she's gonna love this one today. ,

Brent: Janice. I I, there's sometimes a delay between when people send in these things and like, cuz we kind of have a backlog of, of these, these reviews. So there's sometimes weeks out from when people actually send them in.

Maybe even little bit longer than that. So, Janice, I'm not sure at what point you sent this in, but when you get to this one, I mean, Jeff, I've, I've had a couple of doozies that I've nailed, but this one, Yeah. Oh my word. And I, I talked myself into this one on the last episode, like it's not where I started.

I talked myself into it and Holy cow. Yeah.

Jeff: Beat for beat. So good. Well, hey, on our Twitter, on our Twitter at Babylon, first you can go follow us there. Our buddies from the Babylon podcast at Babylon podcast Join in. They joined in on a discussion of great ivanova lines. They said. Nice. That was a really fun thread.

I love theirs though, cuz I can't disagree with it. They said, I think my favorite of hers is actually from infection, cuz yes, there, there were some good things in, in infection. Mm-hmm. . And it was don't, you're too young to experience that much pain as a good one. Brett, we got an email in through the website that you, you said you wanted to, uh, you wanted to read and you wanted to talk about.

Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. Let's, let's, let's do this. It's, I, I love this email. I, I really do be, and it goes back to a little bit of my Star Trek podcast, but it, it applies a hundred percent here, but this is to our website, Babylon five first. Dot com. David writes in, and this is what he says. He says, I gave you guys a five star review on Spotify, but Spotify doesn't allow you to write reviews.

Oh,

Jeff: yes, it counts.

Brent: So this is a five star review, Jeff. There you go. Uh, and David, you just got the, Oh, yes, because this a five star review. I, Here's what he says. He says, Yes.

Jeff: I'm just gonna hit that all day long. It's literally my favorite thing to do. I like it.

Brent: He says, I wanted to let you guys know that I really enjoy listening to your podcast.

I work at a cancer institute at a desk for nine hours straight every day. There's a lot of negativity in this world that we encounter every day. I believe the best part of this podcast that cannot be understated or undervalued is that in every episode, you guys pull encouraging and inspiring messages from the story messages that uplift me, that make me think about how the world should be and how I can make a difference in my little corner.

I like a statement that I heard Brent say. He believes that our culture in society needs Star Trek and the messages that it gives. I agree wholeheartedly and I think it's cool that we can now see that Babylon five also has those messages. What I would say to you guys about that is that our society and culture also needs more podcasts and more media like Babylon five for the first time.

Thank you very much for all the hard work. I truly could not imagine my day without you guys, and of course is always live long and prosper. Wow.

Jeff: Wow. Ex you know, Brett, we, we started doing this right? Gosh, what, six months ago? Almost now. Something like that. Yeah. We're about that bot. Yeah. Cause I think, I think we started in May and we're almost to the end of the year, but the, we did it to watch a sci-fi show, Right?

For you and me to hang out and watch TV. and to know that like we're we're able to help make a difference like this through an incredible television show, Like, Oh, it's awesome.

Brent: Right. You know, I, I have a mantra that I've said on, uh, Beat Me up my Star Trek podcast. Um, if anybody's who's clear, Jeff and I have two different Star Trek podcasts.

Like we, this is not like another show that he and I are doing together. Like Jeff has his, I have mine. We came together to do this one. But on Be Me Up It, I've, I've said it multiple times throughout the show because I believe it with all of my heart. The world is better when Star Trek is on tv. The world needs Star Trek.

The world needs the messages that Star Trek puts out, and that's why I think it's so important that we are looking and analyzing other shows and we say it all the time, not comparing Babel on Five to Star Trek, but using that, that analytical filter that we've gained from watching Star Trek and applying it to other shows.

And in this weight case, it just happens to be Babel on five. And there also happens to be that whole thing about. One ripping the other off and all that kind of stuff, which just throws a whole bunch. It makes it more fun, honestly, . But

it would not be bad. It would not be, it would not be incorrect to say that the world is better when shows like Star Trek, when shows like Baby Lump five are on tv because these shows hold up a mirror to ourselves. They give us a hope for a better future. They show us where we are and help us to know where we could be or at least where we should be going.

And in some cases, they even give us a roadmap for how to get there. And I love this review. I love what David says here because especially for a guy who works in a can cancer center where there can just be, So that's a heavy job, man. Yeah. That's, that's gotta be just, just, uh, he, like I said, heavy, he's, he works at a desk for nine hours a day.

So if we can help bring a little bit of light into his corner and that helps him shine some light somewhere else, Jeff, for two guys who just wanted to get together, hang out and watch a sci-fi show. That's awesome.

Jeff: It's pretty awesome. Totally. But you know, we alluded to it a minute ago, but mm-hmm. , in addition to the rule of three, we play the other game.

Right? Where at the end of the episode, we guess what you mean? The other game where we try

Brent: to

Jeff: avoid all spoilers? Well, that's the game that we play here all the time. Everywhere in everything that we do. Yes.

Brent: No spoilers. Jeff, can I, can I, can I interrupt your little do. Cause I know where you're getting ready to go.

I wanna interrupt that just for a minute. Get in there.

We have enough new listeners to babble on five for the first time that it's been a while since we've really talked about this. So I just want, I kinda wanna just, just bring it back up. Give a refresher for our new listeners. and really kind of like set a delineating mark. Huh? Delin.

Jeff: A deline.

Brent: There you go.

There you go. Of like, what's a spoiler and what's not okay. Oh, yes, yes. And, and so I have, I have two pieces of information that I have come across that I am now privy to. Things that we have not been told so far in the story of the show. Jeff, I don't know what you know or not, but I think these are two really good examples.

One is a, Hey, this is a perfectly fine thing to tell us. The other is a little more of a gray area, like a, maybe don't tell us that one, but it's ultimately need to really impact our viewing. But I just kind of wanna throw those out there as two examples. So Jeff, and I'll let you stop me. Okay. From te, like I'll kind of give you the topic of what it is before I say it, and then you can stop me and I won't tell you.

But if you do, I'll go on and like, neither one of these I don't think are that spoilery monumental, but it gives you that line. Okay. Okay. Yeah. The first one has to do with the mumbar head pieces. We've talked for a long time about those mumbar head pieces. The other day I was out, actually, a couple weeks ago now, I was, I was going back through some of our old comments and, and looking at some, because what happens is, like the show goes out, people do comments, We do like comments for like a day or two, and then we kind of move on.

I was going back and catching the, the older comments that that came in after that, and there were several people because we said in an episode, I don't know, it was back somewhere in season one. Like what you said, this line, you said, If it's not a spoiler, tell us what that headdress thing is. Mm-hmm. , I know what the headdress thing is.

Would you like to know?

Jeff: Yes, I would like to know, Okay, is it, Here's what it is. Is this a spoiler? Right.

Brent: Cause well, it's, it's a spoiler because apparently we find this out somewhere later on down the line. Now, what I don't know is, do we find it out in the show, or is it like extra show material that JMS just tells us later?

I have no idea, but people all say the exact same thing. So somewhere we come to know the idea, here's what it is. You ready? Okay. It's bone. It is a piece of their skull. Okay. Okay. That grows out. And what happens is, is the, the men kind of have that w deal. Mm-hmm. and the women, it kind of comes to a single point.

But what happens is because it's bone, the, the people can actually shape it. Like they can shave it and shape it to form different, like, almost like tattoo it a little bit. And so like the warriors are gonna give it that real sharp, edgy thing and the, the religious cast or other people are gonna kind of smooth it out a little bit.

That's why you see like linear, He's, he's got the three, but it, it's gonna be a little more smooth than say what, uh, what was, what was that warrior dude that was parade in the dude's body around whatever

Jeff: name is that? Naroon. Naroon.

Brent: Yeah. That was it. Naroon. Yeah. Like he's all like, his is all jaggedy and you know, everything sharpens.

So it's a piece of, It's a piece of their, huh? Is

Jeff: apparently what it is. You know, that kind of adds a whole different layer of context to Kar saying he wants to carve the bones of the Sentara. Like apparently bone carving is a thing. Like, Right. Like, I'll just take you down to the minbar, you know, super cuts and we'll run your bones through it and just ask him for the flute.

Right. ,

Brent: Reskin or piccolo. Oh,

Jeff: that's a thing. That is, Oh, wait, wait. Have we started it? Yeah, we did. Cause we said what it was. So we're, we're, we're in play. Fair enough,

Brent: Fair enough. The other, Okay. That would be an example, Jeff, just for the record. Like, that's fine.

Jeff: Right. There's no story attached to that.

That's a exactly like a fact that that Yeah. I, I guess I see that. Yeah. It's, it's, Well, unless like, and you said this too, unless, I don't know, like unless there's a story that that's built around,

Brent: I don't even know. Yeah. I don't even know that it's, it's that big of a deal. Yeah. Okay. Now here's another one that again, ultimately, I don't know if it's gonna be a, um, if it's, I don't know how much of a spoiler this really is going to be, but I know a little bit more about the Gray Council now because of some comments that some people have have left in the, in the comments that I just, I didn't know what I was reading until I had finished reading it.

Mm, mm-hmm. . Okay. And it actually redefines a little bit about Mumbar culture for us, but it's, it, this is regarding the makeup of the Gray council. and, and who the great council is. This is one that I will say on the front end. While I don't know that this is a big spoiler that ruins anything, it just contains some information we haven't received yet, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm. ? I think so. So I don't like, I don't know that it spoils anything. It's just, there's just information here that we just don't know. And I would say thi this would be something that's probably a little on the other side of the gray line. Like we don't have that information yet, so don't tell us, you know?

But Would you like to know if I know, You could know. I

Jeff: don't think, I know. I don't think I wanna know.

Brent: Okay. I'm gonna, uh,

for the, I'm gonna see if I can, for the folks out there that are wondering specifically what I'm talking about, I am talking about how the membership of the Great Council is comprised and. Jeff, as far as what we know about Mumbar culture. Okay. And what we have speculated so far to this point is the Great Council is from the religious cast.

