Strange Relations

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was,

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I am the one who will be.

Jeff: We're watching Babylon. Five for you. The one who is,

Brent: Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters searching for the important messages that sometimes we call 'em the Star Trek, like messages. It's really just the important messages. The Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way.

Jeff: and to be clear, we're looking for Babylon five messages, right? Not Star Trek messages. And since this is not a podcast about Star Trek, we play the rule of three, which is a game that limits us to a total of, and no more than three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. One of those, no substitutions, exchanges a refund.

But if we do make one of those references and says that's what you're gonna hear.

Brent: Right, because as we said, this is most definitely not a Star Trek podcast, but those references could slip in from time to time. Now, Jeff mentioned the game, the Rule of three. There are lots of games we like to play here at Babylon. Five for the first time. One of those games comes up at the end of the show where we take a guess as to what next week's episode is gonna be about based on title alone.

Well, this is the spot where we play a brand new game called,

Jeff: Time to pay the piper.

Brent: It's not really a brand new game. We've been playing it literally the entire run of the show. We've just now come up with a title for it. Five Seasons in. This is the spot where it is. Time to revisit our predictions from last week to see if we got it right and hey, the piper. So Jeff, what did you think this episode Strange Relations was going to be about?

Jeff: I said we were gonna find out what Lockley knew about Sheridan and that it will have something to do with their past relationship. Then I said, we're gonna get into Lanier and what's going on with his, uh, ranger training.

Brent: Man, that would've been in such a better episode.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Uh, yeah, no points. I mean, I, I'm, no, I'm gonna give you a 10th of a point. A point. One of a point. Cause. We found out what Lockley sort of knows about Sheridan. I mean, she knows him

Jeff: Yeah, that, that was 0.1 of the episodes. So might as well be 0.1 of the, uh, the score. What did you think it was gonna be about?

Brent: well I said that this was gonna fall around on the hills of last week and it was gonna be about all the relationships on Babylon five. And all the trouble that being in those relationships are Sheridan into Lynn getting beef Sheridan Lockley with their history. Baldi being married, whatever happened to his wife, uh, Londo and Kar being Londo and Kar, and honestly, probably being the most stable relationship on the holding station.

Jeff: No points.

Brent: No.

Jeff: Yeah, we missed this one.

Brent: Yep. Yep.

Jeff: So now if you're listening and you're like, what are they even talking about? They had no idea what the episode was, except 0.1 of it, and I don't even get what that's all about. Hey, Brent, can you walk us through what strange relations was all about?

Brent: Well, Jeff, that's the thing because what was this episode about? I mean like, like really? What was it about? Things are getting awkward on Babylon. Five. Dylann catches up with Captain Lockley to let her know that she knows, you know about the thing and why Sheridan chose her for the job.

Garabaldi who happens to be listening right around the corner, suddenly gets very interested. But ultimately he's let down as, they never really say what the thing is, but we know what it is, right? But this episode really isn't gonna be about that. So meanwhile, elsewhere on the else, so meanwhile, elsewhere.

Meanwhile, let's see, I told you you guys were getting the outtakes. Meanwhile elsewhere a ship has arrived to take Londo back to Sonari Prime. You know, cuz he's supposed to be emperor and all, sometime early in the next year and early is starting to run out. Unfortunately, in a replay of a season one episode that actually did it better, the ship does what it's not supposed to do and it starts banging around the inside of the docking bay, causing a big explosion.

But, Don't worry, we're not gonna have to follow up on this one much either cuz this isn't really what the episode is about either. Down in Med Lab, Litta is caught red-handed stealing medical supplies for the Telepaths down below cuz medicine on Babylon five ain't cheap and they ain't got insurance.

But this episode is not ultimately about this either. Bolita gets those supplies down to the Paz where Byron has really embraced his own Messiah complex. Complete with telling parables and all, when suddenly there's a disturbance in the force, they feel a presence they haven't felt since ster fester's back.

Okay. The episode might be about this. Hey, you know, who has some unfinished business with ster? Yeah, Kara Baldy does, and he makes a big scene of it in Locke's office until she, you know, throws him in the brig. Because see, in order to not have something happen to you on Babylon five, you actually have to punch and beat up the other person.

But if you just stand menacing over them, that's what gets you thrown into the brig on Babylon five.

Well, Sheridan doesn't really like the fact that his buddy's been thrown, thrown into jail, so he and Lockley have it out and well, wouldn't you know it? Sheridan oversteps his boundaries of overriding Lockley yet again this time by not allowing Baster to take the Telepaths off the station. And just as they settle that the ambassadorial transport waiting to pick up Londo decides that it can't wait any longer.

For B five to fix its docking bay and so they're gonna leave without 'em, which is a good thing cuz just as the ship heads off for Sonari Prime, it gets blowed up and it gets blowed up. Real good. Hey, you think the episode is gonna be about this? Cause we haven't revisited anything else yet. All right.

