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 are watching Babylon five for the first time for you, the one who is.
That's right.
Brent: Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek podcasters that are taking that analytical lens we gained as Star Trek podcasters and we're applying it right here to Babylon five. No, we're not comparing it to Star Trek and all that sort of stuff. No, we're just overanalyzing Babylon five. Searching for the important messages that Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way,
Jeff: the important Babylon five messages, not Star Trek messages.
Yeah, because this is not, as Brent said, a Star Trek podcast, not a comparison podcast or anything like that, but to keep us Audi. But to keep us honest, because we are Star Trek podcasters, we play the rule of three. This is a game that limits the both of us to a total of no more than three references to Star Trek per episode that hits three one of those plays.
Brent: No substitutions exchange is a refund. And if we make one of those references, you're gonna hear.
While we are most definitely not a Star Trek podcast, those references are bound to slip in from time to time. Now, along with our rule of three, there is another game we like to play at the end of the show where we try to guess what next week's episode is gonna be about. I'm gonna try that again. Now, along with our game rule of three, there is another game that we like to play at the end of the show where we try to guess what next week's episode is going to be about based on title alone.
We don't look at thumbnails, we don't read blurbs, we don't read the Bad Blurbs on Netflix or The Bad Blurbs on I M D B or the Bad, basically just bad blurbs. We don't even read good blurbs, although I'm not sure that those exist anyway, uh, this is the part of the show where we'd like to play a game called Time to Pay the Piper, and this is where we revisit our prediction from last week about what this week was gonna be about and see how close we were.
So, Jeff, what did you say? Darkness Ascending was going to be about.
Jeff: That Lanier was going to find something that links the attacks to the sari. Oh. And that he was gonna be really stupid about it. He was gonna shove it in people's faces. He was gonna yell, make a whole bunch of noise. The alliance was gonna overhear about it, and then all hell, all hell was gonna start breaking loose.
It's,
Brent: it's, that was such a gimme, Jeff. It was such a gim coming out of the episode. It really was like, really? That's the one you went with? Of course. I've done a lot of GIMs in my predictions as well. Um, yeah. Listen, um, you were spot on and then you just went too far with it. Yep. And I'm not even gonna count the, going too far with it because you are so spot on.
That's exactly what happened in this episode. It wasn't the entire episode, but it certainly was the main crux of it. So, uh, Jeff, I'm gonna give you an 80%. Wow. Well, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I mean, that's 'cause it was 80% of the show, of the cr the crux of the show. So
Jeff: kind of was, yeah. Thanks. Nailed it.
What did, uh, what did you think?
Brent: Well, I said that this was gonna be the minions or the tele pads beginning to move into positions of power in the universe. And I wasn't really sure which one it was gonna be. It could have actually been both. I thought it might be. Uh, but yeah, they were gonna kind of be, their darkness was ascending.
They were going to be rising to power, taking over a little bit and, and pending for whatever we've got coming up here in the ultimate episodes.
Jeff: Well, the Telepaths definitely took a step towards possibly maybe having positions of some kind. So you're not getting zero on this one. But, uh, I think about a 0.1, um, on it.
'cause they did mention Telepaths and they were in it. And there were
Brent: positions. I, you, you, you did a 10th of a percent. I have a lot of respect for that. I'm just glad it's not a zero. Well, Jeff, uh, those were our predictions. Our predictions are one thing. What actually happened in the show is a whole different thing.
So for those of, so for those out there who are listening along who maybe didn't watch this one first heading into this week, or perhaps they've never seen it at all, and they're just listening to us, in which case, welcome to The Journey. Jeff, why don't you tell the folks out there what this episode actually was about?
Jeff: Well, Babylon five has been attacked. Theolo is on fire. Sheridan is a bloody heap, and it looks like he's dead. Garibaldi, he's injured and he's verbally attacked by Franklin. Where were you? He screams they needed him, and Garibaldi was once again. That isn't until he isn't. You see from around the corner, a non-injured Garibaldi emerges channeling his inner blame from predator as he is hefting some serious firepower.
Then he wakes up suddenly in a cold sweat. Ah, that was all a dream, but he shouldn't have woken up. At least that's what an eye glowy Lita Alexander tells him sitting on his bed and saying that she's learning all the cool stuff that the VLANs left her with. Oh, then he wakes up again. Still in a cold sweat though.
No Lita there this time, but none other than Lee Hampton. Edgar Garibaldi walks into his room and this is not a dream, but he's still very happy to see her. Apparently she's been waiting like 14 episodes for him to come back to Mars, but she's here now and it doesn't take long for her to discover that he's hitting the bottle again.
