Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast.
My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was,
Brent: And I'm Brent Allen, and I am the one who will be.
Jeff: and we're watching Babylon 5 for the first time For you, the one who is,
Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters that are searching for the important messages that Babylon five is trying to deliver in its own unique way.
Jeff: Babylon. Five messages, not Star Trek messages. Cause Brent, this is not a podcast about Star Trek despite what people thought for many years and still say from time to time we don't talk about Star Trek on this podcast. In fact, we go so far to ensure that we don't, that we play the rule of three. This is a game that limits us total to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode.
That hits three. Three. One of those plays. No substitutions. Exchanges a refund.
Brent: Yeah, and we do put those limits on there because as we said, we are Star Trek podcasters and sometimes they just happen to slip in. But if we do mess up and we put one in, because you know what Jeff, I said this in the Brent Watches video, star Trek doesn't own the monopoly on messages in television,
Jeff: Very true.
Brent: you know?
Uh, so we're trying to talk about Babylon five, not Star Trek. If we do talk about Star Trek, you're gonna hear this sound. You should not hear it more than three times in the entire episode total. Cuz Jeff and I have gotten that. Good.
Jeff: We've gotten really good. We've had episodes with a zero, actually.
Brent: Wow. I just, you know, we're getting more and more into the Babylon five thing, man. And, well, anyway, with that, uh, there's another game we like to play, Jeff. It comes at the end of every episode where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be based on title alone. And this is the part where we play a game called,
Jeff: Time to pay the piper.
Brent: and this is where we revisit our prediction from last week and see if we got it right.
So, Jeff, last week, what did you predict the ragged Edge was gonna be about?
Jeff: I thought it was gonna be a Garibaldi, specifically a drunk Garibaldi episode, but I thought he was gonna be on the chase for ster heading to Mars and we'd end up with a face-to-face with him and, uh, Lee Hampton Edgars Garibaldi. And uh, yeah. So I thought that was gonna be, uh, the focus of this one.
Brent: Jeff, I'm gonna give you 55% on this one. You're getting 50% just for, uh, drunk Garibaldi being about him, right? Uh, I, because I think that's half the episode you completely missed on everything else, but I'm gonna give you an extra five bonus percentage points for saying that we're gonna be on Mars because my world, my word, my what, what did I say?
Because my word does the drowsy home world not look like Mars.
Jeff: Right.
Brent: I, I, I legitimately, Jeff. Thought that it was Mars for like the first five minutes that we were there. Maybe not quite that long, maybe not that long ago. Maybe five seconds. But still my first impression was like, Hey, we're back at Mars. No wait.
We're not going to Mars. We're going to Thessy home world.
Jeff: We're gonna use the Mars sets and we're gonna call it the Draws You Home World cuz it that definitely had that. Well, thank you for that generous score. What did you think this week was gonna be about?
Brent: I, I said that this also was gonna be Garibaldi diving back into the bottle, unfortunately. Uh, but I thought with the telepath thing being done. Yeah. I had no idea. So my other thought was Londo and Jaar, um, in an elevator. No, no. Uh, Londo and Jaar back on Centara Prime doing Londo and Jaar stuff on Sari Prime moving into Lao's reign as emperor of, of the Centara debris Sari.
Yeah. Uh, that, that was, that was as far as I got cuz I, I had no idea where we were going.
Jeff: Well, I'll give you a solid 50 cuz we got drunk Garibaldi. Uh, we did get some Londo and Jaar, but the focus on this one was Jaar and not Londo. So
Brent: And not on Sari Prime.
Jeff: at all. We're, we're a good month, month, and a half away from Centara Prime apparently. But listen, we're dropping all these specifics about this episode.
There's probably, I don't know, six, 7,000 people out there who were like, I don't remember this episode. I, what are you talking about? So, Brent, can you, for the benefit of our incredible community, walk us through the ragged edge.
Brent: Well, over the last bunch of weeks, we keep hearing these rumors about these attacks on the supply lines of the various member worlds of the Alliance, but no one knows who's doing it and they're just getting worse and worse. Members of the Alliance are basically threatening to pull out of the alliance if the alliance can't stop them, because otherwise, what's then the point of being in an alliance at All Alliance?
Well, the good news or bad news, but in a good way is there's been another ship that's been attacked, but this time there was a survivor where there never has been one before. And maybe just maybe this guy can finally tell us who is behind the attacks. The only problem, he was a smuggler transporting illegal goods between the Alliance worlds, highly illegal stuff in the Alliance stuff, which all member worlds have sworn off officially anyway, because they're totally still trading all of these things on the back channels.
But they have to use smugglers like this guy. And now this guy is hiding out on the drowsy home world and he's got everyone after him. See first. They're the attackers who don't like to leave witnesses alive. They want him gone. And then there's the drowsy government who wants him gone because he could expose them for still trading in these goods that they said that they weren't gonna do anymore.
And then there's also the people that were supposed to receive the goods. Well, they want 'em dead because, well, he didn't deliver. And then there's the alliance. Alliance is after him cuz they need information. And in this case, that's Mr. Garibaldi. And honestly, that sounds like the best situation for this guy.
Well, Garibaldi just conveniently happens to have a friend on the drowsy home world who's connected to all this sort of stuff, kind of like a mob boss in his own right. So Garibaldi travels to dsi, dsi, the home world, Sai d Zania, dsn, whatever it is, leaving a much rebuffed. Dr. Franklin behind on Babylon five.
We'll come back to that in a few minutes. Garibaldi meets up with his friend who gets him passed out drunk on Aldo Baron whiskey, but it's all good. There's a plan for Garibaldi to meet the survivor, and Garibaldi wakes up just in time to see the signal light. After saving off an attack from a purple and green wearing Dsy police guard, he arrives too late only to found, only to find the survivor, not a survivor anymore, with a group of cloaked bad guys who made him not a survivor anymore.
Well, Garibaldi knocks him out, and then he hightails it off of the Jossy home world with nothing but a button. A button that Londo immediately recognizes is a button from the Palace Guard, from the uniform of a Sari Palace Guardsman. The rest of the crew decide not to tell Londo where they got it from, because now he's a liability.
It's not that they don't trust him, they just don't trust him. At least with that information. And with that, they'll break this plot line for this episode. Now, while all of that is happening, Jaar was having a bit of a crisis of his own. You see, while he was gone to Sari Prime with Londo, Lon took the book that Jaar had been working on and published it.
And now we officially have the book of Jaar going back to one of Jeff's predictions many, many episodes ago. And lemme tell you what the book of Jaar is about to put the book of Jaquan in the number two slot. And now Jaar is seen as a religious leader to his own people. It's a position that he doesn't really want, and he's basically worried that he's just gonna screw the whole thing up.
I mean, sure he uses some other excuses, but Telon sees through all of them and calls Jaar to be better, to bear his burden for his people. Jaar Acquiesces. But he's not giving up his day job. I'm sorry. Lemme try that one again. Well, Jaar Acquiesces, but he's sure not giving up his day job as Lao's personal bodyguard either.
Well, this whole situation's gonna take some getting used to, especially for Jaar. And one last thing before the episode's over Dr. Franklin speaking of him. Well, he's made a decision, a decision that at the end of this year when the series is over, he's leaving Babylon five to take up a post that Dr. Kyle remember him will be retiring from.
We'll be retiring from back on Earth Dome. Franklin wanted to tell Sheridan first, but he also wanted to tell Garibaldi, well, he told Sheridan, but he can't quite get ahold of Mr. Garibaldi because he's back in his room once again, passed out drunk, having fully fallen off the wagon. Jeff, what are your overall impressions of this episode?
The Ragged Edge,
Jeff: What a breath of fresh air.
Brent: right?
Jeff: Yeah. Like, we're watching Babylon five again. We're back.
Brent: Yes, exactly.
Jeff: Felt so good watching this. It was hard. I think, I think I was expecting things, uh, you know, that that didn't happen like I was expecting. Not good stuff. I think we've been kind of conditioned this season for that and not at all.
Uh, it had a very, this felt like a nineties, late nineties sci-fi TV show, but like, not in a bad way. I, I, I, it's hard to describe like it's, um, Babylon five seasons, three and four especially, were so big, just massive, you know, and we were tracking seeds that had been planted and things were big. This is like, we've zoomed in to like the highest magnification level there is.
This reminds me of back when, uh, the beginning of the, the Centara Narin war when they sent rangers and the analyst shock down to Narin to deliver messages, right. To like kinda set jaar up and stuff. And we were talking about how I wanna see how they did that, you know, in 24 hours they did this. I want to, this is the stuff that we're seeing now.