Well, after some quick and really incredibly poor investigative work, it is determined that the bomb must have been. Planted there and meant for somebody who was boarding the ship from Babylon. Five a k Alondo. Okay, now we're starting to get somewhere. This is about to be a whodunit, right? Well, you'd be wrong cuz turns out they never really follow up at all.

And this isn't what the episode is about either. Will Lockley and Garabaldi have it out this time? Not in the mess in front of everyone, but rather behind a closed door. Lockley admits that she was from the other side during the war, and also admits that she and Sheridan hold onto your hats. Blow me over with a leaf on this one.

She and Sheridan were married at one point. The scene ends with Garabaldi still locked up, so that hasn't changed. And Lockley is heading off to see Baster. Remember, he's in this episode. Investors out there trying to round up the Teles, even beating the crap outta Byron at one point, which might have been the best part of the whole episode, to be frank with you.

Anyway, well, this recap, like the episode is getting really long at this point and is just sort of meandering its way around a bunch of different plot points, never really sticking to any one of them. So let me just say that this whole thing ends with Lockley pulling a pretty nice Sinclair esque move to get Bester to leave the Telepaths on the station, citing some obscure medical reference, citing some obscure medical regulation which ends this plot line that just didn't go anywhere.

Another ship has arrived to pick up lawn. This one leaves with him, but also with Kar, whom at the behest of First Lady Dilen. Has agreed to become Rondo's personal bodyguard. And Lida joins the Telepaths down below just as they're singing a good old hymn or something or other, because Byron is their Jesus.

Jeff, what did you make of this episode? Strange Relations.

Jeff: So I'm watching this, I'm watching this. Right? And, and, uh, and you can watch my reaction on our Patreon. You can, you can see this in real time where they're like, I was, I was married, I was married. And I'm just like, are you kidding me? I'm out. I'm done. Just. Uh, I get that in the second season, Keffer was rammed down.

J M s's throat. I get it. Is that the deal here? Because this is, this betrays what I've come to know of Lockley betrays. I, I don't know. And it's ju it's just dumb. It's

Brent: I'm sorry, Jeff. It betrays, and I think I briefly said this last week, it betrays every private interaction that we have seen between Sheridan and Lockley to this point. Except for that one little hint that they dropped in last week's episode, but every, like, there has been zero indication that this has been the, been the thing and, and it just, yeah, it, they're just pulling this out of their, out of their asses, to be honest with you at the end, like that's exactly what this feels like.

If this was the planned relationship between Lockley and Sheridan Mission unsuccessful,

Jeff: Yeah, failure of execution right there. Uh, what else? So they try to blow up lawn's ship, and so then they pair him and kar up. Why? So Kar will blow up with him next time, like, Fester comes on board. Again, not doing anything legally wrong, just, I mean, showing up to find some unregulated escape telepaths.

Right. But Sheridan again, still like, oh, oh, no, no, no. We couldn't have fester doing stuff. I get, I get why Gar Baldi did what he did. That, that actually was kind of cool. I, I liked that. Uh, like just what ster boom. I'm going, let's do, let's do this. I was, I was happy to see the dock workers are still getting their time and a half, you know, they're, they're still still being taken care of.

Uh, Leeda joined a cult, so that totally happened. I, with Byron being the guy, this is kinda my last thought on the whole thing cause I honestly don't have a lot of them. But with Byron being the guy for the tele pads, I, I get why there's gonna be a war.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: I'd go after this guy too.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: What about you?

Brent: Uh, Jeff, this episode had a lot going on in it. There's a lot that happened in this episode at the same time. Nothing really happened in this episode except to just piss me off. Folks, brace yourselves out there. Remember that season two heel turn that I took? Well, I'm about to take it again. This episode sucked, Jeff.

It sucked. This had a whole lot of talking, and aside from Kar being installed as Longo's personal bodyguard, which still that whole thing fell way flat to me, everyone ends up in the same place at the end as they were at the beginning. Not even ster could save this episode. Ster usually elevates an episode, especially in his last like couple of seasons.

Whenever he's in an episode, he just ratchets the whole thing up. Didn't happen in this episode at all. They forgot he was there. It's like they just forgot he was on the station.

Anything in this episode that seems even remotely interesting when they introduce the concept, dies right there on the screen before the scene is even over moving on to the next scene. Now, I, I gotta be honest with you, Jeff, it's been a few days since I've watched this one. And I've been thinking about it and I think I know what's wrong with season five, and I think I know what's wrong with this episode.

Jeff: Dying to know.

Brent: Byron.

Jeff: Oh.

Brent: Byron has tanked this whole show. He is so dull. He is so boring.

This guy makes a calculus final look exciting. There is nothing for me when I watch this guy. It's not that I don't like him. If I didn't like him, at least I would feel something about him. But this guy is about as bland as tepid water and like tepid water. I just wanna spit the whole thing out of my mouth.

He is awful. He is bringing down the show. He is bringing down Babylon five, and we know that something's about to come and, and, and explode with this dude, but it's awful. I don't know if this is casting, I don't know if this is writing. I don't know if this is concept. I can't put my finger on it, but Byron is killing me in this whole show.

