Aug. 8, 2022

Survivors

Garibaldi tried to assassinate who??

Two veteran Star Trek podcasters watch Babylon 5 for the first time. Brent Allen and Jeff Akin search for Star Trek like messages in this series, deciding if they should have watched it sooner.

President Luis Santiago visits Babylon 5 while Jeff and Brent wonder how Garibaldi's addication will impact him in the future.

Babylon 5 For the Fist Time podcast logo with the Patreon logo on top of it

Transcript

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: Mr Akin.

Jeff: Mr. Allen.

Brent: I'm Brent Allen. I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time. Jeff and I are two star Trek, podcasting veterans watching Babylon five. For the first time we're searching for star Trek like messages. And deciding if we should have watched the show sooner

Jeff: Are you, are you doing a Walken right now? You doing okay? cause if you are doing a Walken, you should probably reshoot it. I think.

Brent: much, like they should have reshot some of this episode with a particular guest actor that they had on the episode.

Jeff: Wow

Brent: into all of that though. Jeff

Jeff: that our, wow. I, uh, I pick up, I'm picking up exactly what you're putting down, but I have some thoughts there as well. We're getting right into it. But before we get into it, it's really important to talk about what Brent just said. We are star Trek, podcasters, and we're trying really hard to let Babylon five, be Babylon five, but we're, we're gonna compare it to star

Brent: Well, you know why though Jeff, and not just that we're gonna pull it in because that's who we are. We're ju we say it right up front, but also we have heard for the last 30 years, this whole thing about. Deep space, nine ripped off Babylon five or Babylon five. And there's all these comparisons back and forth, back and forth.

So this show is set up to be compared specifically to star Trek. So some of it's gonna come from that as well. I ain't

Jeff: Absolutely. And maybe, maybe as we get further in this, there's gonna be a reckoning. Maybe we're gonna make that call, right? Yeah. Yeah. But to keep us in check, we have our rule of three, each one of us can use up two, three star Trek references between right now and the point of the episode where we actually compare it star Trek.

we could, we could use it a little bit in, in, in that part,

but Brent, you've brought it up before. I, I love our community so much. They're amazing. Absolutely amazing. I've got a couple things I'm gonna read from people in there and I'm gonna start off. So we have a website. Babylon five first.com. It's the number five and the word first.com. And there's a little button on there.

You can send us an email and I, I get those emails, Jeff, I get 'em. I love 'em. They're great. We get a lot of them. You seed row. I think that's how you say your name, you seed row. And I apologize if I said it wrong. Sent this great email. Just said, just wanted to say I'm loving this podcast. B five is my favorite series ever.

And with star Trek, having been an important in my life as well. It's great. Getting both of your opinions on this show. I hope no matter what you at least get into season two,

Brent: see, I can promise you will at least get into season two because being star Trek podcast veterans. Oh, does that count? This counts, doesn't.

Jeff: does it?

Brent: it does cuz I just referenced it being star Trek, podcast veterans. One thing that we're very, very, very well aware of first seasons tend to struggle and it's really actually it's really the first two seasons sometimes tend to struggle.

Uh, it, it gets better, but usually it's around that third season that things really start taking off. So we're in it honestly all the way through, but we'll at least be there through, we'll give it it's it's fair shot. But thank you so much. I'm glad that you are joining us and coming in Jeff, you know, one of the things I love about people and, and how this is developing we're at that spot where we're beginning to recognize the same names coming back, like we're actually developing relationships with you guys out there, which is really cool.

And seeing you guys come in and respond week after week, so you see DRO, first of all, if we said it wrong, send us back a pronunciation guide so we can say it correctly. And to if we set it right, then just let us know cuz that's awesome. But thank you for your email. You rock.

Jeff: And here's your hit? Haven't even started the recap. We're down to two for you,

Brent: That's all right.

Jeff: but it was a good one. And you're right in speaking of people that we see, we start to see the names quite a bit. We have retro robot radio. Who's a regular part. Yep. Regular part of the community on YouTube, but he's got some really fun facts about linear.

Uh, he says, and I'm gonna say linear. I think, I think that's right. Somebody

Brent: angular and linear. It's linear.

Jeff: Linear, linear,

Brent: idea. Actually. I think it's linear. Uh, it's supposed to be linear. Linear. There you go. All right, go ahead. What's what is, what is retro robot say?

Jeff: retro robot radio says, and I'm gonna mispronounce the actor's name too, but he says fun fact, bill mummy, veteran child actor who played linear was 40 years old when he got the part on B five.

Yeah. Can you believe that guy looks maybe 23, 24? I wish I had that problem but he says he was actually, and this is what blows my mind here. He was actually a year older than the actress playing Deen, despite playing her young aid. You may have seen Billy on Twilight zone lost in space wagon, train, Bewitched.

I dream of genie and the monsters he gets around. Yeah,

Brent: fun fact. Did you ever see Harry Potter, the Harry Potter series, the girl who played moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a 14 year old girl was 37 years old when she filmed that.

Jeff: What, no way, no way, because she looks maybe 16.

Brent: right.

Jeff: So this is, I call this the Andrea Zuckerman issue from 9 0 2 1 oh, where Gabrielle cartels played a 16 year old when 9 0 2 and oh, started, she was 30. At the time and, uh, yeah, not a bad deal, honestly.

Brent: Hey, you're looking great.

Jeff: right when I was 15 years old and I was able to get into our rated movies cuz I looked older.

I thought that was super cool. Now I'm in my mid forties. Not so cool anymore.

Brent: Cause they're offering you the senior discount.

Jeff: Yeah. I, yeah. Well, Hey we got our website, right? Babylon five first, the number five, the word first.com. We also have a Twitter at Babylon first and slightly fixated who I think we've mentioned before on this show. Really great, uh, really great conversations with slightly fixated on Twitter says quote, Ja car and lawn are the show at Babylon.

First, you are preaching to the choir. I am the choir, but babies stop saying things are not gonna get addressed or explained because boy, are you going to eat Crow for it every time? Yikes

Brent: as long as you just, you, you put it in a pie, you bake it up. I'm happy to eat that Crow, baby. I'm happy to do that

Jeff: every time. Well, and frankly, like that's what, I don't know. Sci-fi television has taught us that there's gonna be a lot of throwaway stuff that we see in episodes. All of you keep telling us that's not the case, but just like children, we're not gonna listen to the experts. The people who've watched it.

We're gonna be no, no, this is all garbage. We're gonna,

Brent: gotta find out for ourselves.

Jeff: Yeah. I'm gladly gonna eat that Crow.

