War Without End Part 2

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

Happy birthday to you. It's your birthday this week. Oh, it .

Brent: I was like, whose birthday are you singing yours to? It's, yeah, my birthday's later on this week. Okay. That's for as as this is going out. This is typically an evergreen show, but as we record this, you're right. My birthday is later on this week.

Thank you so much for remembering Jeff. You're very, this will be Jeff, just, this is my second birthday in the life of this podcast. Wow. Yours is coming up in a couple weeks after. Yep. So we've each had two birthdays relatively soon from now. Wow.

Jeff: Over the course of this show. And last week you were calling our listeners old and here we are two birthdays in this.

Right,

Brent: right. Uh, thank you so much for that, Jeff. You're welcome. And I'm Brent Allen and I'm also watching Babylon five for the first time as I'm getting older, week after week. Jeff and I are two veterans, star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five for the first time. And in it we're taking that analytical lens that we have gained as Star Trek podcasters.

We're applying it right here to Babylon five, looking for those messages, those morals, the hope of the future. And we're also trying to decide just how much we

Jeff: like this series. And this is not a Star Trek podcast. This is a Babylon five podcast. It's fact, it's about two guys. Literal in

Brent: the name. It's the name, yeah.

Jeff: Literally the name. Yeah. Two people watching it for the first time. Mm-hmm. . But as Veteran Star Trek podcasters, it's very likely those references to Star Trek are gonna pop up. So we play the rule of three, meaning that each one of us get exactly up to three references per exactly up to three references to Star Trek.

That's it.

Brent: Three. One of those no substitutions, exchanges are refund. Jeff, you know what? That doesn't mean. , what does that mean? It means that though we get unlimited references to everything else out there, and we use those, yes, we do judiciously, like we eat, we reference as much pop culture, sci-fi or otherwise, it's just this one particular one.

We've gotta reign it in because it's just kind of, uh, let's say nature. There's, I will say this though, Jeff, in my other podcasts, um, Babylon, five references are replete at this point. Really? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff: Absolutely. That makes sense. Well, hey, Brent. Hey, Jeff. Instead of sharing a five star review right now, in this moment mm-hmm.

I want to tell everyone watching and everyone listening that counting this episode, we only have four episodes left in the third season of Babylon. Five. Wow. You know what? You know what's coming in a month? That means,

Brent: It's

Jeff: season three wrap up. It's coming and it's coming sooner than you can imagine.

Back in season one again. In season two. And yes, here in season three, we are doing a giveaway. Woohoo. This time we've got star theories, da da.

Let's show 'em what they could win. Brent, we've got star theories made by the one, the only wash. And if you leave a rating or review anywhere out there and you take a screenshot of that, you send it to what's at Babylon five first gmail.com or tag us on Twitter at Babylon. First, you'll be entered to win one of two star series.

That's right. We're gonna have more than one winner for this season. Jeff,

Brent: I was gonna throw this up there and show people this Star Fury, but I just wanted to see how long you were gonna go with that song, ? Uh, yeah, here it is. So our buddy wash who made us, uh, the Babylon five station, which he made me a second copy of, which is right here behind me.

Um, uh, he, we, that was the giveaway we had for the, for the first season. Um, he actually made these for us back, uh, during season two, but we had already done, uh, or, or we had decided to do a different giveaway just to kind kind of switch it up. So we're coming back to this from Wash. Uh, he was so generous.

He's made these super awesome star furries and, uh, I mean, he got the ejection pod that can pop out. There's the, the, the blaster thingies and all. I mean, it's just, it's just dope. And we've got, we've got a couple of these we're gonna be given away and, uh, I am once again jealous that I don't have some to keep of, of my own.

These are awesome. It's

Jeff: gonna be awesome. We look forward to giving there away. That'll be in our season three wrap up, which is coming. Five, well, I have four episodes of the show and then the wrap up. So it's uh,

Brent: well we got, we got this one and then we got four more. And then it's this

Jeff: one, then three more.

Really? Yeah. Cool. I'm gonna double check that because I'm that guy. This is for you. YouTube. I'm making all these big heavy claims and they're like, what are you talking about, Jeff? You should take notes, Brent. Cause I'm literally gonna give some episode names here. So I've got Gray 17 is missing. Mm-hmm.

and the Rock cro out. No hiding place. Mm-hmm. Shadow. Shadow Dancing. Shadow Dancing. And Zaha Doom. So we have, uh, four more after this one. Yes. So let me come back. So we have this episode four more. So in six weeks from now. Six weeks. Sorry about all that other five week stuff. Six weeks from now, you'll have a shot at getting one of those star theories.

Yeah. So get your ratings, get your reviews in, and send them to us as soon as possible. And then when you send those in over time, over a long time, because we get, we get a lot of these, you'll get to hear this. Hey Brent. Hey Jeff. We have a five star, Ravi. Oh yes. This one's from Apple Podcasts. And Mr.

Nighter says, what's up, Mr. Nighter? How does this podcast end in fire? Spectacularly hot and explodey fun fire. The one thing I couldn't do after watching the whole of Babylon five was watch it again with the same awe and wonder. And yeah, grown at the really bad episodes that I did the first time round.

I was there at the beginning, but could never recreate that feeling. But this podcast makes the show exciting for me. Again, I know it's coming, I know it's gonna happen, but I love the fact that you guys don't. But I love the fact that you guys don't, and go down all the rabbit holes that I went down, dream up all the theories like I did about what's gonna happen or not happen, and I can shout and laugh at where you end up or don't.

It's been a long time since I followed a show where I can't wait for the next episode, which is happening each and every time I listen to yours. You just have to be weekly, don't you, ? It's not enough. I listen on a Monday and I think, oh man, another seven days. Mostly I'm listening to you as I drive through the hills in Glens of Scotland for work My kids Not Wow.

Yeah. Nothing like having to stop in a quiet, idyllic spot with your voices blasting out of the windows into the mountain air . Brad, I want that poster.

Brent: Like, you know what, you know what's awesome is, uh, people that follow the show for a while have been around, um, my home state is the state of Kentucky, and I, I have worked really hard over the years to not have the Kentucky accent, y'all, and, but it does come out every once in a while.

And what I have learned, Jeff, is that with the Kentucky accent, the Kentucky accent is actually a derivative of the Scottish accent and has been bastardized for through all the, all the c. Wow. Yeah, I know, right? Um, it's

Jeff: like a capital B bastardized.

Brent: Mm-hmm. . And, uh, so the idea that my voice is ringing out through the hills of Scotland, is quite amusing to me.

Jeff: He closes by saying, they closed by saying, I don't think I've lefted so much since way back in season two. You tried to work out what Groo's the next episode was about, just from its title, keep Up the Excellent Work. The

Brent: people that actually expected us to know what Groo's was before that episode, they're like, well, they mentioned it were furious.

Like

Jeff: I was like, they said this one time in one line and one episode for four, four tenths of a second. How do you,

Brent: like, how did you not catch it? Like, okay. Actually, although, to be fair, to be fair, I do remember that episode because I'm watching the reaction video. I'm doing the reaction video, I'm filming it.

Okay. And, They come across and they say something about ground, I don't remember. It's ground pounders. They say something about ground pounders. And I look in the camera and I go, is that what grow post? Is it? It's ground pounders. And I said to the camera, I was like, I'm never gonna remember that. And then when I got into recording this episode, now that was separated by several days, I, I looked at you and I was like, I didn't even realize what this meant till I started writing the recap

I was like, I told, I just completely forgot, you know what, I had a lot going

Jeff: on . Seriously, it's a lot to

Brent: keep track of. It was, that was probably my biggest goof of the whole thing. The fact I called it out on myself opening, just making me laugh.

Jeff: It just shows a, a next level self-awareness. It really is.

Yes. It's

Brent: enviable . No, it's not . Oh. Well Jeff, you know, with all the stuff that we like to do here on this show, one of the things we really like to do is we like to make predictions. And one of those predictions we like to make is what the next episode is gonna be about. Without ever actually having seen the episode.