And the fact that they keep going back and, and focusing on this dude just pisses me off, and that's where I am in this episode.

Jeff: I think the episode knows, not even the episode. I think Babylon five knows that he's a drain on everything because like, That scene. Let's just, I mean, just dive into Byron. I think that's a great thing. That scene where he's talking to Alita and she's like, dude, bro, take a nap, get some sleep. You gotta take care of yourself.

You know, good self-care message. And he's like, the last time I slept was four, five lifetimes ago. But, and then she just says, she's like, uh, an idiot says what?

Brent: Yeah. Right.

Jeff: And then he is like, no, seriously, like I'm totally Jesus, but apparently you're not cool enough to know I'm Jesus. So I'm just gonna tell you that what I'm saying is a parable, um, because like, hi, here's the sign.

I'm telepath Jesus, but. The only people who want to follow me are people that also use herbal essences in their hair, hair care regimen. Cuz every dude in that telepath thing has just got the most, I mean, they have beautiful hair. That's the one thing I'll say about those telepaths. But I feel like the show is self-aware that it's like, dude, even the stuff he says is just Marcus.

Right? So Marcus comes in and he starts, he quotes Shakespeare, he quotes Mar uh, you know, uh, Dickens. And he, he's a very well-read person. And I would say,

Brent: He's soft spoken.

Jeff: but yeah. Right. Just,

Brent: was a very soft spoken kind of guy.

Jeff: yeah, just cool. And at no point was it obnoxious

Brent: Right.

Jeff: with him? It was, it was cool. He played it off Well, Byron comes out. Oh, I, I'm gonna speak in, in, in, in verse and parable.

I'm gonna quote books and I'm also gonna come off like some off brand ego microwavable pancake. That's the best way I can describe him. I am I, I'm with you. I just, I mean, Lida Lida, I mean, we, I, I wouldn't say that we've been Lita fans through this show, but I mean, she's had cool moments and stuff. I, I don't care about her anymore.

I'm just like, oh God.

Brent: You know, the last time I cared about Lida, and I want to know what happened to this when her and Zach were kind of becoming a thing,

Jeff: Agreed.

Brent: she's, she, clearly this is her and, and Byron, and it's turning into the Litta Byron show. Where the hell was Zach? And all of this like, dude, like I don't know what happened to you and this girl, but. Something because she'd be much better off with you than with this guy. Uh, I, I, I mean, full on Jeff Byron's gonna have these folks drinking Kool-Aid here in the next couple episodes,

Jeff: Hundred percent. I mean, the, the whole cult leader giveaway was where he's like, Hey, good job, Lida on bringing us this stuff. Uh, excuse me while I just kiss you.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: What, what? Like, we have a term for that. And assault is the second word of that term. Like, wow.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. I, I'm disappointed though. So you had mentioned like the whole, um, her stealing medicine from med lab and there being, you know, like that whole thing.

I, I actually really liked that and wanted them to go further. During, during the covid days, the response to Covid o we really saw that communities of color and underrepresented people had a baked in distrust of anything the doctor said. Or if they were like, Hey, come in and say this because, Poor. You know, here's me white dude on my pedestal of privilege.

I learned in that time that a lot of people of color and communities of color were subjected to just horrible medical treatment for generations, right? And so I can sit here on my high horse and be like, well, just listen to what the doctors say. Just do they're doctors. Why? Yeah. Let me tell you what doctors have done.

Babylon five do that. Do that story with the Telepaths. You got the Underground Railroad, you got everything laid out for this

Brent: Do you, do you remember when Franklin got caught having a, um, a free clinic down below?

Jeff: Yeah. Quality of mercy.

Brent: Like, dude, I mean, Franklin's all about this kind of stuff. Set it up. Go there with it.

Jeff: But we get none of that. Nothing. It's all just to set up,

Brent: Cause it's not what the episode's about.

Jeff: No, it's not. No.

Brent: Now here's the thing, Jeff. I can, I can hear, I can hear the keyboards clacking right now. People that know what's happening. People are like, you just don't understand foreshadowing. This is world building. This is setting stuff up. You remember those middle episodes of season four, like once we got past the, the VLAN shadow thing, before the Earth Civil War really got started, there was that run of like seven, eight episodes, maybe nine episodes right in the middle that were like, what the hell is going on here?

What's happening? But once we got to that Earth civil war, we were like, listen, this would not have hit if we didn't have that time of meandering. I, I hope, I hope Jeff we're coming up on something here real soon that this is going to be that sort of a thing. I don't think that's what's gonna happen though.

Jeff: I'm

trying to hold on to hope. I'm

Brent: good about it. Yeah.

Jeff: It's

Brent: Yeah. I just, uh,

Jeff: So I think my, my question for you on the Byron thing was, um, episodes over, right? So Lockley played her card. I like, I love how you described it, A sin that was a very Sinclair maneuver, right? Oh, gotta keep 'em for 60 days. My little question for myself was, haven't they been there for like a month?