Mm-hmm. . There's the other cast of the Warrior Cast. Yeah. Right. And for some reason the Warrior cast bows down to the religious cast and ultimately the great council rules every, like, that's our understanding. Mm-hmm. by episode 30 of how that works. There's information you don't know that I know. And the people out there who are listening who are familiar with this are going, Oh, but there's other things I'm like, Right.

We don't know that yet. It's just not information we've come across yet. And the in the deal. So you're not even clarifying something that we just maybe misunderstood as much as you're giving us brand new information again, ultimately, is it that big of a deal? Probably not. But this would be an example of a spoiler that Jeff and I would prefer not to receive.

Yeah. I mean, I just don't have that information yet. Have the

Jeff: option right now to receive it. I, I'd rather not, I wanna discover it on That's the fun of the show. Yeah. To discover it. Right. Right. And I think, you know, the other example that I, I run into quite a bit on YouTube is, you know, we'll, we'll make a comment of, you know, gosh, even on Twitter we get this, but we'll make a comment about, you know, this thing doesn't seem like it's really gonna turn into much.

You know, this is probably just a, I love it, people love it when we say this. Probably a throwaway, you know, whatever. But then someone will come and be like, Oh, it's really not a throwaway. See, and in, in the end of season three, this is. No. Or Yeah. Gosh. When was it like, again, near the end of season one, we asked about, um, what's the two parter?

Um, the voice in the wilderness one? Yeah. The voice in the wilder. Because we asked, should we watch this down The Baptist one? Yeah. . But should we watch this as one or two? And people are like, Well, this one, you should watch this two. But the one that's coming up in season, No, no, don't, don't tell us that.

Right. We, we didn't even know there was one in season three and we're gonna get there. So Yeah. Good clarifier. Yeah.

Brent: So, and again, that, that is mostly for our new people. And really, if you have to, if you have to preface what you're saying of it's not a spoiler to say, then just don't say Yeah. Cause it probably is a, is a great rule.

Um, and to, to wrap this all up, let me just say to those of you who really are concerned about keeping the integrity of the show and keeping spoilers away from Jeff and I thank you guys so much for those of you who police the comments on our behalf. Thank you so much. Uh, and please keep doing, because I think the vast majority of people who do give spoilers aren't trying to spoil, they just haven't thought about it all the way through yet.

Yeah. And they're trying

Jeff: to be helpful. Exactly. And then we have a couple people, I think, and people were, I'm sorry. People were

Brent: excited about the material. Exactly. Cause they wanna share. Exactly. That's that's what it is. We're not blaming you, we're just trying to give those boundaries now that we can clarify it a little

Jeff: bit more.

Yeah. We've got a couple people that like will go as far as to say, Hey, , delete your comment. Like, this is not okay to share at this point. And most people do and it's so, yeah, like one, thank you for policing us and then thank you for being like cool with it, you know? Mm-hmm. , it just, yeah, we really appreciate it so much.

It makes such a difference for our experience and, and honestly it makes the experience better for you cuz now you get to watch us discover these things for ourselves and then you get to come back with the, Hey, I told you, or I was gonna tell you Uhhuh and that and that's cool. Yeah. We love that. That's awesome.

Oh

Brent: the, the comments I love are the people like, like I want talk about this, but I can't. And then like when they can like, Oh, so the thing I wanted to talk about was the, you know, like those are fun. Those are fun to watch.

Jeff: Yeah, it is super cool. Speaking of being, Yeah. Oh go. We were, No,

Brent: I was gonna say, we're talking about the rule of three.

Give us the rules for the rule of three. Cause

Jeff: that's all I had about spoilers. Oh, okay. Well I wasn't gonna talk about the rules for the rule of three. We already did that. What I was gonna say, and this was my segue, right? So I'm gonna pause cuz Hey YouTube, I'm gonna cut this together real smooth for the audio.

Yeah, speaking of like really great moments and nailing it. Hey, Brent, do, do you remember, Well, let me start with mine, right? Well, no, but I think we need to start with yours because mine just kind of built off of yours, . But, uh, what did you think, So we guess at the end of every episode, with the next episode's gonna be about, based on the title alone, what, what was it you thought Soulmates was

Brent: gonna about?

Yeah, so I, I ultimately thought it was gonna be a Jaar and Lawn episode, but the more I talked about it last week, I eventually got to Lawn, was wanting, I was really close, like it was just a couple of things. Lawn was wanting to get remarried and in order to get married to somebody new, he had to get rid of his other wives.

So it was gonna be about how he divorces his wives or a wife or something of that nature. Oh my gosh, . That's, so looks really what this episode was, was how does Lado divorce

Jeff: his wives? It was, it is amazing. And you're right, like go back and and, and listen to that episode. Like Brent starts with, Oh, it'd be cool.

And then he talks and he talks and as he was talking, I'm like, if he keeps talking, he's gonna, he's gonna guess what I was thinking. I just took it one step further and I thought that he was gonna wanna marry, um, a Aira Was that Ad Aira from uh, Born to the Purple? Yeah. But yeah, it was just, I mean, you like, this is it then I'm watching the episode.

It's like, Brent, did you what?

Brent: This is so close. I listen to, to be clear, I did not watch this episode first. I did not read the description of the episode. I did nothing. Like I know people are there, like, Oh, there's no way. Absolutely. That was.

Jeff: A complete guess. It's a testament to the writing, the overall writing for Babylon five that like with a title right here.

And just like everything that's kind of happened so far through season one and two. Of course it's this like of, of course it was that. Right?

Brent: Which we know that a lot of times their titles are actually really cryptic and don't go with it, but sometimes they're just infection. Okay. What do you think that one's

Jeff: about?

Yeah, like, whoops, we missed that one. Mm-hmm. , Parliament of Dreams. . That's why I was gonna be my favorite. Neither a pilot parliament nor a dream. So

Brent: Jeff, speaking of this episode specifically, for those for whom it may have been a while since they've seen this episode, maybe those who aren't really watching the episodes before they listen to us, or anybody out there who's not watching the show at all, which if you're not, why?

Go watch the show. And, uh, but they're not, and they're just listening to us talk about it. Jeff, tell us about the episode.

Jeff: Soulmates Mailage. Mailage is what brings us together today, Malish, the blessed arrangement that weam with a dream. What people don't tell you though, is that nightmares are also dreams, right?

Remember back a few episodes ago where Lord Refa was buttering lawn up to help snag the emperorship when the emperor dies? Well, apparently Lawn has also been nudging up to the emperor at the same time. He basically says that his strategy is, I'm playing both sides, so I always come out on top. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Lawn's, Day of Ascension, and to commemorate it, the emperor offers to grant lawn any wish that he can fulfill.

Hmm. Between the shadows and the emperor. Lawn's kind of unlocked the cheat code to life, right? Like he's got it dialed in. But for his wish, anything in the whole imperium he could ever want, he asks to divorce his wives. He wants to put an end to the nightmare as they're arriving and veer is entertaining them.

Rondo's in the bar. He's buying drinks. He's celebrating as soon to be freedom, and when he delivers the news, he changes it up a little. Turns out that at the request of the emperor, he's only gonna be able to divorce two of them, and it's time for them to start showing him which one is worth keeping around.

Speaking of the joy of marriage, it looks like the Sentara aren't the only ones with arranged marriages. In her early days at Cyco, Talia Winters and one of her mentors, Matt Stone, along with his buddy Trey Parker, Sorry, wrong podcast. No. Her mentor, Matthew Stoner was apparently a genetic match with her that, uh, it's gross could possibly have a kid that was at least as size strong as they were.

So they got 'em hitched told them to breed. Hmm. Arranged marriages breeding programs. Is cyco based on the sentar or the benje? Yeah, I told totally went there again. Well, Stoner lost his telepathic abilities somehow got released from the core and they enrolled their marriage. Guess they never made that super psychic baby after all.

But for some reason he's here on babble on five. He's selling some artifacts to Mr. Lurch tooling around the station and generally rubbing garal the wrong way. It seems like no matter what though, people tend to do what Stoner wants them to do. Even good old Lou gives them lunch before it's time to eat.

Come on. Lou Garabaldi shares with Thelen and he really likes Talia and he really hates stoner, to which she says them men. Barry believe that some souls are just connected and continue their relationships through multiple lives. Orlando's having a huge party for his day of Ascension and his wives are working to impress him, sort of.

I mean, one of his wives, Muriel, buys him a present. It's the artifact that Stoner sold actually, and some of them are even down for some, uh, team sports in the bedroom. Everyone else is getting ready for the party too. Even Kar is eager to attend and totally ignore the cultural nuances. Del though, through all this, Dylan's been struggling, this whole being human thing.

Yeah, it turns out it's a little harder than she thought. Ivanova or as Lawn calls her, Ivan Ivanova, cuz that happened, introduces her to the magic of Herbal Essences and helps her brush her hair. They all show up at Lawn's party. Maryelle gives him the artifact. It's an old Sattari statue that pops some darts right into lawn's, substantial forehead knocking him out in accelerating his metabolism.

He's in med Lab dying and Garabaldi is investigating. He's convinced it's stoner, but we see Mary Ellen Kar in a well suspicious meeting. But after all that, it's pretty much chopped up to an unfortunate accident. Med Lab Franklin says a blood transfusion could save lawn, but they don't have enough blood.

His wife team of though comes back on her own and offers to do the transfusion as long as Franklin never tells anyone that she did it. She saves lawn's life and even not knowing that, having no idea that she did that he chooses to stay with her and divorce the others. He says that with her, he always knows where he stands.

Stoner, in the meantime, has been trying to hook back up with Talia says there's a drug that he knows how to use that'll get rid of her telepathic abilities, and she's all in despite what she says in like every single episode that we've seen her in except for one. She says that now suddenly she hates Sycor and wants.

Hmm. Well, Gar Baldy doesn't like this and, uh, this is where things, I don't know, kind of start getting a little weird for me at least, but he somehow knows now that stoners using abilities to sway people. Cyco the place, you know, he was supposedly kicked out of, was asking Babylon five to send him back, shared in figures that he's still with por as an experiment with empathic abilities, you know, like iron heart and telekinetic abilities.

