The Coming of Shadows

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon five for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Babylon 5 for the first time. And I'm

Brent: Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon 5 for the first time. We are two veteran Star Trek podcasters who have decided to come together in this podcast to watch Babylon five for the very first time.

For both of us in this show, we are searching for those Star Trek like messages in the series and trying to decide just how awesome this series really

Jeff: is. And while this is not a star, a Star Trek podcast, we are Star Trek podcasters, and so we are bound to make those references, but we play the rule of three, which means each one of us, starting from this moment forward, we have a bank of three references that we can make in this entire episode.

Don't cross that line, Brent, don't cross this line. This line here. Oh, no, no. Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it , because those references

Brent: are hot as of right now,

Jeff: Right now. The other thing that's hot is all the interactions that we have with all of you and I, Brent, have a handful of five star reviews to share with you today.

Here's our first one. Oh yes. This one's from Apple Podcasts. Fergus 20 says, In the beginning, it was easy to tell the hosts were Star Trek fans and not sure about Babylon five, but we're willing to give it a shot. True. Now, near the end of season one, it's pretty obvious they're Babylon five fans. They pointed out aspects of the show I'd never noticed, and I've been a fan nearly 30 years during that time.

I've listened to several Babybel on five podcasts, but enjoyed this one the most. It's almost like I'm watching it for the first time. Important to note, we've talked about it before, it takes a while for these reviews to get to us. So Fergus 20 either sent this a while ago or is catching up with us through all of that, but yeah, it was about, I don't know what.

Three quarter mark or so I

Brent: was gonna say, he said near the end of season one,

Jeff: I'm like, how far back is he ? I know, because like, we're getting halfway through season two right now. Right. But it was about that three quarter mark that we were both just like, Yeah, I think we're in.

Brent: Oh yeah, absolutely. No, everything, everything about That's true.

So we were kinda like, eh, we've heard good things. Like we'll give it a shot. And we know that the first couple of seasons tend to suck in 90 sci-fi, so we'll push through And, uh, you know what I love about this show is it didn't take two and a half seasons to start getting good. Right. It, it just, it didn't, it took three fourths of a series of a season and there were still good episodes sprinkled in.

You know, And I'm sure as we go forward and we learn all the stuff about Baby Five and this world and this universe, that some of those things, even from those early episodes, are gonna, are gonna come back as more gold. Yeah.

Jeff: I agree, and I still stand on this hill that I think season one Babylon five is top three.

Top five first seasons of sci-fi in the nineties. Like, I can't think of many that were a better first season.

Brent: I, I'm, I'm just wondering if saying top three is just being overly cautious. ,

Jeff: like, I, I think it is, it really like, and I'm owning, I, I haven't seen things like Stargate and some other things that might have had great first seasons.

I don't know. But from what I did see, this is probably the best first season.

Brent: Stargate had a really good first season. Sea Quest. I don't remember being super great. Battlestar Galactica was two thousands. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Jeff: yeah. I think it's right up there. Yeah, I agree. Well, hey, we have another five star review.

Oh yes. This one from Audible. You can check Audible. Audible. Yeah, you can look Audible. On Audible. What's? We have a five star review. Basically, we're an audiobook, right? There you go. Does that make us authors like if we have five star reviews on Audible? I'm adding it to the resume. I'm counting it. . Yep.

Done.

Brent: Just like I took the name Chuckle Nugget and I kept it, and I'm keeping coming back to it. I'm now adding this because I'm on Audible. I love it. Well, Mike, shout out by the way, shout out to all our listeners on Audible. Totally. You guys are

Jeff: cool. Clearly we have quite a few. Mike on Audible says Two Star Trek podcasters boldly going where they have never gone before.

Taking a tour of the BAB five universe for the first time. I've been watching along on YouTube. Hi Mike. That means you're here. Right? I've been watch. I've been watching along on YouTube, getting a behind the scenes look at their unedited interactions. But the show is a standout treat, not just for the rediscover of Bab Five's charms through new eyes, but for their approach.

Any fan will get a blast scene. New fans grow to love this sci-fi favorite, but Jeff and Brent bring their own filter to this enterprise because they're longtime trek podcasters. They seek out new stories that might contain some nuggets of trek's own strengths. And while us old fans of B five know it for the strengths it holds in its own right, this isn't a simple defiant act on their part.

this is great, isn't it? They are clearly falling in love with the story. Get on board now while they're still working towards the uh oh. Nope, I won't say, I won't say No spoilers. Thanks, Mike. Mike, that was good.

Brent: I picked up every single bit that you are laying down, and to that I can only say. Well done.

Jeff: Very well done. Well, I'm gonna give him this probably a couple times. That's not one for us, but my, That was

Brent: beautiful. He probably hit three or four buzzers in that one deal. Like that was, That's a very well put together review. I'm

Jeff: honestly impressed by that. That was so good. I wanna give a review to that review.

And Mike, I give your review. Oh yes. Five stars, five deltas. Give 'em the Deltas, right. We'll give 'em the Deltas . But we have one more. One more for this episode. One more five star review again from Audible. Oh, yes. This one from an anonymous user. I wonder if that's their given name or if they took it on later.

Mm-hmm. , I'm not sure. Well, an anonymous user. As a first hour fan, it is so fun to rediscover my favorite show through the eyes of two New Watchers. I squirm as they get stuff right and I can't wait for them to see the payout of storylines and when they're horribly wrong and just shake my head and smile knowingly to myself.

Oh, they'll see. I love hearing them fall in love with the show. If you love Babybel on five, you should listen to this for sure.

Thanks, Anonymous user. What's up?

Brent: A call you a dog.

So Jeff

Jeff: Brent, we love

Brent: our comments. We love our games. The things that we get to play here at Babylon five for the very first time because people squirm. And one of the things that I think makes people squirm the most is when we try to predict what the next episode is based on nothing but the title.

Because we haven't watched a head, we haven't even seen a show description. Probably. Ha Like, I couldn't even tell you what the thumbnail showed you. You know, sometimes the thumbnail gives something away, but, uh, I couldn't even tell you that. But it is time to pay up. It is time to review our predictions from last week and see how, Right, how close we got to what the coming of shadows actually was.

Jeff, do you remember what you said this episode would be about? And how close do you think you got to the Yeah,

Jeff: I remember. I remember. And um, I think I. Pretty darn close on this one. Mm-hmm. . Cause I thought we were gonna see, um, I thought we were gonna start seeing the rift in the nongovernment. Right.

Which we didn't, We actually saw the nongovernment very focused in together mm-hmm. . But I thought this was gonna be about not the capital Big S shadows, but the little small s shadows that each mm-hmm. civilization kind of has going on for it. We've talked about the sent stuff, We've talked about the Earth stuff.

We've seen them in bar stuff. I thought we were gonna see Nan Well, we certainly saw some na stuff. We definitely saw little s shadows. So I'm gonna give myself partial, partial credit on this one. You remember what you guess on this one?

Brent: Yeah. I said that it, this was gonna be about shadows because title, Right.

Uh, and the shadows were gonna come because again, title. But what I said was, is that the shadows, whatever they were, were going to make themselves known. They were gonna bust on the scene and now they're gonna be a thing. And that's not what happened. Like the shadow, nobody still knows what the shadows are.

you know, uh, there's, there's speculation. Everybody kind of seems to have this specter, this boogeyman that's out there, but, uh, and, and the, the lawn shadows, his group, whatever that that is, I'm assuming that's the group that is technically the shadows, right? The big s shadows as you put it down. I don't know.

But, uh, they're still very hidden. And man, their ships look absolutely

Jeff: wild. Wild's a good word for it. I, yeah. Yeah, They're interesting. Yeah.

Brent: So with that then, Jeff, speaking of what the episode was about, for those who haven't seen this episode in a. . Maybe they haven't watched it, but they're just listening to us.

Or maybe they've never watched it at all and they're still just listening to us, which is totally awesome. But we're gonna spoil the whole dang episode for you. Jeff, tell us what happened in the coming of

Jeff: shadows. The Emperor is coming to Babylon five, bringing just two of his four telepaths in his small entourage.

