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: 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: And we are two veteran Star Trek podcasters watching Babylon five for the first time. And in doing so, we are searching for those Star Trek like messages. That are being told in a uniquely Babylon five way.
Jeff: And while this is not a podcast about Star Trek, those references are very likely to make their way into our conversations. So to keep us honest, we play the rule of three that limits each of us to just three and no more references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. Those no substitutions, exchanges refund.
Hey
Brent: Hey, Jeff.
Jeff: we have a five star review. Oh yes. It's from Apple Podcasts and D Mat says Babylon five out five. I've been listening weekly since Babylon squared, and your predictions are regularly a delight. The perspectives you each share also expand my own conceptions of episodes outside of my own lived.
The anticipation of seeing how you Jens react is a weekly delight. There are so many things that I know we all wanna discuss with you guys, but we must keep the sanctity of spoilers. Kar is absolutely my favorite character and as of the long twilight struggle, his strength of character really shows your comments about veer.
In comes the Inquisitor further demonstrates B Five's ability to develop characters in very surprising ways. And that's all I can say about that. To quote an infamous centa, keep it up.
Brent: Well, the Mystique
Jeff: Maik.
Brent: The Maik. Uh, thank you for that. And yes, absolutely no spoilers. Let's maintain it is a way of life. Jeff, no spoilers. You know, Jeff, we, we are, we have made it this far. We can get the rest of the way spoiler free for the most part.
Jeff: we'll find out today, and before we find out, we have another five star review. Oh yes. Also from Apple Podcasts. Tired. Nate says, logic plus heart, plus humor equals B five. For the first time, Jeff and Brent bring their vast knowledge of the genre and explore the TV series Babylon five for the first time.
This is a spoiler free podcast and is inviting to both new B five viewers as well as those who've watched the series 65 times
Brent: Hey.
Jeff: using their logic, humor, and heart. They break down each episode, agree or disagree with them. They will give you their honest opinions. Agree or disagree with them. They will bring their honest opinions to the table.
Enjoy
Brent: Yes, that is a promise and a guarantee. We will give you our honest opinions, thoughts, reactions as we view this through the first time, not with the lens of somebody who's seen the whole thing, because we
Jeff: 65
Brent: exactly out Clip 65.
Jeff: Well done. Tired, Nate. Well done.
Brent: Well, Jeff, uh, you know, along with our reviews that we get along with our review, you know, Jeff, along with all these reviews that we get, and along with our rule of three, there is another game that we like to play here at the show where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about based on title alone.
Well, we don't do that part here. That comes at the end of the show. But what happens right here is where we look back at last week's episode to see what we thought this week's episode was gonna be about and see how close we were. So Jeff, thinking back to last week, do you remember what you said Atonement was going to be and how close were you?
Jeff: We're gonna get more about Gar Allie's programming. I'm gonna keep predicting that until it happens. Didn't happen in this one. And then I thought that Dalen was gonna get abducted by Earth Force and we had kind of riffed on that to where it might have been like civilians, like taken up the cause. But my gist was that she was gonna get pulled into the fire to Aone for influencing Sheridan and Babylon five.
She was brought up for kind of her relationship with Sheridan, but it really wasn't, uh, wasn't what I had, um, in mind. What did, what did you guess.
Brent: Well, I said that this was gonna be about Marcus, uh, revisiting some of his demons from the past. And this is gonna be Marcus sort of exploring his time before becoming a ranger, uh, maybe even shortly after becoming a ranger. And, uh, while what we got was Marcus going back to Mars for a very, very, very thinned out B plot.
Um, yeah, we didn't get. So Jeff, uh, with that, as we're thinking about what this episode was about, why don't you, for the folks who were playing along at home who maybe haven't seen this episode in a while, or maybe they're just listening to us without ever, ever act, or maybe they're just listening to us without ever actually having seen the show.
Uh, which thanks for listening and go watch the show. Uh, Jeff, will you tell the folks out there what atonement really was?
Jeff: Well, things are starting to settle into a routine on Babylon five. Zach is getting fitted for his command staff uniform and Ivanova is partying with her drowsy buddies from two seasons ago. Jaar gets his new eye and everything seems to be going great, except that it's really not all that great. Earth is hitting babble on five hard with propaganda and it's getting rough.
Sheridan decides to mobilize forces ahead of time and sends the dynamic duo of Dr. Franklin and Marcus off to Mars to rally their allies. Dylan is in a rough one too. She's been called back to Minbar by her clan to face the music you see in their culture. Hooking up with other races is strictly forbidden, and she's been speeding right along on that path.
In fact, before heading to the planet, she and Sheridan shared their third night of her awkwardly staring at him while he sleeps. Lanier, despite Deln trying to completely ghost him, joins Deln on her journey to determine if Dalen can keep dating John or not. Her clan makes her have an orb experience.
They call it the dreaming. After she goes through this, they're gonna decide her relationship. Future sounds like a reality show. When asked if she'll comply with their decision, she sits back, takes a sip of some cloudy white liquid, and says the dude abides. In the dreaming. She's taken back to her time as an acolyte where she was mentored by duco.
We see her rise to the gray council and then the attack from the humans, which killed Duco and launched the Earthman Barr war. Dalen blames herself for the war as she was the deciding vote to attack a dead duco in her arms. She channels her inner John crease and screams, there is no mercy in this dojo. Not understanding why the dreaming took her to these moments. She brings Lanier and the clan dude that got the speaking part in this episode back in with her. This time she pays closer attention. And here's Duc Kat's last words to her. You are a child of Valin Dalen. Dalen is a descendant of Jeffrey Sinclair's and with some records that linear pride from the unconscious hands of some.
Very helpful guards shows that the Minbari haven't been truly pure for a thousand years disgusted, but beaten. Klan dude and the rest of the Klan are ultimately cool with her hooking up with Sheridan. They dust off some ancient tradition, basically saying that she's a gift from the victorious Minbari to the defeated humans and all is well for Shen or Del Lain or, I don't know.
Hey, Brent, what were your first thoughts and reactions to
Brent: I am sorry. I've gotta give you a first thought and reaction to your description.
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: She Sheridan,
Jeff: Del Lain
Brent: you just
Jeff: they gotta have
Brent: you just gave them a ship name that I've never needed to hear in my life. For the record, by the way, thank you for like taking every single one of my notes and sh cramming them into your, uh, recap there.
Every reference. You nailed them all. Uh, well done.
Jeff: They were kind of on a platter there Just
Brent: Particularly the dude abides one I that was just like, oh my gosh, what in the world? Um, okay. Opening thoughts. Uh, I'm beginning to realize something about this show, Jeff, not this show. The just kind of where we are in the life of this show.
You know, after the first six episodes of this season and those first six episodes being this hyper serialized, laser focused right to the end of the war on shadow war, it was super tight. In my head, I, and we've discussed this a little bit on the show since then, I think that I was just like, Hey, this is the way we're telling stories now in season four, and it's gonna be these super hyper serialized arcs.
And that, uh, if that six episodes was a chunk, then we were gonna get another six or seven episode arc, or maybe this whole last 15 episodes of the season, I think is really what I was thinking. This is gonna be that same kind of, uh, super focused, super tight, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. But I don't think that's the case.
I think we are very much back to our normal Babylon five non-hyper, regular, serialized type of story. Uh, here with the rest of season four in that, yes, it is all serialized, right? But each episode is really kind of its own thing and it's connected in part of the overall story. Some episodes are gonna be world building, some episodes are character studies.
Some episodes do further the bigger plot along, some focus on a side thing, you know, different things like that. That being said, taking this episode, because that's how I'm trying to think of this episode now, is just on its own merit and saying, how did I really, how did this episode go? Uh, and how does it also fit into the bigger context of the show? You, you've gotta, I think you've gotta look at it both. This was a fantastic episode to me.
This episode had a beginning, middle, and end at the same time. It was clearly connected to the overall story of Babylon five. What I really loved most was it took a character and it gave that character a complete evolution. That was not a complete betrayal of their character. Up to this point, I'm looking at you, Dr.
Bashir, who suddenly in season five became a genetically altered Supermind guy. Like, like this Dalin. She was different coming out of this show than what she was going into this episode. And they didn't, they didn't gamify her. They didn't change her at the beginning so that they could put her into something at the end.
Like she came into this episode being who she truly was. I kind of wanna stop there because that I think is the bulk of where I really want to talk about is what happened with Dalen. If you want me to go ahead and talk about it now, Jeff, that's fine. If you want me to save it, I'll save it. Uh, but if you want me to stop now and let you talk, I'm happy to do that too.
Jeff: Yeah, I'll, I'll, cause I'll, I'll, I'll just piggyback on what you
Brent: No, this is the Brent Show. Shut up. Uh, no, I'm
Jeff: right? This is what I have to say about this thing. Lemme just take you off the
Brent: give you the entire, the entire show right now.
Jeff: In minute 43. This is what my thoughts were on what happened before. No, so I, I, I loved, I loved exactly that. The integrity of Dylan's story. And I liked how she acknowledged it so much. Like there was this whole underwriting piece that when Lanier was there of she's just like, this is going to destroy what you think of me.
Like I did. I did a horrible thing. And it's really dealing with that deep, deep thing. So many of us have that regret, you know, of I made a choice in my life that made things happen for her. It was literally galaxy altering the choice that she made. But for a lot of us, we make these little tiny decisions that might change our lives in a little small way, but those are the things that keep us awake at night, right?
Thinking back like, oh my God, if I would've said this, or if I would've done this, or if I would've paused for a second. Imagine like laying this on top of Thelen that we've seen now for three in a quarter seasons, and understanding that she's been living with this the whole time, I think just adds so much depth to who she is.