She wants him to come back to Mars with her, but he's telling her one thing and not telling anyone else that he's actually planning on going. It's basically trying to keep everybody happy without doing anything more than sneaking a drink here and there. More on that later. Veer and Londo are working through their day.
Even though they're in totally different roles, they really aren't interacting any differently. Vere's going through Longo's calendar forum and it turns out that nobody really wants anything to do with the Centara. In fact, Centara intelligence thinks that knows that the other races think they know that the centara are probably responsible for the shipping lane's attacks.
Makes for a pretty awkward day. And speaking of awkward, do you remember back, I don't know. 110 ish episodes of this podcast ago when a much different looking jaar propositioned, Lita Alexander to get her d n a to. Well hopefully make nar Telepaths took her a while on that one. But, uh, but she agrees, but at quite a price for the nar.
She wants a boatload of cash, couple of ships that can carry maybe a couple hundred Telepaths a piece, and she wants complete silence about what they're doing. Also, the nar are gonna get access to a whole bunch of human telepaths in their d n a. They agree, and Lita is eager to send her people out to find a new home world.
Then there's Lanier. He's out doing those ranger exercises and he's intercepted some communications, but he's really struggling to decode them the whole No Doors into the executive offices at Babylon. Five. Finally. Finally has consequences. Sheridan overhears some stuff and orders the Maria back to the station linear, knowing that he's on the cusp of something.
All he has to do is decode these messages. Jake's a shuttle or steals a fighter and heads into hyperspace, but it's cool. Even though we were told that they only have seven hours of oxygen, turns out they have like 30 some odd hours and that can actually last 40 some odd with some uncomfortable looking meditation, which is a good thing because it takes him more than that long for his theory to pay off.
Big old Sari ship comes up behind him and he latches onto it, records everything that happens. Some other Sari ships ambush and blast a bunch of unsuspecting ships, and he gets that recording back to Sheridan and Dehi, knowing what a big deal this is. Delaine goes out of her way to hug Lando in the hallway.
Then they call a session for the Alliance Worlds. Every single one of them, except for the Sari and Londo. Londo finds out about that. Now, remember Garibaldi? Well, he and Lisa, they've been struggling through this episode. She still wants him to go back to Mars with her, but that is all off the table. Now.
Everyone knows that war is right around the corner. So he tells her to get off the station and go home now immediately while she still can. And then just like all the alliance worlds, we are left waiting for tomorrow's meeting with the Alliance Worlds. Brent, was this one darkness ascending or descending for you?
Brent: So I can't say I loved this episode, but this episode feels very important to me. Mm-hmm. Um, th this one feels like something you and I have been asking for, for pretty much the entire season to happen, that it feels like those final tumblers are locking into place before something big happens. Like it, we, we've experienced this, Jeff, once or twice a season for the last, like, five seasons.
Like, I'm pretty familiar with this feeling. It has that, that feel to it to me. Um, by the end of this episode, for the first time in season five, for me though, I find myself going, I want to pit next. Yes. I, I want to hit next, like, truthfully, for most of season five E even after the very long night of Londa mal, that was a phenomenal episode.
I've not been like, all right, I gotta find out what happens next. I just haven't been there. I'm like, I need, I need to press next. Like I'm, I'm in that spot. I find myself there again, which is a great feeling to have. It really is because I've been very worried a, about this this season. Um, lots of super important information and bits happened, uh, throughout this episode.
Um,
my, my criticism of this though, right? And, and, and we've said this for the last couple weeks, so here we are, Jeff. Eight episodes left of the entire series. We have eight hours left with these people. Like, that's, that's all we got. You know, like, yes, I know we have some movies. The folks out there didn't have all these movies waiting in the wings.
Like, this is what we have to stop and spend. Last week on a training op was weird to me. I. You take Delin, sending linear out there and then mush that into the same episode with what Lanier did today. That's a solid episode. Yeah. You know, uh, I'm sure people out there clicking their tab, but, but he needed space and they needed time to, to do something and whatever.
Story plot, okay, fine. But at this point of the season, like,
Jeff: well, there was six other episodes they could have done that in, right? Like Yeah, yeah,
Brent: yeah. E exactly. I was glad that they didn't just like, recall Lanier and him going out last week. Just didn't even matter at all. Like, I'm, I'm glad to see that he was still out there, that you were right about that particular thing.
Um, in the end though, for me, Jeff, while I didn't love this episode, I'm not, I, this is not an episode that I'm like, I'm watching this all the time. I see this episode come on tv. I'm not changing the channel. I'm not channel surfing. I might go check out whatever else is on during a commercial, but then I'm coming back to this episode, you know?