The Sent Emperor is coming to the station to make a speech before he passes away. Jaar is furious that this guy's being allowed on the station while Lando and his buddy Refa make veer super uncomfortable as they talk about using the visit to elevate their status. The Emperor seems to be a pretty cool dude says he doesn't care for the trappings of status anymore, so he doesn't wear his Sonari style wig.

His entourage though looking pretty spiffed up. He meets the crew, says some cool things about Babylon. Five, and then says the only thing he wants for Christmas is to see a Von. He and Sheridan spend a little time together where they talk about choices. They both wax philosophic and the emperor is impressed with Sheridan's way of life, even though he may still have a few.

Overall, Sheridan has lived his life with no regrets. It wouldn't be a Babylon five episode if some fishy character didn't arrive on B five. We get some dude that's been on and off the station three times in the last month, and he looks to be tailing Garabaldi pretty closely. Jaar checks in with his government, the Karie, they agree on a plan.

Now that the emperor is here and Jaar is preparing himself for it, the emperor must die. Is that a reference? No city on the edge. No, I'm not gonna count it. It's speech time. All the important players are at a reception. Well, everybody except Kosh. I mean, he's only, only in the opening credits, right? I mean, why would he bother showing up for an episode for once?

Well, Jaar is prepping himself to Stabby. Stab the emperor, who's on his way in just a bit outside the hall where he'll be speaking. He grabs his chest, crumps to the ground, nearly dying. Franklin comes to the rescue, but his time is short. And Jaar again is furious. Like not only did the Sonari nearly wipe out his people back in the day, but now, now today, the emperor has the audacity and the disrespect to die on his own.

Hey, Franklin's a cool guy, right? He's in Med lab and he sets up a Kosh sighting, not just for the Emperor, but for us too. The emperor gets to see his VO lawn who tells him that, you know, it's gonna be fine, everything. We'll end in fire seeing an opportunity. Lando decides to call on good old Mr. Morden. He figures if the Sonari can land a decisive strike against the narn, he and RFA will benefit greatly.

So he asks Morden to take out the largest civilian nan colony, a colony with a quarter million people in it. They're gonna send Sonari warships in after the fact to mop up, Take over. This prompts a peak deon's mind where we get a glimpse of a possible future for him. Future is emperor with shadow ships and a one-eyed no horned, not so fly.

In Jaar Franklin delivers a message from the emperor to Jaar that adds another layer to his super complex emotional state. The emperor says, I've got two words for you. I'm sorry. Yeah. He apologizes for everything the Sentara have done. And this rocks jaar to his core. It rocks him so hard that he finds lawn and buys him a drink.

He toasts to the emperor's health and even lawns. Oof. It's rough watching that. Well, it gets rougher. The emperor calls RFA and lawn to him. He pulls lawn in close to whisper what will be his last words? He passes away lawn tells everybody that the emperor has blessed their attack on narn soon after Jaar learns about the attack on the colony in quadrant 14.

Yeah. Um, we're not gonna go through that whole quadrant thing again, but Yeah, they said quadrant, I'm gonna think sector. Jaar straight up loses it. He's going after lawn and he channels his WWE superstar on the way he's taken people out, left and right power slam, left jab right into a right arm clothes line that flips the security guard straight out of their boots.

Sheridan's able to talk him down, but that complex web of emotions that Jaar has been feeling has just dragged him down. Sheridan calls for a council meeting and whoa. Yeah, that Kosh, that VLAN guy Ko is there too. Wow. Well, Sheridan tries really hard to keep the peace, but Jaar breaks the news. The Narn have declared war on the Sentar, and he says that our hope for peace is over.

Well, remember that weird guy that was tailing Garabaldi when he gets arrested and we meet a new security guard, Zach, who tells Garabaldi that a hickey from Icks like a Hallmark card, and then they bring the guy in to talk. He shares a message. And that message is from Ambassador Sinclair . Yeah, that's Sinclair.

Sinclair says, This guy is one of his rangers. They're menari and mostly humans that are preparing for the fight ahead and learning to work together. There is eyes in his ears. He tells Gar Baldy to stay close to the Von and to watch out for shadows. They move when you're not looking at them. Garabaldi protects Sinclair's identity, but shares the important stuff with Sheridan and Ivanova.

Dalen also gets a message from Sinclair. The table is set. We have humans in Minbar working together to prepare for the shadows while another shadow looms over the galaxy because we're at war. Brent, what did you think of the coming of

Brent: shadows? No. I'm gonna get to that in a minute. A hickey from Ken.

Jeff: Nicki? Yeah. Does Jeff Conaway.

Oh my gosh. He even had that swagger when he comes. He is like, Hey, boss guy wants to talk to you. Come on, . Where did

Brent: you come up with that? Oh my God. That's from, that's from Grace. I know, I know. I got it. I just, oh my gosh. Oh, you just turned me into a chuckle nugget. , um, . But Jeff, I gotta tell you, man, uh, my hat's off to you.

I'm not gonna take my hat off though, but I thought I had a big recap last week, but holy cow man. Uh, well done, well done with the recap. Thanks. This episode, um, you remember last season when we got to this episode, like the title

Jeff: episode? Yeah. Signs importance, Right? Signs importance. Mm.

Brent: Signs. I remember watching like all the comments and stuff when that episode came out and everybody's like, Oh, this is like the best episode.

Like, you finally made it, you're here. This is when everything starts happening, and da, da da da da. And I know my response and I'm pretty sure your response was like mine. It was kind of like, It's okay. Yeah. Like it's fine. Like again, maybe when we get to the end, we come, we look back at it, we'll realize just how monumental it was.

But given what we know right now, it was fine. There were other episodes I liked better in season one, to be frank.

Jeff: Yeah. I didn't rank very high on our wrap up. I mean, it was mid, mid-level. Yeah. And that

Brent: was, you know, we know

Jeff: how accurate that is. So it's, it's definitive and objective. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And objective

Brent: Um, that's not this episode. This was a great episode. Um, there's a bunch of Star Trek stuff in here, uh, we're gonna talk about as we go through, because it was replete. But that's not why we watch the show. Like this truly is an episode where you're like, Okay, stuff's happening, stuff's moving. Um, and my feelings on certain characters are changing.

Mm-hmm. . And I don't like it because I don't like where my feelings are going for some of these characters, . And frankly, it was really good to see Sinclair back with the slicked back hair, , you know,

Jeff: in his voice. Just his voice on, Oh, that was like,

Brent: it was oddly like, comforting, You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Um, and I don't, I don't know if I'm ready for where we're about to go in this series. You know, um, and let's just start there. Yeah. We're in war. They just said that we're in war. And I don't, I frankly, I don't want to be a war . Like I'm liking these guys and I don't want Lando and j I want Lando and Jaar fighting the way they've normally been fighting.

Mm-hmm. , I don't want Lando and Jaar,

Jeff: um, really

Brent: fighting, right? Like, like I don't want Lando as a bad guy and, and frankly, leaving this episode, Lawn's kind of a bad guy. Now he is. Yeah. Like legit villain. He is the villain of the show. And I'm like, I don't like that. Um, and you know, so just to do the comparison with Deep Space Nine, that war came about and we saw it coming.

We saw the build up to it, and it lasted for seasons. I don't know how long this war is supposed to last. It wouldn't shock me if this war went all the way up through season five or season four, you know, and this, and we're gonna be in it, and we're in it for a long haul. And I don't know that I want to do a war that long, you know?

But I also sit back and I go, But I know how good it was with Deep Space Nine. True. You know, there's a lot of people that say these 69 was their favorite and it has all of that. And, and they treated it well. And, but it was deep and it was gut wrenching and it was emotional. And this one's gonna be that same way, I think.

But I trust the show writers and I trust where they're going. Go ahead and hit your button, Jeff. I know you're aching. I'm

Jeff: trying to find the right moment. , you're aching to, Ah, ah, look at that. Never heard that before. . . Oh my gosh.

Brent: Anyway, um, so yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of my opening piece on it. Jeff, how about you?

What did, what did you think? I

Jeff: loved this episode. Yeah. Like, this was so good. I, um, I mean, I hated it too, but for the, for the reasons you just discussed. Yeah. I, um, I am so amazed and impressed with, um, Oh my gosh. I'll say his, I'll, I'll, So you know, Peter Jurassic and, uh, Andre, I can't say left

Brent: Kas, I dunno

Jeff: if that's actually how you say it.