Brent: All right. Well, Hey listen, thanks everybody who, who are commenting. And that's just a very tiny sampling of the people that are out there. Uh, so you guys keep doing that and who knows, maybe we'll read one of yours on a future episode here of Babylon first for the first time, Jeff, it's time for another game that we like to

Jeff: We love our game. We love

Brent: love our games. This is the time when we kind of do like a little review from last week. When we get to the end of the episode, we read just the title. Only we, we don't know the description. We do our best to not even look at the thumbnail of the picture that they put up there. We look at the description, we predict what the next episode's gonna be about just based on that.

And this is the time where we have now watched the episode. We're gonna revisit what you and I both predicted that this episode survivors was gonna be about and just see how close we got. Jeff. I think I want to go first on this one,

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: cuz I'm pretty sure you were way closer than I was. Uh

Jeff: so excited about mine.

Brent: So I said this was coming off the, the children of the egg episode.

Um, I, I forget the name of it, but it was the one about the kid who didn't wanna

Jeff: How could you forget?

Brent: oh,

Jeff: I think that was gonna come up in season three,

Brent: it's coming off of that. And what I said was there was a bunch of people who fell off their bikes as kids and they got cut open and lost their spirit, but they're still alive and they're in hiding. They heard about good stuff on Babylon five. And then they came outta woodwork. That's what I said. This episode was about, I get a score of negative two.

Jeff: though. The, the falling off the

Brent: They tell us it's not wasted.

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: us it's not wasted.

Jeff: Well brand I guessed. I guessed that home guard was gonna plant a bomb that would explode and damage a huge section of the ship and maybe kill a couple of people. So I got home guard, I got bomb. I got exploded. Section of the ship. Here's where I went way off.

It was that it was gonna be the council chambers. And then it was gonna turn into like a courtroom procedural thing where they piece everything together. I still, I still think that'd be a pretty great

Brent: You also said a couple of people and only one person. Got it, but still,

Jeff: one. So yeah. So I'm gonna give myself like three

Brent: yeah, you, you, I mean, that's, you, you nailed it, Jeff. You really did. That's that's

Jeff: I'm feeling good.

Brent: That is absolutely.

Jeff: well, we have, we have more episodes coming up after this. And so we'll, we'll just see how far I can, how far I can miss next

Brent: There you go. all right. Well, speaking of survivors, that is the episode that Jeff and I are discussing today. Now, for those of you who haven't seen it in a while, and I'm not sure that I'd blame you, if you haven't or those who simply haven't watched at all, but you're listening to us anyway, Jeff, I am very glad that this was your week to do the recap because holy cow, this episode has a lot going in on it.

And I have no idea how you're gonna boil this down, but good luck man. Have had it.

Jeff: actually not gonna boil it down. I've got 46 minutes of content coming up right now. So get ready as I just read the script. It's the only way to boil it down. Ah, I'm kidding. Here we go. BU BU

earth force one is coming to Babylon five. President Lewis. Santiago is visiting the station to drum up support for alien immigration legislation that he's pushing. Oh, and he's bringing along a wing of star fury fighters that, you know, Probably should have been there about two years ago, but Hey, at least he's bringing them now.

They've got crews working overtime to retrofit the fighter base, cuz they had very little notice that this was happening. But sadly that will all be for not a bomb explodes, killing all, but one of the workers, Nolan Nolan is in bad shape, but Dr. Franklin's working really hard on him. The president's entourage arrives to prep a station for his arrival and to take over the investigation of the bombing major Leona Kimer is leading the entourage.

Gar Baldy served with her father Frank at Europa, which is apparently a really, really, really bad place to have to serve. They were very close, became good friends and GU Baldy knew Leona from the time she was a child on Europa. GU Baldy was tough on crime, so the bad guys wanted to get back at him and they killed Frank to do it.

This has caused a long rift between Leona and her uncle Mike, despite Sinclair's best efforts, the investigation gets handed over to Keer she questions, Nolan, who in his dying breath says GU Baldy, GU Baldy planted the bomb Keer calls for his arrest. And GU Baldy does the things that every innocent person should do when they're about to be arrested.

He kicks dude in the guts and runs away. He works to try and build up a defense and to find out what actually happened all while trying to stay hidden on the station. But his mid nineties collarless dress shirt doesn't help him at all. He ends up in a bar alone, face to face with the greatest enemy he's ever faced alcohol.

When his friend Frank was killed and other times when his career's taken a bad turn, he expressed his disease, his alcoholism, as he put it. By crawling in to the bottle while at the bar, he starts drinking again, despite working with lawn accusing Jaar and the Narn, everything he can do, he can't shake the charges drunk.

He's easily arrested and taken to camera. As she questions him, they find home guard paraphernalia in Nolan's quarters and together they end up piecing together that KEMs aid. The very, very innocently named cutter is the one that perpetrated the whole thing. They're sure he's on his way to set up another bomb.

As the president is about to arrive, they cut cutter off. just barely avoiding the near destruction of the station and the likely assassination and the likely assassination of the president while being treated in med lab, Garabaldi tries to apologize for drinking. Sinclair and Franklin both kind of play it off, but Sinclair reminds him that he doesn't have to face his struggles alone.

Cameron, and Garabaldi share a moment before she leaves. They reconcile their relationship and he wishes her well. Brent, what did you think of survivors?

Brent: Jeff, I gotta tell you we've been on a really, really good run of episodes here on Babylon five, but this one in all honesty very much reminds me that we are still in fact, in season one of a 1990 sci-fi show.

Jeff: agree. Agreed.

Brent: you, if you remember the episode infection

Jeff: Oh

Brent: where I said that that episode was a piece of hot garbage for the first 27 minutes, and then it turned on a diamond. Got really good. Okay. This episode didn't do it, but I gotta tell you very similar to that episode. I really just thought this was gonna be angry GU Baldy, like through the whole episode.

And I was like, they just messed with this character. I don't like this. This is cringeworthy, but I wound up even in the midst of an episode that I don't think was a great episode. I found a lot of elements that I really wound up liking throughout the course of this episode and a very non star Trek message that, that we'll get into that I think is very painfully obvious tackling something that honestly, I don't know, that star Trek really would tackle.

Certainly not in the way that they would, that they did here. So, uh, yeah, overall not my favorite episode, but I really like what they did. If is that weird? Like can, can those two coexist like that?

Jeff: Yeah. Actually in, in, in my notes and we'll get to it. I think this episode did exactly what it meant to. And I think what it meant to do was important in there. I, I think it was kind of sloppy in how it, how it did some of it and, and I'm gonna, like, I'm shocked by this. And in fact, like, so we don't, we don't talk about this before we come on and record the podcast.

Right. We text about logistics or whatever. We don't talk about the episode. I broke that rule a little bit and I told you, I'm like, Hey note, who wrote this episode?