After all this though, Talia somehow seems cool with Sycor again. Hmm. Well, the episode ends with what I think is the biggest deal of this whole thing. Thelen asks Ivanova about cramps. . Can Lynn have like human babies now? Like how human is she? Seriously print. What is going on here? , what do you think about this one?

Brent: Oh, Jeff, listen. the last bunch of, I mean, season two. What, what is this episode? What? Six, seven of season two. Two. It's not been good. Like, I was really excited because I, everything I kept hearing from you was all just wait till you get outta season one. Wait till you get outta season one. This first bunch of season two has not been good.

This episode was really good. I enjoyed this episode. I'm not gonna say that this is a great episode. This, my enjoyment of this episode might even be tainted by how much I didn't like the previous episodes, but this was a fun episode. I don't know how much it moved the ball down the court. Uh, I think if it really speaks to Talia and Cyco, you know, it, it introduces some concept of impacts and Talia doesn't like Cyco like it, maybe it furthers her in Aldi's relationship a little bit.

But outside of that, it just sort of seems like a one and done. Like, I don't know if we're ever gonna see these wives again. We may or may not. I don't care. It was a fun episode though. It was a fun episode. Um, I am the king of predictions. Totally. And I just want to take note one more time. Not only did I get Jaar in this episode, which I said we needed, I got lawn mm-hmm.

which I said we needed. I also got lawn and jaar together. Those two in a scene together are the always the best scene of the entire episode. Um, I got lawn wives, I got a lawn divorce, and I even got something that I said I didn't want, which was an ex-husband Fra Thalia, or an ex lia. Like I specifically said, I don't want this to be about Talia's former lovers ever again.

And, and I got that too. So, man, it, it was, it was, it was just fun. I cackled through this episode. I've probably watched this episode. Three or four times over the, the course of this past week. Uh, trying to get ready for this one and mostly just cause I wanted to and that you wouldn't let me go onto the next episode.

what about you, Jeff? What did you think overall about

Jeff: soulmates? I totally agree. It was, I just like, my note is literally this episode was a lot of fun and it, it's fun that we needed. It's, you know, sometimes in a season you've got really heavy stuff or a lot of stuff and you just kind of need that breather somewhere in there.

Mm-hmm. , this one, it it, and I mean, gosh, you said it best. It's not that there's heavy stuff going on, it's that there's heavy stuff going on that lasted, should have lasted for two or three episodes and has gone on for like seven over and over and over again. So just having like them together, lawn and jaar together again.

Oh. It was so great and, and this, I know it flies in the face of what I think the season in Babble on Five is gonna be about, but mm-hmm. , I was so glad to, like No mention of the Shadows, right? No, nothing. Just like, just these really defined cool characters doing their stuff again. I thought that was really cool.

Yeah, it's,

Brent: it's, it's good tv. It's a good one. Off TV if you wanna sit down and show somebody an episode of Babble on Five that has no idea what babble on five's about. Like, this is not a bad episode to show 'em.

Jeff: Yeah. You get a really good look at the different cultures and the character interactions.

Yeah. Totally

Brent: different types of people that you get board. Okay. So Jeff, as far as I, my notes are all over the place.

Jeff: I, mine is pretty well organized this time. Are they?

Brent: Yeah. The, because everything was very well cut together, honestly, and, and my notes are very, as they happen there, there are three plot sub plots really going on here.

There's lawn and his wives. There's tall and her ex-husband, and then there's the, the side, the side show with Delin. Mm-hmm. . Let's talk about Delin first. Let's just get that one outta the way cuz it's so short, but oh my gosh. Was this hilarious?

Jeff: It really was. It really was. And I get it. You know what I mean?

Like mm-hmm. , I used to wear my hair super long. I was cool. I was a cool guy. Like I was a metal head and I looked it and it was great and I had super healthy hair, but because it takes a lot of work to have super healthy hair, if you just busted out of a cocoon one day and had really long luscious locks, you're have no idea what to do with them.

I thought this was so much fun. It showed that it's not just like, Oh, I'm part human now. It's like, hey, this is hard . Mm-hmm. . But I also really let Ivan v shine in a cool way that she hasn't been able to this season.

Brent: You mean just by being a girl? Like just being a female. Well, I think

Jeff: being a female, but also stuff, but honestly, I mean, I don't think it's even that, you know, because like I said, I used to do that, you know, I mean, like, I used to put serum in my hair and I used to make sure that I conditioned it right and kept the stuff in there.

And maybe that's because maybe that's because on my genderbread scale I skew a little bit sometimes. But , But also I think like, it's just, I mean, it's just, she got to be a person.

Brent: I think that's what I mean. Yeah. I, I didn't mean for that to sound as like, and I re I, I just heard myself saying it as I was going like, Oh, that sounds really bad.

Like, she just was able to just be her. Like she didn't have to be commander of Ava. Right. She could just be, Shoot, what's her first name? Susan. Susan. She could just be Sue.

Jeff: Yeah. She even said, I think to, and she even said to Thelen, she's like, Susan, call me Susan. Like, just, yeah, it was cool. So

Brent: there's the hair.

By the way, we finally got the, got the context. I think in this episode there are two Babylon five gifts that we got there. We got the, we got the one where Orlando goes keep it up and he puts his arms up. We got that one. But then I've seen the one with the Lynn, like pulling out her hair. Like, that was this episode as well.

I haven't

Jeff: seen this one. Yeah, but it's a great gift. Like it's, it's so good, right?

Brent: Uh, so the mumbar sweat when they sleep or they, they secrete something, which just, Ew. Yeah. But then they have something they just rub on their skin, which basically exfoliates the

Jeff: dirt away. Sounds, Sounds great. Very efficient, right?

And

Brent: when you have, I was like, why don't you just submerge your body and water and wash the sweat away? .

Jeff: It's like, duh, just do this. But Dylan's probably thinking the same thing. Why don't you just rub this chemical cleanser on you? Like, what's wrong? Right. Well, your hair, that's what's wrong. Like, yikes. I had a, I don't know, I say I won't wanna say a problem with it.

I think I'm seeing this development though, in Len. Mm-hmm. where I, like now, she's, I mean, she's straight up identifying through some of this as human. Mm-hmm. , she's, and she's still kind of presenting herself as being this Minbar representative, but have we forgotten that she's basically an outcast from her government?

We don't, The gray council hasn't even decided if she belongs anymore. Yeah. I don't

Brent: think they know yet. I don't think they've, they've said one way or the other, you know? Yeah. I, Dalen clearly says that she is, she is the most mi Barry she's ever been. Right. Like, like at this point. So she's still believes it, but yeah.

I, I, I think that is a question that is floating around out there. Yeah.

Jeff: And I just think she carries herself with so much confidence and gravitas, like, I am this, and it's like, Yeah. Um, No one agrees with you at this point. Like you, you are kidding yourself and everyone like you might be right, but no one's there yet.

And I, there's just, I don't know. It's gonna be difficult for her to come out any other way than looking like a jerk through this, at, at least to her government, at least to

Brent: hers. Mm-hmm. , let me ask you, do you think that Delin is ever gonna get, like, tell me, stop me if you've heard this one before. The Alien gets a Earth Force Commission and now wears the uniform, where before they didn't.

Right. Have you ever seen that plot in Oh, never

Jeff: show ever before? Not at all. Do you think at all that's

Brent: gonna happen with the Lynn? Is she ever gonna get an Earth Force Commission and, and actually join the Afaf?

Jeff: I don't, and I have a, I have a, like, I don't know, a theory. A theory maybe. I

Brent: don't know. Yeah, I know there's five seasons.

There's four, three and a half seasons left. Like it could happen. What's your theory? I,

Jeff: I don't think the earthers that we theres isn't even fair cuz a lot of people came from Mars. I don't think that the humans that we have that are part of Earth Force now on the station, I don't think they're all gonna be Earth Force at some point.

Like I feel, I still feel like Earth Force is a bad guy in waiting. There you go. So yeah. Len's gonna be an ambassador. I think she's gonna be Ambassador Tolen throughout and gray councils of course. They're gonna be like, Whoa, this is horrible that you did this thing. And she's gonna give some impassioned speech and they're gonna be like, Okay, welcome back to the council.

You're good.

Brent: I'm, I am leaning toward what you just said, but I'm gonna keep that possibility, open that at some point. We're gonna see her in an Earth alliance, uh, uniform. Yeah. Speaking of Earth Alliance, real quick. You know what I've noticed in this episode, more so, and I think I've noticed it in the last couple of episodes, but it, this one was the one where I was like, Hey, the Earth Alliance logo is becoming far more prominent in the show.

Hmm. We're seeing it in more and more places. It's maybe, maybe just my, uh, What's that little thing that clicks in your brain that makes you start noticing stuff now? Little spy sense. Yeah. Maybe, Maybe that's just tuning in. But I really like we're seeing it, the emblems and their uniforms where I don't think we saw it as often before.

We're seeing it in signage and very various places around the show. I we're just seeing that EAF logo a whole lot more, and we're even seeing it right here at Babylon. For the first time in Jeff's swanky shirt. He's not wearing in this episode.

Jeff: I wore it last week. Was it? Was that last week? There you go.

That's a pretty cool one. But I've also noticed, like on their shoulders, I think their shoulders are where they have their rank insignia or whatever. I haven't figured out where are they yet.

Brent: I noticed a couple different uniforms. Like Sheridan had a couple different ones in different people had them.

Them,

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. And there's different colors, you know, they have, so I'm certain, but I don't think that that's new. I don't even think the Earth Force stuff is new. I think it's just, there's good lighting now and we can actually see it as compared to like season one when you couldn't like stuff just kind of blend, especially on the uniform stuff.

Just kind of blended on

Brent: there. I, I did make this note. I, I really kinda wish that Sheridan's dress uniform was his regular uniform cuz it looks dope. It looks

Jeff: really good. All of them. Cause the gar, all the, like they all looked great with those little braids on him and stuff.

Brent: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And like, I'm just, I'm just gonna say, The dress uniform that we have seen, particularly in Star Trek, but in all sci-fi never looks as good to me as like their regular, everyday combat uniform.