Yeah. Kass either way. The actors, it's no disrespect to them, by the way at all. I mean, but, but they're are great in everything. Mm-hmm. , but this was so next level, they conveyed so much through that makeup that they have to wear. Mm-hmm. and I to say, like I talked about in my recap, that complex web of emotions that Jaar was feeling, and you saw it, you heard it in his voice and in that moment to really jump way ahead.

But in the moment when they're in the council chambers and he walks past lawn do and doesn't even look at him or acknowledge him, or, I mean that, I mean, you've. You felt that was it? I think it was in the last episode I talked about, like, I, I screamed out loud twice. Right, right. I almost teared up. Yeah.

In this episode. Yeah. That, um, that scene. When's your car bought? Lawn A drink. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Like I, I mean like, I felt like tears welling and I'm just like, because I knew, I, I think I know, right. But I, I, I feel like I know Lando in that moment. Like that's his moment where he knew I messed up. He effed up big time and he knew it, but he stuck with it though.

Exactly. It's the thing, you have those moments in life that are make or break moments. There are those things that, that tell your story, you know, and, and based on the decision you're making. That was his All he had to do, All he had to do was just feel, do what I was feeling and just start crying and just be like, Shakara, I have to tell you something terrible.

I did something. Terrible. And Jaar

Brent: would've killed him right then and there, and he would've deserved it.

Jeff: Yeah. Hundred, frankly. Mm-hmm. , but then maybe, maybe we wouldn't be at war, which is, which is a theme, you know, we talk about later on, you know, Do is is it, you know, do I do, is it better for lawn do to die now in there to not be a war?

Or is it better for the war to happen? And, and then Lando to, to turn into an, to go with the Anakin to Darth Vader route. Because I feel like that was the moment, like for Anakin, that moment when he walked in on the Youngling, you know, and they're doing, and he's just like, Hey, kids. Boom. . Yeah. Boom. You're on the path, you're going.

This was lawn do's moment. And he's just like, Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: To your help, Jeff. Just I, because I have to ask the question, do you know what happens with Lando coming. No idea. Do you know if Lando becomes a villain? Like is does he tru, is he truly the bad guy of

Jeff: the show? I have no idea, but don't either. But what I've watched happen, we've watched happen is he's slowly gotten more comfortable with the shadows.

How just crassly, he brought it up when, you know Refa and him are talking and it's like, Hey, what do we do? We, we gotta do something. And he's like, Hmm, you know what? Let me take care of this. I can knock this out a big like so com. Whereas before he was, I mean, he was stressed out, he was feeling it, it was bad.

This time he is like, Yeah, I'll just do that. But

Brent: we also saw him in VE talking and the guy was like, Yeah, we're going to assassinate the emperor. And he leaves and veer and Lando have that conversation of, Are you as uncomfortable with that as I am, Because lawns certainly squirmy.

Jeff: Right. Yeah. But I think he's past that point of no return.

Like he, in that moment with Jaar on the Zo, he's just like, This is me Now. He doesn't mean he likes it, you know? I think even when, when he and RFA went out from Med Lab and he's like, Dude, what did he, what did he really say? He's like, Dude, we're damned. We are damned. Yeah. He was just like, there's a part, RFA was like, Well, small prize to pray for, Im mortality.

Like total, you know, total lawful evil dude walking away. Whereas Londo was just like, Uh, yep. I guess so.

Brent: Exactly. So like what we see with Lando is, is that he still has a conscience, right? Mm-hmm. , like there is still something redeemable in the character, but like, really, this is where you're gonna go. Like, Don't do it, man.

Like, just don't like stay here and have, have a fight with Jaar. That's fine. Like, make me, make me a little. Half and half about the Sonari. Like sure there are the villains of the, of the world, but, and, and you want to be great again. Yet you also realize that politics and name only gets you so far in life.

Just like your emperor realize that, just like you realize that in multiple episodes in season one, right? Yeah. But now he's on this path. Jeff, I need some help because I don't understand, and I, I didn't understand when I watched this episode, I didn't get a chance to re-watch this episode, so I've only seen it the one time.

Um, and I did the, the Burnt Watches video a couple days ago. Why did Lawn do it? Why did, why did they want to kill the, like, who is Reva? Okay, First of all, have we seen Reva before?

Jeff: Or Lord, Lord RFA was introduced? A little while. He's the one who basically, who told us the emperor was gonna die soon, and that his son had died.

So there was no error apparent. I forget there was

Brent: episodes ago he looked familiar and I feel like I remember that, but I couldn't pinpoint that for you at

Jeff: all. And that's okay. Yeah. But no, I think I hear what you're saying though. Cause yeah, what, like, he's, he's going from like, Hey, we should say a thing, or We should do this thing, like these, like, you know, little political whatever things, and then lawn's like, Hey, hey, I have an idea, like a tact, massive tactical nuclear strike on the people that like,

Brent: because that was Lando, like lawn.

Well, yeah. What about this colony? Well, they, they, they've had a listening post there. It was actually our world anyway. And Lando was like, Then let's just go get it. Mm-hmm. , you know, I mean, frankly it sounds a lot like what a certain. Uh, I don't want to invoke names. Uh, a certain political leader of another country in this world, very, very recently, like within the last year or so, and according to how we record this, said, Hey, that place used to be ours, so let's go get it back.

And they said that a couple

Jeff: times, right?

Brent: Right. Like, but he just jacked him up. And I, I mean, veer begged him. He said, Lando, don't do this. Yeah, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. What, Let me ask you this about ve how complicit is veer? How guilty, how blood stained are Vera's hands

Jeff: on this episode.

He, when he's sitting on the stand at Nuremberg, He's guilty at this point. Yeah. He, he went and got Morton. He brought, he brought him to lawn. I thought it was great what he said. Right. He's just like, you know, I'll go get him. I'll bring him here, I'll let him do the thing, but someday I'm gonna remind you of this conversation.

It's like, Yeah, that's great. Also, you're now an accessory to mass murder and, and a war starting. Yeah. I just, I can't, It's such a massive escalation. Like, I hadn't thought about that until you brought it up, but it is, it's cuz they weren't talking about like going and going to war or anything, and especially going and wiping or potentially wiping out up to a quarter million narn, you know, Or nans, I guess it's Nans.

Oh no,

Brent: they're, they're gonna go wipe out all of Nan. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. With all of them. They're just doing it. Starting with this one, this one Colony 250, first 250,000 person colony. That's, that's a big colony. That's, But it's

Jeff: Babylon five. It's Babylon five. Yeah.

Brent: Like I said, I don't like where this is going. I don't like Lando being a, being a villain. I'm kind of ga with him being like an anti-hero type of deal, but not, I don't necessarily, Cause I like Lando, that's the thing. Like Lawn's been my number two dude on the show. Like Ava and then Lawn and Ja Jaar, like, like they're,

Jeff: they go together.

Yeah. Yeah. I, the way I see this going is I, I think that's what he is gonna become, right? Yeah. He's gonna have another big decisive moment where he can either all in on the shadows, which I think will lead to that vision that he had, or he can decide to, um, double agent the whole thing. You know? Do

Brent: you think Lando will eventually become the Emperor one way or

Jeff: the other?

So I, This is what I think. I think that Lando will bring an end to this war by sacrificing himself. Interesting. I think he's gonna be that hero, right? I started this, I tried at some point to do everything I could to stop it. The only way I can is for me to die. And I think he will willingly do that. And I think he'll do that.

Like, and he

Brent: should for his own

Jeff: guilt of starting it. Exactly. And I think it's gonna be one of those moments where he can go down this path, which will lead to him dying and being, or he can go down this path that is being emperor. Like he'll have to make that decision and he'll give it all up to try and bring, bring peace.

Cause I, I think he's gonna be a hero, but I think we're looking at two and a half seasons of him as a bad guy. Yeah.

Brent: I just like, I, I, I love the tension. I don't like him being full villa or I gotta get off that cuz I keep running around it. With Lando though, like, cuz here's the thing about him becoming an emperor and this is my problem.

When I've referenced what they do in nineties TV and DVD cover people, like, they don't leave the show. You know? Like, unless, unless you're getting killed off because you, like, as an actor, I'm not doing the show anymore. Great. We're going to kill you. Mm-hmm. , outside of that, people don't leave the show. You know, like JMS was really, really kind.