Much like trying to figure out what is Groo's about Go, that's all you got is the title. We haven't seen thumbnails, we don't read descriptions. We certainly haven't watched ahead trying to figure out what it is, just based on knowledge and you know, can you put some pieces together That usually occurs at the end of the show.

Well, this part of the show is where we look back on last week and look at our predictions from then to see what we thought this week was gonna be about. Jeff, this one is a little bit of a gimi, but let's go through the exercise anyway. What did you say? Part two of War Without End was gonna be. And how close were you?

Jeff: So I, I was way off on one point cause I thought we were gonna get a lot of like shadow fighting and stuff like that going like we were gonna see the battle. Yeah, that happened. That didn't happen even a tiny little bit. Right. But I had an unpopular opinion that is yet to be proven, but my unpopular opinion was at the end.

It'll pretty much be business as usual, just with like a little more context going on. And frankly, that's kind of what happened. You think so? I do. They're just like, oh, this guy isn't here anymore. Yep. They delivered and we're just going

Brent: back to work and now we're going back to work. Going back to the station.

Back to the

Jeff: office. Yeah. What about you? What did you think it was gonna be? But

Brent: it was, it was not. Because I remember you also said something about a reset button. It wasn't a reset button. Correct. Like we didn't undo everything that happened. Right.

Jeff: There's like real things. Yeah. Like big, big freaking deal things that happened.

Yeah.

Brent: But yeah, so for mine, I basically just said more, more of the episode is just gonna happen. Which is, which is what happened. But I do want to come here and just say that I was wrong because my prediction was based on a theory that I had that the war from the first ones and then the war from a thousand years ago, and the war that's happening now.

are all happening simultaneously, and it's gonna require them all sort of working together in various times to truly defeat the shadows. And that this set of episodes was gonna launch the overall war. And getting to the end of this, I realized that's not what this set of episodes was. This set of episodes is basically Babylon squared, part two.

Right. Um, kind of back to the future part two, where ultimately we go back and re-insert ourselves into that episode, which my gosh, I, I've, it's brilliant. It's brilliant actually the way they did it Yeah. Is absolutely brilliant. Um, yeah. And go back and, and redefine a little bit of history for us, and I'm assuming this wraps up Michael O'Hare in the Jeff Sinclair storyline.

Like this was bringing him back, you know? Uh,

Jeff: Well, Sinclair doesn't exist anymore, so I think Yes, you are. I, I completely agree.

Brent: Right, right. But I mean, this is the, like, so Michael O'Hare left the show for, for the reasons he left the show, and this was like a, Hey, let's bring him back. Let's, let's finish that storyline, but let's also really give Michael O'Hare an amazing sendoff rather than just, oh, he's not here one day.

You know what I mean? Like mm-hmm. . I very much appreciated that, but I don't think that this is, uh, I, I don't know that my theory about this being like all one big war is actually gonna pan out. I, I, I'm not, I'm not high on that one anymore after this episode, but, uh, yeah. I, I love this episode.

Jeff: Well, if you're at all curious why we don't think that's gonna pan out for, for Brent's theory or if you wonder why we're talking about Sinclair this late in the third season, cuz you haven't watched this in a long time or things aren't ringing a bell, we are going to take a look back previously on Babylon five as Brent reminds us what this episode was all about.

Yes.

Brent: Well, if you need to know what happened previously on Babylon five, go back one video in our deal and, and listen to this recap from last week. Jeff did an amazing job. Now picking up right where we left off. Sheridan is Blipping through time. Currently he's 17 years into the future on Centara Prime, where Emperor Londo is about to have him executed just as soon as he takes a nap back in cell.

Sheridan is blipping in and out, fading a bit back to Babylon four, where Zhara sees him for a moment and then gets an idea. But then back in the future, in his cell, a confused Sheridan is visited by a very, very passionate Dylan. She's so glad to see him, but she notices some difference. There's an innocence to his eyes that he lost a long time ago.

And then there's the thing where he's just telling her, Hey, I'm from the past and since Dalen was also there in the past and she's had all this intervening time, she's like, oh yeah, you told me this was gonna happen. She's like, oh, hey, we've been waiting for this to happen. And she tells him that, Hey, we've done some great work, but it's come at a great personal sacrifice.

We never really find out what that personal sacrifice is, by the way, but we'll, we'll speculate on that. But she also drops the big bomb on him, honey. She's expecting or she was expecting. They have a son. They have a son. Jeff Sheridan takes it pretty well. Doesn't even question if he needs to go to Morrie to find out if it's his.

And it's about that time that the guards come to escort both of them. To see a very drunk Emperor Orlando, but he's drunk on purpose because Lando has a keeper, a watcher of sorts, which has manifested some weird growth on his neck. , , sorry, Jeff , uh, which has manifest to some weird growth on his neck. This keeper can't hold his liquor, so while he sleeps, Londo is finally in full control of his faculties, which apparently he wasn't before when he was being, well, Mr.

Me, me, me. Emperor Londo really isn't that bad of a guy, and he is looking for redemption and to get it, he's gonna let Sheridan and Dalen go on the promise that they're gonna free his people from these keepers. After they leave Old Kar emerges from the shadows. He and Londo sort of seem to be buddies again.

Maybe. And Lando basically tells Kar to kill him before the wa the, and Lando basically tells Kar to kill him before the keeper wakes up. Otherwise, the keeper is gonna know what Lando has done and alert the others. Kar more than willing to oblige, puts his hands around Lao's throat to choke the ever loving life out of him.

And as he's doing so, the keeper wakes up and he turns around to try to take out Jaar by strangling him back. Both are successful and Lao's vision of the pair of them dying with each other's hands around the other's throat comes to pass. Also, major Barrett's vision of Veer becoming the emperor after Londo dies.

Seems to be set in motion. Well, Sheridan walking down a corridor is still bli. And just before he blips back and just before he blips back, Dalen sends him home with some really awkwardly timed life advice. Treasure the time you have, savor it for will never come again. Oh, and whatever you do, don't go to Zaha Sheridan blips.

We'll catch up with him in just a moment. Now for the rest of the crew, back on Babylon four. You see they're trying to get the time stabilizers placed all over the station so that it the station can go safely back through time. Things happen a little too early and they blip only. Instead of going back in time, they actually go four years into their future, which is actually two shows in the past of our show, which is like season one.

And before you know it, were right smack dab in the middle of the episode. Babylon squared only. This ain't no holodeck simulation, and Commander Riker is definitely not trying to figure out a crisis of conscience here.

Basically, we see the rest of the story from this viewpoint. Sinclair ages super fast as a result of going through the barrier, and if he does it again, he could even age even faster. So that accounts for why he looked really old. Back in Babylon squared z Atheros fixes a broken thing, which is that thing he had in Babylon squared.

We didn't know. And we now know that that was Sheridan's time stabilizer. He gets caught by station security, which we saw him getting brought in back in Babylon squared Z Atheros meets Sinclair and Gu Baldy, and he doesn't spill the beans just like he was told not to in the last episode. By sh by Sinclair, just like he did back in season one.

Babylon squared. Someone in a blue suit blips in during a moment of confusion and Atheros slips them the time stabilizer, which is exactly what we saw back in Babylon squared. And then Atheros, just like we saw in Babylon, squared, gets pinned under a rail during a big evacuation, and then the one comes to save him.

Now, we assumed in Babylon squared that that one was old Claire, but turns out it's Dalen. What? Hold up. Well, Dalen gets the stabilizer that she got from Zs and she gives it to a Blipping Sheridan, although that happens off screen. So he's not Blipping anymore. Awesome. Sheridan tells the others that he's gonna ride Babylon four into the past because, well, that's what he's always done.

See? Look, he sent himself a letter to prove it. Zs explains that just as Mbar culture is based around the number three. So Sinclair, Dalen and Sheridan are all the one. Sinclair is the one who was, delin is the one who is, and Sheridan is the one who beat. And Sheridan is the one who will be. And Brett the hitman heart is all of them together.