I think it's great. Also, I kind of love Duco
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: like a lot.
Brent: yeah,
Jeff: I have some thoughts as we talk about just some of, I think some of the directing, uh, pieces, I'm not gonna put it on the actor, um, but some, some directing things. But as a character and the way he carried himself, like, I want that guy as a mentor.
Like, I want that guy working with me. He was, he was
Brent: Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, Duco was. Duco is the first time that a mbar ever felt real to me. And I'm gonna lump into Lynn and Lanier with all of that. Like the Mbar have never felt real. They've always felt very made up alien, almost a homogenized society. And here's dut sticking out like a sore thumb. He was cool, he was confident.
He didn't, he was his own man. He was wise. Jeff, I've got one of our, one of our famous leadership questions that I want to ask you about some stuff that, that, uh, Ducote did. Um, he, you're right, he made you want him to be your lead, kinda like Rabbi Kossoff, like maybe come go, I'm not Jewish, but I kind of want him as a rabbi.
Like I want him in my life like, and I still do like, yeah. I want to be one of Du Kat's people. Like I'm for that. Why they sit back and say, he was the best of us, then be more alike. Him.
Jeff: Yeah. Be like Duco. I think one of the, the faults of Babylon five that we've talked about, and this isn't unique to Babylon five, but, but it's just become really apparent. But whenever characters from the Minbar Federation, from Earth Force, from the Centara Republic show up, they're these arch types that are just like, I think about, uh, Ben Zane, you know, back in eyes in the first season where it's just like, that's not a real person at all.
Like it's just. Cookie cutter. I loved when, um, I think it was in matters of honor when in Dawe came on the invest the investigator and he was just dude doing his job. It's like, oh my God, an earth, an earth force guy who's just like, not a aggressive sledgehammer swinger. This is great. I love this. But all the Minbari we have, like, you're right, homogenized, but maybe more tribalized cuz you got your
Brent: Yeah, I Where you're going with that, that's where you're going with that. Yeah.
Jeff: But they're all different versions of the exact same thing until Duco. And it was like, I think everything about him from his wisdom, from the fact that he, he like understood the game in a way where he is like, yeah, I could totally go make contact with earth bud. It would make all this stuff happen and we have to go through this process so I'm gonna let us make our mistakes so we can learn from that one.
But,
Brent: I mean, I'm sorry. While you're there, that is actually exactly what I wanted to ask you about, and since you're talking about it, let's go here. Um, what are your thoughts on Duco as a leader, saying, I could override them, but I'm not going to, I'm going to allow stuff to.
Jeff: A hundred percent. The right thing to do. A hundred percent. It would be different if like these were some like junior associates in some company, or they were like the city council for a small thing. But these are the leaders of the Minbar race. I, I've talked a lot when I, when I have been critical of dele in the past.
I think about Cums, the inquisitor where I was very critical about her. But my thing is like, it, it, it's not this, just that she's some random Minbari person. She's one of the nine. Nine people over this massive thing. I, I tend to hold them to a higher standard. So for Duco, being the leader of those nine, and for him to see that they're making a bad choice and heading down a bad path, he did everything right.
He told them, Hey, this isn't a good idea. I think we should do things this way. Whatever old man, we're not gonna listen to you. Cool. Hey, here's Dalen, just a, an acolyte who's been an acolyte for 10 years. It's a long time to be an acolyte, right? But I wanna bring her in completely unprepared and ask her this question.
Oh, look, she's said the same thing. And also look at her spirit of curiosity that none of you have. I'm gonna shove your face in everything you're about to do wrong. Yep. We're still gonna do it. Okay? You do it and you will either learn from this or will be worse for it. But that's because you one, organizationally, you have to learn and grow from it.
But secondly, like. You gotta, you gotta make your own choice. If he had come in and shut them down, and so we're gonna do this, he would've immediately created this resistance cell, you know, who then would've been working against him? No. Duco du KOTs strategy across the board in this was, was damaging long term, but was brilliant from a leadership standpoint.
Brent: What about the fact that he refused to do what the rest of the Gray Council does? Like, okay, here's his gray council. These people are the folks in charge, yet when they come together, They feel the need to stand in a dark room in nine pools of light, wearing these shrouds, covering their faces and not actually talking to each other.
Now, I get it from a production standpoint, you save money on the makeup. You don't have to pay them because they're not talking like I, I get all of that. practicality of that nine being a ruling body does not work versus what we're actually seeing on screen.
Jeff: So I learned a thing back a long time ago, one of my early legislative sessions that I worked, and there's, there's the public spectacle of politics and then there's the reality of politics. So I, I had a bill that I had written and was working through the process and my work was to go meet with the members of the committee one on.
Talk about what I was trying to do, the fiscal impacts, the policy impacts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then answer all their questions. And through that, we would determine what was gonna happen in the public hearing. So we went and there was actual questions and back and forth that occurred. It wasn't all like a show, but the work had already happened behind closed doors.
And then we came and basically demonstrated a more polished version of the work and added some public debate. The public was available to, you know, provide testimony or hearings for stuff to, you know, influence things or whatever
Brent: everything had already been.
Jeff: anything had pretty much already been done. And that's how I feel that the Gray Council works.
And, and Duco even spoke to that. Go meditate, go talk, go do your things and then come back and we'll make a decision. Because the real work of a counselor or a committee doesn't happen in that chamber. That's where they vote, that's where they do
Brent: a small chamber. Like if that was a, if that was a public chamber where people were watching, I would kind of see it. This is like them just meeting.
Jeff: Well, I don't think the men barrier are so worried about, uh, public transparency in their governing practices. But, but I think that the mechanics of it are go worker, cast, go warrior, cast, go religious cast, have your caucus essentially, and go talk and then come forward, instead of having nine voices, we'll have three voices and nine votes.
There's still nine votes. We saw that with the attack, uh, that, that occurred. I'm, I, we'll get there, but I'm curious if you have any guesses on who voted what, as far as the cast go, but, uh, but yeah, so like still nine voices, nine votes, but really three voices and that's just, frankly, it's a more efficient way of doing the, the debate and the decision making. And then you've got du Kot in the middle who has to kind of like facilitate everything. Keep him on point and like in, in, in government terms, he's the guy who drafts the agenda, you know? And these are the things that we are gonna talk about, things we're not. I'm gonna adjourn and send you back, you know?
Brent: He's the speaker.
Jeff: a great thought. Go talk about it
Brent: He's the speaker of the house. Right.
Jeff: basically. Yeah.
Brent: okay. So with that, Jeff, thank you. Thank you for that response. Uh, let me ask you, do you want to keep talking about the whole dreaming and the whole thing with the lender? Do we wanna cover the other stuff real quick and then jump
Jeff: Let's cover the other stuff real quick and, and dive in.
Brent: Um, okay, so the black uniform thing, I don't think I realized until this episode that only the command staff is wearing those black uniforms as a gift from Dylan. Like that's why, that's why Zach has been in this like green ninja turtle looking outfit, honestly. Uh, but no, now he gets one of the, he gets one of the black ones.
Uh, and yeah, but I guess it's true. We've only really seen Sheridan, Ivanova Garabaldi in Franklin wearing, right?
Jeff: what was dude's name? Uh, cor Lieutenant Corwin. Is that right? He was the guy in the command control center that they were gonna like talk about bringing, like, I, I haven't seen him at all. I don't think he's even been on the show, let alone in one of the cool new uniforms. I wonder if something happened to
Brent: I don't know. I don't, maybe he's doing another show right now.
Jeff: Right. But I, I love the scene for so many
Brent: it was funny.
Jeff: It's
Brent: It was just funny. Yeah.
Jeff: but I thought it was cool too, cuz if you remember back in Voices of Authority when, you know, the episode with Chicky Zack and was, was complaining to Garabaldi about how these security uniforms, they're so, they're so baggy. Like, I look ridiculous.
How am I gonna get a date in one of these things? Now he's getting tailored, he's looking nice. And Lanier picks up on, he is like, cause he is complaining about his outfit again. But Lanier picks up like, oh there's something more to this. And I thought that was a really cool moment where it's just like, yeah, Garabaldi is gonna be back if I get this uniform it means he's not coming back.
Brent: right. Uh, he gets poked intentionally by the Mbar who has this big ass needle, sorry. He has this big old needle and like you see the person's arm like real back and just jab him and he is like, ow. And then lanier's like, good job. And next time you use a bigger needle. To which I was sitting there thinking like actually a bigger needle would hurt less.
Jeff: exactly. Yeah.
Brent: a, get a finer needle, get a, get a, get one that's more pokey because a big needle, you know, blunts the force a little bit.
Jeff: Or maybe he was just trying to actually like, cause. He's like, get a bigger needle so we can send this guy to Med Lab
Brent: Right. And suck out fluid from his spine when you do it. Like that's the kind of needle we're going for here. Um, so, all right, here's a question then, Jeff. How permanent is this whole change with Garabaldi and Zach? Zack's getting a uniform now we know in production world, whatever could happen, but like, is Gu, is Garabaldi gone?
Jeff: That's my guess.
Brent: Like, is he, like, is he coming back? Is he, because they were receding that like, I don't wanna do this until the chief comes back, or one of they like, look, he's not coming back.
Jeff: I think we're gonna get a little mini arc with Zach where he starts like accepting the mantle of being the chief, the, the head of security. But I, I think, my guess is that Garabaldi is done, like his business is gonna take off. He's gonna do well. Um, I think we still have
Brent: pissed off Sheridan.