Like, shouldn't they say that's why whatever, whatever. But Bester kind of had it in for Byron there at the end. Do you think they have a relationship or something from, from back in the day?

Brent: No, no, no. I think, I th I, I think ster is, I put it this way, I would be highly disappointed if they went that route. I highly disappointed if they went that route, um, because it would be very unearned and it would be so cliche. I think, I think the, the best thing that this could be, and it's what I really hope it is, and it's what I expect it to be like.

It's what I truly think it is, is Byron is leading a group of rogue tele that Ster thinks are his property. Ster thinks it like, this guy's my enemy. This guy's doing the thing that I'm not supposed to be, uh, allowing to have happen

Jeff: I like that it's almost a personal affront to him that he's leading these people.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I would, I, it would be Lockley. Being married to Sheridan, I think is a betrayal of what we have seen so far. If it turns out that Beter and Byron have had a relationship and, and just to be clear, a romantic relationship in the past, and this is some spurned love thing, uh, I don't know that that would be a betrayal of what we have seen so far, as much as

over cliche of storytelling because this is, this is not an episode, this is not a storyline that needs that to be the motivating factor when we have already established investors'. Motivating factor is control. Control over all the telepaths. So that's what it should be. And yeah,

Jeff: Do you think maybe they grew up in the core together or anything?

Brent: I don't think Byron's been in the core.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: think he ever went to the core. Mm-hmm. I don't think like he was in the core and then he got out or anything like that. I don't, I don't think that's it at all, I think.

Jeff: parents kind of kept him on the run sort of a thing.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I think this dude's been, been out in free, maybe, uh, maybe he escaped as a youth or something like that, but he, I he never graduated and joined the Corps or whatever.

Like this guy would've been this, this guy's been doing this Jesus thing for a long time.

Jeff: Jesus, in training, he's a jit.

Brent: Yeah. Well, I mean, how long does it take to grow out that beautiful long hair?

Jeff: Seriously.

Brent: mean, it's been at least that long for him.

Jeff: There's a lot of, uh, a lot of hot oil treatments going into that.

Brent: Yes. But hey, listen, at least they, we know they don't got split ins in the future.

Jeff: They're well cared for.

Brent: Yes, yes. For people who have no money and,

Jeff: Don't believe in technology, have lived on the run for, I mean, so much. They're malnourished, dehydrated,

Brent: but he's, but he's clean shaven.

Jeff: yeah. Perfectly.

Brent: Clean shaven. Yeah. And he is perfectly clean. Notice the other ones look a little dirty, a little scry. He's glowing. He's.

Jeff: You ever wonder what it smells like down there? Like in the little like when ER's down there and he is harassing lead it Cuz he's like, yeah, you took out two of my guys. What if I come down with a dozen? Let's see what she got. Just totally unfazed by her. She's starting to sweat. You ever think about like, what did it smell like down there?

Brent: I feel like I know what it smells like down there and it's not good.

Jeff: Now unpleasant is the

Brent: Yes, yes, yes. Um, I will describe it. I don't know if anybody can picture this. Uh, have you heard at Walt Disney World about the tunnels that exist under Walt Disney World?

Jeff: Yes. Yeah.

Brent: Okay. They truly only under exist under Magic Kingdom. Hollywood Studios has a little tunnel kind of towards the back of it, barely qualifies.

Magic Kingdom has the tunnels. They're not impressive. Just they're, they're, they are util utilidor. Access ways. There are a few places where there are big, huge trash cans down there like, like dumpsters kind of thing. You know what it smells like when you're in an enclosed area in dumpster. That's what the whole thing I think smells like.

Just, just nasty dirt enclosed

Jeff: Wet garbage, stale soda, kind of. Ah,

Brent: air is not moving very well through there. It's all recirculated. Yeah. It just, everything has sort of a musty feel to it. That's That's what it's like.

Jeff: Ugh.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: So on Londo and Kar, I got one question. Who's trying to kill Londo?

Brent: Well, I would've loved for them to have explored that question. Jeff could have been a great episode.

Jeff: Uh,

Brent: How did you come up with the conclusion really, that it had to be somebody on this station, Amy. I mean, it's a, it's a great leap in logic. It's not proof, it's not supported by documented evidence. Like you just, you logic that out to, to give you an excuse to do this thing with Alando Jaar, like, like not j Jm s's best writing here. I like, love the man. I love every, I don't, I love what he has done with Babbel on five. That particular bit of writing, sometimes you just gotta push it forward. Uh,

Jeff: The whole thing just seemed so strong together. And then when Dalen comes in as trying to convince Ja car to become the bodyguard, I'm just like, this doesn't make sense. There's, there's no good reason for Ja Car to become his, give him a ranger. Give them a trio of rage rangers. Right? Like, this doesn't make, this is literally just, Hey, way back in the first episode, we said that they were gonna die strangling each other and, oh, it's,

Brent: And then, and then in where without end, we saw the car kind of come out. Well, we saw him kind of come out behind him looking like he was longo's bodyguard, like secret bodyguard. You know, his little minion or whatever, but they were friends at that point. They were more equals. We saw that and this was, here's how he got there.