We're seeing those little missions. It happens to be Garibaldi doing it or things like that. Um, you know, which is, I think it's really cool. I'm a little disappointed in myself in that I really felt strongly that J Garibaldi was hitting the bottle to impact that neural block so he could get ster. I'm really starting to feel like he's just fallen off the wagon.
He's just sick again, uh, expressing his illness again, which, um, I don't know. Maybe not right? I mean, maybe this is taking us down a path.
Brent: I, Jeff, you are holding out a candle of hope that I have had extinguished fully by this episode. Like, I, I don't think we're anywhere close to, you know, doing the whole thing for ster. This is just Garibaldi being Garibaldi.
Jeff: I'm holding onto it and I got, I got more. I will see. But, but I, I, I lost a lot of faith in this one. I loved the Jaar stuff, all the jaar and the stuff that happened in this was so good. Um, Lon, every time he's on is amazing. I, I love how he like counterpoints stuff for Jaar really well. Um,
Brent: know what? He could be, he could be the no naau,
Jeff: that's, yes. It's exactly like, like my note here is literally, um, like Talon is, is Naau without the stank on his name, NAAU
Brent: right, right,
Jeff: Talon, you know?
Brent: right.
Jeff: Yeah. I,
Brent: He's with a sword.
Jeff: yeah. Instead of a wrench.
Brent: Right.
Jeff: But what, what I, what I loved about this episode really is we've had Jesus Byron shoved.
Brent: Jeff, I'm so sorry. It just came to me. Oh, our next t-shirt, it's a silhouette of Telon with his sword drawn back to back with a silhouette of naau with her wrench drawn. And it's like protecting Jaar with whatever you got on hand or whatever, like, but just a silhouette of the two of them.
Back to back. One with a sword, one with a wrench
Jeff: the ultimate narn task force.
Like, yeah.
Brent: there.
Jeff: Love it. But, uh, what I loved
about, what I loved about this one is we had Jesus Byron shoved down our throats for so long, and it felt ridiculous. It felt, uh, unearned. Whereas here we have Jesus jaar now, and it feels, feels earned. It feels like we've worked to this.
I I want to extend a thank you, some gratitude to our community out there for not freaking out on us. Way back and by any means necessary, when we were like, where'd this religious stuff with Jaar come from?
Brent: Right. Oh, they did. They did. Like, I remember some people, they were like, we, you just met 'em. Like, you don't know everything about 'em just yet. And I was like, yeah, okay. That's fair, I guess, but yeah. Yeah.
Jeff: but I love what,
what I, I
Brent: It's a big part of who Jaar is.
Jeff: apparently, what, what did we know?
Brent: Right. But to be fair, by any means necessary, if I remember that, that was like episode nine, like it, it was enough into the run that to pull this out, all of a sudden it, the, in the moment felt like this is something new.
So
Jeff: Yeah. Apparently it was a big deal. Still is a really big deal for him. But I think, like for me, I, I love this cuz he's like, he's, he's like Pope Francis level of like, We're gonna question all the sacred cows, you know, like, and, and, and in doing all that work, we're just gonna, they're just gonna, jaar is gonna be feeding us white star messages here through the end of the series at this point.
And a question I have is, before I hand off and hear your impressions on it, is, uh, I felt bad for Franklin in this. I felt like he was fishing for validation of friendship and stuff. And we'll talk about how that went down. But, um, but my question is like, are we gonna start getting these post series like setups for people?
Like, oh, he's, you know, the, he's gonna go off and do the Xenobi thing and Zach's gonna go off and do this so that when this series ends, we're like, oh, this is, this is the kind of closure that we're like the old music videos, you know, he went on to become of
Brent: A thousand percent. There is no way Zack is ever leaving Babylon five.
Jeff: he'll be the next commander.
Brent: what I mean. Zack is a lifer on like Sheridan and, and Delen. We already, they're gonna wind up on Minbar at the Alliance headquarters. Garibaldi is gonna go with them. Uh, Franklin's gonna wind up back on Earth and Earth. Dome Ivanova is already gone.
Uh uh, commander Lockley is gonna stay and Zach is gonna stay,
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: you know, and Lao's either gonna be back on Cinta or he's gonna be dead cuz he very well could be dead. Him and Jaar both could be dead by the end of the, this whole thing. Right. Um, Vera will be emperor back, back on, on Sari Prime. And who else am I missing? Lita. Lita will be. Oh God, dude, we've never talked about what's gonna happen to Lita.
Jeff: she's off building this whole resistance or war thing or whatever that, thank God didn't get even a reference in this
episode.
Brent: Exactly. So yeah, I, I think, I think we, I think we kind of have an idea where everybody winds up, but it's certainly the whole Franklin thing felt like that. Like, we're gonna go ahead and just drop this in for you for a while. It's like,
Jeff: let's do this. He can, whatever, and then, you know, we'll just know that he's gonna go off and do cool things. And that was so cool. They dropped Benjamin, you know, Dr. Kyle, that was, that was a great callback.
Brent: That, that, that was one of those, if they, if they hadn't mentioned Dr. Kyle, you and I would be sitting here going right now and be like, it'd been a great place to drop Dr. Kyle's name. He's perfectly set up for it,
Jeff: Remember that dude went back to Earth, like, what's, yeah,
Brent: know what this is, this is us reaching back 30 years telling jms, Hey, this is, this is the perfect spot to bring up Dr.
Kyle again.
Jeff: Once again, you're welcome out there for, for completing that. For you. What were your, your overall impressions on this
Brent: Yeah. So you remember back in the middle of season four when we had all those sort of meh episodes right in the middle. You know, they weren't bad episodes. They just didn't seem to do much. I think you and I like, we're watching one, the episode was fine, but what are we doing? Why are we here?
And, and at the same time, we eventually began to understand that what these episodes were doing was they were serving like you could, you could feel it. They were putting pieces into place. Like the episodes felt almost incomplete on some level, but they were, you know, this is going over here and we're gonna move this over here and we're gonna move this over here, and we have to have those in order to get ready to where we're going here over the next couple of episodes.
That's what it feels like is happening here, to me, is this episode feels like it's positioning people in the right spot for whatever this last run of however many episodes is gonna be. I imagine we're probably looking like a 10 episode. 10. 10, you know. Maybe eight episode run here. That's just gonna, I hope blow us away at the end of the season.
I really do. Um,
Jeff: Well, it's kinda like, I think on that too, this is the, we were, this, I don't wanna say disappointed, but we were, we were a little let down by, by those mid-season four episodes, but they were coming off of the long night and into the fire, like just these, these, you know, pull in the tent episodes. Whereas this one, it's just like you have, you have beaten us into abject submission with this Byron storyline.
And now, thank
Brent: This one feels good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um, so I mean, that being said, I don't feel like a lot happened in this episode, but a lot of moving did. And I know I'm probably getting reamed by that out there, but I mean, think about like, like what really happened. I. The power is the B discovered that the centara are the ones who are behind the shipping line attacks.
Right? Jaar gets a new status in, what was the B plot of the episode? Let's face it. Ja car's whole thing was B plot level, right? Like he gets a new status there. Uh, and we've set up what Franklin's gonna be doing after the series. Um, we've already known Garibaldi was falling off the wagon. We just incorporated that into the overall storyline.
There's still a lot that went on, but not a lot actually happened at the same time. Like, it, it feels, it feels this episode feels setting up for other things. Like it almost feels incomplete, but was complete, like, had a beginning, middle, and end. So, I dunno, it was an interesting episode. It was a very interesting episode.
Did I absolutely love this episode? No. Did I love this episode in season five based off of what we've gotten so far? Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: You know, um, So that's, that's kind of where it was. Now I do have to wonder, Jeff, if we could start here, let's start talking about Garibaldi if we could. So you say you're holding out hope that Garibaldis doing this for the whole Bester thing. I'm just saying he's full on, fallen off the wagon. Either way are they trying to imply that Garibaldis re, I'm gonna call it a relapse, somehow affected his mission in this episode?
Jeff: I think so. Yeah.
Brent: Because I don't think it actually did.
I think they might be trying to imply that, but him passing out drunk there on the terrace with Tafi,
Jeff: Ta.
Brent: was that his name, him passing out drunk on the terrace didn't change a thing.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: Like he's just passed out drunk. Tafi is hanging out. Like, he's like, Hey, I gotta go set you up for some stuff. Well first we're gonna get drunk and we'll sleep.
And TAFIs like, okay, I'm gonna go do that thing. I said I was gonna do watch out for the, for the signal. And Garibaldi wakes up. It's not like, He was trying to flash the signal at him and Garibaldi was passed out. Drunkness in the signal. You know, like, like is the implication that he was down there for too long waiting on Garibaldi and then that's how he got caught up with the sari.