Jeff: I was gonna say, we still have questions about like, is it gonna be on Babylon five?
Is he gonna move? There's still make like opera stuff to go into a lot more story. I don't think Jerry Doyle is leaving the series. I think Michael Garabaldi is leaving the staff of Babylon
Brent: Here, here's what I can say right now, with all certainty, I cannot say that I have rightly seen a season five D v D cover to know if Jerry Jerry Doyle is on that is in season five or not.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: But this feels like they're writing him off the show slowly, but it, it's what it feels like.
Jeff: But thi think about all the other people they've written off the show Veer right back when he got, sent him in Barri, uh, stuff like that, or to Minbar and those things. I, I, I feel like they don't really write people off the show. Really?
Brent: What's the trap door thing that we've heard about? Right? Everybody's got a trap door, so,
Jeff: But I don't think it's a trap door. I think this is part of the story.
I think this is transitioning Garibaldi out of his work. In Earth Force and be being his own
Brent: and somehow it's got to play the overall takedown of President Clark and the scouring of Earth. Like,
Jeff: Or, or, or maybe he's just over on the side of all that,
Brent: is he gonna be a bad guy? Like, like, so we, we asked about Talia, like when Talia turned, we wanted to see evil Talia. I have often said that I think given the timeframe and where things were, they couldn't have done it any other way. But if Star Trek, t and g was being made now, and we got to best of both worlds and John Lu Picard gets turned into a Borg.
He would not get deified the very next episode.
Jeff: correct.
Brent: He would stay a Borg. Riker would've gotten promoted and he would Riker's the new captain. And Picard turns into the villain of the show and now, at least for a season, and they're gonna carry this out for a season or two. And then when Picard comes back, he's gonna be an Admir roller, he's gonna be a civilian, but he'll still be around or something like that.
Like that's how that would work today. And that's actually, I thought that would be really neat
Jeff: That'd be a cool
Brent: and uh, and it would make a whole lot more sense of why John Luke today still freaks out about the whole Borg thing. Like, dude, you were there for a week. Like, come on man. You know.
Jeff: I think so. My thought, and this is really about my thoughts on Babylon five, the series as a whole and where it's moving. I think that like what we're doing now is we're looking at what happens after a world war, right? You know, this case, a galaxy war, cuz so many movies, so many TV shows have that big war and then it's like, okay, we won.
Hooray. This is saying no, there's fallout from that. What are you thinking? I can see it on your face.
Brent: I'm thinking if I wanna go ahead and use my third reference right here, I mean that's what we got with Star Trek. There was the Big Dominion War and then the next thing we knew that happened, Voyager came home. And until New Trekk, and even still right now, like what happened between Voyager showing back up out of the, the trans Warp, conduit and prodigy or lower. Right. We know somewhere the Rolin star exploded and then we get Picard and whatever the heck's going on with Picard like, like but what we don't know, cuz you're right, like that's what happened for so long.
It was just Dominion War ended and now voyager's back home. Like that's all we got. And it stopped.
Jeff: I think Babylon five is going that extra step of saying, now what happens? And so I think Garibaldis role in the story of this now is gonna be, there's still all this mess going on with Earth. There's gonna be stuff amongst the league worlds as they're, you know, kind of picking up the pieces. So there's gonna be.
I don't know, like just the, the still conflicts that are going on, but I think Garabaldi is gonna be the through line once we get through what his Sheridan stuff is, what his programming is, all that. I think he's gonna be the through line of like, this is what a dude live in life is doing in the universe now postwar, like, he's gonna become our everyman.
Brent: Yeah, I, uh, I really want him to turn into a bad guy though, Jeff.
Jeff: So
Brent: think he'd be so good if he was a bad guy for the rest of the series.
Jeff: I'm banking that he will be a bad guy in this season, but unlike Talia, where that personality killed it in, in fact, oh my God. In fact, what I almost think is gonna happen is this is where ster finally in the eyes of the people on Babylon five gets redeemed to some level where he's like, no, I, I can actually, I can actually encapsulate his little thing and I can, I can fix
Brent: Oh, Bester helps to fix Gu Baldy. That, that'd be an, that's an interesting storyline. I could, I could get with that, but I
Jeff: Cyco messes him up. Cyco messes him up. Ster comes and kind of cleans him up.
Brent: Well, because we don't need Beter to come and make his war, our war anymore, uh, and help us actually defeat the bolon and shadows, cuz that's done.
Jeff: Yeah. We didn't, and we didn't need his help apparently, despite multiple episodes talking
Brent: Right. Right.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: But don't worry, nothing's wasted.
Jeff: Everything that you see on screen turns into something,
Brent: Nothing.
Jeff: but Hey,
Brent: of things that don't get wasted,
Jeff: Green, I loaded a two green.
Brent: it's been a while since we've used that. Jeff.
Jeff: I know.
Brent: Uh, we got, so Ivanova comes out now, I, I, I gotta admit, uh, she had that green sash and it took a second to click in my head what she was wearing, and she said, I got invited to go do something with the drowsy. I thought she was gonna get killed.
Jeff: Oh,
Brent: Yeah. I was like, oh, she's about to get jacked. Like, they're coming, they're coming to get her now. I thought these things only lasted for a year. And we're two. And then they, and then they went on pause for like five years, so we're like two years passed, whatever. But so she's wearing a green sash and the next thing we see of her is she's getting out of the elevator with her cane.
From that first episode I noted and she looks like either her and that drossy got it on in the episode or in the, in the elevator or they got it on in the elevator and I don't know which one it was.
Jeff: I think it might have been a little bit of both. I think that we might have gotten a good, like what? I think that there was the cane and the, the, the scarf, the, the sash, the whole thing was a little role play that was going on, celebrating the whole thing. And I have a feeling that the drowsy approach to, um, getting it on is a pretty darn clinging on approach.
And in that elevator we got some warf and jaz going down.
Brent: living it up when they're going down. I love it. I love it.
Jeff: It was fun. It was just, it was really cool to see Yvanova having fun.
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. And be, and honestly, I mean, that's the call out to the old school of Ava.
Jeff: Exactly.
Brent: we've really been missing. That's the first season. I still love
Jeff: Good. Still the best. He's still, God, sorry,
Brent: Just joking. Um, okay. So Kar, they are 100% setting up this eye to be a thing in a future episode. Like, he's gonna stick his eye in somebody's pocket and they're gonna spy on somebody.
Or you know, he's gonna, it's gonna be like the camera that you just set somewhere and he's gonna be able to see what's going on.
Jeff: It's not the nanny cam, it's the the nni.
Brent: the nar cam
Jeff: I love the makeup choice where they just didn't put his contact lens
Brent: is his, are his eyes actual blue are,
Jeff: know. I
Brent: cause I,
Jeff: be weird.
Brent: I've seen pictures of Andreas and that guy is a brown eyed dude if I've ever met one in my life. So it still
Jeff: be weird though? Hey, don't put in your red contacts. Put in this blue one. Hey, why can't I just have my regular eye?
Brent: Be what? Right, right. Well, because you have to juxtapose red and blue, but I mean, you could just slap a blue contact on top of your eye.
That's not a big problem. You slap a full red cover up my entire eyeball that I can barely see out of and it hurts. I did like Franklin though, sitting there like, okay, now listen, you can take this thing out, but you gotta make sure you clean it. Make sure you charge it. You gotta put it on the charger. I wonder, does it.
Jeff: it's a very timely statement.
Brent: it plug in or is it a wireless charger?
Jeff: Is it lightning port? Like, like are still gonna get to use lightning ports in the, in the future. Franklin, by the way, awesome doctor. Awesome. Doctoring in this scene.
Brent: Yeah. And you know why? Because he didn't have that many lines
Jeff: Exactly.
Brent: and he wasn't being creepy and he wasn't being, uh, I, I have already made up my mind about the right and wrong and because you know what it is, there was nothing moral about this
Jeff: Right. It's just a
Brent: care medicine,
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: medicine.
Jeff: Do this, be hygienic about it. Also know you're gonna have these issues. There you go.
Brent: Um, so I guess the only other thing outside of the whole Dalen deal then is speaking of Franklin, he and Marcus are getting sent away to Mars to make contact with the resistance on Mars. And we'll catch up with that in an episode or two.
Jeff: in that scene, there was a cool moment after like, Sheridan kind of gave him their marching orders or whatever, and uh, Franklin stops by, he is like, Hey, dude, um, heard about your dad, uh, while I'm over there, do you want me to pick anything? I thought that was a really cool, selfless move for Franklin to, to step up.
And I also understood Sheridan and be like, no. Like,
Brent: I'm sorry, Jeff. Jeff. Pause because this was my other ask Jeff about this leadership moment. Please discuss this moment from a leadership standpoint.
Jeff: So fr on both sides, I'll do it from Franklin's side. It was great leadership because he understood he had an opportunity that was gonna make a personal difference to somebody on his team. You know, like I know this is a thing causing you stress. I'm gonna be in the neighborhood. I can check on this for, for you.
That's a cool thing. You don't have to be a manager or anything like that. That's just good peeing
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: to do. But for Sheridan to tell him no, like don't you got other stuff to do was the right move. But it's complicated, right? Because there's also value in saying, hey, yeah, if you could do that, that adds some value and validates Franklin offering that. So there's a piece of, you know, when someone offers you something, Yeah, yeah.
Hey, if you could blah, blah, blah, that's awesome. But also I think that Sheridan understood that, hey, this is the thing that's just gonna help me personally, has no impact on the greater picture of things. And it puts you, Dr. Franklin, one of my key assets going behind the lines, going undercover to figure some stuff out puts you at wild amounts of risk.