Um, I love what this episode was doing though. I love what was going on, and I think, Jeff, this is just my prediction. I think this episode is probably going to end up in the top half of the season. Um, not because this episode is so strong, but because season five has been rather weak. Um, and I, like, in another season, I think this would be a middle to lower, lower tier episode.
Um, in this season, I think this is gonna be one of the better episodes. Like I, I, whatever's coming, I think people out there will say like, this is where it starts. Like this is, this is gonna mark, I'm guessing I'm, I have no idea. I'm just guessing. I, I, you know, been through a few of these before through, through, uh, Babylon five.
So, uh, I hope each successive episode from here on out is better than the one before it. So there's the very long night of Lao Mal. We have seven episodes. I want this episode to be no higher than number nine. Okay? Is where I want this episode to land. Jeff, what'd you think of
Jeff: this episode? Almost exactly the same.
This was 100% a setup episode for other stuff. That's not a bad thing at all, right? Um, put all the pieces on the board, all that good stuff. We're ready to rock. I I'm in the same spot where I didn't not like the episode, but I wasn't in love with it. What this episode did is exactly what you described. It made me desperately wanna watch the next episode?
Yeah, that's this one. I, I think my favorite thing though, in the whole thing, and I said it in the recap, but like, how, how has the not having doors in the council chambers or in their offices, how has this not caused a problem before? It's pretty amazing.
Brent: You know, I gotta tell you, when I, where I went to college in the dorms, We didn't have locks on our door.
Okay.
Jeff: Wow.
Brent: Like, it, it was just, it, it was a small school. Everybody kind of knew each other. Um, they did have some problems sometimes, and I know they thought about, but they just, we, it literally, it was an open door policy. It got to the point where if we're not gonna have, we're not gonna have locks on the doors, we would actually tape the, you know, the little thing that holds the door shut.
Mm. Mm-hmm. Like, you have to turn the knob. Like, we would tape that shut. So all we had to do is just push on the door Yeah. To get in. And, you know, people would walk in. Sometimes it's some rather compromising spots, and I could tell you all sorts of stories, but for the most part, it really wasn't that big of a deal.
So,
Jeff: but you weren't talking about intergalactic. Maybe for the most part, it's just not that big of a deal here. You probably weren't talking about intergalactic ramifications for decisions that you were making. Like that's, that's big stuff to, I don't know, just take those meetings. And especially with the way like the, the setup of it.
Like delaine is looking at the screen, having the conversation. That opening isn't even in, like in her peripheral, like, I don't know, seems irresponsible. I just love that there were consequences for it. That's all. It's, it's excellent TV that there's, Hey, this is our set design. And at some point someone probably said, Hey, maybe we should have this.
And they're like, yeah, we'll write that in. We'll make it a thing. I
Brent: love that Sharon totally did the thing that like, he comes in and like, he stands in the door and then like he backs
Jeff: out. It's like, Nope. And then not, then he doesn't say anything. He just like, he just pieces out the other direction, you know, like, oh no, it's all good.
Did the camera
Brent: even go into focus on him? Like you saw him, but I think he was blurry like the whole time.
Jeff: That's so good. I thought that was great.
Brent: Well, where, where do you want to go on this? Man? There's, there's the Garibaldi stuff. There's the Londo stuff, uh, there's Lanier and then there's, uh, Sheridan and, and Len.
Let's, let's hit the
Jeff: Telepath stuff really quick and then the telepath stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I think that one's pretty quick. Uh, okay. I thought it was fun. Just it was, you know, I, I, I feel, I I am, I'm lost. Lemme just start there. I'm lost on this whole telepath thing. Um, where I was prior to this episode was, um, we've got bester out there with a mothership.
Um, we got Garibaldi probably, you know, or in orbit of, you know, thinking about Bester. So we've have, have him as a concern. We got it made very clear to us a couple weeks ago that he hates the normals. The mundanes, right? Yeah. So, got that. We have Lita over here with a group of blips that are disenfranchised, that are looking for a home world.
But they remember Byron, and so we've been building to this crescendo of Telepaths blowing up. Yeah. But now she's trying to swing a business deal to go, like surveying worlds for, I don't know.
Brent: Well, I, I mean, so Lita is,
Trying to get to the end result of having the telepaths have their own home world. Mm-hmm. Not justice for Byron. Not there's this impending battle coming. Not we're, we're gonna go, uh, uh, riot until we get our way. Just listen, we're gonna try to go strike a deal and see if we can't figure out how to get our own planet.