Brent: you did.

Jeff: yeah. Cuz like Jay, Michael Tru Zinsky writes almost everything, but it seems like, and we talked about this when he pulls someone else in, like he writes the we're moving the plot

Brent: Like the treatment, the story

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. But then he brings in, uh, DC Fontana or uh, David Gerald, right. To really like focus in on a person or, or a thing. And I think that happened here. I'm gonna probably say his name wrong, but Mark Scott Zary

Brent: yep.

Jeff: wrote this one. Well known. He wrote a couple years. It was four years after this episode, he wrote, uh, deep space, nine far beyond the stars.

One of the greatest episodes of star Trek, one of the greatest episodes of television ever written ever. And I'm gonna give you, I wanna, I wanna give a shout out to the, be me up podcast, your other, your, your star Trek podcast, because you and Matt, um, this was the episode you put out for. This one is one of the most, uh, powerful star Trek episodes.

One of the best, most well done star Trek podcast episodes I've ever heard in my life. I really you're welcome. That was

Brent: I, I very much appreciate that. And I, I don't mind receiving that because I truly believe that is the most important podcast episode I have ever been a part of, like ever. And I would like, I think everybody should go listen to it. It's that poignant important. And it is a discussion that we really, really need to have.

In fact, Jeff, if, if you can make a note, let's remember, I'd love to link that in the show notes. Uh, usually I don't like, uh, you know, pimp and Mo stuff, but that particular episode, uh, and if you guys haven't seen that episode of deep space nine far on the stars, please go watch it and watch it again and then watch it again and, uh, go do that.

Cuz we, that it's the only episode Matt and I have ever brought anybody else in on for the main show. And it's basically because Matt and I couldn't have done that episode ourselves. And, uh, thank you. I appreciate you bringing that up because you're absolutely right. And I, I saw the name. I didn't get a chance to look up.

I knew he was a track writer, but I wasn't sure which episode it was and yeah, that, that, that's all clicking in my head right now.

Jeff: So be me up pod.com. We'll link it in the show notes. Uh, make sure you check it out. And again, like, I mean, not to harp on a star Trek thing, but you don't have to like star Trek. This is just an important episode of television period. And if you do like star Trek and you're into fun stuff, he also wrote first contact from, uh, the next generation a couple years before this episode, you know, that's the one where Lil from cheers tried to, uh,

Brent: with

Jeff: have some extra planetary relations with Riker.

So yeah. Yeah. That's my big thought on, uh, on this one, I, I gotta say. And, and you, and I talk about this quite a bit where we can't judge television from the past, through the lens of today, but I, I just want to acknowledge that I don't think that they handled garal these's alcoholism very well in this episode at

Brent: right. Absolutely.

Jeff: Yeah. Franklin made a joke about the doc. The medical doctor made a joke about his blood being a hundred proof and, uh, Sinclair. I mean, after kind of ripping him a little bit, I, I, I appreciated his piece, you know, you're not alone. You don't have to go through that was, that was, that was very helpful. But just as a whole, just gonna, just gotta, I couldn't let this move forward without, without saying at least that

Brent: they you're right. They didn't. And there's, there's also a piece of me that wonders even in doing that. If we look at it today and we say it wasn't enough, was it a step forward in 1994? Maybe it was, I've never seen another, uh, another episode of television do what this one did, you know? And, and we'll get into that, but specifically the spot where he's holding the drink and he, you could tell him, he's like, should I shouldn't I should, I shouldn't, I should.

I shouldn't. I, and then when he actually takes the drink, I like, I, I screamed out loud. Like I really did like my kids, like cool dad, what I'm like, I just, and, and we'll talk now is not the time. Well, anyway, um, Jeff overall, what'd you think of the episode? Yeah,

Jeff: that is how I felt. I think it, like, it kept wanting to get really good, you know what I mean? Like

Brent: yeah, yeah. yeah.

Jeff: And it just never quite picked up, you know? And I think, I think part of it, part of it was this episode hinged on two people, this episode hinged on Garabaldi, who like you just described, not just as a character, but as an actor, I I've got so much more respect and I, and I know so much more about Aldi and, and, and where he used to.

He played off and kind of acted as like, I don't know, I'm kind of a per and a joke and whatever this guy's got some for real depth and I, I, the end result of this is I care about Garabaldi more after watching this than I did beforehand.

Brent: a way that when you got to Sinclair's episode, that focused on him, you still didn't care about Sinclair after that episode. The way you care about Garabaldi now after his episode, um, while we're in this, let's just focus on the character of Garabaldi for right now, since we're talking about it, um, the, the basic piece, and you, you mentioned it in your recap was, uh, Garabaldi had, has a history of alcoholism that he has beat up to this point.

He has been sober for a certain number of years, which great on

Jeff: on Babylon

Brent: Exactly. Great, great on him for having been sober. He had a, he had a, a, an issue, a situation way back when somebody got killed. And for some reason, people put the blame on him and even the way he was describing it, I was like, dude, that's not anywhere near your fault, like at like at all, but whatever people, you know, you gotta give him a reason.

They gave him a reason. And he went on a, I'm gonna defend myself speed, you know, like I've gotta go do this to clear my name, which cool. And then he falls off the wagon at some point and he gets hammered drunk. And then he's sober like 20 minutes later. But the doctor says he still has a hundred proof, uh, blood alcohol level. Um, and he kind of ends at the episode a little bit in the same place that he began, the episode, like it resets it for him.

Although we now know this about his character. The question I have is did JMS know this about this character before going into this episode? And did the actor know this about this episode or about this character before going into this episode? Because nothing that we saw here out of GU bald. Lines up with anything we have seen in the previous 10 episodes.

He wasn't, he wasn't pervy. He wasn't joking. He wasn't like none of these things he had. We've never seen him be heavy handed. We've never seen him just order water at the bar. We've never, like, we've never seen any of that kind of stuff. Like this all felt very new writing to the character, which I'm fine with.

It just felt like a whole new deal that they're doing with Garabaldi. And I really wonder where they're going with his character. Like, will he still kind of be the, the jokester a little bit of the group, cuz he's kind of, you know, uh, his second favorite thing in the world is Doug Dodgers. He has Looney tunes, right?

Like, is he still that guy or is he the recovering alcoholic who just recently fell off the wagon? I,

Jeff: I love that perspective because I think what we knew about one of the things we knew about Garabaldi coming in is he had a bad track record. Even the reporter who came in and the one thing was like, you know, you've popped from state, you know, from assignment to assignment. And that was one of those lingering, like what's going on with Garabaldi things.