Jeff: Literally, JMS is ready and he says, oh my gosh, it's time to pay the pipe burn. Let me write this in.

Brent: You know what that episode, how Kar became Longo's personal bodyguard, could have been an episode all into itself. And, and I gotta tell you, I was so put off by what they actually did here, because in my head, the way Jaar became the emperor's bodyguard was so much cooler. And I don't even know how he would've done it, but it was cool in my head, like, you know, it was, it was.

I don't know. I, I feel like I could have come up with 30 different ways that Lando could have done this be cooler than an F plot in a show that didn't really do much at all. Said, basically just have Dylan convince him to go do it. And he goes off skipping with joy at the idea, like,

Jeff: Yeah.

Yeah, it was, it was disappointing.

Brent: Because here's the other thing too.

Think about where Jaar is. Think about who Jaar is. Jaar is effectively the secretary of State of the Alliance,

Jeff: Right.

Brent: Jaar citizen Jaar, the last surviving member of the Kari in a narn that is rebuilding itself, first of all. Kar should be on Narn or the Narn home world, whatever the name of it is. Somebody pointed out, we don't actually know what the name of the Narn home world is. We

Jeff: think it's, I think it's, it's narn. It's just

Brent: I don't think it is. I think it's supposed to be something else altogether. The people are the narn.

Jeff: We can't pronounce it with our feeble human human tongues,

Brent: But like Kar is out of place anyway. And I didn't they say like one line where Kars like, yeah, but I'm not gonna be your Jesus or something like that. Oh no, they actually had a old scene for it. Right? Where he is like, Nope, you're not gonna put me up on that pedal, so I'm gonna go back over here. Whatever.

Kar is not going to go be somebody's personal bodyguard. And also, have you seen the way that the Narn fight,

Jeff: Yeah, I don't want a narn.

Brent: I don't want a Narn being my bodyguard. I dunno way.

Jeff: Give me that 10 near guy, you know, who's knows how to use the, the mk.

Brent: gimme a ranger. Gimme a mbar. Hell gimme a sonari. Sonari can kick butt, man. Give somebody out of the mu do

Jeff: Yeah. This is where Walker Smith comes back. This is Time

Brent: right. Ja car, not so much.

Jeff: Jakarta's a speech writer, right? He's, uh, he's, he's a poet. He is writing the book of Jaar.

Brent: He's his own Messianic figure.

Jeff: he's building the, the mythos of the Interstellar Alliance.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: And now he's gonna go play bodyguard. And one to your point, we never got any closure on how narn is being rebuilt, governed, or anything. Not even a mention, nothing

Brent: Nope.

Jeff: zilch.

Then on top of that, uh, is, is Jaar also the Naam ambassador? So the, are the Narn gonna be unrepresented now or do we get Telon? Maybe this is Telon comes back, he wears his sword and he comes back. That'd be cool. I'd be all right with Telon being around. But it's just, I mean, to me it just feels like, Hey, we are built.

How many episodes this season have I brought up? Like, how did this happen with the Alliance? Why are they doing this? They don't have this infrastructure. Literally, the guy building that they're sending away.

Brent: yep,

Jeff: What?

Brent: yep.

Jeff: Hey, Alexander Hamilton, thanks for all your work. Get on the boat. See you later.

Brent: Right, Uh, it just doesn't, I, I mean, I get it. We gotta go there somehow. It just, this just didn't, it, it just didn't set well with me, you know? Didn't sit well, Jeff, that's all I got on this episode, man.

Jeff: I have a couple little things.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: I have some confusion around the power structure on the station, earth force,

security, all this kind of

Brent: everyone has questions about that. We don't know. Go ahead. What you got?

Jeff: Zack calls up to, I think it was to Lockley and uh, says, Hey, I've got these orders. We got, we, we have to, we gotta give the telepaths up. And they're like, well, where are the orders from?

They're direct from Earth Dome. Well then we have no choice. We have to follow them. But Zack's wearing his alliance uniform.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: So, uh, do, do you ha do you work for Franklin? They have the cool, I like this idea they had for Franklin, Hey, go study inner species, virology and medical stuff. I like that. It's a, that's a good fit for him.

But there's the, Hey, I'm gonna swing by and tell Lockley because med lab is her thing and she's gotta staff it. But I felt like he was kind of asking permission. And he's doing that wearing his Inner Stellar Alliance uniform again. So I'm just not sure like what's happening there.

Brent: Yeah, I mean, I, I could see earth gov trying to issue an order. Well, okay, so, so let's back up. Here's what we know. Technically, earth still owns Babylon five because they're working out a deal for the alliance to purchase the station from Earth. So if Earth still owns then they maybe could still issue these orders.