Not to kill Sinclair, but to write him in such a way that he could potentially come back, uh, that was out of the norm. People are like, Well, Game of Thrones, does it? Yeah. Game of Thrones came out 20 years later. Yeah. And they were known, their, their whole thing was they're not afraid to kill their DVD cover guys.

Like that, That was the shocker piece to it. And like, well, turns out they did it in the books too, so whatever. Spoiler alert, um, that wasn't done. So we're talking a time where if Lando is going to go become the emperor of the Sonari, he can't stay on the station. Yeah. And so, and I don't, I don't think they're gonna have this split of like, here's what's going on in the station and here's what's going on in the Sonari emperor's throne room.

And you're not gonna have that as a part of the everyday thing. Solando is going to stay on the station, which is why I don't necessarily know he becomes the emperor,

Jeff: you know? Yeah. I don think he does. I don't think he does. And we, cuz we saw it too with like, Dalen could have gone to, the great council could have this and said she went and became this human thing, but it's staying on the station.

Like, Yeah. Well also like total like production show note. I was shocked to see a set for the Emperor's throne room. I don't, Yeah. I don't, I don't see Babylon five being the kind of production that's like, yo, just build a set for this one throwaway scene. Right, right. Which makes me think he might end up at th at the Royal Court if nothing else.

Cause veer was like, Why didn't you ask for an appointment to the Royal Court? That would get you there. And then we do split for a while. We saw that also in Deep Space nine when the crew got kicked off of what was then te no. And had to go to the star base for a while. So we might see the same kind of a back and forth in here.

And then, and then he has his great return just like Cisco did and grabbed his baseball again.

Brent: Uh, yeah. It, it's a thing. Um, alright, two more things about lawn and the vision. I remember I was nailing on the vision. Uh, we saw beforehand, we heard that Lando say that he had a vision or he had a dream or something, that he and Jaar would die by each other's hands with their hands wrapped around each other's throat.

This vision is the first time we've ever actually seen that out. And what we didn't see from Mondo's description, but we saw in this one was we saw Lando as a very old emperor. Both of these guys were old. Like this is not, this is still a long ways way. I mean, I think he said that right? It's like 20 this

Jeff: 20 years.

20 years.

Brent: Yeah. Um, by the way, kudos to the makeup people, right? Oh my gosh. They look, they look so old. Um, but Jaar, did you notice Jaar had a big old huge scar across his face? And I mean, he looked like jacked up. Yeah, he was ragged. Um, so I kind of, I kind of wanna get there, but I can't get out of this without asking the question.

Is Lando a.

Jeff: No. So in, in midnight on the firing line, when he talked about this, they said that sets of things Sentara get, they get their death dreams. They know, uh, generally how and where and when they're gonna die. Really? Mm-hmm. , that was a, a little conversation with him and Sinclair in that, in that first episode.

And then it paid off here. Like this, this was the vision. My question's a layer deeper. Mm-hmm. . And that's was his old vision, just him and Jaar strangling each other like you talked about there? Or was it the whole thing? Has he been seeing these shadow ships flying over him in the hand, coming out of the sun thing?

Has he been seeing those? Oh yeah. That for a long time. I mean

Brent: that's, but we, but we know that Sentara have Sears. Mm-hmm. , right? Like that little prophets

Jeff: lady. Yeah. Lady Laira. And then the four telepaths, that

Brent: two, how you, I don't know how you remember these names, . Um, but, but she said though, and this is the thing about it, and this is what gives me hope, , she said at the end, it is a vision of what could be.

Mm-hmm. . Right. And I, I kind of railed on her for that. Like, come on. That's the cheap way of writing it. Like, yes, that's how everybody writes it, because the future's unwritten and you make of it what you make of it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I, the future's unwritten, so he doesn't have to become emper.

He doesn't have to die with their hands around each other's throat. They don't have to do any of that, even though that's been what he's seen. And Jeff, I'm gonna, while I 100% believe that you are right about the death dream, and I don't remember him saying that, so I'm just gonna go with you on that. I'm gonna in my own little notebook over here, hold out.

Like Lando might be a seer. Yeah. Because, well, because this wasn't just a dream. He wasn't sleeping and he woke up from a dream. He was like, it was a vision. Holy awake. Sitting there and he had a vision. Maybe it's the same thing that you were talking. Maybe it's different. So I'm just gonna kind of go, I'm not ready to check that box yet and say no, like I'm gonna leave that one open of is Lawn

Jeff: heart profit?

Well, I think it's a good question. What we've seen with, uh, Lady Laira and then the telepaths that accompany the Emperor, they're all women. And so is that like a female trait and is, oh my gosh, here I go again. I can never not do this. But then if lawn also is a seer that was part of the QEs cataract, Mua de in Dune was, he could also have the pressence in there.

It wasn't Star Trek that ripped off Babylon five. It was Blon five that ripped off Dune. Apparently that's . Oh.

Brent: So what would that be if both Deep Chase Nine and Babylon five ripped off the same source material? Right. That's like I could explain some of the, the

Jeff: seeming similarities. Yeah. That or or it's like the whatever ninth clone of Michael Keaton and Multiplicity.

Where they did the clone of the clone. Right, Right. Maybe that's what I don't know. Or

Brent: just Dune in d helped inspire the writers of both because it was a great work. Mm-hmm. .

Jeff: Well, and really there's, there's a lot out there on what I mean, d and created influence, Star Wars and so many other things. But so far the centi like the centi to me, I think that's, to, to wrap it back to this, the center I've talked about before, I felt like we're kind Roman in what they were.

And that's like the, the Emperor's entourage very much felt, felt Roman. Yeah. But I think there's also a lot of influence from at least the Benje it in Dune in what has created, It's almost like we're gonna take Ro Roman feelings Romanesque thing, but then like sci-fi and mystify it with this sprinkling of Frank Herbert over the top of it.

So I'm

Brent: gonna read this one note that I have down here, and then I'm gonna be off of the war in Lando, being a bad guy. We wanna talk about everything else with the episode. Okay. It's not Ro it's, it's not Roman. The Sonari are rolin studs. You might have to buzz that word later. I don't know , but like, what they did in this episode was very rolin.

It's how Rolins would've behaved. Mm-hmm. It's how Rolins would've acted. They both have that Roman language, the sonari, the prey towards the emperors, The, the, uh, like that imagery, that language. So, uh, yeah, like, like that was my, just, this is what they do, man. Like, that's, that's their deal.

Jeff: So. Well they kind of pivot over to talk about the emperor a little bit.

Yeah. So we talked about lawn do's, death dream, and, you know, but our questions around that. But did the emperor also have a death dream and knew what was gonna happen? And that's why he came to Babylon five at this time to try to make, to, to, to, to apologize cuz he, he knew how and where he was gonna die.

Maybe he was trying to beat the clock.

Brent: I mean, he was also sick though. So, you know, you kind of, when you're of a certain age and you get to a certain sickness, you're like, Dude, this is me. I loved how this emperor gave no F's about anything. You know, He's like, Look, I, my, I am a bald dude. Don't gimme that wig.

You know? And I, I was getting major like, um, early American colonial. Oh, wow. You know, British, you know the wigs. Yeah. Like that kind of a deal. And I'm like, Oh, but to see this emperor, it wasn't until the very end that I noticed the eyebrows mm-hmm. , because I was like, without the hair, you look like a person.

And like lawn doesn't just look like a person with hair. Has a whole thing to him. Most even veer, like still kind of has a thing to him.

Jeff: Yeah. They got teeth a little bit with stuff and

Brent: eyebrows. Yeah. But apparently there's, there's eyebrows. But the emperor definitely had the eyebrows, but uh, he just, he just didn't end.

So, let's talk about Jaar, cuz, cuz Jaar kind of comes into this a little bit. Jaar blames this emperor for all the atrocities that happened to his people. And Sheridan does the great work of being like, uh, excuse me, Did he do that? Or was it his father? Didn't this guy actually make concessions? Didn't this guy actually try to return your land?