And you know, it's gonna be a really bad pitch to the absolute wrong person. I gotta tell you though, this did not go the way I thought it was gonna go. Same because when she's talking to this dude and he's like, yeah, we can't just do it 'cause like our insurance isn't gonna let it. We're, we're involved with SCO and they're gonna pull their people.
We just can't do it. He was totally fair with her. Yeah. A thousand percent. Like I, I appreciate how, uh, it's one of the few times I appreciate how corporate someone is. You know? Yeah.
Jeff: Like, he's like, no,
Brent: but also it's cool we can't do this. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I wish you, well I wish we could do something, but this is, we, we are not this guy.
And he says this line, he is like, you need somebody who has major resources but is not tied to the sco. I in no way, shape, or form thought Jaar in Thenar. You know what I thought? What did you think? I thought the, the Lisa, Edgar Hampton. Yep. Uh, like they don't have ties to the SCOs. They've got phenomenal resources.
She was just in dude's mind. We thought they were supposed to be married. Jeff, I'm just gonna go ahead and say Garibaldi and Lisa are not married. I don't know why we thought they were. Yeah, I'm
Jeff: pretty sure they're not.
Brent: Yeah, I don't, did you? I, that drives me so crazy. 'cause I could have sworn up and down.
They said that they were, and anyway, um, I'm just gonna go with No, they're not. Uh, but still like, it seemed like that was a real easy way for them to go. Yeah. To, to getting into that, and then that keeps, that keeps the telepaths with Mars and investors in sight and all that sort of stuff. But no, we went back to an episode one conversation and you're like, have Lead and Jaar really not talked since episode one?
Jeff: I, I, I, I spent time like thinking I didn't go back and look, but I was just like, I don't think there's been any interaction between them.
Brent: No, I don't think, I think you're absolutely right. I don't think there has been, and they even said it like, we haven't really talked since that conversation
Jeff: and understandably that's not one you just really dust off and, you know, pick up from again.
But that's a great callback. I just, to me, I'll just say this, that because they didn't go the Edgar's Industries route, I have this little voice back here in the back of my head telling me this horrible thing that I'll just say right now if we get to episode 22, Uhhuh. What I think is going to not happen now doesn't happen.
I'm gonna be kind of furious. What is that? I think the telepath thing is done. Like it's just fizzled. You really, I don't know that I think it, but that's what I'm almost thinking.
Brent: It's like what, Jeff, are you telling me that the Cora's mother, the Cora's father's gonna be the last bester episode?
Jeff: It can't.
Well, so I, it can't be, I have a note on the Garibaldi detail. I'll, I'll just pull this in that like, I'm still back and forth on like, is he drinking because he's expressing his disease or is he drinking because he is trying to block that Asimov, that bester put in and just, I mean, the whole thing. I'm just like, did they just.
Give up on the telepath thing. They're gonna, this is the end of their story. I don't think this is what it is. I'm just saying if this is the direction they're going, and I can see the road paved and I'm gonna be furious. But are they just like, yeah, you're gonna grab some narn ships and you're gonna disappear and we're never gonna touch on this again, and we're not gonna have bester again, and Garibaldis just drunk.
He's not doing a thing. And I'm gonna be like all, all of, all of that. Byron Bull for nothing. Mm.
Brent: For, for the record, I think Garibaldi is drinking not because of Bester. I think he's just drinking and he's using whatever excuse he can possibly find. We'll talk about that more in just a few moments. Uh, I don't think we've seen the last of Bester, and I don't think we've seen the last of the telepath thing.
We
Jeff: can't have, like, I I, I don't think this is the trap door. This is the exit for the whole storyline. And I saw it plain as day and I'm just like, oh, they, they can't do this. They can't do this.
Brent: Well, before we get there, let's finish up this whole lead in Jaar, because the interaction that lead in Jaar had, the, the two interactions they had in this episode were.
Kind of interesting. Very, yeah. Like Kars still trying to put the moves on lead. He is like, oh yeah, I remember what we said. We could do a natural mating or direct mating. Yeah. I think was his actual
Jeff: word. Right. You know what it reminds me of is like a 20th high school reunion. I. Where it's like, Hey, do you remember that one conversation after Biology by Locker three 16 where you said, and I said like, it totally had that vibe of like, oh yeah, this just, this might
Brent: happened.
Do I head over there right now? Like, uh, I won't tell anybody. Right. You know? Yeah. It was, and and she, he's talking about it, it's a shame. We never got to discover your pleasure threshold. And she's like, I ain't got one Jack. And he, I was like, well, Lee's putting the moves back on Jaar man. She's using
Jeff: her wilds.