Jeff: I, I don't know what they want us, I think they want us to think he screwed up because he was drunk. But the only thing I
can think of he screwed up is he, uh, he might have taken down one of the clo dudes, like he might have fought a little better, maybe.
Brent: maybe, maybe, maybe he wouldn't have launched himself full into the dude and caught his button and then been able to figure out what was going on. Like it just didn't feel like him being drunk caused that big of a deal. Cause I think the guy still would've wound up dead. Aldi still saw the light. It didn't change defeat.
Defeat didn't survive because of whatever. Garibaldi still fought off this drowsy dude while Garibaldi was still hungover drunk. And by the way, I know, you know, it looked pretty badass when Garibaldi dropped the dude over the, over the balcony, but then the guy climbed back up over the balcony, so he must not have fallen that far, you know?
Jeff: I was like, they must be terraced balconies. He just literally landed one floor below,
Brent: right, right. So,
Jeff: kind of hurt. Let me get back up there.
Brent: so anyway, I just, I don't think that Garibaldi getting drunk again was really anything other than just showing us an addict relapsing, and it didn't really impact the overall story. Now that a rela a, an, an addict relapsing is bad enough, and I do not mean to make light of that at all.
Please don't hear me making light of that. I just don't think, I think that, I think there was an impression that it was supposed to affect the plot, but it didn't seem to me
Jeff: It didn't. I think if anything it, it's what you said, it was putting pieces into place, you know, so this may have had some impact on the mission maybe. Well, I guess the impact it had is he didn't let anybody come help him. You know, he shut Franklin down and who knows, maybe if Franklin was there, things might have gone differently.
But that's conjecture at best.
Brent: Right.
Jeff: But the important thing is like he missed the 10 o'clock or he missed the, you know, 8:00 AM meeting with Zach to go over reports, woke up at 10, he missed the call from uh, Franklin at the end. And so I think it's more about putting those pieces into place, like he's missing out on commitments.
Brent: And, and that's a, that's a thousand percent there. I'm talking more specifically about this particular mission
Jeff: yeah, the mission,
Brent: there is, is a thousand percent.
Jeff: I think the important thing in the mission was when. He went to pour him the booze and he was like, nah. Yeah. Okay. Like, it was like showing that last, like, I'm gonna, no, I'm not. I'm, I'm, I'm in this right now.
Brent: the Alder Baron Whiskey.
Jeff: Yeah. It took me a while to pick up on that.
Brent: Hey, man. That dude, that was, that was some green, green stuff, wasn't it?
Jeff: What does it taste like? Green?
Brent: Uh, too bad it wasn't.
Jeff: And also I'm writing your earlier reference on that one,
Brent: There you go. No, that's, that's fair. Um, hey, uh, that precision signal light as a precision signal light was a laser pointer.
Jeff: that was,
Brent: I play with that with my cat. Okay. I don't own a cat, but like, seriously.
Jeff: It's just, yeah. Hey, hey buddy. It's gonna be fine. Look, just point this at this balcony. No, it's cool. It's cool. Trust me. And just flick it, flick it and everything will be fine.
Brent: Right. Um, okay. Let me ask you this. Uh, Franklin, we'll tie this into the whole Franklin thing. Franklin leaving. I feel like this should have been more impactful, but I was kind of like, The idea that, yeah, he's gonna stay till the end of the year, and then he is leaving and we know that this is the end of the, of the show.
Like the, the people watching knew that this was the end of the show, right?
Jeff: I believe so. Yeah.
Brent: Like it was, we're bringing back for one more season and then this is done. Like, like they knew that in the moment there wasn't hope for a sixth season. The idea that Franklin would be leaving at the end of the show, like it took all the teeth out of the announcement.
Right now for me, like what? I, I didn't, I didn't get nearly as emotional as, uh, Sheridan seemed to, and Franklin was wearing this real heavy, like, I've made a decision to go. Here's my question to all of that though. Was this decision if impacted by Garibaldi, refusing to take Franklin on mission with him?
Jeff: I think, I think it was, and then Garibaldi kind of blowing him off when Franklin confronted him. I, I lo, I loved Franklin going to Garibaldi and just being like, dude, are we good?
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: that was, that was awesome. And it was a real good callback to when Franklin was starting to, you know, have his STEM addiction really impact his work.
And Garibaldi kind of did the same thing. Hey man, are we good? I'm here for you. You can talk. And now it's Franklin doing the same thing. I really, really liked that, but I think, I think that was definitely the thing that pushed him over the edge and, and pushed his decision.
Brent: yeah, yeah.
Jeff: You know, who I missed in, you know who I missed in that though,
Brent: Oh, who's that?
Jeff: Marcus?
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: I, I felt Marcus being gone in that moment. I, I think, I think the scene with Sheridan could have been precursor. Like I could have been pushed out an episode or two and this one instead had a conversation with Marcus. And I feel like that would've been pretty powerful.
Brent: You know, I was, when, when Sheridan first said, I want Dr. Franklin to go with you, and he is like, no, stay behind my first response. Never leave your wing, man. Because frankly, I was thinking about Franklin being a part of this like buddy cop deal, but it was with Marcus, not Gar Baldy. Oh. Like he's never really had this with Gerald Baldy, has he?
Except for the, the whole addiction stuff that Garal walked him through.
Jeff: There was that, and then like back in Hunter Prey where they went looking for Dr. So crates together. Like they've had moments, but not like, not like him and Marcus.
Brent: yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. I forgot about Okay.
Jeff: Yeah. I, um,
Brent: That when they were talking though, I, I'm sorry. When they were talking there, having their little heart to heart, you're just talking about there, that was a scene that I felt was so wonderfully played, like it was so well acted because I. I really felt from Richard Biggs Franklin sitting there going, dude, are we okay? I also felt his underpinning of going, I'm here if you need to talk because I think I know what's going on.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: But I also heard all of Garibaldis words, which made logical sense like, no dude, we're fine.
It's just I gotta go do this thing and he's not gonna trust you and that's gonna blow the whole thing up. And, but every single line of that felt wrong.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: felt like a total lie, like a bold phase lie. It was just, I mean, it, it was a great scene. I just thought it was like they, they both played this one to perfection.
Jeff: and I think it's a, you know, we, we historically, I very specifically historically have been really hard on Dr. Franklin. And, but one thing I've never been hard on is Richard Biggs. I've always been impressed with what he brings to the table in this episode, both with Garibaldi and later with Sheridan. The just, it was great.
Like the, he had real emotion, he had real conflict, um, you know, going on inside of him. It was, it was good. But I think, like, to your point, you can say something that is true, right? Like what Garibaldi said, it's true,
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: but it's not the truth. And I think that that rang with Franklin, you know, Hey, I can't argue with you, Garibaldi.
What you're saying is right, but you're still lying. And I can feel that. I can sense that. And so I'm not gonna push, but I'm just gonna be here. You know, I'm, I'm gonna be a good friend. I thought it was well acted. I thought it was well written and it just, it there's very complex scene that was, yeah. It was done really well.
Brent: Um, Garibaldi said that the whole mission was FUBAR,
Jeff: Yeah.
If you're not familiar right, that means up with, uh, or sorry, up beyond all recognition.
Brent: I was like, wow, that's, that's something else. Hey, did you think that the guys in cloaks were humans when you first saw 'em?
Jeff: no, when I first saw them, I didn't.
Brent: Okay, here's the thing. I had this revelation while I was in the middle of the recording thing, right? When we, when we realized that, and this was when Londo was talking to 'em, like, oh yeah, look at this button.
I know what this is from. We've known that the sari are the ones who've been attacking the, the, the, the lines, right?
Jeff: Sort of, yeah.
Brent: known this like, like this is not new information to us, the viewer.
Jeff: they showed us a sari ship attacking on the, the shipping lanes. I think what we don't know, and this is just me
Brent: as Ari shit, by the way,
Jeff: really, it
Brent: not have recognized I did not, I would not have recognized that as Ari
Jeff: Oh, it's very, I thought it was
Brent: But we, but no, but I'm sorry. But what we knew this from was when Londo and Jaar were on the home world, and we found out that the drop and the other folks, they were the ones that were attacking the shipping lines via the sari.
Jeff: Yes. And I think that was, it's still my question is are they just using centara assets and stuff to go do the, the thing to set them, because. What we know from War Without End is their goal and mission is to punish the centa for what they did. So they're trying to implicate them here, but, or, or if they've somehow gotten the centa to do it.
Like we, I don't know which one it is, but I still think it's the dark minions that are behind everything. Back to Franklin real quick. Like we talked about the genius of the scene between him and Garibaldi. I don't feel the same about the scene with him and Sheridan. I hated Sheridan's response.