And now we know, but. When I watch. So there's the scene on Zocalo, which can we talk about? Just really, I mean, just, I just wanna mention the horrible nineties neon sign that just says Zocalo in like weird font,

Brent: well, I loved the one that was behind them on the little transport thingy that it said something to the effect of like, hold the handrails at all times or something like that. But the font was like super weird.

Jeff: that whole scene. This is, this is a tangent, but I, I, I made notes on this scene because not only did this make the blue screen from mid eighties, B movies that were on USA up all night, make that look legit and good, but you're right. There was this weird, like they were swinging on horizontal bars thing, like holding onto hand.

It's like, is there no floor onto that? So

Brent: now, just because I know people are, people have already commented in the video down below Jeff. We understand that this was a low budget production of 1994. We get it. We're just obviously pointing out the thing that's right in front of us of saying it looked bad.

Jeff: well, and frankly put it somewhere else. Just put him in a different part of this day

Brent: Can I give you a good part about that scene? That I liked though? The thing that I really did, like watching them come onto that transport there's uh, uh Ivanova which I keep saying her name wrong. It's not Ivanova it's a VVA, a VVA. I keep saying Ivanova it's Ivanova it's GU Baldi. There's a Narn. And then a couple people later, there's a Tari and they're all just getting on.

Like, they're just going to work. Now we know that NA and Tari have a thing

Jeff: mm-hmm . really

Brent: you almost get the impression that it's a, it's not just a personal thing between a couple, like these guys are generally going at it as a, as a species. Those two guys just kind of ignored each other. And I kind of liked seeing that on Babylon five.

Like they can look, they can coexist. And then when we saw them, uh, traveling, you had the Narn sitting in the background of Garabaldi and, and Ivanova, I honestly thought that that was a dummy. I thought it was a mannequin in Narn makeup because that person sat so dead still. It didn't move ahead. Didn't move eyes.

Didn't do anything until the speaker lady came on as like, this is your stop. And like, they kind of turned their head to get up. It was weird, but I really did. I, I don't know why that jumped out at me that here's a Sattari and here's a Narn coming on and they're just coexisting. That's pretty cool given the history of their people.

But outside of that, that's the stuff that was catching my attention.

Jeff: there's a lot going on in

Brent: of this episode.

Jeff: yeah. A lot going in that little scene, but I think, I think, I mean, and, and I, and I want to get back to what you were saying about GU Baldy, but these tangents are really good. I think that what that says though, with the NA and the Centara, it really speaks to that whole kind of mindset where it's the people in power that are at war, the militaries that kind of get in, but like the day to day, people are generally just day to day.

In fact, I'm wearing, uh, the t-shirt tape rush and their power windows record has this powerful, powerful song. That's most rush songs, very powerful, but one called territories. It's about that. Exactly where it's just, you know, why they have the line. They have a line in there about one is why move around the world when Eden was so near and another line about, Hey, we moved this, we did this thing, but I mean, when back home I've got better people, better food and better beer.

Tari and the Narn just your day to day, people just wanna go to work and just do their jam, you know? I dunno.

Brent: to not to derail the importance of what you just said, but if anybody out there wants to check out, Jeff's super cool shirt, as well as the super cool posters on his background, head over to our YouTube channel. Hello to everybody on YouTube. Right now, I'm talking to the people on the podcast platforms out there, head over to our YouTube channel Blon five for the first time.

And, uh, you can catch the video of Jeff and I doing this right here.

Jeff: It's pretty cool. But with Gary Baldy, so you, you had talked like, because there's this, this really wild scene on the Zocalo where there's petty criminal, trying to steal a couple credits and he just goes to town, like Sinclair's gotta get intervene and pull him off. And it felt like outta nowhere, I read that.

I read that as. This, uh, camera is Leona has had such an impact on him that just her presence is, you know, push, pushing him into a place he's he's never been before. I, I read it as that, um, the reaction to her, but you saying that too, like, I don't know it is, this is a, I feel like Garabaldi in this episode is a character inspired.

You're inspired by Michael Garabaldi, right? Like, yeah.

Brent: My note that I wrote in that particular scene was angry. Garabaldi is not the best GU Baldi,

Jeff: Agreed. The

Brent: know, like it just, he, he went zero to 90 for no real justified reason, you know?

Jeff: Garabaldi we've seen is intentional. He's smart where he invest like as a, as a, as a detective, as a police officer, like he has shown wild levels of competence through, through every episode that we've seen him in so far. And yeah, this, this was totally just that, you know, Not on my block kid kind of thing.

That's yeah.

Brent: I mean, I'm glad for him to bust somebody trying to straight up steal a dude's money, but, you know, taking the guy and shoving him up against a wall when that's not who you are, you know, the guys over at mission log podcast, talk about, uh, particularly with the original series, uh, cuz they do a star Trek podcast too. And uh, BA I'm using my references, not in about, about whatever anyway. Um, but they particularly with Ts, I remember them talking a lot. Uh, Ts is the original series for those of you who aren't in the star Trek lingo. This is Kirk and Spock back in the sixties. They talk about the gamification of some of these characters, where like you get to the beginning of an episode and all of a sudden this character is doing something that they have never done before.

That is completely out of character for them, for the purpose of going on the journey of the episode and getting back to who they're supposed to be. But there's this weird, they just sort of stretch and pull you just to fit whatever situation the script calls for you to be in. Even if it's not really your character, I felt that's what was going on with your Garabaldi in this particular episode was they were trying to do something with him that really wasn't, he's been so far, which is why I question, did they know about this particular part of his past?

Did the actor know about this part of his past or are we watching them write it here in front of us? And how does this affect him going forward? How does this affect how the actor plays Garabaldi going forward? And I'm, I'm very curious to find that out as we move forward in this show,

Jeff: Yeah. Cause I, he did an incredible job acting in this role. Like I, I didn't doubt in in fact, in. Mind war. We talked about if, uh, if garal the investor actually went at it, you were like, garal did wipe the floor with him. And I'm like, no, I, you know, Buster, he is that little guy. He's got the psychic thing going, dude Garabaldi is legit.

He took on that big, massive guy all on his own. When he was running away, had him tied up, was gonna win until he got overpowered. It's three on one and he just kinda looks around and he is like, all right, let's do this. And he, and he goes to town, like he holds his own for a minute. Then Sinclair comes and gets him.

But like Garrett bald, he's the, the angry garal, we'll call him angry. Garabaldi he's the real deal. But I, I just feel like he was portrayed so well through this. I, I believed him as a legit badass. I believed him as somebody panicked and going to lawn, hoping that he had some answer or help. And I believed I believed him as an alcoholic.