A couple of clip flash, a couple of clips flash from season one to make all of this make sense about Sinclair and shows us really just how intelligent j m s was and how he had been planning this from the very beginning at all. And so it all happens exactly. As history has said, it would go Dalen and Sheridan and the crew head back to the White Star to go home.

And Zs and Sinclair head back a thousand years into the, and Zs and Sinclair head back a thousand years into the past, Sinclair using Deen's Chrysalis device to turn himself into the Mbar, not born of Mbar. And with the help of some well-placed Angel slash Volans that just come out of nowhere, Mbar Sinclair tells the folks of the past that his name is Valin and they've got some work to do, roll credits.

Jeff, how did you feel about the wrap up of the war without End?

Jeff: We work really hard to not talk about these episodes, like between our conversations, but I texted you a very explicit text when I got done watching this because Brent, I was right. I've been calling this all along. I was so right that I have multiple microphones here for this press conference.

Jeff is too fist in

Brent: this one. Man, ,

Jeff: I want to go ahead and, uh, I, I, I'm, I'm happy to take questions mostly from the back row people. We don't normally get to ask questions here, but yeah, you're, you're right. It was in the second season when I said, Hey Brett, I think maybe, I think Baby Sinclair might have the soul of vain and he might be vain, and I don't remember exactly what I thought about that, but it was right before my other incredible prediction that's gonna come true, I think probably before the end of this season about.

Anna Sheridan being a morden as well. Uh, other questions, other ones? Oh yeah. How, how did I know that? Well, some pretty simple storytelling devices really pointed us towards that, throughout this whole thing. And the moment in this episode when Sinclair put the little tri luminary on the thing, and Marcus was like, oh my God, a minbar from Not Minbar.

And all the pieces came into place. I was like, nailed it. Nailed it. I'll be, I'll be taking no further questions, but seriously, what an, what an awesome, what an awesome episode this was. I mean, it was, this was fun. It took our, our number one, our number one episode outta season one was Babylon Squared when we did our definitive ranking.

And this showed the other side, and it did it almost, almost perfectly.

Brent: Yeah, it

Jeff: was so good. Like the only thing you could really tell the difference was, was that like Garib Baldi had. , better hair from there. But I mean, it was, it was so good. But we, you and I also called another huge thing just a couple weeks ago.

We said, Londo is gonna get possessed by the shadows. Right? He's gonna be controlled by them, and Kar is gonna be instrumental in having him purge that out. And Brent, we watched that happen in a fake future that might not actually come to be, but we saw it. We saw it here on Babylon five television. Oh, this was so good.

Right. My big take on this episode, I think I've said it two or three times, you know, the past is all prologue or whatever. Yeah. But literally, we've got the context of all the historical stuff, almost all the big questions we have about what led us to this moment have now all been answered. , we've been teased with what the future of the show could be.

Mm-hmm. . And now starting in this next episode, Babylon five actually truly starts, and I am so excited for this. This was so good. What did you think of this one? It

Brent: j I said it last week. I'll repeat it this week. This is great tv. Yeah. Every single bit of this is great tv. The, the storytelling device of going back in time, reinserting yourself into an episode and not changing the episode telling you like, like showing you what happened, but then showing you why it happened or how it happened in a way that you didn't catch the first time.

But when you go back and rewatch it. Now, I haven't gone back and rewatched Babylon squared, but I guarantee you, you go back and rewatch it. It's gonna hold up, it's gonna be true. They were faithful to what happened. They didn't mess a whole lot up. The one thing that I missed, Was at the end of Babylon squared.

There's a spot where, uh, very clearly the voice of Dylan, the hand of Dylan, puts her hand on, uh, Sinclair's chest or shoulders, which I thought then was rather suggestive, but turns out that's not it. And she says it is time or something of that nature. Mm-hmm. , I think she had that same line here, but she didn't seem to be even we close to touching him.

Like they were just sort of standing sort of next to each other. So I'm not sure if that's what that was supposed to be, but I mean, literally if that's the only thing that I have to, to complain about, it's not a complaint folks like at all. Like I am shocked at how they went back and showed you the rest of this and the fact that they did it mostly through the viewpoint of z Atheros so good, which is what we need because Zs is such a key character.

So we now have them for three episodes, maybe two if you count these last two as one. Um, but for as much as people talk about Zs. And I don't know that we're ever gonna see z Atheros again. Like this may be the end of his story, just like, I think it's the end of, of Michael O'Hare story, right? Cuz he went back with him.

Good way to dip him out. But, uh, I truly loved this episode. Um, I am, I am ecstatic for the places where my prediction is wrong. And this show decided to go where it went because I got, I got some stuff right? But it wasn't, it, it's, it's not about that. Like, it's about how they actually get there. And, and what I love about this is, to me, now, this is Brent's opinion, all right?

I'm not saying everything has to be this way, but in general, good storytelling will set you up for something. It will set your expectations for how, how something's gonna go. And most of the time, , it's going to meet those expectations. That's the, that's the sense of fulfillment that you get. Mm-hmm. , I know in this day and age when people are making stuff, they want to subvert expectations, but occasionally, or more often than not, you really have to give people what they're wanting.

You, you have to give them, oh, I know he's gonna be safe, so let's see how he gets saved. Right? I know this guy's not gonna die, although his life's in peril, so let's see how he gets out of this one. You know what I mean? Like mm-hmm. , uh, it, it's, you have to subvert expectations on purpose, but in general, you have to meet those expectations.

This episode met the expectations. The expectations of what, we didn't even know what we were asking for, but they met 'em. The places where we were able to quote, unquote, predict things and get things right. You mentioned it just a second. It's because it's been good storytelling. Excellent. They set it up excellent.

They showed you the clues, they put things together. And if you stop and look at it, you stop and think about it. The clues are all there. You're gonna catch a few details wrong and that's okay, but for the most part, you're gonna catch those clues. You're gonna put it together and you're gonna be like, yes, that's it.

That, that's nothing to do with me. That's just to show how brilliant the story writing is. Mm-hmm. , you know, and I know that, that over the last, the three seasons, Jeff, there, we've kind of had this thing about I'm the king of predictions or you know, how close I get sometimes a just a thing. Right. Um, no, that is a testament not to me and my predictive powers.

That's a testament to how well jms has fully thought this show out, written it and seeded the answers from the beginning of the show. When they went back, Jeff, and they showed that clip from Soul Hunter. They're using you. Oh, they weren't really using you. You were more than a willing participant in the whole thing.

Mm-hmm. like, oh my gosh. It just, this is a, this is a whole deal. And I loved this episode. Loved this episode. Jeff, I don't have that many notes. If like, I wanna apologize to everybody out there for the Brent Watches video this week because it, this was me for 42 minutes, Jeff. I believe it. That was the whole episode.

Like there was

Jeff: no reactions. . Right. It's gonna be this and then they're gonna show some Babylon squared scene. There's gonna be, yeah, that's it. Oh, it's just like, it, it all checks out. Yeah,

Brent: exactly. Like it was, and it was, it was that enthralling and it was that exhilarating. Oh my gosh. It, it was so good.

Jeff: You talked about subverting and meeting expectations. Mm-hmm. and, and, and, and how great of a writer jms is a visionary. Well, I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll call it what it is. There was a scene in this, in the, in the Londo future stuff, kind of, if we can kind of hit into that, to kick things off. But that both met our expectations and subverted them at the same time.

And I was excited and furious at the same time. And that was when he had Sheridan and Dalen in the cell. And like, they're kind of figuring the stuff out. And then they go, the, the guards come in to grab him and they look at each other. They have that look on their face and you know, they're like, oh no, they're, it's gonna happen.