And I loved him. He's just like, Ooh. Like, who has it? Who hasn't been there with somebody that was just like, oh,
Brent: oh yeah. Hey, by the way, the, the grownup adult in me looks at that and goes, that's bait. Stay away from that jaar. Yep. That's not gonna turn out well for you. Um, Lita comes back with an indecent proposal of her own right.
And I can't decide. If the price is too high or not for her, you know, we're, we're going to give you all the genetic material you want from me and all my friends. She's saying that on behalf of all her friends. Like, but, and by that I mean the price to the nars. Mm-hmm. They want a smack ton of money. They want a bunch of ships that are gonna go deep, deep cruising.
I'm surprised she didn't ask for an empty planet on the rim of their space or something. Yeah. I'm surprised she just didn't go for that. Like, grant us all of our wishes and you can have whatever you
Jeff: want. Like, you know what, this might be so quick. I have a thought, but I just had this other one pop in.
We, we've postulated on a couple episodes that this, is that like the secret spinoff, you know, episode thing. Was there maybe, or is there maybe an idea for like, I. Babylon five, the telepaths, you know, so like, this is the thing where they go off and then whatever happens, but then we pick it up, another se, another se series where they go and try and look for stuff.
Maybe this could be another one of those that,
Brent: that actually feels like the spinoff for the comic book series to me. Okay. Yeah. Is what that, what that kind of feels like
Jeff: to me. But my thought on the, the, the, the price for things Yeah. Was I am wildly unclear on the state of the Narn regime.
Brent: So do they have the money and resources
Jeff: to do this?
Yeah. So we got back in season four where they're like, oh, Kar, you're the greatest. You should, you should be our leader. And he's like, power should not sit with one person. And now we have this where they can just throw money and ships at somebody for the possibility of breeding telepaths. Like, I, I, okay.
I guess they're fine. They must had, I don't know, reparations or something. 'cause. Seemed to be in really good shape pretty soon after, uh, after the war ended, or the occupation, I guess the war ended a while ago.
Brent: So here's my last kind of note on this. Uh, we have seen since season onesco trying to manipulate the psychic gene to breed stronger telepaths, maybe to just breed Telepaths. And they're not good at it. No. You know, the, like, they're just not good at it. And what I, what I'm un like, I know there was a vva and her mom, right?
But is the psychic gene one that's, that's, is that passed down and is that acted like, like what is that like? Because I don't know that just introducing telepathic genetic material into the NAR society is going to. Uh, reactivate latent genes within the, within the nar rrn. And by the way, wouldn't all those people actually only be part nar not full nar.
Yeah. At that point. Like, or, or are they
Jeff: just trying, because that's, it's not even the same. Sp it still seems, Hey, you have hundreds or thousands of samples now, but it sure seems like a shot in the dark. Yeah. Like, hey, this, it's that whole thing we have here right now. Hey, we did all these medical experiments on mice.
Yeah. And it turned out really great, so it's probably gonna turn out great for you. Oh shoot. No, that didn't turn out well at all. Yeah, I'm
Brent: sorry. Like, like, so here's a question. So we know from War Without End, I think it was, uh, Sheridan and Delin are gonna have a baby. Yes. David, have they had any conversations about Ken, a Earthling and a Maari, or even Halfman, but whatever Delin is now like, Like, have they been tr have they had those conversations about whether or not they're allowed?
They can breed, like we know they will one day. Right. But
Jeff: like we did back, I can't remember the episode, it was second season episode, but it was the one with the hair, right? The picture of Delaine trying to figure out her hair. And then she n Vva started bonding and at the end they were kinda like, you know, so, hey, um, insert, I have these cramps.
Yeah, yeah. Cramp, menstruation jokes. So I think that was meant to, wow, I'm, I'm gonna use this thing. It's just that was meant to plant the seed. Um, that yes, indeed, uh, because of her, uh, because of her chrysalis. She's gonna be
Brent: able to breed. But, but what that then says is that it is likely that ful, menari and humans cannot interbreed.
It's like, I, I
Jeff: would agree. I would agree. Right?
Brent: Like, like Lin's a special case because she went through the transformation. So how are thenar like. How advanced are the NARS and Geneticism stuff? Well,
Jeff: they might be very, I mean, they're a pretty homogenized race. They all look pretty much Exactly. You know, maybe that's the, the way they're designed, or maybe that's GMOs.
I don't know. You,
Brent: what you wonder if they, they do have like different, like skin tone on, on narn, like your orange, but you are brown, right? And then that one's red, and then this person over here's green. Like, like do they, do they have different skin tones
Jeff: across that one's orange with brown spots, and this one's brown with orange spots.