Gar, uh, not Garrett Baldy. Zach working as the Alliance chief of security here still has to follow those orders, especially given that Lockley has to follow those orders

Jeff: Maybe.

Brent: unless Sheridan comes in and overrules them because that's just what he can do cuz he's physically there.

Jeff: I guess, yeah, cuz I had the whole thought like, why doesn't Sheridan just Grantham Sanctuary? Why doesn't he do that? But that's that point. Grantham Sanc, that would be like the, well, I guess it almost would work. I'm the, uh, I don't know. Nigerian embassy in the United States, and someone goes to my embassy there and says, I want, I want asylum.

Could you give asylum in the embassy on US soil? I don't know. I'm, I don't know those laws, but I feel like Sheridan could have said that, Hey, I'm in a grand sanctuary here in the Interstellar Alliance. I don't know. Again, it's just stuff that it's not lining up. The thing he doesn't line up is Lockley saw that Garabaldi accessed her file

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: and he stayed in the brig like an extra 20 minutes for that.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: I want to go do

Brent: against regs and highly against whatever. Yeah.

Jeff: wanna go do bad things around L on lock's watch. I feel like he'd get off pretty darn easy.

Brent: Like, I mean, seriously, if Garibaldi would've just landed a few punches, he wouldn't have had any break time though.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, and and it is a fine line. There's the menacing over over them. You get in trouble for, if you come at 'em with a wrench, you're gonna get in trouble. Now Toth figured that out with Death Walker. But it's that middle thing. It's, it's all about the

Brent: you, you come at 'em with a ppg, you're also not getting in trouble.

Jeff: right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: be fine. So,

Jeff: If people only knew. Two final thoughts. One, uh, to close off on the Lockley stuff. I guess two there. One Dalen was Sure. Cool. With the whole like, oh, you're married. Cool. All right. Seems like you're a good choice. Thanks for telling me. Wow. That was.

Brent: So here's my thing, cuz I thought my first response to that was, man, she sure has gotten over her pissiness about this whole thing like real fast. On the other hand, we're not seeing her in her quarters with Sheridan right now. Like Sheridan could still be in the doghouse and she's just putting on the brave face.

Out there in, in, in the world. I don't think that's the case, but you know, she, yeah, she sure got over this one real fast.

Jeff: she's out there being the ambassador. It's okay. It's okay. I understand. A lot of Lockley lines. I felt like they tried to infuse a little more personality and character into her in this one, but those sounded like lines that were written for Ivanova.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: Now you finally convinced me. I just decided if you can't join them, beat 'em.

And I think Ivanova would've said that a lot better. It's

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: the other one I had. It's not that I don't trust you, but I don't trust you.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: Classic of Anifah, right? Like just sprinkle a little more in.

Brent: Hey, by the way, I've been saying that line since I was 12. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just I don't trust you.

Jeff: It's a good line.

Brent: It's a freight. It's a great line.

Jeff: Last note on the whole thing. Apparently there was a prior emperor maari and things didn't end well for him and Lando sure things aren't gonna end well for him either.

Brent: As soon as he becomes emperor, things are gonna go bad. Hey, let's do this. We've got a few minutes here, Jeff, trying to pad this time to hit the over

Jeff: I know. Yeah.

Brent: way back in season three, the one. Where Major Barrett came on this show,

Jeff: Point in no return.

Brent: she left three things that Lando needed to do to redeem himself. Those things right now, I remember these don't kill the eye that doesn't see, or something like that.

Uh, don't kill the person who's already dead and shoot. What was the last one you probably remember really

Jeff: It's the, uh, uh, face the thing you, you, you fear the most.

Brent: And knowing that it's gonna destroy you.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Where are we on those three prophecies with Lando? And I say this because Lando Longo's about to assume the throne. Where are we with these things?

Jeff: I still don't think that we're clear on things. Right. The eye that does not see that could be so many different

Brent: I still say it's the eye from season one. The, the eye of the Emperor. I still think it's that. It could also be a reference to Jaar and it occurs to me. All three of these things could be references to Jaar.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Like there's jaar with the eye thing, right? There's, don't kill the one who's already dead. Kar Kar died that that episode with dust to dust, when he went on that high and he turned into somebody new.

Now you talk about a messiah. Having a, a situation like that's been a well done storyline. Iron. No. Um, you really could have that with, with uh, uh, Kar. Don't kill the one who's already dead. Uh, also, by the way, that could be Sheridan.

Jeff: Yeah, I think that's the, I think that one is the most clear of them because I mean, he died and then, so I think if I walk through it, don't kill the, the eye that does not see, there's a difference in Kar now in Kar that we saw in War Without End, and that difference is the, the sl, the. Thing, you know, the eye patch over his eye. Something's gonna happen with his, with his, uh, prosthetic eye. That's gonna be a, a thing maybe. I don't know. Um, but I, I do think that the eye that does not see is a jaar thing. Don't kill the one who's already dead that we saw in War Without End when Lando.