Like, they just, it just looks weird. This one looked really

Jeff: good, looked really good. And I'm not gonna count that as a reference for

Brent: you. Thank you. Cause I tried to make that broad for all things of which Star Trek was just a community member,

Jeff: of one of

Brent: the many. Um, so, uh, De Rollers. Mm-hmm. , She comes out and, and there's, uh, Bill, Mummy, um, um, Linear.

Linear. He's like, uh, uh, uh, he's like touching his own head, like, Uh, does that hurt?

Jeff: Right? And she's like, It's oddly relaxing, right? He's like, Ooh, maybe I kind of want to try that too. .

Brent: Um, and then, and then, yeah, the menstrual cramp joke at the end. So I don't think that was a joke. No. From a writing perspective, that was absolutely like, Hey, let's end this show on a, on a wink, wink, nod, nod to everybody.

Right? A little z Oh, I think she's really got menstrual cramps.

Jeff: Well, I think that's hilarious. I think that once she kind of figures this out, like, what's going on down there? She's, she's gonna want a baby. Yeah. Yeah. Like, she's like, Oh, I've got these cramps. I can, I can, I mean, you don't get those cramps.

This is my understanding, right. Here's, here's white dude telling women how their stuff works. But , I don't, I don't think that happens to you unless you're like, capable of conceiving a kid, you know? And so I, I feel like she's gonna be like, Oh, oh, I can do this. So then, like, if that's a thing, who, Or like, Oh, so she's, she's hooking up?

I think so. I mean, Sinclair to me is the easy answer, right?

Brent: Right. He, he's the father that, uh, you know, he's off screen. Mm-hmm. . He, he can, it's, it's a way to keep him in the show. Her and Sinclair become a thing. Just off screen and she bears Sinclair's baby.

Jeff: Yep. Comes back and I still think I'm still hanging my hat that Sinclair has the soul of vain.

And so she's like, through her is gonna bring vain somehow. And that's gonna be

Brent: like, and he's literally gonna be a mumbar earth, uh, hi. A mu hybrid, uh, mixed baby. Uh, yeah. You know,

Jeff: something like in, in, in v you know the mini series V? That's what happened. Um, Rebecca, I think her name was, oh my gosh, it's been a long time.

But she and one of the visitors made, had a kid and was born and it's like horrifying, cute little lizard baby was born and it didn't live, but this human baby, human looking baby lived and went on, I think they called it the star child or something. Cuz that's not something that doesn't happen in everything.

Right. But it was that where they had to u become one in order to, you know, bring everybody together. I think that's gonna be her plan, right? Not everybody can go into a cocoon, but we can get people into cocoons and then go make some babies.

Brent: That's a, that's a heck of a theory . That's, that's a heck of a theory right now.

People are either like, Oh, he's so far off. That's not even it. Or they're like, Oh my God, he's so close.

Jeff: Probably way far off. Like, I feel like I was really digging on that one.

Brent: So I feel like I have now offended women twice. in this podcast. I hope this at least buys it back a little bit. Kudos to the writer for having Delin and Ivanova be able to completely pass the, the Betal test.

right in this episode. Comp, I mean, nailed it. Like if you wanna see, how do you put, for those who don't know, the Beal test is when you have two women on screen, not talking about a man, just talking about whatever they need to talk about and completely aced it in this episode.

Jeff: They talked about each other.

Oh my gosh. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. That was super good. We're probably gonna, who loves somebody else or whatever. We're probably gonna offend a lot more women though, cause we do have to talk about, uh, the dissolution of some marriages. So like, the door's still open for us.

Brent: We do. Well that I, Do you want to go ahead and talk about lawn and then say Talia for the end?

Or you want to talk about Talia first? I'm, I'm good

Jeff: either way. Let's talk about Talia first. Cause I'm looking forward to the, uh, the lawn stuff. Let's, let's get this piece out right. So,

Brent: so with Talia, one thing that actually has nothing to do with Talia, I think this is a new set piece that we get in this, the show, the Earth History Museum.

Have we seen this part before?

Jeff: That was all new. That was kind of fun.

Brent: Yeah, I think it was, it was completely new. So I like

Uhoh.

Jeff: I might have lost Brent. Or he might have lost me. Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? I can, Yeah. You froze for a second there. Yeah, I'm

Brent: still, See now I'm doing the whole technical thing. That's your turn. Is he right? Am I all blurry to you?

Jeff: You are. Yeah, I bet I am. You sound good now, which is good, but yeah.

Sorry. You too. That's frustrating. Hold on just one second.

Can hang out with me while I take a little drink of water from my Bkr water bottle. It's kind of fun, right? My wife loves these. She's got a lot of them. She's nice to give him away his gifts. I'll tell you what though, Like this whole like internet thing, the struggle is real, man. Like it is a real thing.

Brent: This is, this is why people don't live stream like this. Exactly. You know what I

Jeff: mean? Could you imagine? Uh, frustrating.

Brent: Hey, for whatever it's worth, like the things that, like my issue has been your same issue. My, my equipment just isn't here. It's

Jeff: coming soon. Yeah. Yeah. They had to shut down my whole neighborhood to come and fix, uh, fix my thing.

So that

Brent: was hopefully, hopefully, hopefully for me, it's literally just, I've got really old equipment up there and they're, they're sending me stuff. Anyway, what were we just

Jeff: saying? Oh gosh. The new set piece. The 20th century. Yeah. Yeah, the birth. So

Brent: we have a new set piece, or at least I think it's a new set piece.

Have we ever seen this Earth History Museum before?

Jeff: No. It's all new. It's pretty fun though. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Loved to like plucking at the guitar and stuff. It's like, cool. What's, Which also means like, do they not have music like that now? Like, is that like a guitar, Some ancient thing? Right? A

Brent: little, little.

Bill and Ted, Right. The music they're listening to. Have you ever, did you ever watch Bill and Dead and hear what their music supposedly sounded like and you. That's not the instruments that they have

Jeff: right now. No. And it's not good either. It really wasn't. They're doing like the whole air guitar STR thing.

It's just like some synth kind of over the top and elevator. It's like future elevator music. Right. Anyway, I,

Brent: I like, this is a good place to go have a conversation. I don't know why anybody would ever be in this place. Like, I get the garden. Mm-hmm. , why would you ever go to this place? More than like, every once

Jeff: in a while.

I bet it's a touring thing. Right. And it's just on babble on five now for like a little while and then I'll move on. Or we'll probably never see it again or whatever. But it was cool. It was, it was just a neat, something different.

Brent: So we get Talia, we get, uh, her ex-husband is on, is on the station. You, you've already, you've already gone through the, what happened?

So we what? Here's what we learned. Sycor arranges marriages. They're trying to breed si babies. Mm-hmm. , right? Natalia secretly hates cyco and wants out.

Jeff: Okay. Apparently that was, I don't know that, that was kind of, I I had a hard time swallowing that

Brent: the whole time. I didn't, I, Let's, let's talk about that.

Let's, let's go down that path, cuz I heard you mention that and I was like, I actually, I'm, I found that one probably the most consistent I've ever heard out of her mouth. Really? Yes. Um, let me explain and then I'll get you, cuz you've already kind of said why, which I, I get, Here's the thing, when the whole, Gosh, I always Jason iron hurt.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. When we got that episode, whatever its name was at the end of the episode, we, I think we've said this recently too, right At the end of the episode, Iron Heart like levels her up. Mm-hmm. , but she doesn't tell. She hasn't done anything with it since, which is not necess, It's not necessarily bad writing as much as it really could be.

She's keeping it secret. Okay. And there's just not been a, something that has forced it to come to the surface yet. Let's say JMS is saving that for an episode later on down the line. Awesome. She clearly had an issue with Cy Core back in that episode. Now she still has to play the C Core role. So when we have that episode, was it legacies where we've met the little girl?

I think those legacies, Yeah. Yeah. So like when you had that, she had to advocate for sending her back because that's what you're supposed to do. She also kind of led Ava do her thing. like True. Okay. You know, and there like it's okay to be conflicted, you know, like I really don't like those people, but I kind of have to stick up for 'em a little bit.

But. In my, in my heart of hearts, they really scare the hell out of me, I think is literally what she said. Yeah, that Sycor scares the hell out of her, but this is what we're supposed to go do, and they're better than the alternative of just letting a bunch of side people run around without any training whatsoever.

So like, I actually find it refreshing and consistent with her character that we finally get like a, Yeah, actually, I know I put this front on, but actually they really scare the hell on me and I want out. And she had to deal with, and this will get more into my Star Trek message later, but she had to deal with what does, what does she actually want and, and come to terms with herself.

That's what I, that's what I read into it.

Jeff: I, I think I could buy all of that. If in, I think it was last week's episode, the whole Bureau 13 thing, and dude from Xou like her, she was being threatened by the guy, you know, and she tried doing the Herman Gray pain, pain , you know, thing. And it didn't work. And she had an opportunity at the end there to throw Cyco into the bus a little bit, you know, when Sheridan was.

And she did not. And so I think, I think that really with the, I think it was mind war was the episode with Iron Heart, but between that and everything in between, it's just been inconsistent. And I can, I can see a little bit what you were saying, the whole, well I have to put this face forward cuz like, they'll, you know, they'll, they'll kill me or whatever, or throw me in prison.

But that's the last episode that, that doesn't carry the water for me on that. I think that she had multiple opportunities to act or say something. Different and didn't. Mm-hmm. , she was cyco all the way and she was like Cyco, C level five all the way. She had no telekinesis, she had no enhanced powers and she covered for them.

Even when she saw plane as day, that stuff wasn't good.

Brent: Okay, so let me give you the other side of that. Maybe she doesn't, maybe Cyco really doesn't scare the hell out of her. Or maybe there, maybe there's something inside that she's a little uneasy with. But mostly she's down the line with Cyco and what she was feeling was whatever stoner was.

Imparting on her, like trying to get her to get away. Mm-hmm. , do you think, could it have been coming from there or is this just bad, inconsistent writing? I don't know.