Like they're gonna kiss, this is the first kiss and what a kiss. What a kiss. But it wasn't real, like, it wasn't a real, like it was their first kiss. , but it wasn't, Dalen has his child. She's done a whole lot more than kiss him. Right. So it was just like, you met my expectations. You a passionate embrace and kiss moments before certain death, but also it's just another kiss at the same time.

It also could be the last kiss. Yeah. Yeah. First and last and another one in a long line all at the same time. And it's just, it's literally, my note was just like, what an incredible job. Both subverting expectations and giving us exactly what we wanted, just not quite the way we thought we wanted it.

Brent: Well, I mean, talking about that and, and in this future scene we've heard since, what was it, Jeff?

Midnight on the firing line was at the gathering when Lando said, I've had a vision and Kar and I will die with our hands around each other's throat. This is a day one thing that we've had in our ha in in our heads. All right. And I, I don't, I'm not gonna sit here and play the game of like, well, is it gonna happen that way or isn't it, let's just take it at face value that that's how it goes.

Jeff: We plop it there. Yeah. It might not happen. They showed it. Okay, great. Yeah,

Brent: let's, let's take it that that's how that goes. In no way, shape or form, did any of us ever think that that was going to be, Hey, would you please kill me before this thing on my neck wakes up and makes me do some crazy crap, right?

And then while you're in the process of doing it, the thing wakes up and takes over my mind and that's the thing that's actually trying to kill you instead of me. And then we both succeed, like did not see that coming at all. No. But what we saw was hands around each other's throat killing each other.

Jeff: And what I thought was great about and filling in blanks, Was my first thought was like the physicality of that. If you and I right now reached through the internet and started strangling each other, one of us is going to give before the other one. Yeah. Right. Like how does that work? That both die from that?

It's not possible. It is though. If you have some little Muppet on your neck that can probably pump juices. Londo probably died 40 seconds before Jaar did. Sure. But that keeper thing kept him squeezing long enough that jaar he, he became a space zombie. Yeah. Just long enough to kill Kar. Right, right. And then you called it veer walks in, sees him laying there, picks up the medallion or the crown or the whatever.

And he is like, well,

Brent: we, okay, so listen, veer had a look on his face when he came in and I, I don't know what to make of this look on his face. Like it was either Veer has now plotted and, and. This is how it's gonna come. Like I almost felt like an evil laugh, like a . Does he also have a keeper? That's, and I, I was, that's one of my big questions as a person of like, because you, when we first heard that that Vera is gonna be the emperor, you and I both said Lando is gonna be, first it's gonna be veer and Veer is gonna be the guy who like sets things straight.

Like he's gonna be the moral compass. He's gonna change Sonari culture for the better. And he's

Jeff: rom as grand niggas. Exactly. Right.

Brent: Does that one count? Because that was the reference we used a bunch of episodes ago. Yeah, probably should. Anyway,

that might not be the case. Veer might be a bad guy now, which is

Jeff: again, giving us exactly what we want. Who doesn't want veer to be emperor? Mm-hmm. , but subverting those expectations and being like, guess what? He's a shadow puppet as well.

Brent: Maybe. Maybe we don't know. Yeah. We don't know Jeff. I'm telling you, when we first saw Lando in last week's episode and then in the first couple scenes here, he did not have that thing on his neck.

Now I don't know where that thing came from or what the deal was, but that thing, I don't know where that thing, like why all of a sudden it just appeared on his

Jeff: neck. So my guess is it's been there. Yeah. For some time. In fact, one of my big questions is, does Morden have one of these? You know, your big question a while ago was, why are they trusting Morden?

He's just a human. Yeah. Well, cuz he might have one of these little sucker keeper things on him. The shadows, one thing we know about them is they've got this invisibility, cloaking stuff dead. Oh, that's a good point. Point. So maybe, yeah. While it's awake and doing its thing, it's all invisible and shut. But he he got it drunk.

Yeah. And so it wasn't controlling him and it was visible. Yeah. And this

Brent: thing is a, is clearly attached to his biology. If Yeah. Bondo can drink and get him drunk and put him to sleep. , uh, you know, and, and he can control Orlando's body. Turn him into a space zombie, as you said. But I mean, Jeff, the biggest question I had coming out of, out of, uh, the first episode, and it's, it's still my biggest question coming out of this episode.

We've heard of these minions, the dark servants, the, the allies of the shadows. I'm assuming this keeper is one of that keeper is not a shadow. No, I don't think so. That keeper is something else. And what is this thing that we've never heard of before?

Jeff: And what's going independent? Like is, did it climb up and attach itself?

Is there someone else who snagged it and, and stuck it on him? Yeah. Like there's this whole contingent of other bad guys. Mm-hmm. . Somehow are connected to the shadows.

Brent: Somehow we gotta figure it out, and I'm sure, I'm sure we will. That, I mean, think about that, Jeff. There are people and, and entire races of beings out there that you and I at this point in season three have no idea about.

Yeah. Or are just now getting our first clue

Jeff: about, you know, that's what I think like, kind of said in my opening thoughts, like, this is literally the show starting again. This is the gathering. Mm-hmm. , right. The, the, the, the premo that's gonna lead into everything else where it, it introduces us to the new world.

Mm-hmm. and this new world includes more than just the shadows. We've got dark servants, minions, keepers, the Centara are basically possessed. Yep. We got a whole new world that we're operating in now.

Brent: So there was a really rather bleak moment I found in this future scene. Well, there's a few, but there was one that, that really stood out to me.

It was, um, Dalen talking to Sheridan. and she says this line, the war is never really won. It just keeps going. And only the names change. Right. So, and she's like, we've done so we've ensured this great piece for the next thousand years at great personal sacrifice. And I'm like, just for a thousand years, like you just basically put this thing to sleep in like in a thousand years some other group's gonna have to deal with this

Jeff: now.

And way back in the shadow of aha doom, I think it was that episode where they were like, we're putting them down this time. Yeah. Like last time we, we didn't, we didn't finish the job. This time we're gonna finish job. And that scene with Thelen told me you

Brent: didn't, no, you're not finish the job. Right.

That's one I'm gonna say, well, that's only a

Jeff: possible future, right? Yeah. But I think, but I think it's, um,

it's interesting that she had a stated, as a fact, we've built this piece that will last a thousand years. Yeah. How do you know that? Right, like, what did you do? What was the cost? What was the sacrifice? But also if the war never stops, and just the names change mm-hmm. , what

Brent: is the

Jeff: goal? Right? Like that's to, so for me, I'm at a point now where we've asked this a couple times, but now it is the question, the shadows are apparently wiped out or put to sleep or buried or whatever for a thousand years.

But there are these dark servants and minions that are still carrying on the cause. What is the cause?

Brent: Just Ga Galactic ruling chaos. Like, like, yeah. And we, it doesn't like is this, is this the, the show it where we just gotta come back every seven years and, and deal with it and do it again, you know? Yeah.

Like, or not, was it 70? However

Jeff: many? 70? I think, well, I don't however many it was. Yeah. It was a lot of years. Right. But 17. ? No, I don't know. Whatever. We're gonna sound like idiots. Yeah. Trying to guess this. It's a great book. Yes. Decent movies. Better movie back with Tim Curry. But, um, yeah, I, to, to me, like, I, I want to start understanding the motivation of the shadows now.

Mm-hmm. , like, we've always wanted that, but like now I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting desperate Yeah. To know what that, what that motivation is. I,

Brent: yeah. I, we definitely, I think, are getting to that spot where we have to know what the history of the shadows are and what that whole deal is to understand what we're doing.

I think we just don't have that piece yet. Yeah. You know? Uh, but I feel like it's coming. Like there's, there's, there's new information being delivered now, Jeff and I'm,

Jeff: the idea of a pizza gets me excited, but knowing that there's a pizza on my porch waiting for me makes me desperate for it. That's where I'm at with the shadows in their motivation.

That pizza's on the porch. Just waiting for me to go grab it. Please. Just. Let me have it. There you go. Let me have it. There you go.