Ordered Sheridan to go and get killed with Dalen. You know, go question them and then kill them. And then he was able to kind of put together the plan to get him out of there. He was already dead. Don't kill him. But the, and then facing his greatest fear and knowing it will destroy him, I think was is when he will ask Jaar to kill him.

Brent: Well, that's what I was thinking was the, the surrender yourself to something that you know is going to be your end. If Lando is going to surrender himself to becoming emperor,

Jeff: It

Brent: knowing that that will be the thing. That ends him, Lando for a long time has not been comfortable with the idea of becoming emperor.

Jeff: yeah, ever since, I mean, really that became crystal clear endpoint of no return.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: He's like, why are you, why are you having Lady Morrell come out? Cause I want a reading. There's all these things and you wanna see if it's true. No, I, I hope that it's not gonna be

Brent: I want, I want out is basically what he's saying. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and he's also, he's like, I don't want power. That's not what I want. I want to be the guy who's pulling strings or whatever. Um, Save the eye that doesn't, see, that's what it is. Save the eye. That doesn't see, so I mean, it really, it really could be kar like ja car's eye.

I still think it's gotta be the, the emperor thing though. That's just, I don't know. I'm stuck on that one. Jude. Jude, I'm stuck on that one. Jeff. I can't get over that one. Um.

Jeff: It was that artifact was the, the, the pole in the tent for the first big episode of Babylon five.

Brent: And if we never come back to it, then what the hell was that whole piece about,

Jeff: I mean, if anything, it was just morden showing his, Hey, here's this whole little thing for Morden to come back and like, here it is. Look at this magical thing I did, eh man. Well, Brent, with that, I think we've reached the point of this episode where we boil this thing all down and see if it has any deep morals or messages to it. Maybe it's holding a mirror up to society, giving us hope we can be better in the future. And at the same time, we also look at how much it delivers that message.

If one exists in its own unique Babylon five way. You get to do that by rating this episode on a scale of zero to five white stars on how strong the message is and just how Babylon five was delivered. So how do you rate strange relations?

Brent: Well, you asked me. What messages does this episode have? How does this episode hold up a mirror to society or give us hope for a future? The short answer is it doesn't.

Jeff: Excuse me. What? I cracked this bad boy open. I'm looking forward to this one.

Brent: You know, Jeff, they make mute buttons.

Jeff: I thought I hit it

Brent: You're, you're like the guy that snuck a coke into a movie theater and you're just trying to like, you're trying to open it without like,

Jeff: and as I'm being slow about it, my cell phone starts ringing. Oh my God, I'm so.

Brent: oh my gosh. Uh, yeah. Anyway, this episode has a dozen little plot pieces that they're trying to drive forward. Presumably this is to get to the telepath war, which we think is what's coming. You and I have both said that that's, that's gonna be a big part of here, of season five. This one felt like plot setup.

This felt like moving pieces around. Jeff, you and I understand, like we, we get what's happening in the real world. They were wrapping up the entire series at the end of season four. And the 11th hour, they came back and was like, Nope, here it is. And here j m s has to turn on and try to reboot just, just for a season. Just for a season. I don't know if he thought that there'd be a season six at this point or not. His story was supposed to be done with five and, and he's trying to reboot the whole thing and, and you kind of gotta shove a bunch of stuff happening and all at the same time in order to get to where you need to go.

And this. Ultimately, I think, feels like that kind of an episode, this feels like an episode that is moving pieces into place, is setting up a whole lot of stuff. But in an in, in a, in a 42 minute episode of TV contained to itself, it just didn't do much. It didn't do anything really. It just was there like, like.

Ugh. Yeah. So anyway, there's no real message here, Jeff, there. There's just not, whether it's intentional or otherwise, sometimes there's an unintentional message that comes out. I was, I looked at Len's talk with Lando and Kar trying to pull something out of there, and it really wasn't about a message or, or, or saying something really cool.

It was about furthering the plot and getting Londo and kar together like that. What needed to happen at the end was Kar needed to be Lao's bodyguard, so we can move forward with whatever we got coming up next. Jeff, you know how we used to say that there were Star Trek episodes that would get zero Deltas? Well, this is an episode that gets zero white stars.

Jeff: Like you said, so many almost messages in this one. Take one more step. Two more steps. Great message. Great theme in this whole thing. I mean, going back to that medicine thing and the relationship of underrepresented people and communities and, but nope, not at all. Nothing at all. I, uh, if I were to argue for any more white stars, I would be, I would be a filthy, dirty liar.

And in this case right here today. Now I'm not that. Maybe later, but not now.

Brent: Well, Jeff, with that we are create and, and, and white stars really are about the messages and how it's doing it. It's own unique Babylon five way. However, there is a spot where we talk about kinda how much we like the episode, where does it fit, and to do that we are creating our absolute 100% completely accurate definitive ranking of the fifth season of Babylon.

Five. So far that ranking is number one, the very long night of Londo Malawi. Number two, no compromises. Number three, learning curve. Four of you from the gallery. Number five, a Paragon of animals. Jeff, this is an episode that could potentially upset the top five. And for the first time, knock someone out of the top five.