Didn't this guy actually already say that things were wrong? Wasn't this guy who, like, why are, why are you so personally attacking this guy? And then this guy comes because he knows that his, his thing to do, that he gets to choose the one thing in life. He gets to choose before he dies. is to try to start the healing process for the atrocities that his own people committed.

Mm-hmm. that he fully admits to and he accepts responsibility for it. Like, it just, this is the kind of guy that we should all get to be when we get of a certain

Jeff: age. Right. Or, or earlier it's, you know, he, it, it's, Right. He's and went two year old to do it. Yeah. Imagine if he had done this 10 years ago. You know, and I mean, there, there's so much, and, and I cover a lot of this in, in my closing thoughts, but the timing is such a big, a big thing.

Mm-hmm. , but, but, uh, Sheridan, Sheridan was incredible when, I mean, he, I think that he did so much in this episode to establish an important relationship with Jaar that we kind of saw the. The payoff for when he invited him to the council meeting, you know, because he had, he had called him on his stuff and this mm-hmm.

this, uh, conversation you just brought up. And literally like, he walked out and he is just like, you know, Sheridan, you can go fly a kite, dude. Like, you suck. I'm outta here. Right? And then he left. Then there was the whole WWE scene where Sheridan's like, Dude, bring it down. Bring it down. You're not gonna be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish this way.

And then he came in, he is like, Hey, I gotta count somebody. We're gonna try and do it. And he's like, Thank you, Thank you for stopping me. You know, But I, he was cold, He was calculated. But I think, I think a bridge has been built between Jaar and Sheridan, because Sheridan was awesome. He was so awesome through this.

Yeah. He, I mean, he was

Brent: a, he was a boss. He's like, No, I'm not going to say no to this guy coming to the station. Like there was no wishy-washy about it. It was a definitive yes no. Answer.

Jeff: Yeah. Jaar is even like, So you're gonna do this? Even though I'm protesting a charity, He's like, What did I turn invisible?

Like? And I, I said, Yes, he's coming. We're done here. And I liked how he said it too, when he is like, He's gotta come here because people are gonna finally see that Babylon five is making a difference, that things are happening here. And I, I didn't even think about it until just now. When I was saying that, that's what Sheridan was hoping for.

When this ca, when this all started Now, now Babylon five is where the war started. The last best Hope for Peace was a launching pad for war. Right. Oof.

I thought Jaar was very interesting to the episode opened with him getting the okay from his. To go and go and kill the emperor. But then he left his will basically where he says, I'm operating on my own. My government has no knowledge of this whatsoever. Right. Which I thought was great. Like that's a good soldier boy right there doing his thing.

But the part I loved when he is like, and I want my book of Jaquan to go to nata. We say nata. He says nata. He has a different thing on it, but Right. I want my book of Jaquan to go to NATA in the hopes that she will find enlightenment. We got every slice of Jaar in here. We got the the, we got the smart Alec guy, we got the warrior killer guy, and we got the religious person.

Like I felt like this was one of the, when he did that will, that was like the most complete we've ever seen. Jaar. Right.

Brent: I lo, I love that Ja, that Jaar left her, his book of Jaquan because it just speaks to the fact that Jaar. Truly believes what he believes. You know what I mean? Yeah. He's he's legit. Yeah.

Like it's real for him. Um, and

that was something that I really wasn't sure of when we had that whole episode with the flower and, you know, it was like, oh, like was he really doing here? Is he, It felt political. This is just out of the blue. Like this doesn't feel, honestly, it didn't feel sci-fi enough, you know? Um, and, and I, I know people talk about religion in other sci-fi shows, but it just, something fell off with this.

So to see that I was like, he really does care. Although I was sitting there in that moment of going, Okay, you are in foreign land, foreign soil, supposed to be in a diplomatic solution, and you're going. Kill the emperor of a rival nation in cold blood. Do you really think I'm sending your body back to na?

Do you really think I'm gonna like search out your final wishes and be nice like that? Probably they would, but I'm kinda like, I don't,

Jeff: I don't know. I don't think he cared. I think it was about creating the illusion that he was doing this of sound mind and body of my own accord. He was trying to paint this picture that he'd thought this through.

I know what the consequences will be. Do these things. Just, just so like, what'd he say? It's one of three probabilities. You know, either he's dead and I'm dead cuz we kill each other doing it. He's dead and I'm arrested, or I fail and I'm dead or arrested. Right? So he was just creating that story for the worst, his worst case scenario.

And it turns out there was a fourth probability dude drops on his own.

One more thing I had on the Emperor Uhhuh and kind of an aside piece, but I mm-hmm. when he came in, I was talking to everybody, you know, doing little niceties. Oh, I've heard great things about Babybel on five. Yeah. Yeah. It just reminded me how much we talked about it before. But I love their dress uniforms, like the Earth Force dress uniforms.

Oh, they look so good. So good. They look so good. But I also thought it was interesting, Niana didn't get a lot to do in this one, which is, it's probably, its only strike against it. But this was a cool scene for her. When the Emperor came on board, she, it just showed how much pride she takes in the station, you know, and he was saying nice stuff.

She's like, Oh yeah. Like she was eating that up and I thought it was, I mean, she didn't get a lot, but it was a cool moment for her.

Brent: Yeah. Vona really wasn't that big in this episode at all. Was she? Not at all. Now, now that I'm thinking about that,

All right. Last thing I've got about the, uh oh, no, no, no. I wanna back up to the whole Jaar emperor thing. Yeah. I just, cuz I wrote this note. I really like it. To go back to the emperor is taking responsibility for this, Right. But what we see in the opening scene, Jaar, is wanting to hold him personally responsible for everything that happened when he is not the one who's responsible.

I think it is entirely acceptable to hold the Sonari government responsible and as you are the head of the, the government, we're gonna hold, like you are responsible for your people, even the past actions of other people behind you. But that's not how Jaar was holding this guy. Like Jaar treated this guy, like he personally did stuff.

And I honestly had a problem with that. Cause I was like, Dude, your, your, your ire is in the wrong place. Juxtaposed that with the emperor and how the emperor is like, Yep, I didn't do it, but I'm gonna take responsibility for it and I'm gonna set us on the path to peace. I'm gonna set us on the path. All I wanna do is just stand next to you and say, I'm sorry.

And when, when Jaar heard that the dude melted Yeah. He's like, I had no idea I was, he about became Lando. I was about to kill him in cold blood because of my own anger. And like, he was like, Oh, I'm glad I didn't do that again. We'll talk about this more. Maybe you should have talked first. Sheridan's whole thing of why don't you try opening a dialogue and actually listening to what he says.

We'll sure. Dive into that. Yeah. Well, even

Jeff: a little bit more, Franklin even touched on that when he delivered the message and he was just like, I. I had no idea. And he is like, that's the worst damn part of this whole thing because yeah, Jaar could have done this as well. Anyone else could have done this.

It was a, it was a, that whole thing was so powerful. And, and again, on, on consuls, just his ability to portray that, just that, that moment where he broke and then he came out of that break, going back to the lawn stuff again. But when he bought it, I mean, he was so over the, like, it was as if his whole life, the weight of his whole life had been lifted.

And it's just like, I, I can be me, I can live life.

Brent: This is great.

Jeff: Of let go of all this and then

Brent: boom. I mean, the way he just, he just wants to go love on lawn. Yeah. He's like, There's maybe something redeemable in you after all I can, I can dig this, I can roll with this. Let's, let's go party. Let's go do a thing.

We're gonna, we're gonna get back to this. And Lao's like, Dude, I, Yeah. Floored up. What's I need? I need those great battle on five curse word replacement

Jeff: words. , right? . I fragged

Brent: up. Yeah, I, I I stroked up. No, that's not a word. . That's just that You can never make that one sound good, Jeff, you just screwed up.

No. Um, okay. Uh, oh, oh, oh. Uh, the emperor, um, his little guards, his personal bodyguards, not the, not the the ladies, but the, the personal ones around. Pretty sure they went and robbed the costume department at the original series of Star

Jeff: Trek . Right. Seriously, seriously. From all those, like all the on earth episodes that weren't on Earth.

Brent: It just, those, those costumes looked even for nineties they looked so bad and so out of place. Like did you pick this up at like the local medieval times gift shop? Is that where you got this? Cuz they didn't even look like they fit very well, you

Jeff: know. It was not good. That was not good at all. No.