Brent: Um, so I, I called this out in the recap, but I've, I've got to, I've got to just, this was so goofy to me. Len says to Sheridan, just as he is about to blip, take these words back with you.

Treasure the moments you have, savor them. Well, they can never come back again. Very weird time to just be giving sage life advice. Yeah. Like, like my, my thought in the moment was, okay, is this some coded message he's sending to herself in the past? Mm. Or, or something that, like, these words are gonna trigger something else.

Like, like this has to be more than just come and sit on my lap. And let me give you some, some ancient granny advice for you. You know, I, I've been around this world. And just treasure those moments that you have. And savor them cuz they can never come back again. Like it's gotta be more than that. Right?

It

Jeff: does. I like that idea that it's a trigger or something. Cuz she knows that Sheridan's gonna tell her the story of this. Right. So she's planting some stuff maybe for that. Mm-hmm. , because my thought was we, they kept talking about the great personal sacrifices they had to make for this. And maybe along the way where Sheridan lost his innocence mm-hmm.

in his eyes, he stopped appreciating the moment maybe, or whatever. And yeah, maybe this is her like, you know, just, just remember, just do this, do it for David.

Brent: Do Jeff, that particular line. It would not shock me if we don't hear Bku about it until late season four, maybe even season five

Jeff: when Sheridan is staring down death, like eye to eye.

Like that would be the moment that pops up again. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .

Brent: Um. Okay. One more question for me from the Lando future, and it it, it kind of worked in, I guess the Lando future. I'm assuming there's a moment back on Babylon four where Dalen, I think she's coming up like through that manhole cover or something, and she blips, she, she has a vision and she goes forward in time and she's just lovingly staring at John sleeping in the bed and she picks up this really cool snow globe and all of a sudden there's a woman in the shadows that just very keenly says hello.

That was not de Lynn's voice, so it wasn't her, but that was somebody that was some female saying hello and it made her drop the snow globe and we got nothing more out of that. Who is that person, Jeff?

Jeff: I'll go ahead. Uh, the reporter in the back with the questions. Yeah, I'll go ahead and take that question there.

Yes. So Anna Sheridan was sent to Babylon five to intercept right at the moment that Dalen and Sheridan consummated their love for each other. I'm g I'm betting Sheridan's ex

Brent: rolled up in on on that moment.

Jeff: He's in bed, right? He's got his arms behind his head. He's all like, yeahs, he's about to smoke a cigarette, right?

And she's like, oh, I'm gonna caress this snow globe and feel feelings. And then not only is it his ex, but it's his modernized ex who's just dropping in and she's gonna walk in and be like, oh, ambassador, what do you want?

I have nothing to base that on other than just my desperate hope that that's what it's, you're, you're,

Brent: you're moving all in on this Anna Sheridan thing, man. Yeah.

Jeff: Hey. Paid off on the vain thing. It sure did. So why not? It sure did. It should. Playing these long games. That's, that's, you get an episode to episode.

I'm playing the long stuff here.

David is the kid's name. Yep. Was that Sheridan's dad's name? Yes. Okay. Yes,

Brent: because at first my first thought I'm almost po like, I'm like 98% positive that that was his name. Yeah. Because my

Jeff: first thought was, oh, they named him after Sinclair ge because they made a point of St. Jeffrey David Sinclair on the envelope.

Yeah. But as soon as I thought that, I was like, wait. I think, I think that was his dad's pretty sure. And that would be cool. It'd be cool. It also probably means that his dad dies, so that's not great. Mm-hmm.

Brent: I mean, we kind of already saw his dad die with Kosh, although we know it was Kosh, not his dad, but still, yeah, I mean, Well, he died.

Not a young buck. Like his dad's gonna die. Like, I, I hate to sound callous about that. Like, uh, I mean, horrible if he like gets killed by night watch or something like that, like absolutely horrible. But, uh, yeah.

Jeff: So I had a lot of fun with the Babylon four and then Babylon squared stuff. Sure. Starting, starting with Ivanova and Marcus, who, oddly there was no romantic tension between,

Brent: they've just completely dropped that storyline, haven't they?

I think so. Yeah. That's, that's too bad cuz I really liked that. I liked that. Come hither will they, won't they Yeah. Deal that, that's too bad. That's, I hadn't thought about that in a long time, but you're right. They've just pretty much dropped that whole

Jeff: deal. They did the whole, uh, I don't believe in. I believe in logic.

And then he'd, you know, proved his point. Yeah. Yep. But then he popped the panel behind him. Oh look, , there's this. And I feel like they played it again later when he is like, what? He's just gonna fill up that blue suit over there. Like, that'd be wild. And then exactly that happens. And it's like, oh, Marcus, maybe, maybe you should believe in luck.

Mm-hmm. just,

Brent: just a little bit. He needs to watch his back for best are coming after him, man. Seriously. Cycore is on it's way. . Uh, I will, I'll say something that I really enjoyed about the Babylon four Babylon squared thing that I think kind of a adjusted, uh, a wrong impression I had from Babylon Squared.

So back in that episode, Babylon four reappears, after several years of being gone, I don't remember how many years it had been gone. Four years. Yeah, four years. Which by the way, how fast can they build one of those stations? Oh my

Jeff: gosh. Well, guy got a crew like Jinx o on there doing this stuff. That's, that's quick.

Brent: I, did you ever stop that? Where did Jinx o go on vacation? Right after, right, right before this happened.

Jeff: Anyway, probably stuck on Mars. Poor guy. Right.

Brent: Um, but it had been like for four years of blip around. And when we saw the, the crew come back in Babylon squared, I had had the impression that they felt the four years, like they didn't know where they were when they were, but they had, like, they had gone through some crap in their time jumping around the timeline.

But what this episode showed us was that wasn't the case. Like they blip and then it's like, oh, we're here. Oh crap, we gotta get everybody off the station real quick before we leave. And all that stuff had happened just really after one little time jump that they, to them, they just lost two years out of their life or four years out of their life.

Mm-hmm. like, I mean, This is, this is Infinity War. When everybody gets snapped back, like, oh, hey, where'd you come from? We thought you were gone. Like, they're just back.

Jeff: So I think in Babel Square I'd had that same impression. Yeah. That like they were tired. Yeah. They'd been fighting, they'd been having all this stuff go on and maybe we just didn't get time.

Like, I don't think four years, they didn't feel four years, but maybe they felt weeks, you know, and we just didn't get time. Mm-hmm. markers or something. Right. Or it was all just very boomba, boom, boom, boom. I liked, I just thought of this. They inter, we had a new character from Babylon Squared and that was the first officer Yeah.

Under the, the, I liked him. Yeah. He was cool. A lot. Yeah.

Brent: Super effective. Yeah. Worked for me. I, I really thought that the captain from Babylon four was kind of a weak captain. But he, he appeared fairly strong in this episode To me, when he is like, no, get out there and get that just in case of X, y, z stop it.

I know what I'm doing. Like, I was like, okay, I, I see why you are in command now. Yeah.

Jeff: But I think at Babylon squared, again, we thought this, that he was beaten up and exhausted and tired, and that's why he seemed ineffective or whatever. Yeah. It showed a different

Brent: side. Just a different side of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was print with it, like, I'm glad to have that interpretation be rewritten in an episode like this, the, the way they did, uh, this whole

Jeff: deal. One of my hangups on the, the translation, you know, of the other side of stuff was in Babylon squared. We had the blue suit that we assumed was Old Sinclair.

Current Sinclair went over and grabbed the hand and it blew him way back. And we're like, yeah, because space and matter and time can't occupy the same space. That's a, that's a proven sci-fi fact, but it was land. In that blue suit. So now I'm like, why? Why did that blow him back? It doesn't matter. I'm just a question in the whole thing.

But it was heartbreaking to me though, when they were done and they were gonna get ready to go back. But the current old season one Babylon five crew was flying away and Old Sinclair Ranger one. Yeah. And Tila was out there and he's like, Garibaldi, watch your back. Yeah. Watch your back. Ah, communication cannot be com completed.