The question is, Jeff, does strange relations knock anything out of the top five as the sixth episode of the season?

Jeff: This episode had such an impact on me. I might have cost ourselves monetization by having an unedited swear word in here earlier. Um, and I'm not gonna do anything about that swear word. And if you're offended by it, I'm really sorry. But that's how, how I feel. Back in season two, we took an episode, we ranked it at number 22, uh, at the, at the beginning, and we kind of kept it there.

In season three, we took an episode, uh, the, and we only ranked 22 of tw, or 21 of 22 episodes. In that season, it was still ranked number 22 and Brent, I am so tempted to do the same thing with this episode.

Brent: I think this episode's just gonna fall. Like you could, you could, you could go ahead and throw it all the way down at the bottom. You could leave it at six and just let everything else come in above it and, and see, because Heaven, please, Jeff, for the love of all. That's good in holy tell me this is, this is as bad as it gets.

Like everything else from here is uphill. Please.

Jeff: That's the hope that I'm

clinging

Brent: haven't seen anything, but

Jeff: know nothing. I'm, I'm clinging to that hope that this is our low point and that this is actually, like you said, this is propping up a few really key plot points that'll pay off and we'll look back on it and be like, oh my gosh. I'm really glad, I'm really glad we suffered through that.

And to be honest, so much of my reaction, visceral reaction to this episode was just, just a cheap, easy. Cliche, stupid move to have them ha have been married before. I, that said all of that said, I'm gonna clinging to hope this is number six. If it's horrible, it'll get pushed down. If it's better, it'll land where it's supposed to land.

Brent: Yeah, Jeff, I, I think that's a good, uh, good idea. I've said, and I know you don't agree with me, and that's okay. Everybody's got their own personal opinion. I, the season opener of this season for me was my favorite season opener that we've had of the five seasons. You and I both very much agree. The very long night of Londo Malawi has been the best episode of, of season four that actually rolled over to season five,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: uh, season three, uh, or I'm sorry, episode three.

Uh, that was, um, Paragon of Animals. And I remember saying with that one, that episode moved real slow, but it was a fine episode. Like I didn't not like it. I didn't, I didn't love it, but I didn't not like it. The next episode was, um, a view from the gallery. That's when we had the two guys. Again, it was a fine episode.

It's not that I didn't like it, it was fine.

Jeff: fun actually. It was an

enjoyable episode.

Brent: it was fine. Um, you and I were in different places on last week's episode. I really, really liked last week's episode, and I still only placed it at number three. This is the first episode that I truly say I do not like. I did not like this episode. So, yes, number six.

And I agree with you, Jeff. Not that it makes a difference at this point, but I agree with you that you're not just dropping it all the way down to, to 22. Like, I kind of just want to let it fall. You know? Just, just let it go. And you're right. If it, if it's not number 22 in the ranking, by the time we're done, then it'll stop falling where it's supposed to stop falling.

Jeff: Yeah, and there'll be something worse than this, but Brent, ah, feels good to say this. That's it for strange relations. Next week, we're watching Secrets of the Soul for the first time. You talked about it back near the beginning of the episode, but we play a game every week where we look at the title of the episode.

We don't look at thumbnails. We don't look at descriptions or anything else, and we guess what that episode's gonna be about. We predict what the episode will be about based on the title alone. Brent, what do you think Secrets of the Soul is going to be about?

Brent: Jeff, please, please, please, please, please, please let me be right about this one. This is a linear episode. We're finally gonna get back to Ranger Lanier and Los Shall talk whatever they call themselves. Lanier, uh, we're gonna see what's going on with him over in Ranger school. Uh, I think we should have seen him a few episodes back when the guys came to the station, but this to me, this is time to catch up with Lanier.

That's what I got. What do you got?

Jeff: We're gonna have Londo and we're getting the Buddy Cop episode that you've been crying for for almost a season. Londo and Jaar. Sharon's secrets. Sharon's stories. It's racing Mars with Londo and Jaar instead of Marcus and Franklin.

Brent: Oh, that was a fun episode. Yeah, I like it.

Jeff: to Marcus. Rip to Marcus.

Brent: could take.

Jeff: I think the episode will end with them arriving on Sonari Prime and being told that in the next episode they're gonna have the big coronation and ceremony for him

Brent: They'll arrive on, on Centara Prime and, and, uh, uh, the region will have died.

Jeff: Yep. Oh, Londo, you just missed it. He died. Get ready. Tomorrow morning we have a feast and you'll be named Emperor. Bu and we'll find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Leave us a radio and a review and please share this podcast with someone that's either already in love with Babylon five, or about to fall in love with this incredible series.

So, Brent, until next time, uh, actually, Brent, I have a question for you.

Brent: do you? Okay, shoot.

Jeff: Do, do you wanna stick around and watch the next episode together? Like right now?

Brent: Yes. Let's get the hell outta here.