Jeff: It's, I, I think stoner really is the wild card in all of this, because he has that ability where she could have that little nugget inside of her that's like, ah, I don't wanna really like this very much, but, but I don't know enough to do anything.

And, and he clearly can grab those nuggets and turn those into whole things. So like, he's the free pass, the Yeah. It's inconsistent, but also like, I'm stoner and I, that's what I provide. That's the chaos that I bring into every situation.

Brent: That might be one of those things. We need more episodes

Jeff: Yeah. To really figure

Brent: out out.

Right. Um, what what'd you make of, of us having Deanna Troy on the station? Right. One of us had to use it. Jeff,

Jeff: one of us. Well, I have a little bit, I have a little bit of it in my, in my wrap up too. . But you know, I, Here's the thing. Dude never did anything wrong. Right. You know, I mean, Garabaldi was, was all over him from go.

And yes, he was right. He was doing some shady stuff, but wasn't doing anything illegal. He was just doing some business. I, Garabaldi was outta line in a lot of the ways that he was, I mean, in every way he was treating him well.

Brent: So we've seen this from Garabaldi a few times now. Garabaldi made it personal.

Garabaldi clearly has feelings for Talia. Yeah. Right. Do you remember, um, Oh, it had to do with another girl. What was the, what was the episode where bad stuff was happening on Mars and Aldi was like, Oh, my girlfriend turns out she's married and had a kid. Yeah. Lease. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever that episode was. Um, Gu Baldy goes in and slams dude head into the counter multiple times because he is bad talking people on Mars.

Yeah. And like that got personal for Gu Baldy. And then what was the, Oh, when he got shot and he's doing the interrogation of the dude who shot him. That's not good Police work. That's personal. Yeah. Right. This whole thing for Garabaldi. And, and maybe that's, we, we, Jeff, am I right in saying we both like Garabaldi?

No, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. He's Aldi's like, like there's Ivan and then Lado and Jaar because they chew everything and then probably Garabaldi is right there. Like he's top five on the show. Right. Easy,

Jeff: easy. Yeah. He was my favorite in the first season.

Brent: Yeah. Prop three, if you put lawn and ja car, like as the same

Jeff: level as the real soulmates and Yeah,

Brent: exactly.

Yeah.

But this is a character trait. We've seen this enough times that Gu Baldi crosses the line between personal and professional way too easily, way too easily. In this case, I'm kind of with him. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I don't, I, my, my wife was married before me. Mm-hmm. , and it was a relatively short marriage, but still it was marriage and dude did her dirty.

Now, I'm not a guy, I've never met the man before in my life. I've never seen a picture of the man. I couldn't tell you who he is. And it's probably a good thing because if I ever met him, I wanna punch him his freaking face for what he did to her. Yeah. Be honest with you, You know, I probably wouldn't, I'd probably be way more cool about it, but in, in my, like in, in my testosterone fueled, you know, protective husband thing, like, Dude, you mess with my.

And I don't like you, like I automatically do not like you. I don't care and I'm gonna do everything I can to destroy you. And I kind of feel gu bdi, he shouldn't be bringing that into the professional workplace. I'm not a policeman, I'm not the head of security of a space station. Garabaldi is, He's gotta be better.

Yeah. I'm just a Joe Blow guy.

Jeff: So yeah, it gets cool to not like the guy, that's cool. You cannot like him, but you can't pull him in and question him for everything, everything. Exactly. Exactly. And threatened to space him like at one point, like he gets Right Dude, he is like multiple times too. He is like, he is itching to space.

Somebody like, he went,

Brent: he went to i'll space. He went to that So fast was,

Jeff: it was like the first thing, like the first thing, Yeah. For him. He, when he, when he finally comes out and pops stoner, you know, just right in the face. Mm-hmm. the first time on, the first time I watched it, that came outta nowhere for me.

I was just like, I feel like there's a whole scene missing where stuff happened. But on the second time, I think, I think that he was like monitoring the situation and when he saw Talia kind of, uh, waffle, you know, and change, change your tune. He's like, Gotcha. Now I know what you're up to. So now I'm gonna come in and inappropriately assault you, to, in order to, you know, question you for a thing.

Mm. Yeah. He does need to be better. He needs to be better. So let, let's

Brent: talk a little bit about, I think the big piece that we learned, the, the, the lore that we learned, Let's put some pieces together about Cyco. Cyco is working on something, and this is just another level. Mm-hmm. , we already know that they have been working on evolving telepaths to do something and that's what caused, uh, Iron heart to ascend.

Yeah. We now know that there are arranging marriages between certain, uh, uh, telepaths to breed a stronger telepath. I mean, this is what zoologists do with animals. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna put you and you together because that's a genetic match that I wanna have that

Jeff: baby. Mm-hmm. , this is the eugenic side that like, not the, this isn't the eugenics people think about.

Right. They think of the other side, Right. Of weeding out stuff. This is the eugenic side. Calling certain properties.

Brent: Right? Right. Except this one may not necessarily be in a lab as much as it is. Let's, let's put them together and let biology happen.

Jeff: a little more, a little more org It's organic. A little more there it

Brent: is a little more organic.

Um, so they're, they're doing that. They, they actually, okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, Stoner never got kicked out of the core. They changed stoner into an empath and they officially kicked him out of the core. But he's like working in the black, a ops division of Cyco now. Right. That's, that's

Jeff: what, that's Sheridan's theory.

I totally rely

Brent: that theory. That's kinda what I'm gonna go with that theory. Yeah. So they're changing him into something else. He's trying to get Lia to come with him. Basically. He's trying to recruit her. Mm-hmm. into the black Ops division. There are sy what is c Core up. Jeff, I, I need our next episode. I need cco and you know who I really wanna see?

They've mentioned him a few. I wanna see Bester back. Bester.

Jeff: It is time. It

Brent: is time for Max. Theyve mentioned him a few times. I need to see Bester back and I, I like, this is, this is maybe just because of top of mind, but this is, this is question number one I have right now in my head. Forget the shadows.

That's, that's whatever delay and humans and all that kind of stuff. I'm glad to let that unfold. CCOs up to something and I want to

Jeff: know everything. Earth, everything. President, Sango, President Clark, everything. Free Mar all this stuff happening in like humanity. That's all. I think that's all Cyco massive has all

Brent: seems to come back to Cyco.

Jeff: Exactly. Common master plan, right? What I want, what I want in there, and to your point is I want it to be not just Cyco, I want it to be bester. Like I want Bester to be the evil genius behind everything. And I only want that because Walter can was so awesome. In that, in that role. So, Well, and, and,

Brent: and didn't, didn't.

And there's also cyco, they like, they have that weird base on Mars. Mm-hmm. , they also have that thing in San Diego with the Bureau. That's Cyco. Right?

Jeff: That's my 13 Bureau. 13. Like that's Well, the person, the person, I think that was 13. Yeah. She was cyco. So, Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and it's, and it, it is, it's black ops within the whole thing.

And they are influencing the political situation. Like they're in absolutely everything there. What

Brent: if, what if, what if Stoner is one of the, the agents, like he's 12 or eight or seven.

Jeff: Oh wow. He's one of the, um, assets.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. One of the, of the assets, right? Oh yeah. Right. What if Stoner's won? That'd be huge.

And, and because they didn't, they, they just killed one mm-hmm. in the last episode and now he's trying to replace that one with Talia.

Jeff: Totally. Yeah. Stone out there. Right. Or just getting, getting her plugged into everything. Right. You know, one thing I do wanna say on Stoner, um, is the actor right, is, uh, so I, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna butcher his last name here, but Keith Zakia or Zba Zakia, um, huge, huge player in mass effect.

So in mass effect, he was the voice of, um, the head of csec, which is like their sec, their police force, Citadel security, and he a whole bunch of other roles throughout all, um, all the, the original Trilogy, Mass effect, So big time. And he also played multiple bit parts throughout, uh, Star Trek, Voyager.

Really? Yeah. I forget which episodes he was in, but he was in like three or four different episodes. Nothing big, Just a couple, uh, Right. Couple bit roles

Brent: there, but probably some under like makeup and stuff. Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

Jeff: Interesting. Yeah, so I mean, I, I, I dug him. Like the way he just couldn't care less his whatever attitude.

Like, I liked him as a character and I liked the actor a lot.

Brent: Here's the, he wasn't my favorite guest actor we've had, but I didn't hate him at all. I, I didn't sit there and be like, Oh my gosh, why did they cast this guy? Like, that wasn't me at all. I wouldn't say he was my, I wasn't like, Dude, this is David Ward.

Totally. Oh yes. All like, it wasn't that level at all. But this was, he was fine. Like I was, this is the kind of guest acting I'm glad for them to

Jeff: cast where he, where he nailed it though. Like my moment and it was his delivery. Like the line is gorgeous, but his delivery is what made it work. But when Garibaldis grilling him and on his way out, he's like, How about I call you an idiot in public and you can convict me for revealing state secrets.

Brent: That's good writing.

Jeff: That was good. That was really good. It was good

Brent: writing. Uh, the only other thing I had in this particular line, Jeff, Really has to do with Talia, and I want to dive into this a little bit more later when we get to our, our different messages and stuff. But basically, Talia really entertains the idea of giving up her psychic powers mm-hmm.

until she comes to the end and she goes, I, I didn't, because this is part of who I

Jeff: am. If I'm not the telepath, then who

Brent: am I? And what am I? Yeah. I'm, I'm gonna save the rest of my comments, but that really codified this whole blo for me. Okay.

Jeff: Yeah, that makes sense. Right. Since she was, what, five? She went to Sycor when she was five years old.

Yeah. That's all she has. All right, Brent, it's time for a divorce. Let's do it. Let's talk divorce.

Brent: Do it, do it. Man, Those wives do not get along.

Jeff: No, no, no way. And they are, they're so different from each other. There's not even, like, there's not even. Something I could think of that would unify those three people.

They're always going to be at each

Brent: other's throats. So the one that I want to know is which wife was the one where Lawn was telling a story where he wakes up in the morning and like it, like it's the day after they got married and they've consummated their marriage and whatever and he wakes up and, and like she's sleeping on his arm and he realizes he would ra.