So as much as I would like to know how my dad is doing, it's not worth the risk. I think it was fantastic leadership. Um, a big part of leadership is personal sacrifice, giving things up and understanding that there are things bigger than you at stake. And in that moment, shared and understood that, and, and demonstrated it.
Brent: And he was also like, yeah, and by the way, if you go poking around, it's actually gonna damage what you're trying to do out there anyway. And Sheridans or Survivors and this, he did say they included that in the broadcast. I felt like when we saw that episode that that might have been the thing that the, the news reporter was like, Hey, I'm actually not being a big jerk.
Here is me giving you a little, a little information that you could use Sheridan. But Sheridan was like, no, no. They put that in to try to draw us out.
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: like, and I'm like, well, okay then I guess that just makes it, makes it bad then,
Jeff: yeah. Makes Dan Randall a
Brent: Yeah. He's just, now he's just a jerk. If, if that's the truth, you know, maybe Sheridan has a misread on the whole deal.
I don't know.
Jeff: yeah. Understandably so. Like how do you look at that as John shared it and go, oh, how nice are him to subtly slip me a message? No, he's gonna read that and be like, they're actively threatening me on the air right now.
Brent: right.
Jeff: I do wanna give one shout out on. Some of the production that happened here.
So there was this scene, this transition scene where the sun was going down behind the planet and like it, like night fell onto Babylon five. That was freaking gorgeous. That was a beautiful
Brent: I have no idea what you're talking about now. I wanna go back and rewatch it. I
Jeff: it happened.
Brent: have been taking a note or something at that moment. Yeah,
Jeff: I was like, oh, it's so good. But then that, I think it was around that transition scene that are shortly after where we get Marcus and Franklin flying off being awkward with each other.
Brent: Well, and then the end of the, uh, the end of the whole thing, uh, with them on the ship, like going off, you know, and he's pushing the button, making it go out and in and all that. So,
Jeff: He sings, uh, he sings the major general song from the Pirates of
Brent: Yes, yes,
Jeff: which, uh, if you wanna annoy somebody, it's a
Brent: yes. That is, that is your end of the episode assignment. You must sing that
Jeff: Oh my God. Um.
Brent: as we go out.
Jeff: I'll stick around and we'll see if that happens or not. But hey, you know what else is, uh, cool about this? This is for some of my, my, uh, mass effect people out there morden in Mass effect two. If you get the right, uh, dialogue tree going, he sings that song
Brent: There's a mor mass effect too.
Jeff: Yeah, he's a good guy though.
He's actually one of the best guys. He's amazing. Yeah, he's super cool. But yeah, here's a whole thing. If you get everything right, he sings a version of, uh, a Solarian instead of being a major general, he's a solarian something. That's the race that Morton is. Um, and I now fully believe that's an homage to Babylon five now, so pretty cool.
Brent: All right, so shall we talk about Dylan and her whole deal? All right. So, um, I don't even know where to start with this. I, because
Jeff: Well, let's start, let's start
Brent: happened. We already know that we can,
Jeff: let's start with Dalen in a black dress.
Brent: Oh,
Jeff: Inviting Sheridan to, uh, stay the night.
Brent: okay. So she comes out and I'm like, like Sheridan's looking at her with Gaga eyes,
Jeff: He's like a 16 year old boy. Like, oh
Brent: in, like, lingerie, like, we're gonna stand in. And then she's like, no, we're getting ready to go out to dinner, because we haven't been out to dinner in a long time. And we're like, oh, she's actually wearing a, like a, like a night dress right now.
Like a, not a nightgown, but a, a
Jeff: going out. dress.
Brent: Yeah. Like, that's not lingerie. That's a, she's ready to go out on the town and then, you know, she's gonna watch him sleep.
Jeff: yeah. But yeah, so many more rituals. Uh, you know, like, I thought they'd done the three nights. I thought
Brent: Apparently they only did one, and then actually, apparently they did two. I don't know. There's, I don't know that I'm a member of the two. I didn't realize there was still one hanging out there.
Jeff: Yeah, I, I thought we had checked that box and they were ready to rock and roll. That's why he like, gave her the ring and everything. But, uh, still more to do and apparently still, even when you're courting, you still gotta go out to dinner from time to time. That's a note for anyone out there in a long or short term relationship.
Brent: Hey, listen, if, if you're out there married or you're in a long-term committed relationship, honestly do the things that you did early on. Go on dates, set it up, make it happen. Actually do that. I'm looking at you wife. No, I'm just joking. I'm not joking about going out, like, actually let's go out. No, it, it, uh, yeah, it, it has been a key.
It's my personal marriage. We still, we still date, which is awesome. And she's cool. I love her. Um, okay, first of all, good on Le Lanier for going with Dylan through this whole deal. Like great on him. Um, he does
Jeff: on her. Shame on her for not telling him. And also way back, not way back, but a couple weeks ago in the summoning, she was talking about all these people that are important to me, bad things are happening to, and she lists everybody except Lanier. Like she's actively trying to cut him out of her life.
Brent: it's cuz he has a crush on her and she's not trying to lead him on.
Jeff: Yes. Maybe. Maybe he's sworn himself to her though, and he doubles down on that
Brent: He does. And, but she's got another dude like
Jeff: Who she's stared at all night
Brent: Right, right. And Lanier's like, she could be watching me. Um.
Jeff: I sleep well.
Brent: So Delin really seems to think like she's not coming back at the beginning of this episode. And were you surprised at all to find out that the maari forbid interracial marriage or inner species marriage?
Jeff: No. I mean, I, I was, I was not surprised at all. Racial purity has been a theme we've heard from the men bar pretty much since this from go. I think I was just, I think I was just more surprised that, uh, it's only now coming up.
Brent: yeah. Uh, I was, I was not surprised at all. And then my guy, they, they brought the leaders of the Klan to decide her fate
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: looked like the whole dang clan
Jeff: There's a lot of people
Brent: allows more than just the elders that was more than the leaders or her Klan is really flagging big. And you got all of these leaders together in the same place at the same time to make this decision for her.
Jeff: I wonder how many clans there are. Right. Maybe that is all the leaders. Maybe they're huge. Maybe there's like
Brent: Is, is this her and Lan? Are they in the same clan? Is this third Fe in Jumo?
Jeff: I have no.
Brent: Hmm. Interesting. Uh, by the way, the leader guy already has made up his mind about how he's gonna decide this. Right?
Jeff: Clearly.
Brent: He's, like, we're, we're gonna go through this to tell you you are wrong. Well, what if, and, and Dylan has a great line.
She, she's like, um, sorry, I thought I had it written down here, but I don't. But she basically, she says, uh, uh, well, what chance do I have if you've already made up your mind? And he is like, you really, you're gonna have to come up with a really good one.
Jeff: yeah. That's up to you to figure out, right?
Brent: Cause we're here to tell you how you are wrong and this is not gonna go forward.
Uh, but then we turn in and we find out that she was a person to go sit with Ducote during his dream. Which we never found out why he was dreaming. Was this just something he goes and does on the regular, like just to hang out or
Jeff: I wonder if it's like,
Brent: middle of something and why would, why did she go in there? Isn't this supposed to be like an intimate thing, like her and Lanier?
Like she just, I'll go in. Sure.
Jeff: I wonder if it's a thing they do, like as you're being appointed or moving through, you're like, oh, you're gonna be the new whatever. Like maybe she had to go through the dreaming. Well, I don't know when she was getting named to the great council, like maybe that's a, oh, you're gonna be the one to lead us all.
So you gotta go through the dreaming to show us that you can do
Brent: And we're gonna send a random acolyte in here to watch you while you do it and get into all your stuff.
Jeff: Which is weird too, cuz like when they, when uh, when clan speaker dude was like, is there anyone who trusts you? You trust and love to accompany and protect you. Yeah. Hey, I'm Duco, I'm Big deal. I'm literally the best of you.
Uh, you, you just got outta college.
Brent: send, you know, send an.
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: It's in the intern, I'll be fine.
Jeff: it's probably fine. Like, let's just do.
Brent: yeah. Um,
Jeff: unless, unless he already knew,
Brent: mm-hmm.
Jeff: like maybe he asked for her cuz he already knew about the Valin stuff and this was his opportunity to start planting, you know, kind of developing her and then grooming her to step into the role.
Brent: I did rewatch this and I don't think that that's the case because they're sitting there talking and he says, you know, so what's your name? Where are you from? What's your clan? What's your house? Whatever. And she tells him, and that's when he goes, oh, you are of that family. Like, like you see it on his face, like, oh, you're a child valent.
Like he knew at that moment like, you are of that family. That means you're a child of valent. Like, like he immediately knew and he's like, that's a good family. You're from, there's like, he immediately said something about her heritage there. So I. I think the intimation on a rewatch is he is meeting her for the first time and he didn't pick her.
This is like a, that's cool.
Jeff: oh, oh yeah, we should do something. Did you catch, uh, I thought it was neat. The name of her family is mi
Brent: yeah. That's it. House.
Jeff: like, uh, like Mira, Mira Furlan.
Brent: look at that. I didn't catch up on that. I wonder if that's, I wonder if that's, uh, on purpose
Jeff: right? A little thing maybe. I don't know.
Brent: for them. Um, later on the, uh, he tells her this great line, like, there's nothing to fear in here except for what you bring in yourself and duco. I mean, all right, so talk about Du Kott. Duco was the coolest dude we've ever seen on this show,
Jeff: Totally.
Brent: right?
Like he was
Jeff: Well, it, he like, and, and, and she, we see, we see where she learned how to be who she's become. Right When he brings.