Brent: Dude, Dr. Franklin. Wow. Why?
Jeff: I felt it was cold.
I thought it was impersonal. Um, like they have a Bond. Sheridan and Franklin, it goes all the way back to Revelations. When they used the quality of Mercy Machine on Garibaldi, like they'd been through some stuff. He could have been heartfelt.
Brent: Well wait a minute. That doesn't, um, but that machine just help me out that, that's not like a mind meld where like we share a mind and now we have like a eternal connection
Jeff: No.
Brent: like somebody donated an organ and so now literally a part of me is inside of you. It's not that kind of a thing,
Jeff: No, but I think it was just that bond where like Franklin was gonna do it himself, and Sheridan's like, no, let me do it. And they just had that mo like Sheridan's brand new to the station and through a conflict really, you know, uh, d disagreement on how to handle fixing up Garibaldi, they started building a bond at that point.
And I think, I think that he was just so, uh, manager, like she was such a manager in this, you know, oh, you are a, you're a valuable member of the team. And then in this line killed me. And on a strictly personal level, I value your friendship. What, what? Like how about, how about, oh my God. I mean, Steven, this is incredible.
I mean, I can't think of anybody more talented or better set up for this thing, but I got, I mean, I'd be lying if I said I was happy. I'm gonna, dude, I'm gonna miss you. I love working with you. I love having, you know, you in my life, this is gonna be really hard, but I mean, you're, you're a valuable member of our team and this is what you need to do.
And so I'm gonna support you in doing that. But dude, this is ouch. Like, just do that,
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: you know? But it wasn't, it was, it was so cold, it was so impersonal. And, uh, like for me, I'm a dude who's actively in therapy to become more in tune with my emotions and expressing them. And I just watch that and I'm like, Sheridan, dude, you got some work to do.
Like, let's open those doors. Let's open 'em up a little bit.
Brent: that might be the difference because I'm not, um, and you are, and Jeff, you're doing great work, buddy.
Jeff: Thank you.
Brent: That said, I read this completely different. Like I just, I read it like as Sheridan being taken, like he caught it. He was caught off guard like Sheridan's in there just doing his work, signing more treaties, signing more treaties, signing more treaties, whatever DE's putting in front of his face, he's signing, she, she could drop a, she could drop a, a, a, the fattest credit card bill in the world in front of him.
He wouldn't even recognize it. He just, you know what I mean?
Jeff: I loved that, by the way. That's so real. That is so that's, that's my job every day.
Brent: That's, that's me and my wife. Like I take care of all the, all that stuff. And, and like I just kind of hand her a stack of paper sometimes and she's like, are we good? And I'm like, we're fine babe. Level of trust there that we have developed and earned over many years.
Anyway, um, he was just caught off guard in the middle of the night and it seemed like, and it took him a minute to process the whole thing. And it was, it was a, I don't like this, I don't want you, you got like, I felt like I watched him kind of internalize or internally go through those processes of going, yep, but if this is where you're supposed to be, I've gotta support you in that cuz you're my friend.
I love you, I wanna see you do well yourself. Like that's the way I read it, but yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. I think too a, as a manager who has had people that, like, I liked, I liked them, but frankly I was kind of glad that they'd found another opportunity like, oh good, this is actually, you know, gonna be better.
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: I've reacted in similar ways to this. Like, oh wow, you know, you're, you're just such a great member of this team.
You mean a lot to me, and I understand you have to make this choice and you know, how can I make your transition easy and faster? But like, it just, it just really just, it rang
Brent: you don't have to work out your two weeks. It'll be fine.
Jeff: Yeah. We'll be fine. You can go ahead and go. I've got just,
Brent: so good. I'm
Jeff: In fact, I'll pay you for your two weeks. You can just go like, it's
Brent: Um, I got two more things on the Garibaldi stuff and then we can jump over to the Jaar thing. Um, one, can we please talk about the culture of tipping on the DSI home world?
Jeff: dude was, dude was mad.
Brent: was miffed, dude. He just threw his bag down, was like, ugh.
Jeff: But I was also like, he's, he's got his little tiny pocket in his jacket like this little tiny, and he goes in, has one little thing, like he just happened to, oh, oh, oh, I've got this.
Here you go.
Brent: Yeah, which, okay, here's my problem with tipping like that these days. Um, and I, I come up on this, especially when I go to a hotel, that that sort of thing is expected. Um, or every Christmas when the bell ringers come out, I don't carry cash on me anymore, folks.
Jeff: Right?
Brent: I, like I'm, oh shoot, or I don't have like the right denominations if I do, or, or whatever.
Can I, can I Venmo you something pal? Like, but also can we just, can, can we just say like, the culture of tipping is way out of hand and the idea that businesses can not pay you your full worth because you're going to get tipped later is ridiculous.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: And businesses just need to pay their people and then allow tips to be just that, be a tip.
And not be an obligation that is forced back on the part of the customer to pay the wage that you should be paying somebody
Jeff: Or shut the door on tips altogether. I, I, I Do you do your research on this. Go to go to the duck dot Go or the Google machine and, and look at this. There's been many articles written, but, um, Tipping is an incredibly, uh, altruistic feeling way of perpetuating pay gaps and discriminatory practices. Because what they know, this is, and this is in the United States, right, uh, what they know is that if you are like a slender, attractive, uh, mid ish, early twenties white woman, you're going to make substantially more in those tips than the same age, same body type, whatever woman of color.
Um, the, that, those numbers change even more if that's a man. Like all these things that are really visual in what you see in a person impact, uh, implicitly or explicitly how much people are tipping. And that's terrible.
Brent: Jeff, I want to test this out. I want you and I to go out one night. Let's work the same amount of hours at the same restaurant and see who, just compare numbers, see who like,
Jeff: I'm down.
Brent: it's just a social experiment, like, we'll, we'll hide the cameras and stuff. We'll get everybody signed releases. It'll be good.
Jeff: Yeah. Cause I promise you, like
Brent: You are gonna make more tips than I, because you're just prettier than I
Jeff: I'm a very beautiful
Brent: Yes. And I'm a monster, so,
Jeff: What we need though, we need, we need our control and we, we need a very, we need a young, attractive, uh, woman to, to as our, as our control. Right? And so, like, she, she's like, yeah, I made $18,000 and I got all these phone numbers. And I'm like, yeah, I got punched in the face and 18 cents.
Like,
Brent: I just got punched in the face.
Jeff: yeah, right. At least, least Aiken got 18 cents. Like
Brent: I had people walk out on me and not pay their bills, so I had to pay that out. Like I actually lost money on the night.
Jeff: Yeah. I'm actually in the hole. This was not a good night for me.
Brent: Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's it. But then when the second guy came in and he met the, the boss dude, TAFI, uh, apparently Taq tipped him really well. Cause that was a big bow in and all of that.
Jeff: I liked Tafi. It was sad when he died.
Brent: Here's the question I have. This is the final note I have about this whole line. Are CBS and TNT related in any way?
Jeff: Hmm. I don't
Brent: Is there any, like, is one apparent company of the other? Anything like that?
Jeff: Damn. I'm not sure.
Brent: Okay. Because here's what we know, t and t, uh, uh, Babylon. Five is on t and t at this time. Right. Like t and t's bought the rights. They remastered the gathering to catch people up on what they've missed and all that sort of stuff.
Right.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Okay. Do you know who Tafi was?
Jeff: Uh,
Brent: He was played by a guy named John Castellanos. Nobody, please ask me why I know this, but I know this. John Castellanos was a big soap opera star on the Young and the Restless. He was on that show for over a decade, like, like close to 15 years. Yeah. Like he was a big star on that show, uh, which was on cbs.
And, and this would've been kind of right in the middle, I guess, of his run on, on Young and The Restless. And so, like, I was just wondering is putting him in this show, like an attempt by the studio to be like, Hey, all you people who watch the show over here, go watch that one over there too. I was just wondering.
Jeff: Maybe because, I mean, really when you think about what he did, he was meaningless to anything that moved forward. He came in, basically told him, dude has the precision locator, and he'll be down there, and then he died.
Brent: Gave a little bit of, you know, coloring to, to Gar Baldy. But that's, that's about it.
Jeff: So it could be a total like, Hey, we got a little extra time. We got this. Let's, let's prop this guy up a little bit and see what happens. I liked him. I I thought he
was, I, thought he
Brent: I thought he was fine. I kind of, you know who I thought he was at first though? Honestly, I thought he was the bad guy. I thought he was the guy looking for the dude and he was gonna, like, he was gonna do that thing where like, I'm gonna use Garibaldi, let Garibaldi go find him, and then I'm gonna like, you know, do the bad thing at the end. That's where totally where I thought that was going. I was wrong. I figured that out. As soon as he got shot by the drowsy was like, oh, well he's done.