He gets a good look at her and he says, I would rather chew off my arm than wake her up . Which

Jeff: one was it? I think that was Dagar, but I don't remember for sure. , but,

Brent: Oh, did he name who it was?

Jeff: I think so. I don't remember. I don't remember. But I remember, I just remember being like, the line, just like, Oh my gosh, that's so good.

Yeah. Yeah. Which one? . It was awesome because they were fighting right at one point and Uhhuh and like he's in the middle and said something and they're like, What? And he's like, No, no, no. Please, please just continue. Just fight, Right? Like, this is fun. I'm loving this, I'm loving this. Go ahead. It was a lot of fun.

I loved in the party, right? The, the big ascension day party that he had that full wall mural of lawn.

Brent: I hope to God almighty that Peter Jurassic has that mural in his house

Jeff: above his fireplace. Totally. Like that's, that's the room that you go to and it's, it's there. And so there's that huge picture of him there.

And the one rule, right? The cultural rules. There can be no shoes and Ja card, like literally he's just. I'm totally gonna wear my boots. Like I, like, I loved how little he cared about even pretending to respect what was going on.

Brent: Right, Right. I gotta tell you, Jeff, I, I, it's not above my mantle, but I was in, I did a play of some number of years ago where I played a very rich, old bachelor dude.

Okay. And this guy had a painting of himself on the mural. Well, the set designer actually commissioned a painting of me in makeup to go above, like, I have this mural from, from the play. It's me as an old man, like being an uncle Scrooge.

Jeff: You need to put that over your mantle. That needs to

Brent: happen. Oh, I put behind me right here somewhere so people out here can see.

I need to find it. I don't know where it is, but it's, it's beautiful. I love it. So

Jeff: that's incredible. I love that. You know, the other thing I loved in the party was when he was getting all his presence from everybody, Uhhuh, , and lyre. Get him the deck of cards, and I marked them exactly as you shut up .

Brent: By the way.

That's, that would be my 10 year old. Really? Yeah, you dad, here's his cards. I got you. Thanks kid. I marked him exactly how you wanted me to shut up.

That's exactly what my 10 year old would do. , the

Jeff: stop talking. The whole thing was so, I mean, it was just so good. I, I mean, really like, and I, I kind of said it in my opening thoughts and it even kind of wraps into my closing ones, but I was just so happy and comfortable to see Lawn and Jaar doing their thing again.

It was so great.

Brent: It's been too long. Yeah. It's been so long. You, you know something I noticed and I just, again, I'm a parent of a 10 year old and we have birthday parties twice a year because I have two of them. 10 to seven year old. You know what I love seeing was veer in the background, making notes of who was giving Wado what gift?

Like, cuz I'm that guy at, at birthday parties where I'm like, okay, who gave him this? This is what he gave him. Cuz we're gonna send the, the thank you cards, right? Mm-hmm. , we never send the thank you cards. I know. I knew this. We fully intend to fully mean to, It never happens.

Jeff: It's like it gets close to my daughter's birthday and then I see the note on my phone where I'm like, Oh shoot, I should have sent those cards out.

It's, well, it's so almost a year. Maybe I, I'll get 'em this time. Right,

Brent: Right. We, I mean, we didn't do it for, I, we are so bad we didn't do it for our wedding gifts that people gave us. Oh. We didn't do it. We haven't, like we're just, If you are listening and you have ever gifted me or my family something and you never received a thank you card, please know that it was received.

It was welcomed. We loved it. Thank you so much. We suck at sending cards.

Jeff: question on this whole thing that went down here for you. Yeah. So, uh, Kar and Marielle. Mm-hmm. beat up Jaar and his little robe. Yeah. Yeah. Are they doing it? Like, is that a thing? I don't

Brent: think so. Really? I don't, I don't think so. I think she probably, I think Jaar has his women mm-hmm. that are just there and she came in while he was lounging about in media race, as it were.

But I don't, I don't like, I don't think sh I think they could, like, they potentially could be, but I don't think they are, you know? Cause I, cuz I don't see them, I don't see Jaar doing it with a sari. Like, Yeah. This, this is purely a relationship of, of. Of, uh, what, what do you like similar enemies, right?

Yeah. Or whatever. Like that's all this is. There's nothing physical about this relationship at all. I think she disgusted him,

Jeff: to be honest with you. I could totally see that. Totally see that. But I could also see him taking on that discussed for this sole purpose of sleeping with his mortal enemy's wife.

Brent: That would, that would get it. Yeah.

Jeff: I wouldn't, I wouldn't put that beyond him

Brent: at all. By the way, this, I don't know how many times we've now seen jaar in that bathrobe with that body suit, Right. That, that dude wears. I need this action figure. This has to be an action figure of, of jaar in his, in his bathrobe.

Totally. It's got to

Jeff: be. I mean, it's the same outfit every time. And that body suit, like that makeup, it's so good. Like, yeah, it's excellent. And

Brent: I really like, I just, I wanna see the, like, I wanna see the makeup piece, like how it just ends right at the seam of the, of the bathrobe. Like the bathrobe is in

Jeff: it's part of,

Brent: Right?

Yeah. Right. Like it's sewn into the suit, you know, he just puts it on, look over his head or something.

But she wants him dead. Yeah. That's the thing. She wants him dead before he can divorce her, because if he dies before he divorces her, then she gets to stay a Malar

Jeff: wife. Right. They're widows at that point. Right. Heroes almost, you know, and celebrated. I thought it was fascinating. I thought it was, I, I still don't fully understand, uh, Tim o Tim o's decision to do the blood transfusion.

Like, I liked what she said. I liked what she said. I don't wanna win. That way. You know what I like. I thought that was cool, but I, I also found it just very interesting. I don't know, I guess if we see her again, right? If she is a recurring character that we see, again, it's gonna make more sense. But if she, if she's a one off that comes in and does this incredible thing and doesn't want any recognition for it, it, it, it felt odd to me, um, in this one, but I thought it was cool.

It was neat. It just didn't jive with what I know of Sentara.

Brent: Right. Except for she did the thing a wife should do, regardless if you like the guy or not, regardless if you, if you hate him, that's still your husband. Mm-hmm. , You know what I mean? Like, that's still your dude. Like you're, you're gonna save his life.

And I don't know that she did it with the point of trying to. Hey, don't tell 'em whatever you do, don't tell 'em, because you're probably gonna go tell 'em if I tell you not to do it. Like, I don't. She meant it, it was that sort of thing. Yeah. Like she was like, No, no, really don't tell him, but I'm, I'm going to do this also, she says later, she's like, I have no feelings for you, or I have no affection for you.

Mm-hmm. , I don't think she knows herself that well. I think there is some affection there. Yeah. And it just comes out in this other, like, I think he also discussed her, but again, that's still her husband and she doesn't like, she may not like him, but she, she doesn't wanna see bad stuff happen to him either.

Yeah. At the same time. Not, not that bad as not, and

Jeff: not that way. Yeah. You know? Cause I, I think it's a thing that if, uh, More natural circumstances, she would've been fine. Let the dude die. Right. But like, clearly there's foul play in here. Right. And she didn't, didn't want to go down that way. That makes sense.

I thought it was cool though, how when he was talking trash about her, you know, when he lawn, when he woke up and Franklin, he is just like, Dude stuff. It, like, he's like, you're literally talking about a hero right now. But Right. He kept his word. He kept his word. Right.

Brent: So Jeff, you, you moved on to ov, but I, I have to go back to Mario.

Oh, mm-hmm. because Okay. You talked about are they doing it here is the question that I wrote down is, I don't know that they're doing it, but, but what kind of dealings have they had before in the past? This is not a first time meeting. No. They knew each other, clearly. Done some stuff in the past and so what all has been going on is the question.

But she, she tried to kill him. She fully knew what was in that statue thing. When she bought it, I, I think she did, She probably got the information from Jaar, honestly. Like, Hey, the things over there, it's gonna shoot him in the head. And if you, kudos to the makeup team, by the way, for giving him the wounds on his right.

Jeff: Yeah, he's well done.

Brent: But Jeff, I'm so disappointed in you, unless you're just holding off to make me, you lose, lose my last, I don't know, how many do I have left? One or two? You've got one. You got one? I've, I got one left. Okay. Uh, well, when Mr. Lurch, as you said, gives him a hoon, that thing is a hogan and that Hogan is a trap all go it.

How did you not say that? You didn't say it in your recap. You went through that whole piece and didn't bring it up.

Jeff: Is wrong with you because I, what I've learned is I can put some of these things in my closing thoughts Oh yeah. Where we, where we intentionally include some of those, those visas. Okay, fair enough.

But, But what I will spend a thing on, right? Yeah. Here is that, yeah, Mary o a Centara, I probably discuss him, but Kars also pretty, pretty sick, twisted guy who wants to see horrible things happen to them. And probably also sees himself in a very superior way. Much like a gold du cot who slept with countless bejo in women, you know, because it was the best thing for them.

I could very much seize your car doing that one to get at lawn, but also like, you're welcome.

Brent: You know, you bring up a good point there. I can't, I can't deny that at all. So, me though, Let's talk about the three wives. Mm-hmm. Muriel is the pretty one. Out of the three, Like she's clearly the pretty one.

She's kind of the stupid one, or at least she comes off as the stupid one, but she's the most deadly, clearly. But she is

Jeff: evil. It was so premeditated. You know, Shakara, when he is going through and he is like, What an amazing thing you, you know, you publicly gave him a thing and said this to him, and then this coincidence, like they said, without saying that you totally planned this thing out.

You set yourself up with an alibi to make you look innocent, and you're a brilliant coldhearted murderer,

Brent: right? Yeah. So there's her. Mm-hmm. and then der. Mm-hmm. , who is, is willing to sell her soul for the money.

Jeff: I think she's the dumb one. I think she's the stupid one. She's, I agree. Yeah. She's the, she's the rich little girl who's just, you know, Oh, daddy's cut me off cuz you know, that's what we do or whatever.