So I hate them and I'm gonna chase them to the end of the universe to destroy them. Yeah.
Connect those dots for yourself.
Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, uh, yeah, I just, I, I don't think this plan's gonna work. I don't either. I don't think
Jeff: this plane's gonna work. I mean, I'm not a geneticist. I'm not a scientist, I'm just a manager. I don't know what much of anything, but like, I've got my peas right here and my little, uh, like four section chart that you used with your peas to see what moves and, yeah.
They don't, they don't, we, we introduced a green bean into the peas. It's not gonna work. Right. I thought the, I thought his little, um, test on her, you know, Hey, there's one more thing. You got a spy on people. Oh yeah. Yeah. I thought that was pretty dirty.
Brent: I actually rather hated this moment. What do you mean when you say you thought it was
Jeff: dirty?
That, that it was just like, that's not, that was, that was not appropriate or cool. And I almost think in a way that Lita, I've one at that point Lita almost should have been like, you don't really take us seriously, do you? I don't know if I want to take your stuff at this now. But also, I wonder if she knew that he was playing.
Like, did she, was she able to read that? Like, oh,
Brent: oh yeah. Yeah. So, Here's my problem with that. She, he comes in and he says, we're gonna need you to spy on some, some ambassadors. And she goes, I have a moral code and I just can't do it. What I thought she meant in that moment was, she can't give up her d n a, she can't do the mating.
Okay? She's not gonna sell her body because to me, no, I'm not a psychic person. To me that is a much bigger deal than, Hey, we need you to spy on these guys over here, which by the way, isn't against your rules 'cause you don't have rules against that anymore because you're not part of Sitecore who does have those old rules.
And then it turns out that's actually what it, she was more offended than the idea that he wanted them to read other people. Which, by the way, this is the same girl we saw jacking up in Aldi's mind at the beginning of the episode. She apparently has no problems crossing over into people's minds. Like, and then they turned it and I just, I was like, the, there was just a, an incongruency there to me that just didn't mesh up.
Like, like why was this more important? I, I didn't get it,
Jeff: Jeff. Yeah. I'm with you. Just, I think on both sides, like it didn't, what a huge risk for the nar because if she said yes, what was he gonna, was he really gonna say no to the deal? And I don't know, just the whole thing, just, I don't know, didn't, didn't serve a very positive purpose for either
Brent: fra frankly.
You know what that really sounds like is the, Hey, I'm gonna float this idea. I want you to do it right. Oh, no, you're not. I was just joking. Anyway, don't worry about it. Don't worry about a test. Ah, I wasn't serious about that. That's actually exactly what that rings out to me. Yeah. Except Jaar seems like he was being a thousand percent real about it,
Jeff: so.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's a tough one. I talked about Garibaldi a couple times. You wanna dive into that? Yep.
Brent: Let's do it. Uh, His alcoholic guilt Yeah. Is getting to him. And the metaphor was really strong in that dream.
Jeff: Yes. Very, very.
Brent: He's got his hand down and it's covering him up. He's like, the more you fight it, the more you'll lose.
Right. He's like, give in, you know, and, and here comes, here, comes sober Garibaldi with a boss gun that like, I want that
Jeff: prop. I'm pretty sure it's the same gun he had in Babylon squared in his flash forward where he was like, no, really? I got these guys. Is it, oh, I bet. Like, I remember it was just this massive cannon that he was holding in that thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Brent: Uh, the, yeah, where it start, you know, it goes up. His body and his alcoholism is consuming him. And everybody's, you know, he's, he's beat up and scarred and it's hurting other people. And Jeff, I'm gonna say it right now, I haven't, I don't know what comes next, but if anything is foreshadowing what's coming up, Because Sheridan says, at some point in this episode, I've got something really big for you.
Jeff: You're gonna, we're gonna need you more than we've ever needed you. Yeah. There it's,
Brent: there it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna need you more than we've ever needed you before. And it's like, okay, his alcoholism is gonna screw that whole deal
Jeff: up. So I feel like Babylon five gives us a three episode like Radius on something like that.
It's like Uhhuh. He says that within the next three episodes. Well, the next two episodes after this. Yeah. Hey Gari, we need this thing. Oh yeah, boss, I got, I got won.
Brent: Yeah. So Lead's sitting on his bed when he wakes up. He's the, this is inception level now. 'cause this is his dream within a dream, right? Like, uh, and you're not gonna understand this, Jeff, but, uh, well actually you will now.