Jeff: That's not gonna happen.
Brent: Right, right.
Jeff: Yeah, so he, uh, garibaldi grabs the button
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: and then he heads back home and he is like, uh, yeah. So dude died. I got beat up and all I gotta show for it is this lousy button. I don't know anything about it.
Brent: Yep.
Jeff: Londo knew all about it,
Brent: I'll all about it.
Jeff: I feel like they made a pretty massive leap in logic from, wow, we don't know what this thing is, and it's curious to Londo being like, oh, that's a button from a uniform. And then them going, oh, the Centara responsible. They're doing everything. And for his own protection, now we have to cut Londo out of everything that we're talking about.
Brent: I don't think that was a big leap. Logic at all.
Jeff: Really.
Brent: No, because I think Gar, they knew, Garibaldi knew that these guys were, look, those guys were either the drowsy government. Okay. Wasn't the drowsy government cuz we had the Dsy police force coming after him. Um, or it was the shipping lane attackers, or it was, so it could have been them or the guys who were supposed to receive the stuff.
Right. It's one of those two, cuz it's not the Alliance cuz that's Garibaldi. Right? So it's one of those two. So I don't know that that's a big leap in logic to go, Nope, these guys were the shipping lane attackers.
Jeff: so two, three weeks ago, they were leaving hunks of metal out in the debris to implicate the briary, implicate, you know, the pocket, whoever they're trying to sew disc. So that was just like two or three weeks ago, and they figured that out pretty quick.
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: Now there's a button, and we're just gonna assume that this button that's from a Centara uniform had to have been attached to a centara who was working.
I mean, they're wearing cloaks. Were they wearing their, their palace guard uniforms under the cloaks?
Brent: what I was wondering, like.
Jeff: Like, so to me, like that knowledge that they, they challenged the scrap metal stuff that was there, but they just accept the button. That is such a looser thing. I don't know. It's, it got 'em where they needed to go.
Right? It got 'em, you know, making Lado the odd man out acknowledged, you know, pointing him towards the centara. But I was just like, oh, I've, I feel like we missed some steps getting here, but I didn't think it was cool. My last thought on all that is that it was cool that Jaar was like genuinely concerned about Londo. Like that's why they didn't want to cut him out cuz they didn't trust him. So, I mean, that was kind of an initial, like Delaine was like, I don't know if we can trust
Brent: They literally said, we can't trust him anymore.
Jeff: Yeah. But Londo was like, that doesn't matter. Even if he was on our side and we could trust him, if he does the right thing, they'll kill him.
Brent: You meant Jaar,
Jeff: Did I say, what did I say?
Brent: Lon. Even if Lon or even Londo said you meant Jaar.
Jeff: yeah. I'm in Jaar. Yeah. Even if Jaar said
Brent: Yeah. Well, don't, don't keep, don't forget, Jaar is Lao's personal bodyguard. So he's gotta, you know, guard the body even when he is not watching. Um, but yeah, I wanna, I wanna save a few thoughts of that for later cause I got, I got some fun stuff from that we'll talk about a little bit later.
For now though, let's talk about Jaar.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Jaar comes on the station, everybody's bowing really low to him, which I gotta tell you, Jeff, when I first watched this episode, the, the scene where he and Londo are coming back on the station, I probably had to go back and watch that like three or four times
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: because the first time I was watching it I was like, why are they bowing?
And like, I started talking about the bowing and I complete, and I was like, were they all bowing or were they bowing to other people as well? Like I couldn't tell
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: I, so I rewound it and I watched and I was watching them bow. I was like, Nope, they're just bowing to jaar. They're not bowing to anybody else.
And then it went forward and I was like, oh crap. Londo and Jaar have been talking this whole time. I have no idea what they were talking about. So I had to go back and watch it the third time.
Jeff: And they're literally talking about, Hey, everybody's bowing at us. No, actually they're just bowing at, they were having the same conversation you had going out on your
Brent: Yeah. Except like where I stopped it to rewind. It was right before Londo was like, is everybody bowing at us? He's like, Nope. They're bowing at me. Which by the way, I can remember being in South Korea, for those who don't know, I used to live there. I lived there for about three years. And uh, I was dating a girl over there who was of Korean descent, but she was from America.
Um, and I remember shortly after her and I starting dating, um, that she and I were walking down the street and she leaned over to me one day and went, why is everyone staring at us? And I said, they're not staring at you. They're staring at me. There is something absolutely true. Like, you know, when people are directing it.
At you personally?
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Uh, so Telon, we meet Telon, which by the way, I, I did not think that was the same actor who has been playing Telon this whole time at first.
Jeff: I am still convinced they have different narn makeup, like it has changed on the T N T shift a little bit
Brent: Oh, you think so?
Jeff: Because I felt the same way. He did not, he did not look the same.
Brent: thought his voice was different too.
Jeff: Really?
Brent: Yeah. By the end I could totally Marshall Teague, right? That's his name. Uh, I could totally tell it was him. Like by the time he and Jaar are having that big talk at the end and all that, it was absolutely him. But at first I was like, I don't know if that's really him.
Uh, but Telon stole Ja car's book cuz he was gone for a month, took it home and sent it to the publishers. It's a rather thin book.
Jeff: it is.
Brent: Let's just say it's a rather thin book. Now, the book of Jaquan, Jeff, they said that this book is gonna outsell the book of Jaquan. Wasn't the book of Jaquan painstakingly hand copied
Jeff: Yep. Illuminated is the term. Each one was hand illuminated, so yeah, it'll totally outsell it just based on supply.
Brent: alone? Right? Like the price of the two has to be phenomenally different as well.
Jeff: Yeah, they pump out 500,000 books of Jaar in the time it takes to create a quarter of one book of Jaquan.
Brent: Right, right. Uh, so what you, what do you think Jaar has become a religious icon? Surprised
Jeff: I'm not surprised. I think I saw this coming. Yeah. Yeah. I think I, I was really struck by what you said too. It was, it's, it's small, you know, and, and I think that he, we've seen him even recently still writing in it. It made me think, it made me think in this to, to this gonna talk right to your education right here.
There's a book in the Bible that is, I'll say famously, but I don't know how famously, but is known as not being finished. It's an incomplete book because we are still living it. And that's the acts of the apostles. I feel like that's what the book of Jaar is. You know, Hey, here's my observations, here's the stuff.
But we're still living it. I'm still writing it. It's, it's, it's still very relevant. And I thought that was a, I dunno, just really resonated for me
Brent: I, I had that same thing. I was like, like, imagine you come back here. Like, here's this thing you've been working on, you've been working on, and it's not done. You, you leave it in process and you come back and somebody's taken it and they've published it out there and it's blown up, and you're like, dude, I, I'm not done with it yet, though.
It, it's not edited yet.
Jeff: and always be like, like I, I'm editing this episode on the audio side and I've got everything cleaned up and set up and staged for me to go and, you know, take out our garbage words and do a little whatever. But, you know, I go on a trip and somebody pops into my room and they're like, oh, publish. And I'm, no, and then it's our biggest episode ever.
You know, it's, no, no, this is not, not what we, no, no.
Brent: And then here's the other question. So you come back and you find out your book is blown up, 500, 600,000 copies out there. It's being published, it's gonna outsell the book of Jaquan. And I'm like, so where's my royalty check?
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: And I want more than royalties. I want rights, I want, I want everything
Jeff: Yeah. And Talon you got, and publisher, you have explaining to do, um, he had no right to give this to you. You had no right to publish it. This is my work and I never authorized its distribution, so
Brent: right.
Jeff: well probably not go down that path, but I hear you, but I hear you.
Brent: Oh, Jeff, uh, I, I just have to, to tip my hat to you, pal. Um, I'm gonna tip my crown to you here, uh, cuz you called this, you called this, I don't know how long ago, but you're like, he's writing, he, this thing he's writing is gonna become the book of Jaar. You called it out by name, the Book of Jaar and you said he's gonna become a religious icon.
You said it, man.
Jeff: early third season. I put that out there. I got these, I got these overarching things right? Like I can, I can figure out pretty
Brent: don't remember what my response was. I don't think I laughed at you. I think I was like, that could be true. Like, it felt like that was where they were going with it. I think I might just be mad that you thought of it before I did.
Jeff: But I think this is the fact that he kept returning to it, it was always a thing he had and was writing in his spare time. Uh, it made, it made a lot of sense to me. But, um, this is a tough one to dive into cause I'm a hundred percent sure that you're gonna have thoughts in the, in the white star piece on a lot of the things that come in here.