He's like, oh, I in his face, when he got that air, like that was, that was a heart

Brent: break. Because that's because that's the, he get, he gets shot in the back like two episodes later or something like that. Yeah.

Jeff: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then when he came back in, yeah, because we were wondering this in Babylon squared, he is like, I told him, I tried to warn them, but it's all happening the way it did last time.

Right. And we're like, what did he. What did he warn him? What did he do? He tried to stop garabaldi from getting shot because it, had he not gotten shot could have changed everything. Sango could still be in power, you know, I mean, literally Garabaldi getting shot in the back was the catalyst for everything that we're experiencing now.

Interesting.

Brent: Interesting how that becomes the snowball. Yeah. You know, gosh, man, Sheridan failed everyone, right? Um, yeah. There were a couple of really cool lines, uh, mostly spoken by Atheros in this line. Uh, they're like, oh, we're gonna run outta time. And he goes, cannot run out of time. Time is infinite. You are finite.

Zs is finite. Time is infinite. I was like, that's a cool way to look at it. Yeah. And then just a few minutes later, Atheros goes, oh, not enough time. Not enough time. I was like, wait, you said that it's infinite. got all the time you need, man. Uh, he also said this, he goes, uh, and this might have been a quote from Babylon Squared, but it sticks out.

Now it's a great war, but it, but a great hope for peace. And I was like, yeah, yeah,

Jeff: yeah. Yes it is. Yeah. He was good. I, I loved, loved Zaris in the last episode, I think I alluded to him being my new favorite character. Mm-hmm. But in this one I loved it cuz it added so many dimensions to him, like, yeah, he's not just some dumb beast of burden.

This guy's well-read. Yeah. He,

Brent: no, he knows what hes doing. Doing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He, I mean, the, the dude can fix stuff. Like, yeah. He's an engineer. He's keeping the great machine going. He's 110 years old. He knows stuff about the machine. Draw doesn't even know yet, like, And, and he, and he, he's the one who's explaining this rule of three Jeff.

But we have a rule of three.

Jeff: Oh, we do. We're men Barr, we're minbar souls. Woohoo. . Who before we go down that path though. Okay. How old is the great Machine?

Do

Brent: we know that? They said 500 years, but for some reason the Great Machine has records from a thousand years ago. I'm sorry. Okay. They keep saying at least 500 years.

Okay. I feel like that great machine has to be from what if predating all of that.

Jeff: What if Atheros built it? Like what? Because he goes back in time. Yeah. And Sinclair valens up and goes and builds men. Bari society. Yeah. Did Atheros go build the great machine or start building it knowing that this

Brent: was coming?

I mean, Jeff, there's, there's so much of this, um, cyclical going back to the beginning and setting themselves up because. Sheridan takes the Tri luminary device from Dalen and goes back and turns himself into, um, Valin. Mm-hmm. , which then many thousands of or thousand years later, Dalen gets that same device out of the storage and takes it to turn herself into this demand and balance the deal.

And that's gonna then go back like it, it goes in this cyclical, you know, I've always been in this, in this thing. I mean, we, this is, this is data's head in times zero. Exactly. Winding up in the cave all the time. Right. So this, yeah. Uh, I mean, you know, this is Harry freeing himself and saving himself from the, from the Dementors, like mm-hmm.

It's, it's just the cyclical nature of, of how this whole piece goes.

Jeff: It keeps going. Yeah. So Z Atheros lays down the menari rule of

Brent: three. But, but, but the, the point of that though, because we're gonna talk about that rule of three, think how wise Zs has to be to understand that concept. That's like he gets it.

Yeah. And he's

Jeff: schooling these guys. Exactly. He gets it and he can explain it. That's the, to me, that is the real like dividing factor between, uh, a smart person and a truly intelligent person. Mm-hmm. smart person knows all the stuff. Truly intelligent person can communicate it in a way that other people can understand and Wow.

Did Atheros do that?

Brent: Mm-hmm. , and he says the three is a big number. Sinclair is the one, Dalin is the one, and Sheridan is the one together. They are Brett, the Hitman heart.

Jeff: I love that you brought the, cuz my note is right here. Literally, literally yesterday on Peacock, I watched an old WrestleMania flashback of Brett, the Hitman heart at WrestleMania 10.

He's my favorite wrestler growing up. And so as I, yeah, so great. The best there is. The best there was the best there ever will be and I'll die on that hill. He was that. But I think beyond that, back in comes the inquisitor, we kind of back and forth about like Jack the Ripper dude being like, you're both the one chosen one.

Yeah. I think was the term he, yeah, he did. You're right. And we're like, well how can they both be the chosen, well this is how, this is how the one that was the one who is and the one who will. B. Oh my gosh. And it makes so much sense to me too, right? Because Sinclair goes back in time to be who was, which means I think like the Rangers are now gonna be a Dalen thing.

Mm-hmm. , which makes her the one of now, but the big question is what does that mean for Sheridan? What does that mean for Dalen and the future that leads Sheridan to being the one for, for you know, for what

Brent: will be you. You know what bothers me about this though? And this is a stupid thing to bother me, but it bothers me.

I like symmetry. So here you have the one who was a thousand years ago. Mm-hmm. But now you got the one who is, and the one who will be hanging out together. Like I feel like there should be a lot more separation in that time. What

Jeff: if Sheridan is the one who will be through their son, David? because he doesn't exist yet.

I don't know. I'm just trying, I'm trying to spread out the isosceles triangle for

Brent: you. No, I'm, I'm not for that. I, I'm, I'm gonna say no. Yeah. I mean, it could go that way,

Jeff: but No, just shooting in the dark trying to find something. Yeah. Yeah. But what, what it hit me with though, is the concept and j m s has not shied away from using Catholicism for a lot of his storytelling.

And this is the Holy trinity. Yeah, absolutely. You have three unique beings mm-hmm. that are one nature that are spread across time and space. Mm-hmm. that exist everywhere at all times. Right. And it's just, it's, it's kind of the same thing.

Brent: Yeah. Three distinct people existing and perfect unity as one, like that's mm-hmm.

and it's a concept that's really hard to understand. So Yeah. We call it a mystery. Yeah. I'm, I'm gonna take that same thing and apply it here and just go, I don't understand, but, okay. Cool. I'm with you. Yeah, I'm with you. It's a mystery. Um, did you notice this? That, uh, old Jeff and Susan are on a first name basis.

Yeah.

Jeff: I did

Brent: notice that like Sheridan and Vva are not on a first name basis. No, but Jeff and Susan are right.

Jeff: Still. They were, they, they, I loved their relationship. Yeah. Back in the first season. I think now that there's no military, you know, there's no chain of command, no hierarchy or anything. It's all gone.

We can just be pals. Mm-hmm.

So Sinclair goes back in time. Mm-hmm. hooks up the machine. He ch criss

Brent: himself. Well, before he does that, he has a word with Marcus. Oh yeah. And we never got anything beyond that. Like he was, he wanted to have a word with Marcus, but then he winds up having an award with Atheros, Dylan and Sheridan. Now we get a shot of Marcus on the White Star, like just looking very, you know, Uh, knowing, which I assume mean they had that conversation, whatever he told Marcus.

I don't know. We'll come around to it maybe in the next couple of episodes or at

Jeff: some point. I have a theory. We'll, we'll get to it in our last game of this episode.

Brent: Okay. Fair enough. I think. Fair enough. But you're right. Sheridan. Ur Sinclair goes back,

Jeff: plugs the machine in Chrysalis is himself. Yeah. Comes out as a

Brent: minbar. Did you see that coming? Did you see him actually turning into a minbar?

Jeff: I did not. Either. I did not. I I felt like it was the soul. Yeah. Right. It was going to be the soul. But as soon as they dropped the line, right. He shows a human popping in with this.