Brent: I'm gonna debate that. Keep going.
Jeff: I was gonna say like little things in, in terms of like, he, he's looking, Hey, I want you to be my aide, or whatever. And then he's like, I cannot have an aide that will not look up. It'll be forever walking into things. And that's the exact same thing she said to Lanier when he came on board. Uh, it was great.
He, I think he did a very good job in the time he had to mentor and groom her. And I think that a lot of it stuck with her. Definitely not all of it.
Brent: The role was cast so, well, I don't even know who the name of the actor is or what else he has done. I tried looking it up. Uh, it's not the guy I thought it was, um, but he, he was duco a hundred percent. A hundred
Jeff: He was like, he was like seven feet tall. He had that voice. That was incredible. Now, what I was gonna mention though, on the directing, there was quite a few times where just his body positioning and kind of how he put himself, uh, in relation to Dylan was really creepy.
Brent: Would it have been creepy for the late nineties though? Is it only creepy because you're looking at it through today's eyes?
Jeff: I don't know.
It just felt like, especially the, the time when he came by, he was like, oh, I was just heading to my quarters to sleep and thought I'd stop by, and I'm just like, oh, no. Bad things are gonna, oh no, it's, and, and I really took a lot of it as just being like some direction he was given and maybe blocking for the scenes, but it came across kind of creepy.
But I'm not counting that against him in any way. It just bears, bears stating,
Brent: So I had a, a thought about Duco here. Do you remember Jeff? Uh, somewhere in the middle of season two, season three. I don't remember how far back I, I kind of unloaded this new theory about the whole, uh, uh, deep space nine versus Babylon five thing,
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: And, and what I,
Jeff: The, uh, east Coast, west
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. That it wasn't, it wasn't so much that they were, uh, the deep Space nine was, was ripping off Babylon five.
And one of the things that people always point to is the name Duc Kott, because you've got the really bad guy over in Deep Space nine called Du Kott, and you've got this guy here called Duc Kott. But what I've said is, is they're not ripping off. It's, they're almost in like a, like a, a pissing match.
They're in a, they're in a, a battle, right? So I 100%, and my head can see this, they have the JMS thing that they have, the show Bible and stuff. They're developing a new show for a space station, and they, the, the Star Trek guys, the, the Paramount guys, they want to be the only Space station show in town.
You know what I mean? And so they're like, okay, well we're gonna have this big bad guy. And someone's like, you know what? Their holy religious leader over there was called Duco. I'm gonna give them that name and make him the bad guy. It, it's kind of like what they did with the name Lida. Oh really? Li's gonna be one of your people.
We're gonna make her the prostitute over here, you know, and, and, and they're having their little, not some D's Face franchise. You're about to go where everyone's gone before. Like, there's some of those, those backs and backs and forths back and forths. Uh, but I, I really, I think this, I I, we can't have an episode that features Duco without discussing the Duco thing.
Uh, so, um, forgive me if I've gone over on my references, but
Jeff: that's, I don't think it's
Brent: the show is here. Yeah. The show brought,
Jeff: this is more meta than a
Brent: yeah. But I, I really, I really wonder, and I would think, uh, because what we saw in Duco out of this episode is in no way, shape, or form anything like the duco in the other series.
Jeff: Yeah. Not even a, not even a S Midge,
Brent: So the only way that that makes sense is if we're gonna rip off the name just to sort of noodle you a little bit, you know, but it is, it, it's a hard, that's a hard thing to get past when you start talking about whether or not one did rip off the other.
I don't, I
Jeff: Mm-hmm. You have to look a layer deeper, at least to be like, oh, okay. Yeah. There
Brent: I, it def I would buy, it was on purpose, uh, to just rip off their whole show. I, that's not, that's not a, uh, point in the favor of, of ripping off. So, um
Jeff: Well, part of it too is that Vico, not only is he great and he's wise and he does these things, but he's a good politician as well. I loved when he brought Dalen in front of the council and asked her, you know, Hey, how should we handle these humans? He talked about the worker cast, and they were afraid that this was gonna cost him jobs and the, the need to find art, you know, art artifacts and things like that.
The, the warrior cast here is worried that we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have to crush these people and the religious cast are worried that we're gonna have new ideas coming in. He was able to spell out the, the resistance to contact with humans was a fear of loss, fear. Everyone was afraid of losing someone and so in or something.
So instead of going and engag. Let's just sit back and let the Centara deal with them or whatever, like it's not, this might cost us things. I thought that was very insightful.
Brent: That's a, that's something that could speak to governments today, and I'm not pointing to anything specific in our world today, just in general, if you try to guard and protect what you have. Versus actually reaching out and making the right next step. What that's gonna do is lead you into a society of what Mbar actually has become.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: And I gotta tell you, the more we find out about the Mbar civilization, the less and less I like,
Jeff: Agreed. Agreed.
Brent: and less I really, uh, uh, that I have any respect for them. I, I loved what Veer was able to go do when he was the ambassador. He seemed like he'd come back a, a much cooler kid, but, you know. Yeah. Uh, yeah, we heard about it.
Withdrawal when we first met. Draw Mbar is not what Mbar used to be anymore. Uh, they were, they are people who are xenophobic to the ire. Uh, they are people who spout certain beliefs. But when it comes to the rubber meeting the road, those beliefs don't really matter. You know, and, and to even the, the clan leader guy, uh, his whole thing at the end of like, oh, well here's this thing from old that we could do.
Like, dude, you could have offered that at the very beginning
Jeff: Way
Brent: and let your girl go like that would've been just fine. But no, you were concerned about how things look and I wanna have a conversation about with this offer that he made and, and Dylan accepting it because might have been the, the bad thing that I thought about Dylan in this particular episode.
Um, but so we got the other side of, uh, the King Arthur story in.
Jeff: and I think too, to even like piggyback on your, your thought you just had there about governments and things like that. We got the other side of the Avalon story, but what we saw, we got a little more in depth into like the whole open your Gunports thing and how like that's a warrior cast thing of hey, here's what we're dealing with.
Here you go. In fact, it goes back to the salute. You know where the salute comes from showing I have nothing in my hand. The handshake that used to be grabbing each other's
Brent: it? Wasn't it like raising the visor on your night helmet? Isn't that
Jeff: Yep. Here I am and I have nothing in my hand. Like
Brent: not here to hide or anything. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff: Yep. The handshake that would show I have nothing hiding, you know, in my sleeves or anything.
This is very much that thing. What I felt though was like they're in the moment and do cotton and everyone's like, what are you doing? Close your gun ports for God's sake. This is, but they wouldn't because of the cultural hubris that the minbar have. This is our culture. It is right to do this even when we're extending to meet another culture.
So we can look at what we'll look at here with the lens vote later. We can look at what we saw in the Avalon episode of them, given the order to fire. And we can point a lot of, a lot of blame, but ultimately, ultimately, I think I'm dropping this on the warrior cast and cultural hubris of this is how we're going to do things, even in the face of it being the wrong thing.
Brent: Well there, I mean, at some point somebody needed the lead,
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: like because you've got the warrior casters out there doing whatever the blip, pity blip that they want to do. When we've got these guys that are just showing up, like we're like, nobody's saying, Hey, here's some new people. Go get the ambassador, get our, get our
Jeff: Well, don't they have, don't they have a first contact protocol for God's sake? Like they should have a, a textbook on
Brent: have they never encountered this before when meeting first contact with a new, a new species.
Jeff: Imagine what we know of the sonari, right? Who looked for any opportunity. It's a drop of anything to go to war, and you're gonna come at them with your gun ports open.
Brent: do the, do the volans come at you with gun ports open? Like, where have you seen this? You don't, you don't do this and say, Hey, this is how we just do it. Like, you ha you're right. There needed to be some sort of a, of a protocol. You gotta be, you gotta be smarter than that and not just, just put your, your own stuff on everyone else's.
If it's the right way of doing. You know, by the way, that sounds like a very interesting message that we may or may not talk about later, or you may or may not talk about later. Jeff,
Jeff: Did you see the Soul Hunters?
Brent: we saw the soul hunters, and I'm trying to remember Jeff cuz it's been a minute. Didn't the soul hunter get Wasn't one of the souls, he had the soul of duco.
Jeff: No. He, he turned into murder, soul Hunter, because he didn't get Duc Cot.
Brent: that's what it was. Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. He explained there was a, I forget, but there were like, there were like, the Minbari stopped them from getting to Duc Cot, and that drove him. That drove him to become murder Soul Hunter.
Brent: gotcha. Yeah. So neat. Shout out to the soul hunters. They did make a reappearance, sort of, we saw their ships. Anyway, the three of them. Um,
Jeff: Well that's the thing too, back to the gun port thing cuz that's, that's what got duco, you know when the land's like soul hunters and he is like, shut the gun ports
Brent: Somebody's about to die.
Jeff: uhhuh. And they're like, no, this is what we're go, this is what we do, so we're just gonna do it.
Brent: Yeah. Don't, how about don't talk? You know, I say that all the time to my wife. I love my wife. I've talked about her a lot here today. I like, I've realized if, if we're ever like walking down the street and something is falling out of a window, like I, what I can't say to my wife is duck or get out of the way.
Because she'll be like, well, why should I duck? Why should I get outta the way? Really? What, what's going on that I need to get outta the way? What's happening? What are you seeing? And I'm like, no, get out of like, you're going to die. Stop. And because you're going to die, I need, I need to, I need to come up with some other word that gets her out of the way.