But, um,
Brent: say what you need to say and I will either comment or withhold Do what you gotta do.
Jeff: Well I think I just had a, like, there's, there's some stuff that I have around, um, Jaar I'll, the religious piece first, cuz we're kind of on that, but. I really appreciated that final scene with the guy whose makeup didn't quite fit.
Brent: It like stopped at his upper lip, made it look like he had a little bit of a mustache.
Jeff: yeah, I kept, oh, NA's gonna have mustaches. I kept thinking,
Brent: Right.
Jeff: but like, it really showed me, I, the ignorance of being a fanatic, like he, I kept waiting for Jaar.
He says the book of Jaar is a holy text and blah, blah, blah. He kept waiting for Jaar to be like, yeah, it's the book of Jaar. Do you know my name? Like, it is, I, I wrote it. I think. I know, but it, it makes me imagine like Jesus coming, walking in here right now and me being like, you know, in John chapter four when you did this thing, you no, that wasn't, and he is like, yeah, uh, dude, I was there.
It's what I. That's what I did. Just that ignorance, that that forced willful ignorance when someone's even right there.
Brent: Yep.
Jeff: But, uh, but yeah, that's the big thought I had. I thought that was very powerful. I liked, I mean, Ja car's approach to it I thought was a little more, uh, appropriate than mine of just like, dude, do you know my name?
Come on.
Brent: Well, he like put your face in the book and then he slams his face in the book.
Jeff: And Lonzo, that's lesson number one.
Brent: Um, I quite liked that whole interaction because he's like, yes, but you said that the Sari can't be trusted and Jaar gives him a great answer. But where was that? Well, it was in the beginning and he is like, yes, because I hadn't learned yet. You gotta go all the way through the deal. And he, he just, the guy refused to hear it.
But that made me think of the show as a whole. That made me think of our show quite a bit, Jeff,
Jeff: Oh,
Brent: in watching that. And what I mean by that is, is, you know, the, our, our folks over in the red sector on the Discord section, they like to have a whole lot of fun. And most of it is at my expense, and I'm fantastically great with that.
The one thing that they keep coming back with is my obsession, particularly through season two and three and four, with the redemption of Lando Malari. Is this where the redemption of Lana Malar starts? I, and they made so many memes and so many things about it, and I we're still not allowed in the red sector.
I have no idea what they're actually going, got going on over there right now. But the point is, londo cannot be redeemed and cannot, cannot go through the story arc that he has if he doesn't fall first. You know what I mean? He ca he can't, he can't get redeemed if he doesn't sin.
Jeff: yeah.
Brent: You know what I mean? Uh, he can't be saved if he doesn't get into trouble.
Gar Baldy can't be, uh, can't do whatever he's gonna do with his addiction. And I'm, I'm really hoping that this leads to something positive and not something negative for the character of Garibaldi. I know in the end, it didn't work out quite so well for Jerry Doyle, but, uh, uh, I, I'm really hoping for Garibaldi and somewhere good.
You can't get there without going through this. As adults, we understand. You look back at your life and you think, man, that was a really dumb decision, but you also wouldn't be who you are today without that as part, I mean, it's tapestry,
Jeff: Yep. A hundred percent.
Brent: Three.
Jeff: That's two.
Brent: Okay. Um, this show, just this show, uh, remember season two, like particularly the first half of season two, Jeff, people were rolling us because we were so far down on the show.
Jeff: They were furious.
Brent: You can't have the triumphant, they're amazing. Without going through, like we've allowed ourselves to be on the rollercoaster, and that's something I've very much appreciated about you, that you have been, you and I have a similar vision that it's okay. To allow ourselves to be down on episodes when we need to be down on episodes to allow ourselves to have reactions to episodes that not everybody may love.
Because in order to come back out of that, you've got to go down into the valley. You know what I mean? Um, season two, I, I think of that. Oh my gosh, Jeff, late delivery from Avalon. I got rolled,
Jeff: Yeah, that was
Brent: rolled that week, you know?
Jeff: What was two, uh, to be, it was two weeks. There was the, we'll call it the reaction de, and then people did not enjoy our conversation on that very much either. But I mean, they, you had a target on you through that whole, that whole
thing.
Brent: yeah. But then we came to Ship of Tears.
Jeff: Straight.
Brent: He's back, you know, like,
Jeff: Well, and even this, like this episode. We'll we'll
Brent: Season four. Before that. Season four, we had that lull right in the middle and the, the, the last bunch of weeks here in season five, since. The very long night of Londa malaria has been very, and you and I have kind of like we're down here, but we're really hoping we catch that upswing here at the end.
You can't have the upswing without the valley, you know, so,
Jeff: yeah. I think it's what we said earlier. We appreciate this episode more than like epiphanies and stuff from season four, cuz we're not coming off that high point like we were at ve, we're arguably the lowest point of the series and boom, we get this and it's just like, oh, hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah.
Brent: And it really wasn't even like that chock full of a amazing episode at all. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, um, Jaar says you can't trust the sari. Well, why not? Well, because I hadn't learned yet, and the guy refused to allow the plot of the book of Jaar. To take the entire, the whole thing in its entirety. He picked and chose a specific verse out of context and said, well, if the whole thing is divinely inspired, well, you know, what else's divinely inspired Then the context in which it was written, the context in which where it will go, and I loved that.
Jaar, like basically is like, I'm gonna slam your face in the fricking book if you don't understand this.
Jeff: Yeah. It's so appropriate though, and it's so important because that's today, you know. We're both Christians in the United States and that that term carries, carries a lot of negativity with it. And, and I think for the most part, not because of the religion itself, not because of the church, you know, that we belong to, but because of people who have done exactly this and weaponized well, and these two lines right here, say this and like, you know, I can only speak from my experience as a Catholic and you know, most services that you'll attend as a Christian in include a, a sermon or a homily.
And a homily is a specific kind of version of a sermon where it's based on the gospel reading and teaches it. And one of the key things any good Hom list will do is give you the context of the time, you know, and give you the context of the language. I've talked a couple weeks ago about, um, There's a first reading from, usually from the Old Testament that prepares you to hear the gospel as if you were a Jewish person living in that time and place.
Um, yeah. You gotta take it, you have to take it all together and, and when you take pieces, really bad things happen and people get hurt.
Brent: Yeah, I, I remember, um, going through, uh, my college, going through education and one of the, one of the principles of, um, we, I dealt a lot with, with antique manuscripts
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: and, and, uh, uh, interpreting, translating, deciphering, all those sorts of things. And one of the, the, uh, one of the principles was you have to take it in the larger context of what it's actually saying.
You can't just translate a word to be a specific word, because words have different meanings. They have different connotations. And when, when you're translating, what are you trying to translate? You're trying to translate the word, are you trying to translate the concept? The idea, usually you're trying to translate the concept, like, what were you actually saying?
And you have to be able to do that in inside all of those things. So anyway,
Jeff: My last thought on the Jaar stuff that I so loved, and I'll just put it out there and if we wanna dive in, we'll do it. Otherwise it'll probably be in your white star piece. But Jaar says to Telon, it is not my place to lead. Well, my friend, that line actually confirms that it is indeed your place to lead.
I, I so loved his perspective where he was, he said he was afraid that his shadow would become bigger than the message. Right? Avoiding that cult of personality. We talked about that a bit with Sheridan back in the fourth season, but I just, I just love this, right? Just the piece that. Yeah, the whole thing was so great.
I am not bigger than the message in my message is that we have to embrace others, and I'm not gonna get in the way of that message that that's leadership. I mean, holy crud, I, I literally, when I watched this one the second time, take my notes on it. I'm just like, there's been a lot of call for the Babylon five Leadership Academy, uh, you know, podcast thing.
And this episode, a hundred percent, a hundred percent good. This is Peak Leadership by Jaar.
Brent: Yes it was.
Jeff: It was. Yeah. With that, Brent, I think we've reached the point of this episode to start talking about this stuff that we've already started talking about, to boil this all down, to see if there's any messages, morals, if this is holding up a mirror to society in any way, and specifically if that's doing it in a way that only Babylon five can do it, you have the responsibility of talking us through that and ultimately rating this episode on a scale of zero to five white stars as to how strong the message was and how Babylon five it was delivered.
So, uh, what do you got?
Brent: Yeah, so this episode to me had a message that the episode itself was trying to tell, and then it had a couple of messages. The episode wasn't trying to tell, but they were still there, and I wanna mine those for what they're worth. However, let's tackle the one that it was trying to tell first since you were just talking about it, where Jaar says it's not his place to lead.
How? How can he take on being a religious icon?