You know, that scene. You talked about when he is holding that his eyes. Like if you watch his it's real, you know, in that moment and just the look of defeat, I guess I wanna say when he is like, here it goes. I mean, yeah. I mean, I, I didn't scream, but I had a visceral, like, no, it, it was a really well done

Brent: Thi I mean, this is a man who feels like he knows what it's like to struggle with addiction

Jeff: Mm-hmm

Brent: and whatever, whatever substance that is, it feels like he knows, or he did some research or something because he played it to perfection. I guess let's go ahead and talk about it while we're here.

Um, When he made that choice to watch him struggle with making a choice showed on screen. And when I talk about, in an episode that really wasn't that good. There were moments that I just thought were jewels. This was one of them. He depicted the way I have always defined addiction and, and addiction to me that the best definition I've ever been able to come up with is addiction makes you do what you don't want to do when you are in your right mind, when you're in your right mind, you're going, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this, but I find myself doing it anyway.

That's addiction. And he's sitting here going, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. And I thought, I don't know about you, Jeff. I'm. Oh, oh, he poured the drink. Oh, there's no way he's drinking it. There's no way he's, he's gonna put it back down and he's gonna conquer this. And I thought, for sure, as soon as he did that, talk about subverting expectations, cuz he sure as heck drank that thing.

And he went down. I mean he crawled into that bottle to use his phrase. He did it. Absolutely. The worst time ever. He is on the run.

Jeff: he literally walked out of the bar. Yeah. He got walked right out and got arrested, like, oh,

Brent: Well, whatever, uh, you

Jeff: But, but I do think on the subverting expectations, I mean, we had that in survivors or in, uh, believers where believe, oh, believe, believe that's our rule. We use it all the time, but where there's no way, no way they're gonna kill the kid.

Oh my God. They killed the kid. There's no way, no way he's gonna take, oh my God. He took the drink. Like lesson learned Babylon five. Like we, we we're learning our lesson the hard way

Brent: There you go. There you go. Um, can we compare, so, so, uh, uh, Jerry Doyle, the name of the actor, sorry. It's been leaving my mind, Jerry Doyle, what he showed me in this episode, the man can act

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: and I do wanna make sure we get to the spot probably closer to the end, where we talk about his decision in the fallout from that decision. Can we please compare her to our guest for this episode?

Jeff: So I,

Brent: Thomas

Jeff: so yeah, so I was gonna say earlier that this episode hinged on two people on GU Baldy, right. Doing his whole piece, and Keer selling her part and to launch our conversation, I will say that one party in this equation definitely delivered the goods

Brent: Yes.

Jeff: we just finished talking about him.

Brent: Yes, we did. Um, alright. I all right here goes my third one. I'm gonna use 'em all. Uh, I couldn't decide as I was watching this with Elaine Thomas, as, as that's the name of the actress, I couldn't decide if she was a bad actor or if it was just the character. And I really felt the same way about Jerry Ryan.

When she first come on playing seven of nine in Voyager, seven of nine is a character is a very stoic character, a very monotone character. Obviously Jerry Ryan, as a, as a woman, she's a very, very pretty lady. And when she first came on, you're like, I'm sitting there going, is she really acting like, is she just that bad of an actress? Like I understand her character is supposed to be this way a little bit, but she played that role, like so straight, especially the first bunch of episodes that she was on. Until we got to episodes where she got to break out of that character. And particularly I'm thinking of the one where they touched on multiple personality syndrome in, in that, in that where you go, oh no, Jerry Ryan can act that girl can throw down. She's making choices for her character of seven of nine.

That make total sense. And now I can, she's not just a pretty face. She's a fantastic actress. And, and there's a whole new level of respect. I don't know that we're ever gonna find that out about Elaine Thomas. I can't recall anything else I've seen her in. I feel like I might have seen her in a few things, but this character of Leona was just so hard to watch, especially at the beginning of this episode, but throughout and the way that she specifically talks to Sinclair, she is a major.

He is a commander. I don't care if you're on a presidential detachment, you put some respect on that name when you're talking to a commander major and you do not come in and order these guys around the way you have been doing and throw that I don't care. What kind of authority you think you have?

That's not how this works and Sinclair shame on him for taking it for so long.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Ivanova do you see what happened to her? Leona came in and tried stepping up to lava and VVA turned around. You said, I am a station commander out here. You're gonna respect me lady. Stop it.

Jeff: was so great. Cuz Ivanova had the, had him run maintenance to shut down the calm. So she couldn't call and get like help. Sorry. She's so great. Cuz like she's smiling while you know Ivanna's on the screen and she's all customer service. Oh, you know, I'd love to help you, but you know, we got maintenance going well, I need to do blah, blah, blah.

Well, you'll need to request that. Well don't I request no, your request is denied. Click

Brent: Although I gotta say I hated her hair in this episode.

Jeff: Yvan

Brent: note. Yeah. I hated it because it made her look so cute. And I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. Like it made her look like a young girl. Ivanova is this very strong character and, and I'm prob I'm probably gonna say something's gonna make somebody mad out there, guys.

I'm really not trying to be sexist when I say this. Go

Jeff: Let me help. Cuz I think you're right. She's very, um, She's very formal when, when she's on duty. And we saw that in, um, what was it? The, the, the war prayer, when she met Malcolm bigs and she was like, you know, and this the other night, and she had to rush in and they even made the joke where she came in.

Yeah. And Gary was like, oh, you should be. And she's like, you should be worried about things other than my appearance. But that is again, again, like different Gar Baldy, little bit of a different Ivan too.

Brent: Yeah. And okay. Brent, you should be worried about other things other than Ivan's appearance in her hair. You're absolutely right. I agree yet. Still visually it took some of the edge off of Ivanova for me until she did that moment. You just talked about a minute ago and I was like, oh, there she is. That's still her.

She's awesome. She's awesome.

Jeff: good.

Brent: Still probably my favorite character on the show.

Jeff: She's so great. Yeah. Kimer was I, I struggled and I actually went and looked. So I think, gosh, as long as we're on the, on we're being superficial, let me, let me go there. So. when it comes to sexual attraction, uh, everybody kind of has a type, right. Uh, Elaine, Tom, the camera there that's that's Jeff's type there.

and so, oh, hi. What's uh that's and, and I'm, I like to, there has to be more, she can't be this bad. It's literally what I'm thinking. Where else could I see her? And so I did the IMDB. She only has a couple of credits, uh, some soap operas, and then she's done some producing on there. I, I can't help, but think or wonder that she was like friends with somebody and got hooked up with this role, I think.

And it's especially, I think, shown in the last scene with Gar Baldi and hers, they're like hugging and, you know, kind of reconciling coming back together. Oh, that fell so flat. And it was because of her. And it's like, it could have been, so everything could have been like, there was a, before he got arrested, there was a scene where in the they're in the hallway and he's like, look, look.