Jeff: Have the opposite of a safe word. Right. Like a true danger
Brent: Yeah. Just trust me, get down. Because she'd be like, what? Why? What's going? By the way, my kids are the same way. So, um, so she meets Toco, she winds up on the Great Council, tri Luminary Glows, which is interest. I didn't think that, that, that Tri Luminary looked a lot more fragile than the one that we've
Jeff: looked very, it looked like a high school shop project
Brent: Yeah. Is that what the ones look like from season one? That she stuck on the top of the deal and became a thing.
Jeff: I don't remember.
Brent: And the Tri Luminary came from Epsilon three.
Jeff: yeah. Or no, they came fr they were gifts from Valin.
Brent: Right. But I mean, okay, so this is the circular thing. Where did the Tri Luminaries actually come from?
Jeff: My guess. Right? It's, I, I think Zaris still plays a massive role in everything in the
Brent: it.
Jeff: Yeah, I think I, I still think he went and created Epsilon three. I think he created the Tri Luminaries, from what I understood, they, their purpose was to sense Sinclair's dna. N so like the, yeah, the whole point is like, are you a child of, of Valin, essentially.
Brent: and so, so let's talk about Dylann and her call to go to war, because I still have another conversation I wanna have about Dylann in just a moment. Uh, in the middle of her grief, she says, no mercy. No mercy. Kill 'em. All
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: then she comes back and says, actually, that was really stupid. And the dude's like, huh, too late.
We're in it now. This.
Jeff: driven mad and this is a Holy war now.
Brent: Yeah. And this is, um, this is the atonement. This is the show reference is Dalen has to atone somehow for her vote
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: that they were, they would've allowed her to change. Are you changing or to vote? If I do, does it stop everything? No. Okay. Well then I'm not changing my vote like
Jeff: Yeah, what's the
Brent: you asked me in a, in a really bad moment.
Uh, although when you're that kind of a leader, you have to be able to be,
Jeff: Yep.
Brent: go ahead Jeff.
Jeff: So this is, that's my thing is like the, and this isn't a Babylon five thing. This is a TV and movies thing where we take these people who are in now do not hear me say, every person who's a leader at this level is beyond reproach and makes these things, but generally speaking, you get to that level.
You're in a position where you can make these decisions under pressure. Yeah. I, I think about that movie, uh, from like the nineties, Dave, where Yeah.
Brent: President.
Jeff: the guy like, yeah.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: He is a impersonator for the president. President had a heart attack. They didn't want stuff to go wild, so they put him in place and he ends up like in a war room and has to make some decisions.
And he is like, oh my God. Yeah, because you've never made decisions like that. You become president, you become a member of the great council because you've made decisions that have led up to a point where you're ready to do this. I have a real problem with her making such an emotional response. This is an enlightened race.
Supposedly. This is a leader. This is one of the nine who's doing this. This is TV drama saying, oh my gosh. She was so emotionally impacted by li by this. She said this, I don't buy that. I don't buy it. I think it undercuts the leadership of Dalen, which I have some more thoughts on here in a little while.
Um, and it undercuts just the, the minbar as
Brent: But she had literally been named a leader 10 minutes earlier.
Jeff: Yeah, but you know what she, that, that's not a switch that's flipped. Like that's a point that she got to. And the minute you're like, the minute you're sworn in, you're expected to, to perform, like you gotta do it. And I have a real problem with the concept of deciding vote.
Brent: Hmm.
Jeff: You know, so we, we vote in like, here we vote in public, aye, nay, you know, whatever.
Here, apparently they do as well. And so there is a deciding vote, but you know what, it's not your fault. Youlen don't own this problem. A whole bunch of other people voted to do it as well. Why does it have to land on
Brent: Well cuz hers was the last one. I mean, it's, it,
Jeff: But she should vote her vote. Whether it, it shouldn't be my vote decides everything. It should be, I'm voting for war, or I'm not voting for. It's five to four and the order it was taken in
Brent: does not matter, but it does. And it, I, so this is a sports thing. I've seen this, I can't tell you how many times this year, Jeff, in football. Okay. You get all the way down to the end of the game, and it's that one play, you know, if the referee would've called that passing interference play differently, or if the kick would've gone through the uprights, but it didn't, or if you know, whatever.
And so now the kicker lost the game, or the referee lost the game, go, no, they didn't because the, the real smart person goes, no, they didn't. You should not have been in that position in the first place.
Jeff: Yeah. There were 3.9 quarters that happened before
Brent: And, and, and it was an amalgam of everything that had happened up to that point. So, no, you cannot just blame the thing. You know, the one thing that happened, uh, I agree with you on that, but, but the bottom line is, is that kicker is paid millions of dollars. Sometimes it's kickers, uh, sometimes to be under pressure and make that kick.
Because that pressure is different here than it is in quarter one, in quarter two, and even quarter three and,
Jeff: in the playoffs versus regular
Brent: exactly, exactly. So Dylan being under that pressure of being the deciding vote, didn't do her thing, what she should have done, and she cracked and it was a mistake. And she knew it was a mistake really quickly after, but she couldn't change it.
And she's carried that as guilt because she sh Because Jeff, I think everything you're saying is a hundred percent right. She should have been stronger. She should have not made the emotional decision that she did, but she did. And when it counted, she was the one that tipped it.
Jeff: And here's, I can hear people already, I can hear the, she was, she lost the, the, you know, the greatest of all Minbar, her mentor. She was in an emotional state. How can you expect someone, here's
Brent: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you think she looks at Duco the way that Lanier looks at her?
Jeff: I
Brent: Like she was devoted to him? She had a thing for him. She loved him, but
Jeff: don't think it's a love, I don't think it's a love thing. I think it's more of a mentor thing. I don't
Brent: See, I think, I think, I think Lanier totally has a thing for Delin,
Jeff: Oh yeah, he said it. He has said as
Brent: but that's what I'm saying. Did Dalen do that? Same thing with Du Kott. She totally has a thing for Duco. Even though she could never actually be with him for one reason or another, that we aren't privy to that information.
Jeff: Maybe. But I think like, this is the thing we, we we're living in this world weird age. That is exciting in some ways and difficult in others because it's a transition time where, you know, four years ago, emotional intelligence meant bks, who cared about your empathy. You're a leader. It's not about compassion, it's about results.
Make these things happen. We're not there anymore, and that's a very good thing. Emotional inte. When I hire other managers, I have so many, I have assessments and questions and exercises I have to do to measure someone's emotional intelligence, cuz that's what matters. But the thing is, when the boulders are falling down on the freeway and there's gunfire coming across the way and traffic's crazy, do you want a person driving the bus whose self-regulation part of their emotional intelligence is next to zero, but they're so comfortable being vulnerable and expressing themselves, like there has to be a balance.
A truly emotionally intelligent person has self-awareness. Is comfortable expressing their emotions, but also has the regulation to behave and operate in the moment they're in. Do you want Dalen driving the bus? No,
Brent: Not then. Not then. Which brings me to what I want to talk about with Dylan, because I think it actually sets up this story arc, this journey that Dylan goes through in this episode that we have seen for the last three and a half seasons. But before we get there, I have two notes. Normally, Jeff, I would just skip these notes and I would let them go.
But I think they're crucial points that we would be remiss if we didn't talk about. Neither one of us have brought them up. Uh, both of 'em have to do with Sinclair one. I just wanna point this out. So what we've learned in this episode is Dylan is a great, great, great, great, great, whatever granddaughter of Sinclair,
Jeff: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brent: wow, go back and watch season one thinking
Jeff: Through that. Yeah. Uhhuh.
Brent: So there's that, but they said this line Val's death. Okay, I'm gonna say Sinclair. His death was a mystery and his body was never found.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: So what happened? And please, for the love of all that's good and holy out there, I don't want to, I don't actually tell me what happened, folks.
I want to find out what happened, please. For the love of all the good, that's good and holy. Let this not be one of those things that doesn't get wrapped up, that just gets left behind.
Jeff: Do you wanna know what I think happens? Do you, well, let me ask this. Do you have a theory about what's gonna happen?
Brent: I, I have a bunch of what ifs, but no, no actual, like, this is in my head. What happened? I, I, he went off to like some other planet or something, had a bunch of kids I died and buried. They just never told us. Uh, or he came back to the future and we're gonna s I, here's the thing. I don't know that we see Michael O'Hare again.
I feel like what we saw in war without. Was that, and him going back to, to be Valin, uh, was the culmination of Michael O'Hare storyline, although they brought him back and he shows up again.
Jeff: I have a feeling that we are, we've been talking about it for a while. We thought the Warrior cast was gonna align with the shadows, you know, but we've, we've been seating pretty much ever since, uh, uh, voice in the Wilderness when we met Draw, kind of talking about and leading towards this collapse of Minbar society.
And I think we're seeing some of that here. And I think it's gonna collapse. I think it's gonna get ugly. That's gonna be part of season four, and I think Valin is going to come back. He's gonna time travel back up and be like, No, stop. I am valent and these are the things, and he's gonna bring all of Val's children together because I did the math.
That's not true. I didn't do math. I did a duck, duck go search. And I was like, how many of Val's children are there?
Brent: Hmm.
Jeff: Like if it's been a thousand
Brent: She, she, she said too many to count. Basically everyone. Yeah.
Jeff: So according to Duck, duck go and Google, a thousand years is about 40 generations in human time. They didn't have Minbari time figured out there.
So I dunno if that's more or less. So that's generally between eight and 12 million people. So I don't know how many Minbari there are, but like today's almost 8 billion people on earth. So let's say there are 15 billion Minbari and 12 million of of them are children of Valin. That's one big city or one, you know, one big state or whatever.
Like, so that's, that's a good chunk of people.