You know, they'd eat him a lot, and it's like, of course they would. He has. And it was just, I mean, Marcus was the audience in that moment. Yeah. Right. Because like the second he says a Menari, that's not his. The second he says that, you're like, oh my God, he's gonna do this thing. . And I thought it was cool too from the context of Michael O'Hare as a sendoff for Michael O'Hare.

Mm-hmm. , how cool is it? It is like, Hey, you're gonna do a scene in full makeup? Like that's how you go out is in full makeup. Yeah, yeah. Totally. And we're gonna do it with these random volans that we know nothing about that Just with stole

Brent: counter suits. Yeah. Full encounter suits that have not changed in a thousand years.

Jeff: Exactly. It's a, my question there is, uh, is Kosh one of those volans, like, do, do they go back that

Brent: far? I was one of those Volans, the one that we saw at the beginning of last episode. The, the ambassador to, to mbar? Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. I, I have no reason to think Why not. So let's believe, let's say that one is Kosh and the other is Kosh Three.

Brent: There you go. And Kosh two is, there you go. Still chilling on VLAN somewhere.

Jeff: Do you think, I think my question on the, the Valin, the becoming valin thing mm-hmm. was, he looked full on Minbar. , but Dalen is a hybrid. Yeah. Do you think we're ever gonna get any insight in, or is that just gonna be a a thing? It it, it is kind of a thing.

There's

Brent: probably somebody out there typing a comment about how he wasn't actually fully biari and there was something that looked more human than the rest of the Mbar actually get. Maybe not, I'm not entirely sure. Um, that could just be a plot hole. It could just be, Hey, they needed a cool makeup thing for Mira Furland to look not human.

Yeah. So they left the, the head ridge, you know, um,

Jeff: hey. Cause it didn't even occur to me when I watched the episode, but after I watched it the second time and kind of time went on over the week, it just started like hitting me. I'm just like, wait, wait a minute. Like, and it took. A while to come outta that chrysalis.

Mm-hmm. . So I'm gonna assume like the trip took a while. Mm-hmm. , he had to call the volans and do a bunch of stuff. Had to get the, the

Brent: rock flaky stuff off his skin.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a whole metamorphosis that we missed. Yeah. Couple. It was a couple weeks, wasn't it? For, for her. Yeah. It was like eight

Brent: weeks, right?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. It's, I'm, I'm okay. Like skipping, going through all that, because what mattered was the reveal of him coming out at the end, you know? And

Jeff: literally the guy who creates

Brent: Mbar society. Yeah, exactly. And now the Mbar are, oh, Jeff, the Mbar string from Mbar Society as Valin set up, Dylan is now the one where Valin was the one before.

She's now the one to come in and put the SmackDown on everybody and reset the great council and reset all this sort of stuff.

Jeff: Think about the spectrum. The, the one who was, is a full, appears to be a full minbar. Mm-hmm. , the one who is, is a minbar human hybrid. The one who will be is a human or a orlon depending on which one of our many theories or Jaquan.

Yeah. He's an arm. Yeah. Could be all sorts of things, but like that's that change, that shift from Minbar. Mm-hmm. to hybrid to full human is almost like we've talked about that. How the minbar, were probably the younger go get em race in this thousand years ago. Shadow war. Mm-hmm. , the humans are that now and this shadow war, or appear to be mm-hmm.

And so like, is that the progression

Brent: that happens? So they, they mentioned something in this episode. Where, you know, they talk about how the mbar are losing their souls and they're investing themselves into humanity. In this episode, they said that it started about a thousand years ago. I felt like that was a relatively recent development when we first heard about it.

I thought so too. You know, um, so for a thousand years they've been losing their souls, which is an interesting thing. Does, does the fact that sh that um, Dalen having gone through her chrysalis, does it stop that process? Is there, are they continuing to unify? Like, are humans in Minbar actually the same folks, like, did the, did the humans Well now, because the humans would've been around a thousand years ago and had a developing culture,

Jeff: so Yeah.

They just wouldn't have been. Yeah. Cause a thousand years ago it was the 12 hundreds. Yeah. Right, right. So they just weren't space faring. Yeah. What if we don't know a lot about the soul hunters? And it was interesting uhhuh that they, they, they pulled that out in this one. Mm-hmm. . What if valin created the soul hunters as a way to start this happening?

Like, like how do you start moving souls around while you find this race that has a certain technology or power or whatever? What if he's the one who like fired up the soul hunters? I won't

Brent: like it, but if it is, then he is, but I won't like it, you know, because I want the soul hunters just to be soul hunters.

Like, let them just be their own deal. Still glad, I mean, we saw the clip of him now, and that's more soul hunter than I ever wanted in the rest of this

Jeff: show. Yeah, totally. Like we've, we've talked about going back and watching that or infection before. Yeah. A again and, uh, yeah, him, him popping up in this episode.

I'm like, Nope, I'm good. Yep.

Brent: Good. I'm, I'm, when we do Babylon five for the second time, that's an episode that I'm gonna be like, Hey, can we just skip this one? I remember. I don't need anything else.

Jeff: I am kind of curious though, Uhhuh, as to, this is my final thought on the, on the whole episode, and it's just a, just a, you know, a pondering When did Dalen know? Yes. Did she know? Like was it written in the letter? Yeah. Did she know back in Battle of the Line? Did you know, when did she, I'm curious about

Brent: that.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And how much did she know beforehand? Like, uh, I mean, what is this full, what is the full prophecy? That we don't know about,

Jeff: that they keep kind of adding onto mm-hmm. As the plot, right. Demands it.

Brent: Right. Like, hey, so there's Valin and, and I mean, you remember when Dylan says this to somebody in Val's name and in mine, putting her right there equal with vain, right?

Like,

Jeff: which makes sense if you know Valin is Sinclair

Brent: and if you know that they're both the one mm-hmm. , you know, um, but you're right. Like when did she know that this was gonna happen? Who has she told? Who else knows this prophecy and is either saying, yes, this is it, or No it's not. You know? Cause people can argue about unfulfilled prophecy, right?

Like in what it means. So who all actually knows about it is all good questions that we haven't answered yet.

Jeff: Yeah. This is the next two and a half seasons.

Brent: Two seasons and four episodes.

Jeff: Uh, yeah, it's true. I keep, I keep putting his way back. Yeah, it's not even way

Brent: back there. Yeah. Almost fourth fifth of a season.

Uh, so Jeff, I guess with that, we have reached the part of the show where it is time to boil this down and see if the show has any of what we call that star treky quality to it. Is there a deep moral message? Is there hope for the future? Are we holding up a mirror to society? I'm gonna rate this episode on a scale of zero to five deltas as far as how Star Trek this episode is.

But Jeff, you get the awesome side of rating this episode on a scale of zero to five star furries. As far, how much do we enjoy this episode? How Babylon five is this episode? I'm gonna go first with Deltas because it's gonna be a rather short one. There wasn't much. There wasn't much. This was a great episode.

We have great episodes of Star Trek that don't have much on the Star Trek message, and that's okay. This one was a great one. You could pull the treasure, the moments and you have and save with them and never come back again. You have the piece of, yes, there is a great war, but there's also great hope for peace because of this.

That's certainly in there. The one that I loved the most though was at the very end when they're back on the white star and the rest of the crew realized that she or that Sinclair's not there, and the rest of 'em were like, wait, we're really gonna let him stay. And Sheridan says it's what he wants.

Let's respect it to, to give somebody that, uh, honor of like, look, we may not agree with it. We may not agree with what this person wants to do with their life or how they want to live their life, or how they want to move forward with their life, but let's respect. And honestly it doesn't matter to us cuz it's not us.

Like just respect what they want to do. It's okay, not a big deal. Let's go, let's keep moving on with our lives. That's an awesome message. That was in no way, shape, or form central to what this show was supposed to be about. So on that basis, I'm only giving this, and this might be high, one and a half Deltas.

I think it's a little high.

Jeff: Yeah. But also it's great, it's super great. In the spirit though, of mirroring the, the ratings from last week, there's, if I, if I rated this anything less than five star Furies, you need to kick me in the head and never let me do a Babylon five podcast. Five star furries. Yeah.