I loved Frank with all my heart and he's trying to open up and she, I mean, she might as well have just said, well, excuse me, chief security officer. However, my protocols demand that I am unhappy with you still like there's so there was depth there, there was stuff. And she didn't even scratch the surface.

No, she

Brent: So I think I'm ending this episode on her with, she just wasn't good.

Jeff: wasn't. I

Brent: just wasn't good. How did you, how did you feel about the idea of their relationship being she is the daughter of a friend. Did you buy that at all? Like, she certainly was the right age for it. She certainly had that kind of stuff going on, but

Jeff: think she was the right age. I don't know that he was, you know what I mean?

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: I mean, I mean, maybe because they were friends, like, right. So Frank Keer might have been an older guy. Right. You know, or whatever, and then kind of took Garabaldi under his wing. And so he is in that kind of middle thing. I, I bought it again.

I bought it from Garabaldi. I didn't buy it from her at all. Like

Brent: That's fair. Okay.

Jeff: There's the scene when he's, I've seen, when he's drunk and then she arrests him and she's like, oh, drunk again, uncle Mike. And like, there was supposed to be venom in that. Literally it was just a person reading words off of a page.

Brent: Yep. Yep. That's fair. That's fair. And you know the consistency with what she called him. Sometimes she called him Michael. Sometimes she called him GU Baldy. Sometimes she called him chief. Sometimes she called him in that one point, she called him uncle Mike. She should have called him uncle Mike again at the end of the episode, if we could rewrite it like, oh, cool.

Mike, like have some sort of reconciliation that lets you do that. Um,

Jeff: If we wanna talk about some cool acting though, and a great character.

Brent: would love to talk about

Jeff: Nera. Let's let's talk about Nera fly, dude.

Brent: Yeah. Insect dude.

Jeff: I loved him, but I tell you what, I don't know which came first, the fly or the Farge,

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: but he's cork beat for beat.

Brent: Oh, you think so?

Jeff: I, I mean, he's not behind a bar, but he is like, you police me business. I'm doing business.

And I'm like, those were words right? Outta Cork's mouth

Brent: right. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. For the first time, like, I, I know we've seen him before. I don't recall ever, actually having like a big conversation with him like this before

Jeff: I think the soul hunter murder soul hunter had not as, not quite as big, but this was the most, but that was the that's the one I

Brent: right. So I hope we get more, like, I mean, clearly he's a puppet and you know, somebody's voicing him, but I really, really hope we get more, cuz I want, I want more of him in this show. Like, like that, that could be a good, he's a broker for, for trouble. There could be some fun stuff with this, with this character.

Jeff: Yeah, I would love if like they started to give him, you know, co was that, you know, Hey, you know, I'll hook you up with illegal. This I'll smuggle this all, whatever. Also I have a rinky heart of gold where it'd be cool if they started to give Negra a little bit of a heart, like where you're like, oh look, he's fun.

And I doubt very much that's gonna happen. But I think it would be kind of cool real quick on Keer and the crew. So I think they were wearing different uniforms or at least a different color of uniform or something. I felt like with the uniforms and just the people they cast cutter and all the other a that came with her, I feel like they went straight to Nazi central casting and they're like, we need a bunch of Nazis and here's some kind of Nazi uniforms.

We're not being subtle about who this is at all. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah. Um, they did also not the best actors because.

Jeff: No

Brent: most cringeworthy moment for me for the entire episode involved cutter. Uh, and it's, it's the moment when, uh, Leona is in the med lab and she's getting this guy up and Franklin's out there, like load me in. And he is like, no, I'm not letting you in.

And here comes commandon Claire. And what, what does he say? He's like, step aside or by God, I'll blow you out an airlock or something like that. And he just goes, okay, like what's what you're supposed to be part of a presidential detachment that is like above everybody else apparently.

Jeff: but I tell you what,

Brent: you're gonna threaten to blow me out of an airlock, okay, fine.

Go on in. It'll be, it'll be fine.

Jeff: First time I watched this episode, I felt the same way. I'm like, oh my God, what? Second time. No, they wanted Sinclair there. They wanted Sinclair there to hear Nolan say Aldi's voice, cuz Garabaldi planted the bomb. Otherwise, if it was just Keer that heard it or Garabaldi was in the room when it happened.

Like, I don't think they wanted Garabaldi in there, but I was like, oh, they're making sure Sinclair hears this. So he'll support, support, taking him into custody and doing

Brent: right. Can I make fun of this episode a little more?

Jeff: Totally.

Brent: So, uh, the charge was conspiracy to commit sabotage,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: not setting off a bomb, blowing up the station, killing a person, no conspiracy, which by the way, how many people is required to make it a conspiracy

Jeff: more than one

Brent: more than one, right? I think five in our world today, whatever it is in the future, it's still more than one for, for conspiracy, not all the other stuff,

Jeff: Right. It could be attempted SAB sabotage or intent to commit

Brent: but, but that's not even sabotage. Sabotage is making something, not work that it's supposed to. This was attempted murder, attempted assassination of the president distress. That's what it is. It's not conspiracy to commit sabotage. Are you kidding me? That's the difference? See if she, if she had actually been a command level security person, she would've gotten the charge.

Correct.

Jeff: Yeah. She would've known that. Cuz apparently like you get special powers when you're command level something. Yeah.

Brent: You could just tell people you'll blow out an airlock and they move out of the way.

Jeff: yeah. Bringing up the president. Did you? Well, I felt okay. One, I felt cheat. That he came onto the station and we did not get to see him. I wanna see the president, but didn't, he run on an earth first platform and isn't he kind of enabling all this hate group, home guard stuff.

And now he's advocating and lobbying for immigration and trade deals.

Brent: Uh, here comes the new Brent theory.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: About this show.

Jeff: on. Hold on. Let me get my tin foil hat here. we go.

Brent: well, this one's less 10 foil because I think it's more actually, that makes sense. So the president ran on a platform of preserving earth culture,

Jeff: mm-hmm

Brent: which gave rise to the home guard. He got reelected, but since his reelection, what we have seen is we have seen him suggest or commission or whatever, a celebration of all alien religions. Remember that episode parliament dreams that came from from earth central of, Hey, get every where let's celebrate the adult, the cultural diversity around us in one place. And this is gonna carry all the way out to Babylon five as well.

Hey, Hey. Let's talk about, uh, let's talk about having freer alien immigration and broader alien trade policies. And we hear him even say, or the, the reporter said he's inviting aliens to just come to earth.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: This guy's not Antia. This guy is the guy who ran on a platform to get reelected. And now he's doing the politician thing of actually just doing whatever the heck he wants to do. Now that he's reelected. He just ran to get elected. Not on, not because that's actually who he is. That's just what his base says that he should have done.