Uh, Lita is a Gould. Yeah. Lita is a Gould. Whoosh. Yeah. I was like, oh. Uh, and how inappropriate was it for Lee to do? I mean, that is, that is pure on invasion of everything. Yeah, that was, and she's doing it to Garibaldi. Mm-hmm. Like, it's not like her and Garibaldi are friends, so if she gets caught, like they're gonna, they're gonna sort of slough it off this guy.
What, what's Aldi's title? Jeff? Remind me. Co
Jeff: director of Covert Intelligence.
Brent: Okay. This is like somebody just saying, Hey, I'm gonna grab the Secretary of Defense and just pop
Jeff: into his head to your earlier point. Right? Yeah. We're not gonna spy on ambassadors. I was just hanging out. And the director of Covert intelligence's head though.
Yeah,
Brent: yeah, right. Exactly. That's what I mean. The incongruency of that. Like I was, I really thought that she was talking about her own, her own virtue, so to speak, Jeff, that we know Byron stole. Uh, Lisa's back. Yeah. The, the, not the wife
Jeff: apparently. Yeah. Lemme read you my exact note on that. Actually. I'm not so sure he and Lisa are married.
It's really not that clear.
Brent: Jeff, the only, the only consolation that I have in this whole thing. 'cause I would just think that Brent's just being an idiot now is the fact that you also think this Yeah,
Jeff: it was in, uh, it was, it was Rising Star. I think it was Rising Star
Brent: Deconstruct, no, yeah, yeah. Rising Star.
Yeah. It was like, because the next one
Jeff: was deconstruction, falling Star. Yeah. They're in, they're in bed and he is just like, Hey, everybody's gonna say, I married the head of this for this. And it's just like, oh, okay. So they ran off, they did a dime store wedding. So cool. Okay. Yeah. And
Brent: he's now gonna be in charge of, I mean, was that like a flash to the future?
Jeff: You know, well, I'll tell you what, it wasn't, it wasn't a thread that was dropped and never picked up again because Brett, those don't exist in Babylon. Five. We're,
Brent: we are gonna have a whole show on. Threads that they brought up in Babylon five and that they just dropped. And we're gonna make so many people actually be, they didn't drop it, they picked it up here completely.
And I'm like,
Jeff: nah, they get mad every time we bring this, this line of reasoning up. It's happened quite a bit lately because there's a lot of dropped threads in in the series. Some people have brought up the novels, the comic books. Thank you for that. Yes. But in the series, Abraham Olin, for anybody where, good thing they made that guy, Hey,
Brent: here's one, here's one.
Do you remember when Sheridan said, uh, conspiracy theories is something like a passion of mine? Yeah.
Jeff: For 14 seconds it was like, or 13 for bureau. 13 seconds. It was, it was a passion of his bureau.
Brent: Listen, I understand Bureau 13, like there was some, there was some thing and they just let it go. But like, dude, you could rename that thing.
Like, yeah, there's, so, uh, remember when Best Go this, this is probably the one that stands out to me the most. Your is now my wall. Or, oh, here's one. What about Draw on Epsilon three? We're gonna save that in our back pocket. Yeah. Like
Jeff: we saved it. Just to tell everybody about our, our Neat Pirate radio show.
Like Right.
Brent: That's good. Like it didn't actually come into play
Jeff: at all. Can we bring up the poor dude working at the restaurant? I felt so bad for him. He is trying so hard. Really? 'cause
Brent: I thought
Jeff: he got everything he deserved right now. Well, I, I feel bad for him because in my head he's the guy who's been taking the phone calls from him, ordering his pizzas, and he is just like, oh yeah, yeah.
I know what you want. Stop messing around. We've been here before. Oh
Brent: yeah. I didn't think that 'cause I, I didn't think this was the same place. Yeah. He called
Jeff: the fresh air, fresh Air restaurant who apparently does delivery. 'cause
Brent: he said like the last time he was here, he was there with, um, Sinclair and, uh, people like doing something and then everything went to hell.
Yeah,
Jeff: that was the Chrysalis episode way back, which is another cool callback. That was neat. Sure. I think that was the last time he was there. But he is been ordering, he's got the Uber Eats thing going. Right, right. And I think that poor guy's been dealing with him every time he calls.
Brent: Yeah. I just, you know, it's, it's one of those, I don't, I didn't think that Garibaldi was inappropriate with the waiter.
The way he got called out, she's like, Michael, I agree. What do you do? I was like, dude, I told you three times. Just bring me freaking coffee and you, you didn't. Now he also went on and on was like, oh, what are you doing here? I just, you know, you're, this is your fault. I, you know, whatever. Also, by the way, lease was probably the most inappropriate person in that whole deal.