Brent: I mean that, that could be a small country for sure.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Like a whole small country for sure. Yeah.
Jeff: Yeah, just, yeah, it'd be interesting to see, but I thought that was pretty fascinating. They made a point of saying his body was
Brent: See, now that reminds me of, of the Jews, it's one particular special group of people that are a rather small country, but certainly are, uh, are their, their own thing out there. And I say that with all love and respect, not, uh, with any sort of weird
Jeff: Well, they were, they're the chosen, you know, they're considered the chosen people. Why wouldn't Vains children be the chosen
Brent: yeah. Yeah. It, it has that feel to it, right?
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: Yeah.
Jeff: Oh my God. And maybe, maybe it really is that right? Because what we saw from dude at the end is he was disgusted with the Valin stuff. In fact, when they were sitting there talking about it, they just said, we know that Valin was Sinclair right in front of dude.
So do they know that? And so does that mean that now that the children of valent are gonna start having some level of precedence, are we gonna start seeing an exodus occur? And we're gonna see, we saw so much of Catholicism in the third season, are we gonna see like that salvation story of the ju of, of Judaism that leads, you know, forward into Star?
Are we gonna see that in season four through the Minbari? Oh, that's
Brent: I dunno. Well, so with that, I, I would like to see some changes with the Mumbar Society, but I do want to talk about Dalen.
Jeff: Yeah. Let's talk about
Brent: Um, I loved her story in this one Dalen, ever since we met her. But especially since doing the whole thing where she went into the chrysalis has always been a bit unsure of herself. Uh, she usually presents this sort of mask of assurance when she's in front of other people. But we, the viewer have also constantly seen her doubt when they talk about it.
Like, well, how do you, how do you know you were the one who was supposed to do this? I just know in my heart, you know what I mean? Like, like, uh
Jeff: Until she gets in front of the council and then, like you said, then she's all
Brent: oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Like she, she's, she's, it's this, it's almost this fake it till you make it kind of an attitude with, with Dylan, which by the way, I respect and sometimes you really just have to have it. But in her core of who she is, there always has just sort of seemed to be this bit of unsurety and especially just this insecurity of now being a human and having to deal with hair and relationship stuff and all that, all that. Now in this episode talking about fake it till you make it. She made it. She comes face-to-face in this episode with her most vulnerable and real self and emerges from it having truly become the powerhouse that she has, for a lack of a better word, than pretending to be. This whole time that Dalin at the very end of the show where she's like, she's laying down and she thinks of something.
All of a sudden she wakes up, she's like, I'm going back to this dreaming. And she grabs Lanier and she goes and they grab the drink and the dude's like, no, you can't do it. And she's like, screw you. I'm doing it anyway here. Guzzle this too. You come with me and she turns in to Dylan, but she has the strength of Du. You know how, like think about Du Cotton, the way he was walking through that gray council chambers with his shoulders up and, and back, but he's still relaxed and he knows all the power that he has and he wields it in a smart and wise way. And Deen's walking in not unsure of herself, not timid, not faking it till she makes it.
She now knows, especially by the end of this, who she is. Now, we've had this conversation lots over the course of this show. She knows, she knows she's a child of Valin. She knows that she was the one to be the tri luminary person. She knows she is the one who is as a part of this triumvirate between her and Sheridan in Sinclair, right?
Um, we, we see why Du Kott was so respected throughout the course of this episode. He was almost anti Imari. The most real mbar that we've ever met. Mbar culture, we've, we've kind of touched on this. The rest of the mbar ha came outta this episode looking very, very weak to me. Almost the entire planet, uh, seems to be wrapped up in that one guy whose name we never got is like the leader of the Klan. And by the end, when Dalen steps up to him, his voice is shaking and he's squirming because here is Dalen in this very duco esque I am here and no, I am not, I'm not fully memoir anyway.
And so this is how this is gonna go down. And he said, whoa, whoa. We have this, we have this older old tradition. Maybe, maybe you'll, maybe you'll accept that. Like, and all he's doing is he is clinging to the last vestiges of what is familiar and comfortable. Even though he knows that everything is based on a lie,
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: so I loved this new Dalen.
I, I want to see Dalen walk forth in power and confidence of knowing who she really is and that she is that person that is supposed to be here also. I'm incredibly disappointed with her.
Jeff: Before you get into the
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: I want to like circle back because you asked me earlier if Duco made the right choice in not forcing the hand of the council to go meet and make contact with the humans. And I said he understood that they had to make that decision for themselves, have their own mistakes, and learn from them.
Dalen made a huge mistake in the moment right when she voted to attack and screamed, no mercy. This is where she learned, this is Du Kat's leadership paying off a decade and some odd change later that she learned and she will be better and stronger because she made that mistake.
Brent: Right?
Jeff: If she had shown up on the Great Council and everything was hunky dory and cool, and she voted on propositions and whatever, she would never become the leader in the potential that she's about to most likely become now that, like you said, now that she knows who she is,
Brent: The fact that she seemed to accept this offer at the end in order to maintain the secret, uh, or rather even allowing the secret to stay because it would destabilize everything. It would make everything weird and uncomfortable. I would accept this more if she was like, Hey, listen, if this were all to come out right now, it would literally destroy Mbar culture that, that it's going to come out, but the time is not right.
Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Brent: You know what I mean? I could accept that. It really seemed to me this was more self-service. Hey, so this is where it is and I'm gonna go marry my dude and there's nothing you could do about it.
Oh, that's what you want to tell people? Fine. I don't care. I'm still gonna go marry my dude. That's the way it came off to me. I was really disappointed with that because like I said earlier, since we first met Draw, we have heard that Mbar is not really Mbar anymore and we've been continually, over the course of the show, been made to seeing the cracks and the mask that is Mbar. And at this point, I don't know, and I kind of wanted us to, but I don't know that we're actually gonna get the story.
Here it is, Jeff, for all our red sector folks out there, the redemption of Men, bar
Jeff: Ooh.
Brent: for Men bar to actually become what she is supposed to. Not just this, Hey, here's all our values and all our virtues, but actually we're just scared little people grasping at power and we're xenophobic and we're this, instead of actually becoming this awesomeness, they're turning more inward and Dylann's just gonna let that happen.
I mean, what does that say about a culture that is so dedicated to keeping up a charade that is clearly crumbling when you see what you could be otherwise in the person of Duco, why wouldn't you wanna be that anyway? Right. Um, seems incredibly prescient for today. And I'm reminded Jeff, uh, Jeff, can I borrow one?
Jeff: Do I have one? Yeah, I think I
have
Brent: I borrow one? Can I borrow it for you? Okay. I am reminded of what Esri Dak said to wharf in the final season of Deeps phase nine, when he, he was talking to her about everything, and she looked at him at one point and she's like, look, maybe the Klingon civilization needs to die.
Maybe it needs, maybe it doesn't deserve to continue. If you have to keep a secret of your family's history and, and keep this the secret of dross in order to maintain your culture, maybe that culture doesn't deserve to continue. And I'm reminded of that here, that if, if Dalen has to keep the secret of the children of Valin and the actual truth of the nature of the people of Minbar, if she has to keep that a secret in order to preserve the culture, maybe that culture doesn't deserve to be preserved.
Jeff: Yeah. Or desperately needs to be changed. And I think I'm not gonna go
into,
Brent: here. And
Jeff: yeah, I'm not gonna go too big into it just because I have it in my closing thoughts, but this was, this moment, was her failure,
Brent: again,
Jeff: her f Yeah. You can say that her failure was voting to go to war. You can say that. But I think that was a path or step on the path for her to this moment of, Hey, delin, what's truly important to you?
The minbar people, uh, the galaxy civilization, uh, for lack of a better term, humanity,
Brent: Mm-hmm.
Jeff: or you getting it on with Sheridan. Like, what is truly important to you? And my takeaway at the end of this, Getting it all
Brent: Chairman. Yeah.
Jeff: priority number one,
Brent: That being said, I will go back and reiterate what I said earlier. I love the journey that Dalen took to become and, and finally not even not become, because she's always been this, to finally accept who she is and, and come in tune with it and step into that person that she is. I only hope that we come back and circle around to this.
Jeff, my suspicion is that this was written the way it was written because j m s is wanting something else, and this isn't the focus. And you and I are just overanalyzing this one little part. I'm ho I, I suspect that is the case. However, I do think there is something more that is, it's worthy of a discussion and maybe it gets covered in a movie or something, an, I don't know.
Uh, it, it would be, maybe that's what crusade is about. Crusade
Jeff: it's what the rest of season four is about. I think we have a lot of Minbar story left for us and, and to me, what. Happens in their society and the role Dalen chooses to play is ultimately what I'm gonna judge this episode on.
Brent: Uhhuh. Well, Jeff, uh, you mentioned it just a second ago, but I think we have reached that spot and I am actually eager to hear as long as this episode is getting, I did not think that we would go as in deep into this episode as we have.
Jeff: Oh, really? I, I, I knew we were
Brent: I thought this be a rather quicker, uh, uh, uh, show, but, uh, I'm eager to.
The Star Trek messages that you have found through the course of this episode and what you've pulled out. We have reached that spot. We are searching for those Star Trek like messages. Jeff, you are going to rate this episode, discuss those in rate this on a scale of zero to five Delta Furies talking about the Star Trek messages you found, but how did they do them in a uniquely Babylon five way?
Jeff: I'm giving this four Delta theories. I'll just start with that. Uh, it had a lot of incredible stuff on it, and it had one big major failing we've talked about a little bit, but the theme that we've been driving through a lot of this whole season has been the, the themes of power and authority. Like what power costs, how it should be used.