Telon says he had an obligation of honor to use his sword, and Jaar had the same obligation of honor to use his sword, which was his heart, which was his voice, which were all these things that he needed to teach the narn a new way. So now they've only known how to hate and fight. I would amend that to say they've only known how to hate because I've seen the NAR fight and it's not good.
Jeff: Yeah, not so
Brent: It's really not good. Although Telon can kick some major butt, but they just, uh, Jaar is here to teach hope. He's here to teach forgiveness. He's, he's here to teach how to unlearn hatred and how to unlearn fear. This is something new, but talons. Words were, uh, ja jaar said no to leadership and talons like, yeah, that left the old people in charge and they only know how to do it this old way and we need something new. And Jaar was being very Moses here, for those of you who are not familiar with the story of Moses, Moses was called to lead by a burning bush by God in a burning bush in the form of a burning bush, I should say. And Moses questioned every single bit of it. But I can't do that. I don't speak very well. How can I be the one to go look at all this other stuff I've done?
How can I be the one to go do it? Are you sure it's me? Is it really supposed to be me? And over time, and it was like, yes, it's supposed to be you. Yes, it's you. Yes, go. And eventually Moses said, okay, and he went and did what he needed to do. All right. Now, whether or not you think that was actual history or whether that's just story in the books, I'm not here to discuss that.
That's the way that story goes. Jaar is being Moses, he's questioning really his own worthiness. Jaar is using a lot of these excuses. Frankly, I think that was Jaar in his own self-doubt, cuz Jaar was in his most honest program. He's like, I've only ever led myself because that way nobody would have to suffer if I made a mistake. And Jaar understands if he steps into this and he's wrong, it's gonna have some very real consequences for a lot of other people. And Jaar wasn't sure if he wanted to accept that responsibility. But yet, LAN's words, you have an obligation to lead because you can. And by the way, when you don't lead Jaar, you leave a vacuum. That is being filled by people who are continuing to teach the wrong things, and this is not what our people need. The idea here being that I love is the narn needed jaar. They needed him, his voice, his teaching to lead them into a new path, to lead them into a new way so that they could grow and become something new and not just be stuck in the, the muck that they have been stuck in.
They're really for their entire existence. I think the same thing is true with us. People need your voice when, when you have a thing to teach. People need to hear your voice. This is why, this is why I love podcasting, Jeff, cuz we have an outlet to be able to put this out.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Does everybody have to listen? No. Can people choose if they wanna follow? Sure. That's fine. Uh, am I sitting here saying that you and I are gonna become some new religious leaders to teach us how to live and, and act and behave?
You not, but you know, we can sit there and still put out a good message. Your, your voice is needed, particularly when you are supposed to be a leader. I'm a little over the, how do I know you're ready for leadership when you say no to leadership? I, I've seen that done quite a bit in the mid nineties.
Maybe it hadn't been done so much, so it was still kind of fresh. I'll give it that. But I, I love how he's, he's going through this in Jaar. The beautiful thing about this was we watched Jaar. Accept it. We watched Jaar accept a mantle of leadership, albeit reluctantly, Jaar is facing his own doubt, and he's, and he's doing it in the midst of his own doubt, right?
Like, Jaar is like, I don't know if I should do this, because what if I screw up, but I'm gonna suck it up and do it anyway because it's what my people need. And it's, you know, there's a, there's a great phrase for such a time as this, this is why Jaar is here right now for such a time as this. It, it is this piece that we need from him.
I love this whole piece. Now that being said, I think Telon was absolutely wrong,
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: absolutely wrong. When he said, I am a warrior. I cannot be the one to teach people these things. That is wrong. There is no disqualification because you have been a warrior for teaching these things. Telon, Telon. Two. I'm not saying just Telon, Telon also could be teaching these very same things because if there's one thing we've come to know of Telon over the last bunch of seasons, we've gotten to sporadically get to know him.
He's a fantastic dude.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: He's a fantastic dude,
Jeff: Well, and,
frankly we see him actually helping teach in this episode. He falls into that role naturally
Brent: yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, I would say that there's a side lesson here of don't let who you are be a thing that disqualifies you because it doesn't actually disqualify you.
Jeff: or don't let, don't let your labels disqualify whether you're your labels or society's labels. Don't let those disqualify you.
Brent: Solon disqualified himself and he didn't need to, and he shouldn't have. And I'm hoping Jaar brings him out of that because honestly, Jaar could use a guy like Telon to go on.
Uh, but again, to, to bring all of that back. Use your voice. It is needed when you go out there. Don't be a person to abandon what is so clearly supposed to be you, because if you do, people are gonna come in who shouldn't be there. The vacuum is the, the vacuum is gonna be filled with that, which shouldn't be done out there.
Now. That's what that is. The message I think that Babylon five was trying to get across in this episode. The jms. There's a few other ones that I loved. I just want to touch on real quick. Um, one Jaar said in that little scene with the, the acolytes kind of towards the end, um, he said, evolution has taught us, I'm gonna exchange the word evolution for instinct, right?
Uh, your instinct tells you one thing, instinct tells you to, you know, get all, you can find your own mates, scrounge for your own food so that you can be the one to survive, and you can be the one to propagate. But he says this, but at some point, intellect has to overcome instinct. Intellect has to take over and we can learn the idea.
And I mean, Jeff, if we can't get any more, uh, if we were still doing Deltas, this would be the delta right here. Uh, we learn to embrace our differences and in fact, learn from them. Fantastic. Fantastic line. Uh, but then there's one more and
Jeff: Well,
Brent: oh, go ahead.
Jeff: I love about that line so much because I think especially in the nineties when this came out, The word was tolerate have tolerance. Right? We're gonna tolerate differences, we're gonna tolerate these. And that seemed and felt progressive. But the thing about tolerance and tolerating things is that means you still don't like it.
You just let it
Brent: It means you don't accept it. It's not accepting, it's just you don't deny it. You don't
Jeff: I'm not gonna fight it. I'm not gonna go try and shut it down. And that, that leap from tolerance to embracing is so strong and so powerful cuz that's, you know, we, diversity, equity, inclusion, those words get thrown around. I mean, they're, they're almost meaningless as words anymore.
They've become so ubiquitously used. But that's the magic is when you embrace your differences. And that was the big message through season four, right? Embrace our differences. That's when we become most powerful and magical.
Brent: So one more, and this one's gonna go back to that whole scene with the crew and dealing with Londo and the button and all of those pieces. The others found out that the sari are responsible, and even though they can't trust Londo, here's the deal. It's not because of Londo, but it's because of what he may do in ignorance. But as for Londo himself, they don't suspect him at all. Think about this for a moment. They don't think Londo is at fault here. I just think Lando might be the cause and there's, there's a difference there, right?
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Has Lando earned his way back into their good graces? That much after everything he has done,
Jeff: Hmm.
Brent: the redemption of Lando malaria has, has Lando proven him himself trustworthy enough that they have forgiven him to the point that they don't even suspect him of being the guy who is guilty of this? Now, I get it.
Jaar has been with Lando most of this time, uh, but still think about that for a moment. Their questioning for Lando was not about Lando and his character, just about Lando and who he could be talking to and where that could spring a leak.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: They have totally forgiven him at this point, including Jaar and chosen to see the goodness in Lando. That's amazing to me. Then after, I think, think, think about Lando with bitch Black hair and Sharpen fangs and all of his stuff, and, and talking about getting Jaar out of there. And Sheridan saying, well, you can't do that.
And he's asked for a sign. He's like, yeah, well he can't be in here. Get him out. And Sheridan starts to speak and Lando goes, no,
Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.
Brent: that Lando, that Lando, who sees, uh, I think it was, oh, who's, remember the guy who came to take away Citizen Jaar and he was gonna be the new ambassador. He was basically the, the collaborator. Right. And, and Jaar or Lando is just like, so how are the labor camps back home? Huh? Are the streets running red with non-blood?
And how does that make you feel? Like he's just rubbing this dude's face just dirty nastiness that he's got going on, you know? To, Hey, Londo is not this, we can't, we can't put this out. Oh, by the way, we can't tell Londo cuz it'll destroy him or, or whatever they say. Like, like they really think that highly of Londo at this point.
That's amazing to me. Okay, so the question is, how many white stars does this get? It's definitely getting some, is this a five white star episode? I tell you what, had the whole stuff with Jaar been the A plot. I think absolutely it would, but it wasn't because the majority of this episode, the thrust of this episode really was the Garibaldi on a mission trying to find out all this other stuff. So that's gonna pull it back for me. There was a couple of these others, but a lot of times when I'm really looking at these messages, I'm kind of looking for the intended message that JMS is writing. Not just the, Hey, it was in there, sort of a thing. Uh, so for that Jeff, I'm gonna give this one. Four white stars.