And now he's just kind of doing the typical, like I say, the typical politician thing,

Jeff: That's why home guard tried to assassinate him.

Brent: there it is.

Jeff: Bingo.

Brent: There it is. That's my theory. We'll see if it pans out, but I think I, yeah, I think there. That that's gonna be a thing to come back for Luis, or at least it should of, you said, this is what you're gonna do and now you're not. So

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: that's gonna stir some trouble.

Jeff: That's good. Well, Brent, I think we've reached the part of the show. I think it's time. This is where we boil everything down. We see if this show has kind of a star Treky quality to it. Like if it has a deep moral message, a message at all, some sort of a meaning. If it holds a mirror up to society or if it gives us hope.

There is hope for a better future. And we do this by grading zero to five deltas. We also ask, should we have watched this sooner? So, Brent, uh, how do you rate survivors? Yep.

Brent: I'm gonna leave this with like a half of a star at Delta. I'm gonna give that to you first. This was not a very star Trek episode. Had this been a star Trek episode. This would've been a star Trek episode. That's not a very star Trek. Let me explain why they did in this episode, what star Trek has never done or would never do.

And they did it in a way that star Trek would never do it. I'm not saying that star Trek would never tackle the issue of drugs or addiction. They certainly have you remember the episode, the game I'm allowed to say it now. So don't buzz

Jeff: You are we're in the we're in the space. It's cool.

Brent: remember the episode of the game in, in T and G, right? Um,

Jeff: Whole ship got

Brent: absolutely.

Absolutely.

Jeff: right.

Brent: But what we saw here was not some futuristic sci-fi version of somebody who has an addiction, who is struggling with it, and somebody who falls off the wagon and, you know, just kind of goes oops, and, and jumps right back up. And he's fine by the end of the episode, that is not what we saw here.

That's why this is not a star Trek episode. This is not what, this is not how honestly. I've not seen TV do this very much. Certainly not nineties TV. You know, we may, we may see that in some of today's stuff, if it becomes like a big, huge plot point, but this is something that nineties TV really did when he took that drink. I told you earlier, I screamed because I was, I was devastated for him. Addiction sucks, Jeff, to anyone out there who's ever been in the midst of addiction to anyone out there who is in recovery. It sucks. I said before, I'll say it again. It makes you do what you don't really want to do when you're in your most honest self. So he feels guilt about what's happened. He goes, he takes the drink. He makes the choice. He shouldn't have made. He immediately knows that he shouldn't have made that choice. He comes back at the end and he is. I don't know if I'm more upset at the fact that I took the drink or if I, the fact that I liked it as much as I did, he's incredibly honest about where he is.

I used to do this. This used to be me. I thought I had beaten this. What I really hope is they don't forget this next week or in the weeks to come because you know what he's done. This is a guy who ha for however long, he's been sober. Now he's back to day one.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: And anyone who's ever been in recovery will tell you it's just one day at a time. Thankfully, he didn't seem to go on a big bender and have to come back.

Cuz that's, that's hard. That's really, really hard. Thankfully, this was a, at least as far as we saw, this was a one time thing. I hope he also for his sake, cuz I care about GU Baldi. Now I don't wanna see him secretly struggling with this in his quarters. You know, but he's back on day one and he needs to take this one day at a time.

And I'm not saying that they're gonna have a full 12 step program in Babylon five, that they're, that they're debuting or, or showcasing or anything like that. But this is a part of his character now. And once you are an addict, you are always an addict and addicts will tell you that, like you have to you as an addict, you have to understand that.

And you know that I cannot, I can never have a drink again. Alcoholics will tell you I can't have a drink again, because I'm an alcoholic. Not because I used to be because I am, I still am. And so I can't do that. And now I'm in recovery. I'm so many years sober, but that's me. That's where I am. I really wonder where they're gonna go with who's with Aldi.

I love the fact that they put this out there though, and that they put it out in the way that they did. I wish. Particularly for the sake of my friends who are in recovery and for anyone who has ever been there before representation matters and to see somebody who's actually going through this, especially back in the nineties.

Oh my gosh, that'd be something else. But, um, I, this wasn't very star Trek. This doesn't give you hope for a future. This doesn't, maybe you could say it holds up a mirror to society, but it's not holding up a mirror to society saying, be better. This is just holding it. Like, Hey, here's what a certain segment of the population is, what it kind of looks like. We're not making it better. They're not giving you answers. There's none. None of that in this episode, was this a good episode? Me not really. Again, there were moments in this episode that I really thought were very well done. Almost all of them have to do with Garabaldi. How about you, Jeff?

Jeff: I think this was a really good episode that was executed very poorly.

Brent: That's a much better way to say it.

Jeff: Yeah. I

Brent: I'm gonna say it like that from now on.

Jeff: Cool. Yeah.

Brent: I, yeah.

Jeff: yeah. Cause I think, I think it, it did a lot of really important things. And if I, I think I say this a lot, where, what I say now really depends on what happens in the future. And if they do just forget that this whole Gar of Baldy thing happened, then shame on them right there.

But I don't think that's gonna, I don't think that's the, I don't think that's the series of television we're watching right now. So I think it sets up a lot of great stuff. It really moves the home guard story the way it needed to, I think with your theory. Oh my gosh. Of course, they're trying to assassinate the president.

That makes complete sense. But I also remember that Malcolm bigs, like his big threat, you know, we have friends everywhere, friends everywhere. He said it over and over again. And this episode really showed how dangerous that can be people on the station, people in the president's entourage, like they're, they're everywhere.

Think this was, this was. This was important in, in, in, in that storyline. I think looking at it from the star, Treky kind of quality piece, this, this had a mystery, right? For the crew to work and kind of resolve in a, in a weird way. There was the story of a, an, an accused innocent person going on and a person who's working with their disease.

Those, those are kind of, you know, high level ways they write star Trek stories or whatever, but as, as much as I want for this to be more, I, I also, I wrote, I'm only giving this 0.5 deltas. I agree. Half a Delta. It's, it's not, it's not, not star Trek. Right? Like it, it it's, it's, it's got some stuff in here.

And I think the fact it's introducing this super hard and challenging question of addiction and recovery. That's a star Trek. That is a star Trek thing. This is a lot more real, a lot more gritty than star Trek would ever do, but they introduced it. And, uh, and I think Sinclair's message to him was fantastic because I think the people who are working to stay in recovery, that's what they need.

They need to know. They're not among many things and it's different for every, for every person. But just to know you're not alone and kind of hearing your recap made me think how GU Baldi put himself out there for Sinclair with the trauma and the stress that he, you know, the post traumatic stress that he's experiencing from just the war, the Menari, Hey, I'm here for you.