Through literally the whole hour or so we've been talking. Mm-hmm. has been how amazing and great and well, I mean, to take the puzzle. Pieces of Babylon squared and two years later do a whole other thing with new characters and new stories and just slide it together seamlessly. Holy crud. This is a masterpiece.

Masterpiece of an episode.

Brent: You know what, five star, you know what it makes me wonder is if Sheridan wasn't always a planned character to come into the show at some point. Maybe we were gonna meet him in season three, but with the departure of Sinclair that just got accelerated in the season two. Maybe we were gonna meet him later in season two.

Like I like, I don't know. I think it like was he always a part of the plan?

Jeff: And I could see it, especially when the Centara Narn war started. Mm-hmm. . I could see them pulling a, Hey, things are really ramping up over here. We need an ambassador. Over here on Minbar, and we need a military commander in on Babylon,

Brent: or Sheridan was gonna be the ambassador to, to Minbar while Sinclair State is the, the captain of Babylon five.

And he literally just flip flopped those two roles. Which, to go back to that question of how much of Sheridan's role was actually meant to be Sinclair's, it kind of washes that out. Mm-hmm. , you know, and, and sh it is what it is because they're, they are the, the three, and Sheridan and Sinclair are inextricably linked for the rest of the show, even if we never see Michael O'Hara's face again.

Jeff: Exactly. Yeah. Totally. I would love, love to have that insight from j m s. Like, what, when, when you had your outline and you were shopping this around, what did this episode look like when Sinclair was gonna be around the whole time? To you folks

Brent: out there. Um, please no spoilers, but if it's not a spoiler to tell us, we'd love to know, but no spoilers going forward.

Um, well Jeff, uh, just like last season and we've been doing this for a while now, we are creating the absolute 100% completely accurate and definitive. No other podcast will touch this one because this is the correct one ranking of season three of Babylon five. My question to you Good, sir, is where do we place war without End part two.

Our current ranking is War Without End Part One, severed Dreams, point of No Return, ship of Tears and Messages from Earth. And I wanna throw something out there. I know we watched these says two separate episodes. , but in the ranking, is there room for A one, A one B two-parter to share a slot?

Jeff: I feel like that's a fantastic conversation for our season three wrap up , which will be happening here in just a couple weeks, right?

And hey, while we're talking about the wrap up, Uhhuh , we're doing a cool giveaway in that thing. Gets your ratings, your reviews in, you're gonna get, we got right now, we got two star theories. You got two chances to win rating reviews. Send us a screenshot, you'll be in the drawing. We'll pull it up. It's gonna happen in our season three wrap up where among many other things we're gonna talk about if we'll have a one A and one B between World without end Part one and two.

Because Brent, this is our new number one mm in the ranking. In fact, I'm gonna go one step further and I'm gonna say that for me right now. This is my number one episode of Babylon five

Brent: oh so far. I haven't thought about it to that extent, but I could share that same feeling entirely possible.

Jeff: So very good.

This, this, this was, we loved Babylon squared. This just made that so much better and it detracted nothing from the original. It was just, it's, I said it before. I'll say it again. An absolute masterpiece that I sadly have to draw to a close, because that's it for War Without End Part two. Now next week, next week, we're gonna watch Grace 17 is missing for the first time.

We don't read up on these. We don't look at synopsis, we don't look at screenshots, thumbnails, anything about the episodes that are coming up. We like to play this game where we guess what the episode is gonna be based on the title of it alone. The next one, Brent, is Gray. 17 is missing. What do you think it's gonna be about?

Brent: I've got it as one of two things. Okay. Uh, to say Gray 17, that, that calls to mind two very separate things. One is, do, do we know Jeff? Is there a gray section of the station? Yes. Like there's a brown and a green and a blue. Is there a gray section? It's like

Jeff: engineering. Okay. It's all the mechanics and stuff.

Brent: So Gray 17 are, that station could be a portion of the station that is missing. Maybe it got blip in, like it's, uh, something got blip from this last episode or something of that nature. Like this, this whole section is just like gone, or there's a, a tacky on field over it or something like that. Like it's just it.

Hollywood Tower of Terror gone. Right. Or, or what does Dylan always say? What is the Gray council? The Gray council always say, Ooh, we are the gray. We stand between the candle and the darkness, or something like that. Right? Like, we exist the candle and the star. Yeah. Like we are the gray Gray 17 could be a code name for someone on the gray council, or like some minion of the gray.

Like it's the gray Council's spy. It's their something and, and it's, you know, you got oh oh seven, this is Gray 17 and that guy is missing. Or girl, like they're, they're missing and we've gotta go find them. It's one of the like, those are the only two places my mind goes. How about you?

Jeff: So Grace Sector, we've seen a handful of times.

The one that pops to mind was back when Sheridan learned about. Babylon four. And he was down walking through gray sector and he saw that Marab down on the ground and then that energy seek, uh, creature popped into his head. Mm-hmm. . So I was like, this is a pretty abandoned part of the station. Mm-hmm. . So I think that between the strife going on on Minbar, with the Gray Council being a mess, Sinclair no longer on the planet to kinda keep things together for the Rangers, they need a new Rangers headquarters basically.

And so they're gonna stage, like, they're gonna have Garabaldi stage, an accident or something of some kind that makes it look like Section Gray. 17 is blow up. It's no good, it's garbage. Just don't go there. We're closing it off. It's, it's, it's a dangerous place, but they're gonna convert it into a training, a training facility that Sinclair, before he took off, had a little confab with Marcus.

Mm-hmm. and basically handed off like they, um, in Tila. I run, I think that's running the Rangers. , I need you to be the, the, my, my boots on the ground. I need you running the training. The training. Oh yeah. That happens. And so, but where it's gonna go a step even further and make it cool. Mm-hmm. is, Marcus is gonna be like, I can't do this by myself.

I'm a self-doubting guy, so I'm gonna do that all day long and I'm gonna enlist my good friend Lanier and Marcus and Lanier are gonna be in Gray 17 training up new rangers, kind of the payoff from all the Avalon stuff with Marcus and Lanier. You had to bring up

Brent: that episode. Yeah. Sorry about that. Oh my gosh.

I don't, I don't What's worse? Avalon or Soul Hunter.

Jeff: Wow. Wow. Um, . I gotta think about that one.

Brent: It should be soul hunter. Just, just

Jeff: to be clear. Well, this is, I'll tell you why it's Soul Hunter, because Soul Hunter doesn't have Kar leaping over the railing to just start throwing down with a bunch

Brent: of Listen.

I, I will, we may have been a little overly harsh on Avalon. Maybe we may have, we, we'll discuss this in the wrap up more. We might have been a little overly harsh. We weren't that overly harsh though. It was just um, but sword fighting is always cool. Sorry. It was dumb. It was just dumb. Yeah. Yeah. Sword fighting is always cool though.

And that that more than makes up for anything in Soho. And dumb

Jeff: dumb can be fun. Sure. Like there's that. But one wasn't fun. Hunter was soul Hunter was beyond It was, but Avalon wasn't fun either.

Brent: If

Jeff: it had fun parts. Yeah.

Brent: Okay. Anyway.

Jeff: Anyway. Well listen, we're gonna find out right here next week what grade 17 is missing is all about.

Thank you so much for joining us on our Little Suray, our Journey through the War Without End. If you haven't already, please subscribe or follow us wherever you're listening or watching, and leave us a review. Take a screenshot of it, send it to us. Either email Babylon five first gmail.com. It's a number five in the word first or at Babylon.

First on Twitter. We'll get you put into the drawing in our season three wrap up. Not only do you have a chance to win some star theories, but I will at some point read your review here on the podcast. So until next time

and until Brent, you're supposed to cut. You're supposed to cut me off.

Brent: Not, not this time, Jeff. We have much

Jeff: work ahead of us. I'll then peace, victory. And Long life.