Because I think it was the, the whole story with Jaar was this message, and J jms I think was using it very, very intentionally of he's got to use his voice. He is made for this, and by him living in a vacuum, it's actually hurting his people. He needs to step into this role and be who he is supposed to be.
Jeff: That's a great rating cuz it, I couldn't agree more if this was the, if this was the point of this, this would be five white stars through and through. It was so impressive to watch. In fact, like watching this through an analytical lens, I would get frustrated when we would go to the shipping lane story stuff cuz it was just like, I mean, yes it is plot and it's interesting, but like, I want, I want more of this meat that's happening over here with, uh, with Jaar.
And that's like, I think I even said in my, in my first impressions, like he's just gonna become a font of white star stuff for us moving forward. Cuz I, this is, I think this is our jaar moving forward. We're, we're gonna get bodyguard jaar. But you know, it said we're four to six weeks out from Londo returning to Centara Prime.
So we got four to six weeks of Pope Jaar.
Brent: I hope we don't have four to six weeks of episodes positioning people into place before we get to the oomph. I, I hope it goes a little quicker than that. That being said, Jeff, along with why Well, the white star thing, you know what we're doing.
Jeff: What are we doing?
Brent: are creating our absolute 100% completely accurate, definitive immutable ranking of the fifth season of Babylon.
Five. Our current top five right now. I should just read off. It is the very long night of Lada Malari number two, no compromises. Number three, learning curve number four of you from the gallery and number five Day of the dead. Jeff, I'm assuming this is going to go somewhere on this list. I don't know.
It's up to you. I have zero say in it whatsoever. Where do you place the ragged Edge?
Jeff: This is actually a pretty easy one for me cuz we can basically take almost the entire Byron storyline. Keep that here on the bottom piece. And so the line really comes at a view from the gallery, which was a super fun episode. I enjoyed it quite a
bit.
Brent: was the one with the two guys right?
Jeff: Yeah. Bowen Mack. Yeah, it was a fun episode.
It, you know, validated some stuff, did some context, did some pieces, but in the scope of what Babylon five is and what's enjoyable, it was an episode that kinda stood on its own. Um, so I'm gonna plop this one right above it and right below Learning Curve, which I wasn't as high on as you, but it was still a really good and powerful episode.
This is gonna be our new number four.
Brent: Fantastic. I don't remember what Learning Curve was. What was that one?
Jeff: That was the one with, uh, where they, the, the Shock Train. The Mind Bari Analyst Shock Trainees
Brent: Oh yeah, yeah. I like that episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ok. I, yeah, I would give you that one again. This was one of those, it would've been a me episode in the middle of season four, except you're in the middle of season five. This was actually was really good,
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: I like it. Good. Good ranking. Good ranking.
Jeff: That's it for the Ragged Edge. Next week we're watching, The core is mother. The core is
father for the first time. Yeah.
Brent: Shit. That is not the title of this episode.
Jeff: Yeah. Uh, here it is. Here you go.
Brent: Alright. Right.
Jeff: So this is our big game that we love playing. I drop the name of the episode. That's all that we know, and we like to guess and predict what's gonna happen next week based on that.
So Brent, the core is mother. The core is father. What do you think that's gonna be about?
Brent: Well, let me, let me get my, uh, CARNA held hat on here and, uh, fit that on. Um, okay. Sters gonna be in this episode cause he has to be, it's a Sitecore episode, obviously. Um, maybe the Telepath war isn't over, Jeff. Maybe it's just because we know lead's still out there. Right. Okay. Um, uh, okay. I'm, I'm of two minds on this.
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: All right. Uh, I think the Alliance is gonna have to decide what they want to do with Telepaths, right? Like they're gonna remember we got this line that said how telepaths are treated on all the various worlds out there. Different cultures seem to treat them in different ways, and the alliance is gonna have to decide how they want to handle Telepaths within the alliance, because apparently some of these worlds out there are not doing good things with the, with the Telepaths, and that's not okay.
Um, I don't think in any way, shape or form, they're gonna try to model it after Sitecore and have ster come out and lead the new telepath wing of the Alliance. I don't think that's it at all. Um, but I, I wonder if, I think that's gonna be a part that, that strikes me as something with where we could be also, uh, so Byron and like a couple of his dudes died, but they're still the rest of the group, right?
Um, some people maybe who. Have given themselves up to Cycore and maybe they're gonna be like, like Cycore is coming after them, trying to get them back into the fold or teach them how to be Cycore. Like, oh, maybe that's like, like some of of Byron's old guys are now in Cycore and they're trying to learn how to do Sitecore.
I got them back out on the station for, to discuss how the alliance world should handle Televis. I dunno. Something like that. Right? Um, or, and I really hope it's the second one. Ster comes to Babylon five to take up Byron's flag.
Jeff: What?
Brent: Cuz here's what we know. Ster thinks that, that telepaths are better than humans anyway. Ster wants to take over earth. He wants, like he, he just thinks that's where they should be. Like clearly that's what he believes, right? Byron didn't have a bad idea.
Let's go have a, well, actually I think it was a horrible idea, but you know, let's go have our own world and Sters gonna try to come and unite the telepaths of all the races through Babylon five. Right? Cuz that's the hub,
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: Uh, and basically like this is not just the Telepaths humans looking for a new world.
He's looking for a new world for all the telepaths of all the species
Jeff: okay.
Brent: coming together. And obviously he's gonna bring the psyco mentality with that and all of that. And maybe that's what erupts into the really, the cool war that we've been promised. I don't know. That's, that's, that's the best I got here.
Having just heard that. What do you think, Jeff? The cosma of the CO's father, what do you think?
Jeff: I, I'm gonna sound like a broken record on this one, but I, this is, uh, this is Garibaldi going after Ster,
Brent: Oh,
Jeff: but I think this what's gonna be unique, I think that, I think that Babylon five on t n t has compelled, possibly forced, um, them to start making the show in some different ways and do some different things.
I mean, we had Penn and Teller, you know, a couple weeks ago as guest stars and stuff like that.
Brent: The dude did they?
Jeff: So I think, I think this is gonna be a unique, uh, episode structure in that Garibaldis gonna be a supporting character. And the main story is gonna be from ER's point of view,
Brent: Okay.
Jeff: we're gonna see Ster and his day-to-day at Cycore doing Psycore stuff, going and teaching a class, telling people Cora's mother cos showing his day to day in Syco, ultimately like uncovering some of the plots that he's building, you know, on earth to try and come to power some of the things he's building within Psycore to shore up his, uh, his power base.
But we'll get Intercuts of Garibaldi, you know, on a transport headed to Mars in a room, drinking, doing stuff. And then, uh, then the episode will come to a head when they're both, um, they're both together again and. It'll either be this episode or the next one. We get to test my theory on Garibaldi drinking for the Nero block or for his disease.
Brent: Can I, can I add to yours a little bit? Cuz I like what you said better. Uh, so Babylon five has done this a couple of times where you talk about playing with the structure of the show. Remember now for a word. Remember it was the episode out season four when the news guy came
Jeff: Illusions of
Brent: illusions are truth.
What if that's what if we're following a news because we, and we remember there was an episode where we saw the commercial, I think it was now for a word. We saw the Cyco commercial. So, so they're trying to do something with Cycore and, and that's what we're watching. So it's through investor's point of view, but it's through a, a newscast type of thing that's coming in and, and doing that sort of thing.
And maybe Garibaldis on his way to come get him or something like that. Or they gotta follow probab. Well see, here's the thing though. They're probably not gonna set up a whole bunch of new sets just for this one episode. Maybe they'll, so the news is gonna follow Baster two, Babylon five for some reason.
Jeff: I could see that or, or they're gonna set up some sets because the Telepath war story is gonna need some stuff on Earth, you know, or something
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I still, I mean, again, we still have Lita and her group out there hanging out. I, I feel like something's gotta go, but I, I like, I like what you're saying about messing with the structure and it's really more about ster than it is about our main characters. I like that idea.
Jeff: And give us that insight into Sitecore.
Brent: Yeah. I like it.
Hey
Jeff: Cool. We'll find out here next week. Thank you everyone so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. If you haven't already, leave us a rating and a review and please share this podcast with someone who either already loves Babylon five, or is just about to fall in love with this incredible series.
So until next time. Yeah. Yeah. Man. What's up?
Brent: Hey, listen, I will give you a hundred bucks if I don't have to see you for a whole day
Jeff: How's this? I mean, I know this is gonna cost more than either of us can afford, but how about we just break right now and I see you next week.
Brent: deal. Let's get the hell outta here.