Brent: I have a question.

I completely switching topics on you now. What is the car? He or Karie?

Jeff: Karie. I don't know exactly. They've been mentioned a couple of times, but they're kind of the council of the Narn, like, they're like the ruling council for the

Brent: Narn. Okay. I I figured there's some sort of ruling body, was it? Well, I wasn't sure, so I'm not crazy to think that we haven't heard a lot about them.

Jeff: I think we've heard once or twice before.

Brent: Okay. All right. Um, should we talk about Kosh? Yeah. Kosh comes in and says, or, or the emperor's like, So how will this end and Kosh just goes in fire. Is that a reference to the war or is there something

Jeff: else? That's the big question. The emperor doesn't even know about the war at this point.

This is before Lawn told him anything. So what, what is ending, What is he talking about? Everything . How does everything end? Oh, in fire.

Brent: Well, I mean he, but he is also on babble on five. He's in the midst of. , how is all of this going to end? You know, his, his, his whole thing is about him and the, the narn and how they're interacting with everybody else.

And Ko is like in

Jeff: fire or maybe Ksh doesn't care what he was asked. Whatever it, whatever it is you're asking about, it's going to end in fire. Cuz there's a lot of not good coming. And I think with that, like to, to start touching on the, the Sinclair and the Ranger stuff like that was one of Sinclair's direct messages to Garabaldi.

Yeah. Stay close to the Verlon. Why? Like, yeah.

Brent: Why, what is, why there's, there is clear, like, I wanna go back to the, the episode. , Was it in Chrysalis

Jeff: Thelen In Kosh thing, Yeah.

Brent: When Thelen goes to cautions, like, I just need to see before I make this decision. And presumably Ko like flasher. Yeah. And she's like, Okay, I got it.

Like, like what is going on between the Maari and the Verlon? Because the on, obviously, you know, they're, they're boss hogs. They're, they're keeping tabs on everybody, you know? Um, Okay. We have to talk about Sinclair. Yeah. We, we gotta talk about Sinclair. First of all, give me your reaction that he puts the data crystal in and he pops up and you hear, Hello?

Old

Jeff: friend. I was so, I was blown away. Shocked. I like this was some for so out of left field. Yeah. Totally unexpected. Yeah. And immediately like my first thought was of just like, I miss this guy, you know? I mean, owning it. You and I both bagged on Sinclair a lot. During the first season, I think a lot of it deserved, but, but it just goes to show like, what a great job the show did in like making him an a, a, a a person for us.

We formed a TV relationship with this guy to the point that when he popped on that screen, I was like, I'm so, I'm so glad. I'm so happy to see you. Yeah. And, and everything you started saying totally made. I'm just like, Of course. Of course. This is what he's doing on Minbar. Sure. Like, ma, everything lined up.

It felt right. It felt comfortable. Mm-hmm. , I, uh, I, I liked it a lot. Did did you feel any differently when it came over? No, I, I

Brent: absolutely did. I was so glad to see him in more so than I have been for other actors or actresses who have left their shows and then popped up a few times throughout the course of the run.

It's like, yeah, you see that person. Like, Oh, okay, cool. But then like this one, I was like, Yes, he's back. And what I was really reminded of was just this, this idea. That sometimes a character leaves a show, they get killed off and somebody comes back for 'em. Or they, they turn bad and they go to the other side and, and, and you only see 'em a few more times.

Like what? Whatever it is. And it's in that process that their character, just over the handful of episodes that you see 'em from there on out, three, four episodes, Not many. That character Blossoms. And I'm thinking specifically of a character from Stargate. Atlantis. Okay. That this was a character that I think he left.

It was after the first season, I want to say it might have been the second season, but they, he wanted to leave the show, or I don't, I don't know what exactly what happened. Oh, oh. They were recasting his role. They didn't, they didn't like what he was doing, , but instead of just writing him off, they actually flipped him to the other side and turned him into a bad guy.

and he only came back like three or four times. But those episodes that he came back were his strongest episodes by far. Like, and I think it really was one of those, it, I'm trying to remember, cause it's been a while since I've watched that series. It was one of those, like, they just weren't using his character very well, you know, and they just, his character was just sort of languishing and that's why they like, shook it up and brought in a new person.

Um, but it gave him the best character arc he could possibly get. Yeah. And I, I felt that way. Like with Sinclair, with Michael O'Hare in this one, like, it's kind of a little shame that we, that we lost him, especially for the reasons we did. But this actually could wind up working out to be the best thing for both Sinclair and Michael O'Hare together.

Agreed. You know what I mean? And I don't know how often we're gonna see Sinclair. I don't get the feeling that we're gonna see him a ton. .

Jeff: Um, I think we'll see him more. I got that impression. I would

Brent: hope so. Yeah. But I, I kind of also don't hope we don't see him that many times though. Like, like I want to see because this was also a, Hey, my rangers are there, They speak for me.

Yeah. Like they'll continually talk about Sinclair and just Michael O'Hara

Jeff: won't be around . And then he will, then he'll come in when he comes in. It's a big thing. Like this means something. Cause Sinclair is here

Brent: and I hope we get to see him not just on a TV screen like that. He physically is there, but I also had this thought when he popped up, I was like, you know, all those lines that Sheridan spoke earlier in the episode, those just as easily could have come out of Sinclair's mouth.

Yeah. Like when I think back to episodes, like by any means necessary, right? Mm-hmm. or, or, or, and that's just the one that pops to the top of my head. But Sinclair had those moments where, Really was just, he was an amazing, I'm not gonna say the word leader, cuz I don't know that that's the right word, but No, he, he put things out the way they needed to be put out.

Yeah. You know? And I was like, I could, I could see this, I think I could see the character of Sheridan, like what they're doing for him. This was what was intended for Sinclair. Yeah. The actor just had to leave and they brought him in and, and they're doing something different. But I love what they're doing with Sheridan and, and what's his name?

Boy, I can't say this dude's last name.

Jeff: Bruce Box Litner. That guy Yeah. Is nailing it. Yeah. He's so good. He's nailing it. But I think, so when you first said that, I was like, I, I immediately was like, I don't know if he could, but honestly the Jaar stuff. Yes. Sinclair could have done all that jaar stuff. It was the stuff with the emperor that Sheridan did when they were in the, uh, the sanctuary or the observatory thing there.

Yep, Yep. I don't think Sinclair could have pulled that off. That's fair.

Brent: Fair. I'll give you that because yeah, I definitely was thinking of the Jaar stuff,

Jeff: Yeah's where my mind was. But also I think that the difference there is Sinclair could have pulled that off because of his relationship was with, with Jaar.

Mm-hmm. Sheridan could pull it off because of his gravitas, his confidence and just his ability to, to tell him how he didn't care what Jaar thought of him. Yeah. He's like, this is the thing, Same words, same outcome, but the motivation behind it and why it would've worked, I think, I think was different. But I think it was a thing too where knowing what we know about Sinclair now that he has a menari soul and, and then how he, well, frankly, to, to pull one from Ben Zane, how he wasn't really qualified to run a station.

All the things we know and we've experienced with him, this is such a better position. Like I believe him running an operation like this, like this is his jam, right? He's got his squad. Yeah. And he's,

Brent: he's not really an, uh, an ambassador to men bar. He's, he's on some sort of a weird training, so let's break that down just real quick to make sure that we we're on the same page.

He has an army of humans and men bar that are learning to work together, and he's calling them rangers and he has a stash of 'em on baby on five, like a whole group of 'em somewhere, right? Like they're just there and they're keeping eyes on things. They're keeping tabs on things. And

Jeff: when I got the impression too, they're out on the rim cuz they said they're out in the, out in the, you know, in the outskirts or whatever.

So I think he's got 'em all over the place. You

Brent: know, how, where did these guys come from? Where did the humans come from? Where do the, like how do you like

Jeff: My guess, My guess is these are humans that they've identified that have minbar souls. Oh, duh. So it's really, it's, it's, it's taking Fullman Barr and then the Human with Menari Soul Hybrid, Uhhuh

Maybe some of these rangers are gonna be some, to go through a chrysalis process as well. But like this, Rangers are the bed of the next evolution of human inbar, but they're also the ones that have like military training and stuff like that where he can send 'em off and do the stuff.