Now I gotta get hubby.

Brent: Right. And yeah, well, I mean, she comes in, she l, she throws herself at lawn and when he does and he like kind of receives it, but then he doesn't and totally backs her sugar. And then she later comes on and is like, Hey, let's have a twosome or a threesome. Threesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, and she's the one like throwing out like she's down. Yeah. She will do whatever to stay a Malar wife. Exactly. Not that because she likes lawn, she wants his money. Like of all of them. She wants the

Jeff: money. Money and status. That's what it's all about. And she'll do whatever it takes.

Brent: What I'm interested in is I kind of need to know the history of Tama inland.

How did they get together? Why did they get together? Why did they even get married in the first place? I get why LA would've married Mary. She's pretty, she's the, certainly she's the young, one of the three. She, you know, she, honestly, she comes across as stupid, even if she's not, and you know, she could have been the, of the three wives, she could have been the, the, the toy, right?

The play thing. Yeah. Dagar, She threw himself at him and he got drunk one day or something like that. But what's, what's the deal with Tama? Like, I don't see them getting together and like saying, Yes, let's get married. Was this completely arranged by? So I think

Jeff: they're all, I think they're all arranged, you know, I, Oh really?

I think we had that episode where, um, whether Winnie, Winnie, Cooper, Sentara, and, and her husband came and then Lawn helped them navigate a way to break the arranged marriage so they could get together. I don't think to those two. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think Tari married for love. I think it's, I think it's arranged and he didn't have a say in the matter.

Gotcha. All right. But I do, But I do think like o of them, I mean, Tema was, was the right choice, you know, when she didn't clearly try to murder him. She wasn't willing to compromise who she was for him. You know, She's the one who came out and she's like, I'm not gonna play with your sexual Olympics over here.

Like, you're gross. Right. You disgusted me. And he said it. I know exactly where I stand with you all the time and yeah, that's what I'm gonna want. You know?

Brent: Do you think you feel that way because you actually agree with lawn in the end, or because you know the secret that Lawn doesn. That Taal actually saved his life.

And yeah, she actually is the one who's most

Jeff: true to him on the first watch through It. Was that right? Oh, she saved his life. This was the right thing. But on the second watch through where I saw how consistently through the whole episode, she's like, No, dude. I mean, you know, forget it. You know, like, No way.

I'm not doing this. No, you're, you are gross. You know, I think at one point she even said, You discussed me, or something like that. She was, she was so clear in how she felt about him the whole time. You know, She also, she also just a little actor reference Uhhuh , uh, she played Malcolm Reed's mom in Enterprise.

Did she? Yeah. Jane Carr. So she, she's mostly, a lot of her stuff is theater stage and, and Shakespeare. But she's got a long, she's a, a, uh, very well, Credited actor, but uh, had had that role of, uh, she's the one who told Hoshi about the, the, uh, upside down, the pineapple, upside down cake that, you know,

Brent: she has that face and that voice that I'm like, I know, I've seen her, I know I've seen her and I don't know where.

And I looked her up in imdb and I still don't know where I know her from, but she like, she has that, that very characteristic. Mm-hmm. , like I know that voice, I know that. I don't know where it is, but I know that voice. She has that, and I'm just, I'm not really sure where all at. I know it from There is this line.

I loved this line. Lawn is at like, he says something to, to ma about having an insincere word of relief. You know, he said that he is like, you have an instance. Your word. And my note for that was, except I don't think anything about Tamas Insincere, exactly. I think every single word she. She absolutely

Jeff: means.

Yeah, I think we saw that through everything she said. Dagar, um, straight up. Just, you know, what, what do you want to hear? You know, great lawn, whatever, Mary, Hey, I'm gonna murder you, but I'm also still gonna be this sweet little thing. And she's like, Yeah, you're, you're a gross hum gross centar and I hate you.

She made no bones about it whatsoever. Head, head, bone, or not.

Brent: Well, Jeff, with that, I think we're working our way into the conversation of what this all means and boiling this all down.

Jeff: I would agree. This is the part of the show where we check to see is there a Star Trek equality to it, right? Is it have a deep moral message?

Is it holding up a mirror to society or giving us hope that there's going to be a better future for us? I'm gonna rate this episode on a scale of zero to five Deltas as to how Star Trek this episode is. Brent, you're gonna rate this one on a scale of zero to five star theories as to just how much we enjoyed the episode.

I know you've got some Delta thoughts on this and I think that they're gonna be different than mine, so I'm excited to hear them. But this felt on the surface like a Naloxone Troy episode of Star. Ooh, good call. Thanks. Yeah. I just, I mean everything about it and like, it even had Mr. Home in it. . You know,

But just thank you for finally saying that. I know, right? I, I was dancing around. Here I am.

Brent: See, that's what you did. You saved all these, When the buzzer doesn't count, the buzzer goes away. That's what you saved them.

Jeff: Oh, Jeff. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. I did it. You're playing your, you're game in the game, Jeff. I am a little

Jeff: bit.

That's what I do. But the thing about Oxon Troy episodes is we think about them in hindsight, right? As being horrible and oh my God, she was awful. But there are some of them that are excellent, excellent episodes and have some deep mess. There are Naloxone Troy episodes that would get four or five Deltas, like,

Brent: Yeah.

Yeah. Can you say lifeline? Seriously. Like,

Jeff: Oh my gosh. So good. It's amazing. In this one. To me, I think that the Big Star Trek message came through in the circus around lawn. Mm-hmm. . He threatened a life of poverty and obscurity for these women. Right. And two of the three started just completely stumbling all over themselves to ingratiate themselves to him in any way that they could.

Mm-hmm. , Tim Mov just stayed the course. What this reminds me of even more than like a Star Trek message, is young guns too. Did you ever watch the Young Guns movies? Regulators? Right. Hold up. When I was a kid, A Clear Black Knight. Go ahead. That's so good. It's, I loved, I loved those movies so much, but in Young Guns too, they're like, the climax is coming up and Doc and Billy the kid are talking and Emilio Emilio.

That's the night of the Roxbury . Yes, it is. Such a good one. But, um, But Doc is trying to talk him into, um, you know, giving up, You know, let's go to Old Mexico. Let's run away. Let's get, get outta this. We gotta go. And Billy the kid tells this story and he says, So the, the, the, the, the world's gonna end in three days.

And so they ask everybody, You've got three days to live. What are you gonna do? This guy says, Well, me, I'm gonna get a bunch of liquor and a bunch of horrors and I'm just gonna go have a good time till I die. This other guy says, I'm gonna go into the church and I'm gonna pray for three days. Well, me, I'm gonna finish the game.

That's what I'm gonna do. I got three days left. I'm gonna finish the game. That's what team off did, right? She was true to who she was. Her charitable act, right? Showed that she cared and that she didn't, Like I said, she didn't wanna win. Under those circumstances, he ends up keeping her not knowing that she was awesome and that she saved his life, but because she was true to who she was.

I think that is the Star Trek message. Be who you are, not what you think you should be, not what someone else wants you to be, but be you and no one else. And that to me when I think it was put so well in this episode that I, I, I want to give this one. I'm gonna, I'm going to give this one three deltas for that.

Jeff Brent,

Brent: I wanna make an argument and I'm gonna give you a chance to do this in a few moments. Mm. Okay. I'm gonna give you a chance to change your rating. Nope.

Jeff: Wow. Okay. Well, let me make a case. Let's

Brent: hear it 100%. Everything you just said. Be true to yourself. To mob wins at the end because she's the only one telling the truth.

I don't know how much more Star Trek you can get than that. She is, she is true to her core all the way through, right? Mm-hmm. and Lado says, I'm gonna keep you because I at least know where I always stand with you. I can respect that. I can honor that, and I can work with that. I can't work with these other two, but I can work with that.

I love that. There's more than just that though. Let's take a look at Talia. Talia play. She, I mentioned this right at the very end. She comes in and she says at the end, If I'm not Cycore, who am I? Mm-hmm. . If I'm not a Telepath, then what am I? And Talia is placing her identity in her talents. She doesn't know who she would be without them.

There's a problem with that. She can't just rest in being who she is. She's concerned more about what she is. So that begs the question, where is she placing her value? Where is she finding her own self worth? And in doing so, in keeping herself worth about what she is, rather than who she is, she is staying tied to an organization that frankly, deep down still scares the hell out of her because Stoner wouldn't have been able to pull that out of her if it didn't exist down there somewhere.

And I think we've seen that through the Jason Iron Hardd thing. Mm-hmm. that while she stays cyco, there's still a piece of her that's like, I don't really know and she can't get over it. And, and she, it keeps her locked in with this Cy Core thing. And friends, I gotta tell you, you know, I'm, I'm old enough now that if I can, if I can sit on the front porch and

Jeff: call you over and tell you some stories and give you some

Brent: advice to the young whipper snappers out there.

Don't place your value in what you are. It's who you are, who are, you're a person, you're a human being. You have worth in value just because of that, not in what you do or what you offer to society. You have value because you suck air. You are a fellow human being. Like, That's enough. That's enough. Just be you.

It's okay. And, and you don't have to worry about the, Well, what am I if it's not this? In fact, I think that's actually a good exercise for people to go through if I'm not that. What am I? A number of years ago, my wife got pregnant with our first child about 11. If you guys have been tracking this episode,

And when, when, when the child was about to be born, we looked at each other and we said, Look, this is, this is a decision we made for our family. Okay. I'm not, I'm not saying that everybody has to make this. We made this for our family. We said, if somebody's gonna screw our kid up, we'd rather it be one of us and not somebody in daycare that we keep the kid with, right?

So it, it was in that moment that we made a decision for the way our family worked. I would become a stay-at-home dad and I spent a lot of years with very young children and that it, it, tour of duty got extended with the second kid of being a stay-at-home dad. And that is a hard job because everything that you are as a person is now suddenly stripped away.

The provider, the, the, the resource person, like all of those pieces, That's gone and you're doing a job that frankly, society doesn't think that you should be doing. And, and let's be honest, you in your own head don't think you should be doing, It's tough. But if there's something I learned through that experience, my value to my family doesn't rely on a paycheck and it doesn't rely on a job.