And Du Kott had such an amazing quote that I loved so much and lines up with so much of what we've been hearing Kar say all season long. But Duco said, authority should never be used as a club. Oh, I love that. Right? He let the council fail. He let Dalen fail. And through this, uh, the council didn't learn.
They got broken up, but Dalen learned like she failed. And she has learned it took her 15 years. Some odd, but she has learned from her failure. That's leadership, right? Long term leadership from Du Kott. He had another great moment as well. When Dylan was like, just tell 'em. Tell 'em to make contact with the humans.
Like you know what it is. And he said, when something is foolish, tell them it's foolish. But the truth, the truth is where it should be. And I think that's another great role that a leader can play. It's not your role to make people do the right thing. It's your role to provide the information, tell people when they're being stupid, but let them make their own decision.
The meat of this episode ultimately though, was that Dalen made a rash, emotionally charged decision that had galactic consequences. Her vote in the votes of others led to the brutal war, almost wiped humanity off of the map. I'm gonna do a little self plug here, but in the 73rd episode of the Starlee Leadership Academy, my Star Trek podcast, I watched the original series and the children shall lead.
I did that
Brent: That was a while ago. Wow.
Jeff: yeah, and it was a terrible, uh, star Trek episode, one of the worst episodes of Star
Brent: It was a good episode of Star Fleet Leadership.
Jeff: it was, thank you, cuz I got to talk about the dangers of making emotionally charged decisions. That emotions play a role. Emotions are critical, they're so important. We talked about emotional intelligence earlier, but in this episode, Babylon five took that Star Trek theme of making an emotionally charged decision, wrapped it up in a whole lot of Babylon five and handed it right to us because in, in a way, even though it took her nearly, you know, two decades to, to grow and learn from it.
She did, she did grow, she did learn from it. And I have to believe the galaxy will benefit from that. But she also learned that love, love does prevail, right? Like she put her love for shared into the test. And it turns out she actually really does love him. And the question she asked, is love not enough? Well, I think this shows us that it is enough, but you have to have full knowledge and acceptance of why you love and why that love is important. And so I just, oh, I love her, so I'm gonna do this. So I love her for these reasons and I've tested them and tried them, and I think that's why it's important had she stood up for the children of Valin for the changes necessary in Minbari society at the end.
This would've been a five Delta episode five Delta Fury episode. But she didn't, she just wanted to get the nasty on with Sheridan and let her clan be cool with that. And then she got that. So I'm gonna knock it a Delta Fury for the way to send it, and I'm gonna give this one, four.
Brent: Fair enough. Fair enough. Um, yeah, I'm with you in all of that. I, I, I had this other note. If I just may add, add on. I'm not, I'm not advocating for you to change your thing. I just, uh, the, it said, uh, if all this information came out, the race would be destroyed or the purity of the race would be destroyed.
It's like, dude, your race isn't pure anyway.
Jeff: Yeah. I love that one. She's like, it's a thousand years. We have the paperwork right here that
Brent: not pure anyway because we know that like
Jeff: Yeah. We've had a lot of themes we've been talking about in this whole episode. It's part of why we've gone as long as we have is there's so many themes in
Brent: it feels so appropriate to pick, pick a political societal issue today. And that probably holds up.
Jeff: Yeah.
Brent: Yeah, just pay, like I'm not even thinking of one specifically, just in general, like
Jeff: Well pick it today. Pick it a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, 6,000 years ago. It all applies.
Brent: Yeah,
Jeff: This is for the purity of our people.
Brent: you're not
Jeff: for our, you know, a truly Roman, this a truly American, this, a truly Ugandan this whatever. It's, there's no such thing. It's just no such thing. Oh, Brent. We're creating the absolute 100%, completely accurate and definitive ranking of the fourth season of Babylon five.
And you get to rank this one. Our current top five are into the fire. The long night, whatever happened to Mr. Garabaldi, the summiting, and the hour of the wolf? Brent, where do you put atonement?
Brent: This one's actually really easy, despite my, despite my objections to Dylan's choice at the end, Jeff, I'm going to choose to let that. And not let that taint this episode for me. And I'm not gonna knock Dalin on that for a whole lot of reasons because I, there, the core of this episode was really about discovering Deco, discovering who Dalin was, getting her to this new level and actually clearing the way for her and Sheridan to actually get married.
And that's, that's where the show I think is going to focus. And I'm just gonna chalk that up to bad writing.
Jeff: Okay.
Brent: less a bad choice by Lin, sorry, j m s the way we got to Lynn back to go to Sheridan to just sort of like write it off and make everything, even that there's just some problems with that, that actually, uh, and you can't use it now because then you'd have to pay me and Jeff four at all.
But that would be a really interesting idea to plumb.
Jeff: Yeah,
Brent: That being said, I really enjoyed this episode.
Jeff: this great
Brent: This really was a good episode. Uh, so this is definitely cracking the top five. In fact, I think this is cracking the top three, and this is our new number three. I did like this better than whatever happened to Mr.
Garabaldi and the summoning and the hour of the wolf. Was it better than Long Night into the Fire? No, that's a, that's a, Jeff. If, if those are the top two episodes of the season, I'm not mad, but this is that new number three for me.
Jeff: I completely agree. In fact, if it came in anywhere except three or four, I, I would've fought you. Like I would've,
Brent: Right,
Jeff: I I would've made, I would've, uh, sh channeled my own John crease and, and screamed, no mercy. Well, that's it for Atonement. Next week we're watching Racing Mars for the first time. Never seen these episodes before.
This is our fun prediction game where I dropped the title of the episode and we guessed what it's gonna be about. So, Brent, you go first. What do you think racing Mars is gonna be about?
Brent: Okay, well, uh, we, we saw at the end of this episode Marcus and Franklin heading off towards Mars, and they're going to meet with the resistance. So we gotta pick up that storyline. Um, I'm gonna say that something happens while they meet the resistance and some stuff goes down.
Jeff: Hmm.
Brent: I also want to go back to Guerra Baldi because the word Mars triggers something.
Garabaldi has a bit of Mars history in his own past, right? Okay. So let's think about where Garabaldi is. And they, they reiterated it for us. In this episode with Zach and all that sort of stuff, Garabaldi has resigned his command. He gave a really bad interview about Sheridan and Sheridan's gotta be pissed off about it.
He didn't say much about it in this episode, but Sheridan's not feeling good. So I think that while Marcus and Franklin go to Mars and they get into some trouble there back on the station, Sheridan and Garabaldi are gonna have it out about that interview. But what I think's gonna happen is, is it's because of that Garabaldi is gonna leave the station and return to Mars where like his old girlfriend was, and I don't know what family he and Sinclair have left over there.
Whatever he does, he's gonna return to Mars. But what's gonna happen is, is he's gonna show up on Mars. Like right as some bad stuff was getting ready to happen with Franklin and Marcus and Hero Garabaldi is gonna come back and he's gonna swoop in and sort of save them and, and maybe we get those three off on an adventure at Mars.
You know, to cuz gu bald, like I garibaldis still gotta be a good guy. I don't, I mean, whatever's happened to him in his brain is, is a, is something we've gotta figure out. But like, I think at his fundamental core, garabaldi is still good.
Jeff: we're gonna get another one of those early nineties, like music, video message, wavy things for him, but it's just gonna over and over say getcha makk.
Brent: Only, only if he does the, the reverse Vulcan salute thing.
Jeff: Yeah. Into
Brent: up the, the dome.
Jeff: well, I,
Brent: Or we see a girl with three, nevermind. This family,
Jeff: Right. You know, a try a tribe. Bloomery
Brent: Jeff. I'm gonna let you hang it out there. Really.
Jeff: just gonna put it there. Hey, I think this one's gonna have a little garabaldi too. It as well. You're gonna recognize this refrain as we're gonna learn more about his programming of some kind. I don't think he's necessarily, I don't, I don't think Garabaldi is gonna be a big part of this episode. I think there's gonna be two big parts.
One is Franklin and Garabaldi. Um, like it's gonna be Odd couple.
Brent: You mean Franklin?
Jeff: What did I say?
Brent: said Franklin and Gar Baldi. You met Franklin DeMarcus.
Jeff: I think we're gonna get Franklin and Marcus, right? It's gonna be total odd couple shenanigans them on the road. Jokes. It's gonna be played for laughs I think
Brent: Is this a road trip episode?
Jeff: I think it is. I don't think, I think it ends with them getting to Mars.
Like I don't think that the stories on Mars, I think the story's gonna be on a couple liners and ships and just, I like, there's gonna be stuff that happens in some relationship building, but I think there's gonna be a lot that's gonna be played for laughs And I think the, um, serious nature of this episode though is gonna happen on the side.
And I think we're gonna get back down to the Regent Emperor on Centar and the Guardian command guy, the keeper, whatever thing that's on him. And we're gonna start getting a little bit into the
Brent: We haven't really seen a whole lot of Lando since he got back on the station, have we?
Jeff: Very little. We saw the bit, um, on the newscast right? And that was
Brent: Yeah. Hmm.
Jeff: We'll find out here next week. Thank you all so much for joining us. We appreciate it so much. Please subscribe, rate, review, and please share, share either the YouTube video or the podcast with someone who loves Babylon five or that you're trying to help them fall in love with Babylon.
Five. Brent until next time. Yeah. What's
Brent: I I have a question.
Jeff: Yeah, shoot.
Brent: So we didn't bring this up earlier. But I have to ask, what exactly does the inside of a Martian pleasure dome on a Sunday morning smell like?
Jeff: Really? Really? Oh, in Valen’s name, man. In Valen’s name.