Brent: Because now we have a whole other group we have to keep tabs on.

I know , there's, there's Cy Core, there's what's the, what's the earth

Jeff: Rebel people, right? You got home guards, you got free Mars.

Brent: Yeah, you've got free Mars. You've got the President, then you've got Minbar, and then you've got the na, and then there's the Shadows, and then there's Morton, and then there's uh, uh, I don't know the dude who's looking for the grail.

Jeff: Jx. Jinx. So yeah, Jinx.

Brent: So, so yeah, Jinx so's still out there somewhere and, and like, whoa. There's just so many things going on. We haven't even talked about the league of not aligned nations

Jeff: lately. Right. , you know, the draws the drowsy got their war going on too. Like apparently, although we, I've seen him quite a bit.

Putts and around No Flags, no war Green and, but with Did you catch when Sinclair was talking near the end, we said stay near the fore lawn. I wanted to tell you more. I wanted to give you a warning. Uh, but the others don't think it's time yet. Did you catch that? No, I miss

Brent: that.

Jeff: He just like, cuz he is, because to me, when I think about Sinclair and Garabaldi, they had a great relationship.

They were totally blunt with each other, I mean mm-hmm. , it was fantastic. It's weird to have him holding back to Garabaldi. So who else? Is plugged in with like, who else is running the Rangers or who is Sinclair reporting to? If, if it's that, like there's a We have the council. Yeah. Or is there something else that, Is there something else?

Yeah. There's just so much. So much more. I loved his last line though, and I thought it was appropriate to the shadows we've seen coming so far. And then the shadows that we've since iden, the Big S shadows in a little as shadows, but watch out for shadows. They move when you're not looking at them. Right.

Almost like weeping angels from Dr. Who, which I think is the most horrifying villain in almost all of television . But that's the shadows, apparently. And it's all of them. You know, we weren't, they weren't looking at Lando the right way. That Shadow moved and then he went and got the shadows to do a thing.

So

Brent: you mentioned Garabaldi. I had one note on Garabaldi. Um, The fact that he refused an order to tell Sheridan about what's going on or, or what he said and the reason he gave for it. He's like, I can't do it because then you wouldn't trust me. Yeah. Like that was, that was phenomenal. Yeah. That

Jeff: was so good.

That whole scene was awesome. Between the three of them, just, you know, with, with him, like, cuz they pushed back, even Yvanova pushed back. But when he is just like, this is the deal, they were both like, okay. Gotcha. You know, and it just shows, shows a lot has happened between Sheridan and Gar Baldi that they're, they're coming together.

Did I, I, um, I liked it though when they started kind of stepping through everything and the, in the message and Aon was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Like all we have is this anonymous source at this point. Like, slow your roll and then Sheridan dropped. Uh, what Sheridan's rule number 29. So I, I have, I have one, I have one left so I can do this.

So Sheridan's rule number 29 was always make your opponent think you know more than you really do. Well, rule of acquisition number 85 is never let the competition know what you're thinking. Those are pretty, those are pretty close to each other. Have I used all three of

mine?

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Did I? Okay. I lost count.

I thought I was actually saving one for that moment right there. Sheridan's got his own role of

Jeff: acquisitions. Yeah. Yeah. And a bunch of them he knew Rule number 29 is do this.

Brent: Okay. So just, I know, I know. You and I kinda laugh off the whole one, ripped off the other, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there may have been some similar think I, I wonder if this gets included in that and I don't know because Deep Station nine came on before Battle on Five, right?

Yeah. And so we had rules of acquisition before season two episode, whatever number of this is. Did this, Is this maybe a little payback? Is this

Jeff: maybe a little right.

Brent: like, I don't know.

Jeff: But anyway. And even too, cuz part of the, part of the whatever is the show Bible got shopped around and so Paramount had it and they took ideas.

Were Sheridan's or Sinclair's rules, you know, a thing in the show Bible. I

Brent: doubt it. I doubt it. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like I wonder if this was a, it got pulled back from the other side because rules acquisition are such a farang thing to do. Like Totally, totally. Anyway, um, I love Sheridan's talk there though, where he's talking to,

he's talking to lawn. in the council meeting. Mm mm-hmm. , right? And he's like, Hey, so we're gonna send observers and lawn's, Like, you really don't have to do that. And he's like, Oh, no, no, no, we're going to send observers. And he is like, You could shoot an earth force vessel, but I'd recommend against it. . And lawn's like, Okay, we'll let 'em go back now.

Mm-hmm. . Cause I mean, lawn's, lawn's in on this now. Yeah. He's like, No, we're not letting 'em go. We'll, we'll put them to . Forced labor camp

Jeff: is basically what they were gonna say. Well, he said, I think it was, this was big actually, cuz Dalen just called him out and they're like, You gonna use 'em as slaves?

He's like, No, no, no, no. Just, just a little re-education is all Yes. Like, whoa.

Brent: Wow. Wow. Yeah. Like that's, that's villain, That's super villain type talk there, Jeff. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and I don't do it, but as we are now told we are at war, we have officially declared war. This seems really fast for the series.

Yeah. Like this is something that I wouldn't think we would see until season

Jeff: four. It makes a lot of sense to me. Uh, I mean, really, and I think like there have been some parallels that have led to this uhhuh and I think that's what we're seeing is like this parallel piece between the Narn and the Centar.

When, so the seeds for this got dropped in midnight on the firing line when they, the Narn just sneak attack. A sneak attack, Rish three, you know, and they have Lawn's nephew, health hostage, John Sari, John Malanney, who came on and, you know, Oh yeah, I'm here under this and blah, blah, blah. So we. Jaar got all big and full of himself, started wearing a cape to the council meetings.

Now we have the cent who launched a big attack, a lot more successful. And on this, um, same thing cuz gosh, Dilin had that awesome speech where she's like, When is it over? When is it done? We hand the land back, we hand it back and forth. Well forget that Centi coming in to take it. Now this scene lawn's wearing a cape to the council chambers.

Mm-hmm. , There's a lot of juxtaposition that happened. I love that word. You use it a lot. It's fun to say. But a lot of juxtaposition between the early narn in Babylon five and in the centi response. But the centi responses bigger, It's harsher and, and has led to war. But I think there's some other juxtaposition that happened in this episode that I just thought was brilliant, brilliant television.

Do it. And that was when, um, when Sinclair was given his message to, uh, to Garabaldi, They were intercutting that with everybody finding out about the attack on the colony. And that back and forth between the two Sinclair basically saying there's a coming darkness. Mm-hmm. , and you gotta be ready. And there's these things and then over here being like, Yeah, there might be a coming darkness, but we are gonna let our petty little things get in the way of all of this.

And pulling that darkness in. I just thought it was, it was brilliant. And what it showed to me, what you said earlier, all these threads that are going on and are ultimately gonna distract our heroes from the, from the big problem that's there, you know, all of our petty stuff is gonna get in the way of doing the right and bigger thing.

That sounds familiar. Yeah.

Brent: Um,

Jeff: well, is it time. I think it's time. I think it's time. This is the part of the show where we boil everything down. We see that this show has any, Oh, I wonder any of that Star Trek quality to it. Maybe a deep moral message maybe, uh, holds up a mirror to society or just gives us hope that something could be better in the future.

What, the way we're gonna do this is I'm gonna rate this episode on a scale of zero to five Deltas as to how star Treky it was, or the Star Trek message was in there. And Brent, you're gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five star theories as to how much we enjoyed the episode. Now I'm gonna own, before I go into my closing thoughts, that I paired this down a lot cuz I literally, my recap was pretty long.

Um, my closing thoughts were almost longer Wow. On this one, cuz I have a lot of 'em. So I, I've, I've condensed them down. We can have some more conversation. But to me, like the power of choice, the power of forgiveness. The choice between things like revenge or saving lives. Heck, I mean, even just keeping our word.

This episode is literally overflowing with Star Trek. Like messages. Yeah. The emperor talking about choice, right? I, I think one of the core themes and examples or the messages within Star Trek is that we are the result of our choices. Sure. I went through a leadership development course years ago, and there was a gentleman who came in a couple of times and he was a pretty jarring individual.