And who I am as a person is not what my job was, what company I'm running or, or anything like that. My value is in me to my family and who I am with my family. And I would simply pass that on because that was a big thing that glared out to me from Talia of you. She is tied to this thing that she doesn't like because she finds her value in what she is and not who she is.

The other thing I'll give you, Jeff, that I think you can't get more Star Trek than this. This one comes from Sheridan and a simple line followed up by the action. Something is clearly bothering Talia, and she says to him, I don't want to talk about it. I don't wanna talk about this with my commander. And he says, He at Station Commander, it's not your business.

And he goes, You know what? You're right. It's not my business as a station commander, but as a fellow human being who is seeing another one in pain, here's what he says. He goes, I'm available just not as a commander, as another human being who sees somebody else's issue, that they're having something. I care.

I'm available. I'm not gonna force myself on you. I'm not, I'm not gonna force you to come to me with all this stuff, but I'm just letting you know I'm right here. Having empathy for your fellow human just being kind is exactly the way we should be. Again, I don't know, like these three messages, like I hit all three of them down and you, you picked up on the one, but I, I just dunno how much more Star Trek you get than these three messages.

Jeff: I totally agree on the Sheridan one. Like that's, that's, I mean, that's Sheridan, you know? Right. He's great. And he's, and even Sinclair was a great human. Like there are good, yeah, there's great examples of being a good human. But on the Talia one, you know the concept, and we've talked about this a couple weeks ago, and I go into deep detail in my Star Trek podcast, the Starlet Leadership Academy.

When I watch DS nine s, the House of Quirk, but the concept is called B Do have. Right? There's who you are, Right. The person you are, there's what you do, and then there's the things that you have. It's like, , someone gets elected senator and we call them senator the rest of their lives, whether they're serving as a senator or not.

It's like, Hey, you did that, you know, for six years or whatever. Why? Why are we, what have you done for me lately? Right? And, and Talia's stuck in that do place. You know, She identifies with what she does. I, I went to commercial telepath with Sycor. That's what I do. It's who I am. It's like, no, you are tall winters.

This amazing person might hang up on giving it much credit in this. Is it was just the door was opened for her. Like we know that she identifies as what she does and that's wrong. They haven't done anything with that yet. I, I don't think that that's a throwaway. She, they don't, she's not going to say that and it's not gonna come back.

That be do, have message fort. I think especially after hearing your, your, your, your, your thoughts on that is gonna be huge at some point. And at that point I'll count the deltas for for sure. That

Brent: that's, that's fair. I will 100% concede. Talia didn't go down that road. They, they opened the door and they just left it there.

Like Yeah. They weren't pushing that. That's purely what I drew out of it as I largely based on my own personal experience. Yeah. But that's just a, that's a thing in life that I've come to learn and I believe and I think everybody should know it and, and live in that space. Totally. I remember you talking about the be.

Have, do thing. And yeah, that, that's a great different way to put it, but probably with much fewer words than what I just did .

Jeff: And in my Star Fleet Leadership Academy episode, I go through an exercise you can do to help you identify what mm-hmm. you are and who you are and to celebrate that and be comfortable with it.

But honestly that's the House of Park episode. The House of Cork. Yeah. And it, and I really, cuz there's a scene in there where, or a series of scenes where, uh, O'Brien is trying to build an arboreum for Kaco, Right. Because as, as Bashier puts it, you're a botanist be a botanist. And I'm like, No, she's a mom, a calligrapher, a musician, a teacher.

She's all these things and she's some, you know, let, let her be cao. Don't force her to be a thing she went to college for like, Right. Yeah. So, but it's an important ex exercise I think everybody should go through. But you're right, the Sheridan thing is huge. Like it is huge enough. I'm gonna say four Deltas on the episode.

I am gonna, There it is my score cuz it is. There it is.

Brent: Right. I wasn't gonna go five, but, but four is what I was

Jeff: aiming for. Yeah. And it's good cuz that Sheridan thing, you're right, it is one line, but it is, that's the biggest line in the world. But he follows it up with action and he does

Brent: it. Yeah. And he does it like, that's, that's, it's not just a, Hey, here's how you should be.

It's what he

Jeff: does. Yeah. And it's what he does consistently as well. It's part of who shared and is. Right. Right. All right. Star theories. What did you, What, how, how, how much did we enjoy this one?

Brent: Okay. I am struggling on this, Jeff, because I want you just say, but this five star theories. I loved this episode.

It was so much fun. Was it really? Or did we just have a bad run of episodes and this one is like a breath of fresh air and maybe it's really not that great of an episode. It just, comparatively speaking, it was really good. So I'm not sure. So for that, I, I can purpose. I, I can't in good conscience give it five even though it may deserve it.

I can't give it five, but I am gonna give it four. This is an episode I'll rewatch. Every single chance I get, you know, like I'm doing laundry and I'm flipping through the channels, babble on fives comes on, and this episode's there. I'm not changing the channel, I'm watching this episode. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I just wanna watch an episode of Babble on Five for like, I, I just, I'm living life and I'm not doing a watch through. Just wanna watch an episode. Bab on five. This is one I could throw on and fully enjoy. So I'm gonna give this one four star theories.

Jeff: I can totally see that. This is one too though, like the, every time I watched it, I enjoyed it a little more.

Yeah. Yeah. Whereas sometimes you're like, Okay, I go to the point. No, this is fun every single time and a little bit more each time.

Brent: Well, and sometimes you like an episode a lot. Then the more you watch it, the more you're like, this is kind of a crap episode.

Jeff: This one? Not so far, it's not. But starting now in season two, we are ranking the episodes.

Mm-hmm. like we did in the season one wrap up, Right. For the whole season. But now we're doing episode by episode. When we're done, Brent, we will have the absolute 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of Babylon five second season. Yep. Right now, in order number one, we have points of departure.

Number two is spider in the web. Number three, the geometry of shadows, number four, revelations and number five, a distant star. And then later on down the road we have the long dark. Where Brent, do you place soulmates? You

Brent: know, this is gonna go up against a litmus test of which episode would I wanna watch first or again.

Mm-hmm. , which, which one do I most wanna watch? Again, I'm gonna put this one up against points of departure. That's where I'm gonna, Is this the number one or is this my number two? Wow. And if I put this up against points of departure, I wanna watch this one before I watch points. So departure. So that to me says number one so far in the series.

Wow. There it is. Everything

Jeff: else down. Can't argue with that because one, our rules prohibit me from arguing with it. But also

Brent: Oh, that's right. I get, I get, I get to say like, you can't to say, forgot about

Jeff: that. And it's the definitive ranking. So I mean, how could, how could I argue with the objectively correct ranking at this point.

Exactly. Well, Brent, that's it for Soulmates. Next week. We are watching a Race through Dark Places for the first time. We've never seen these episodes before. We're not watching ahead, we're not looking at any pictures or anything. Yeah. So based on that name alone, Erase through Dark Places. Brent, what do you think it's gonna be about?

Brent: Is there any chance this one is about CCO investor?

Jeff: No. There's no way they're gonna double 'em. You don't, you

Brent: don't think so? I mean, it'd be awesome because I said that earlier, like, I need Cyco investor. Right? Like, like that's, that's what I said earlier. Okay. Erase through dark places. This one is going to be,

I'm going with the Dr. Franklin episode. Oh. And I think he's going back to the lurkers, the, the down below area where he is, uh, like his little free clinic is down there. Oh, yeah. Or, or something going on. Um, but it's, it's gonna be a metaphor. Like while he's doing something down there, there's also gonna be the, the, the dark places a doctor can go.

Okay. Right. Like, like a race through the, like what are the, what are the ethical problems that we obviously know that Franklin has zero ethics. Yeah. Whatsoever. But he's gonna finally encounter some.

Jeff: Wow. This is like where he, we literal, like, he's just like, I have to do this thing. I'm not gonna let any ethical quandary get in my way.

I'm going to race through them. Yeah. These, Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. Erase through dark places. That's my guess. So I think that we are gonna remember, Do you remember that guy who's like in the credits now? But we've seen twice, Uh, Warren Keffer. Oh

Brent: yeah. Remember that guy that we knows like nothing about? Yeah.

He's a command commander. They, they just made him the commander of Zeto Wing or whatever. It's, Yeah. Yeah. So if,

Jeff: if I remember right, he was, you know, stuck in hyperspace for a while and he saw the shadow ship thing flying through and he was like, I'm gonna find this thing. If it's a, I think that he's going to somehow end up in hyperspace and be actually like, Trying to piece this together.

This is gonna be that journey to find out what that shadow ship thing was.

Brent: Listen, uh, getting back to anything having to do with shadows and erase three dark places, that actually makes more sense than Dr. Franklin. Cause I was just pulling that out of the air.

Jeff: Yeah. I, you know, can I, can I share a thing that will probably upset some of our, our listeners, Uhoh.

I don't want to get back to the shadows. I kind of don't care.

Brent: I, you know, I, Unless they're gonna, unless they're moving forward with that idea, so, and they're gonna like, pull it all together. And I don't mean just a little breadcrumb like, Give me the whole fricking slice,

Jeff: or give me some, I mean, we've had, um, I think five episodes related to shadows so far, and we've, we, we've moved, we've moved one episode's worth in five.

Gimme those five more. Yeah. Give the five episodes worth. Move us there if it's gonna be Well,

Brent: and honestly, there's so many other plot lines going on that are frankly more interesting. Yeah, like tall. Like I give me bester. I want

Jeff: bester. That'd be awesome. What we're gonna find out here next week, Thank you all so much for joining us.

Don't forget to subscribe to wherever you're listening to us or watching us. And if you haven't already done so, pop over to Apple Podcast. Leave us a rating and a review, Brent. Until next time. Hey, Jeff. What, what,

Brent: what, You know, we, we didn't talk him talk about him at all, but Veer was amazing in this episode.

And, and in his honor, I will simply say, Hey Jeff. It has been a pleasure recording with you tonight.

Jeff: Thanks, man. Oh, we'll see you. Peace and long life.