Jeff. Let's talk. And then Sinclair just did the same thing to Gar Aldi. I, I am really, really coming to love the friendships between like Gar Baldy, Sinclair, and Ivanova, they're just, yeah, they're really great. Yeah.

Brent: Yeah, and it, and I'm sorry, I didn't mention this. I just, I, I saw my notes here. Um, his trigger, she was his trigger,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: you know, like that, that was the other piece, cuz he said at one point he's like, like her beating him down about being an alcoholic was not helping him not be an alcoholic, was not helping him get through there.

And she wasn't trying to help him. Like I, I get that.

Jeff: But weird how that happens. Right. Beating someone up about what they're doing wrong. Doesn't help them do better. Weird.

Brent: Um, but he said, I thought I had changed until you showed up.

Jeff: Yeah. Oh

Brent: there's like, there's so much truth in that of when an old demon shows up when an old trigger shows up of how dangerous that can be, particularly for an addict to go back to.

Sort of thing. Like it just, oh my gosh. Like there's so much real in this episode. Like that's almost why it can't be star Trek. Cuz star Trek takes what is real and makes it, it, it allegories it, there was no allegory here. You know what I mean? Like there's none. It was right there in your face. So yeah.

I'm I'm with you on all of that. Jeff, what are we watching next week?

Jeff: Well, that's a, that's a thing, Brent. So we need to have a little conversation and we're running. I, I wanna say we're running a little long on time on this one. but we have a problem. So a lot of our incredible community members have told us that there's, uh, there's a wrong way to watch Babylon five in order.

And there are a couple of right ways, apparently HBO, max, where we're watching, this is one of the wrong ways and we just hit that crossroad.

Brent: okay.

Jeff: um, the stream, so HBO has one specific episode next it's got signs and portent next

Brent: the name of the episode next.

Jeff: that's yeah, according to HBO. And it's also the, what they call the whole season.

Season one is signs and port 10. So it's

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: but that's what HBO max has next on the Babylon five Wiki and the list that our dear and good friend, John Korian from the Trek profiles podcast provided us with early on in this both have by any means necessary as the next episode. And then the viewing order gets a little weird on, um, HBO max from here.

So

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: how do we want to step? How do we wanna proceed?

Brent: Well, you know, I you're, right. So many people have said that there's a weird viewing order in how things tend to go. Um, and nothing against Wiki. I don't know. But listen, you mentioned John, uh, John, which, by the way, if you guys don't listen to his show Trek profiles, please go, go listen to that. But he was kind enough to take the time to, to lay out.

He's a huge Babylon five fan. And he's obviously not on the show for reasons that it would break the show. Uh but John, if you're listening, thank you for your service. He was one of the people who kind of at the beginning helped us and, and encouraged us along the way. And one of those things you're right.

He said he did it. So I'm inclined just cause I know John A. Little bit and I want to trust him. I'm inclined just to go with what he tells us and say, if he says by any means necessary, then let's do by any means necessary. And uh, we'll figure it out. We'll just follow his list. We'll be the one we go by.

Jeff: And I wanna, and I want to acknowledge cuz so people who've commented on it before. We've kind of said that we're trying to be as close as we can to that first time viewing experience as possible. But it looks like based on the lists based on a post on Reddit and a couple these, because you know, Reddit's always a great place to go and

Brent: Sure. Especially

Jeff: truth, but there's.

Brent: spoiled or free. Okay.

Jeff: right. Yeah. But there's enough of a thread through everything that HBO max specifically has done something weird with the viewing order that I am. I am a hundred percent. I feel a hundred percent justified following, um, following John and his, uh, his advice on this,

Brent: Okay. Uh, yeah, let's do that well. So by any means necessary is our next episode

Jeff: what do you think it's gonna be about

Brent: those. Oh, by any means necessary. Oh my gosh. Um,

Jeff: yeah. Now we gotta, now we gotta play the game.

Brent: I think it's gonna have absolutely nothing to do with this episode. I truly believe that this very well could be at at least the immediate end in the foreseeable future of Garabaldi in recovery as an addict. Uh, and as a drunk, like, I, I don't think this is gonna be a thing that they dive into. I think this is a, he fell off the wagon once and now he's back on and he'll be fine.

Like, I think that's kind of in the mid nineties, that's, that's the way they're gonna treat it, which is a shame. Um, so I don't think it's gonna have anything to do with that by any means necessary. I mean, okay. What are the threads that we're pulling on right now? There's the home guard thread. There's the Cy core thread, which those two are kind of interwoven in between each other there's lawn versus Jaar, the Mumbar. And what happened with Sinclair in, in the old war? Um, and then there's whatever new crap they could come up with.

So I'm gonna go with new episode that they're coming up with. And is it fair to say? I have no idea. Is that cheating?

Jeff: yeah, a little bit, but you

Brent: I have. I mean, by any means necessary, I mean,

Jeff: I think it shows that you're trainable Brent, because of what we've learned through all these episodes is it doesn't matter what we guess. I mean, at best that you're gonna get maybe 30%. Right.

Brent: right, right. I don't, unless you hit it like 70% this week, but what do you, what do you think if you have an episode called by any means necessary knowing where we are in the story so far, if you had to guess what, what is it?

Jeff: so I'm thinking, I'm thinking it's gonna be another home guard we're gonna pick up on the home guard piece. And I'm thinking an organized alien resistance that will push back against home guard by any means necessary.

Brent: oh, If I could bounce on that. Now that you've

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: cuz I is, I don't know that it's the alien resistance bouncing back on it. I think it might be Babylon five fighting against like joining up with the alien resistance to put down home guard by any means necessary. Uh, will we see something with president Lu?

I ki I really hope that we get, we get more of president Luis and home guard in this next episode. I hope it's a home guard episode and not something like another lawn and Jaar episode fighting

Jeff: Although I'll be fi I would

Brent: Although it'd be fine if it did, because by the way, lawn and Jaar continue to chew every scene that

Jeff: oh yeah.

Brent: even in the bad episodes, like clearly, clearly one of the best parts of this whole episode where those, those two scenes that well, three scenes, I guess that those two guys were in like fan for fantastic.

Jeff: It's so good. Well, Hey, we're gonna find out next week. What by any means necessary is about thank you all for joining us. It's so means so much to us that you tune in that you interact with us, that we have the incredible conversations and have met the awesome. That we have, don't forget to subscribe. If you're on YouTube, hit the subscribe, hit the bell.

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Brent: Be smart. Jeff, you can't pull this off,

Jeff: oh yes, I can live long and prosper.

Brent: Jeff. No, you lose wise guy.

Jeff: Yeah, I guess so it's, uh, it's not a star Trek podcast. Hua.