He was supposed to be, he was supposed to, you know, kind of shake us up a little bit and challenge us to think in a different way. But he actually came in and told a story about, um, being a zombie in the workplace. You know how people just show to work and just do their thing? And they punch in and they punch out and they go home and they watch some tv and then they get up and they scroll Twitter, and then they go to work and they do just these zombies that we are, we have to make it.

And then, and then at the end of the day when they're, when they're, when they're out outta shape and they're having heart problems and they're poor and they're going through a divorce, What, what does all this happen to me? Well, cuz you made choices. You made so many choices that led to this moment. You are the result of those.

I mean, you can even, and I will because it's me pull rush in on this conversation. Mm-hmm. , they have their hit song free will. A lot of people know free will. Mm-hmm. . But it's got the great line that even when you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Right? Like, choices are what we are and what we become.

The Babylon five twist on this though. Cause that's what I'm really learning is Babylon five's. Like, here's a cool message, also , think about it this way. Right? But their thing is about when you make the choice, you know, when you make the choice matters almost as much as the choice. Like I said earlier, imagine if the emperor showed up three days earlier, mm-hmm.

or five years or 10 years and did this, that would've had massive, massive impacts. And that choice to forgive led to the or to, to, to ask for forgiveness lets us talk about forgiveness. When the emperor apologized and said that his people were wrong, he's the one that extended the olive branch. So, like I said earlier, Franklin was like, Jaar, you could have done this all along, but the reality is you can't move on or heal without, uh, without forgiveness.

And for the Star Trek message, this was shown so well in the Voyager episode, Jare, when Neli was face to face with the guy who dropped a, met on Cascade and essentially genocide his people. And in the end he forgave him. Spoiler alert . But he forgave him. And that led, I mean, that was early. That was like the first season, that late first season.

Voyager. Mm-hmm. . And yeah, that didn't solve the problem. Ne wasn't all good and fine once he forgave him, but it put 'em on a path that let him get there. Right? That's how strong and powerful forgiveness is. And then there was that amazing moment when Sheridan talked Ja, car down revenge your savior, people understanding that you, you have to give up.

The short term, I have this short term win right in front of me. Understanding that you have to give away that momentary satisfaction for the longer term gain. That is huge. Mm-hmm. , and that's such an important message for us today. Just as it was in the nineties when this came out, had Ja car busted into Lao's room and torn him to shreds, the only thing he would've accomplished would be escalating the war.

But instead, the help of Sheridan, he let cooler heads prevail. Right? He, he was even civil, civil to lawn in the council chambers. He never addressed him, didn't look at him, didn't even make contact with him. I had a lot of tension in that scene when Jaar started walking in like, Oh, here we, Nope, It's that cold move.

But now, now Jaar is positioned to be able to protect his people. We had Sheridan talking to Jaar and just like, I think you said this one talk. Just talk. How often have we said this in this part of the episode? Just talk here. Mm-hmm. the other person and Sheridan Sheridan's espousing that as well in this episode.

Horrible, horrible, terrible things happened, but they happened because the people in the episode missed the Star Trek themes, right? They made the choice to apologize too late. They waited for somebody else to come and seek forgiveness. But we can see and learn just as much from a thing that's missing or people missing the mark as we can from them nailing it.

Brent, I would be an idiot if I said anything other than five deltas. This is clearly a five Delta episode.

Brent: I cannot disagree with you word one, and as much as I want to dive into all the reasons why I also think so. You just did it all. So, uh, with that, how much did we like this episode

as an episode of Babylon? Five. This was a great episode as an episode of Science Fiction. This was a great episode. As a person who loves Star Trek and believes that television as a whole, but especially sci-fi, has an innate responsibility to speak to the human condition because sci-fi can do stuff that, that other forms of television can't do.

It can hold up that mirror and show us who we are. It can give us examples of what we are without actually saying, uh, Hey, let's rip this from the headlines and, and, you know, make that country over there the bad guys, right? Like it can do that for us. I think sci-fi specifically should do that. So as a Star Trek fan who believes that, who also believes by the way that, that the world is better when Star Trek is on tv, or at least we have the hope to get better.

Um, I loved this episode. This was the, it was all of that and more. And

I don't know where season two's gonna go from here. Right? I had a thought, uh, to go back to the, to the Sonari war thing. This, the sonari na, this is the Sonari na war. What if this is just like a precursor? What if this is like a short war that's gonna lead to like a, like, imagine, I imagine there's gonna be some big war that happens.

Like, I, I, that's, that's what I hear. I don't know, But something's gonna happen, right? What if this is just like a precursor, you know? Yeah. Um, and, and it, and it, it, what's our whistle? I had a reason for talking about that right here. And I don't remember what it was in this moment, Jeff, but whatever. I love this episode.

Five star Furies with the camouflage painting on top of the star fury. That's how much I love this.

Jeff: This'll be a fun part then for us, because now in season two we are ranking the episodes as we go, creating the objective definitive list of season two Babylon five episodes. I'm going to recap our top five and then tell me, cause I don't think we have to go any deeper than that for this one, Brent, Right now in our top spot is, um, a race through dark places.

Uhhuh. Number two is soulmates. Number three is points of departure. Four is spider in the web and five is the geometry of shadows. Brent, where does the coming of shadows land amongst those?

Brent: Uh oh. It goes in at number one and everything else shifts down, which is gonna knock, uh, geometry of shadows out of the

Jeff: top five.

That takes all, but the points of departure from the first like part of the season pushes 'em down, which I think is very appropriate the way it should be.

Brent: Yeah, and it feels right, like.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's it, That's it for the coming of Shadows Next. Excuse me. Thank you for that. YouTube. Sorry. Well, that's it for the Coming of Shadows next week.

We are watching Grow Pose for the first time. What? Yeah. Grow. Grow. Pose. Gro Groos. Groos or Groos. I don't even know what it, So this'll be a fun one. We've never Wait. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Brent: Do you not know how to say it?

Jeff: I don't. It's G r O p O s. Groos. Groos.

Brent: Uh, for, for those of you listening to the audio feed, the YouTube folks.

See this right now? My face is like, what G I'm sorry G I'm gonna write this down. G R O. Pos,

Jeff: Yeah. Gro grow, grow posts.

Brent: Right now, people in our comments section are giving us like pronunciation guide

Jeff: to, I feel, I feel like this has to have been something that was mentioned before and we just never picked up on it.

But, um, Gro Yeah. Gro Gro posts. Gro posts. Gros. Yeah. Okay. So, um, literally the, we we're learning about this episode as we talk our game. Uh, Brent, what do you think next week episode is gonna be

Brent: about? Well, I think this is where the, the Farik Newgen comes in to the flimm flam and, uh, inverts the power coupler for the sch star flack.

And that's what's gonna happen in this

Jeff: episode. I think this is the episode where Franklin gets deep into Med Lab and then Gar Baldi comes and he is like, Dude, what's going on? He turns around and he says, The sauber taste like sauber . I have no idea. Well, I

Brent: know this. I don't even know what this word is.

I'm trying to do like angra, like backwards. It's so pork like I, I'm trying to figure out is there something

Jeff: here? My guess, here's my guess, For real guess, this isn't a thing. They're just gonna like drop and run away. This is some new alien race or something like that. That's gonna, This is, this would be like calling the other one drowsy, you know, or whatever.

This is gonna be introducing some new something. I don't know.

Brent: Oh, like

Jeff: it's a new alien race? Yeah. That's gonna have some lasting impact. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent: Oh, oh, oh, oh. What if, what if this is like another Zas guy? Oh, okay. Like, you know, we had Zas and this is Groul Groul. Come over here girl. Girl posts enjoy it.

The,

Jeff: And they keep calling him Zas. Like Zas. What do you don't Groos iOS Zas No good. Zas bad. I gros. Yeah. Well, we're gonna find out right here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. We appreciate it so much. If you haven't already, Please subscribe wherever, wherever you're listening to us or watching us.

And if you haven't already, pop over to Apple Podcast, pop over to Audible, leave us a review. I love, love reading them on here. So, Brent, until next time. Hey, hey, hey, Jeff.

Brent: Yeah. I have a message for you from an old friend.

Jeff: Really? Like for Really?

Brent: No, no, no, dude. It's the bit

Jeff: Oh, okay. Um, oh, . Peace. Peace and Long Life.