You wanna know why? She's got her alcoholic boyfriend who she knows is struggling and she's gonna sit there and say, don't you drink while I'm here? By the way, I'm gonna order a glass
Jeff: of wine and garbage wine at that. Sure. I'm not a wine guy. So whatever. Generally, and this is, this is, this is some snobbery coming through, but you're like, gimme the house wine.
I don't care. Just make sure it's red. That's you just saying I don't, I don't know wine. Which is fine. You don't have to know wine and it's a lot cheaper to buy the house wine. But also it's literally like, oh, you're drunk getting drunk on afterburner whiskey. And so now I'm gonna get some garbage wine while I'm holding you to this thing.
Also, to his point, Garabaldi brought this up, you're gonna bring me here and bring up all this stuff, telling me that we're here to chill out and relax and you're gonna dump this on me. Yeah. Yeah. I am curious though, 'cause she mentioned, um, she mentioned something about I. I'm learning more about what's going on at Edgar's Industries.
There's some stuff really concerning me. I need your help on this, Michael. I need your help. Yeah. I wonder if she's uncovering some of the, the telepath research stuff that he was up to. Maybe,
Brent: maybe. Um, did, did this read to you like, so you remember, was it last week or, or two weeks ago? We got Franklin.
What he's gonna do after the show is done, he's gonna take this other job in six months when other dude retires and the show's over. Yeah. Like this, this is Aldi's like post show exit plan. Like he like, because you're talking about like, Hey, have you told Sheridan yet? No, I'm waiting on the right time.
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, He's planning on moving back to Mars
Jeff: with Lease, right? I think so. And I think they really shone a light on it too, where he is like, you know, Sinclair's gone doing his thing, ivanov's gone doing her thing, Franklin's gonna go back to earth. Like, he, he went through the list of Post Babylon five stuff.
Yeah. This is setting up his, his life afterwards too. He's gonna be chief operations officer or something over at Edgar's Industries. I,
Brent: I, I bet he's more than that because he's gonna be, he's gonna be the owner, like co-owner. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Jeff: Like maybe she's chairman of the board, he's c e o or something like
Brent: that.
He's president and she's whatever. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's, he's gonna be, but he'll be the husband that comes in and everybody's all like, right. You're not really my dad.
Jeff: He's gonna be that kind of a dude, right? Like sure, Mr. Garibaldi, whatever you need certain idiot.
Brent: Right? Except Garibaldi. Iss literally going to be the guy in charge.
Like he's gonna be Elon Musk walking into Twitter and people are like, oh, okay, whatever. Oh shoot. You are in charge. Oh
Jeff: my gosh. Oh, this is really happening. Wow. Right, right. This was
Brent: funny for minute and you minute and gonna put a big X on our building and then flash it all night long into the neighbors, across the street, into their bedroom windows.
Jeff: God. Oh, we could go on, we could go. Remember that
Brent: last year? Did you, did you see those last year, Jeff? Oh yeah, yeah. When he, when like, when they first made that change and, and he put the thing up on the, oh my god.
Jeff: Dude. Shows a lot of confidence. There you go. Okay. It's,
Brent: wow. So can we, can we talk about lease finds the stash? Clearly the stash is being hidden. Mm-hmm. This is the, I don't want you to see it, stash, because if you've got alcohol in your house and you don't care, you know where you put it out, where people see it right out in
Jeff: the open,
Brent: you put it up on the cabinet.
Mm-hmm. Where, you know, that's the alcohol up there. Right. Um, and Garibaldi just goes full bore into justifying his drinking. I mean, this is, and I'm sitting here, I was like, this is what alcoholics do. Yeah. Not alcoholic. This is what addicts do. Yeah. When you get caught in the middle of your deal, and I swear Jeff, I swear at one point Aldi's talking, talking.
He goes, yeah, that's the ticket. See? Right.
Jeff: Yeah. I'll do this one. I'll say this. Ah,
Brent: I got it now. Yeah. This is my reason why it's okay. Ah, see yeah.
Jeff: Real quick. I got somebody outside the door. I'll be right back. Just gimme a sec. Go do it.
Brent: Go do it. Jeff is gonna go attend to, I'm sure. Uh, he's being a good dad.
Well, I mean, Jeff is a good dad. Uh, but I'm, I'm sure that's, that's what's happening, uh, for him over there right now. Um, so anyway, yeah, if you guys saw the, uh, the Brent Watches video, you know what I'm talking about. Oh, see.
Um,
hey, listen, lemme just take this opportunity. If anyone out there is struggling with any substance, alcohol, or otherwise, um, or, or anything, please make sure you seek help. Um, really, really please make sure you seek help. It, it is, uh, it, it, it is important to, to be your true self and to, uh, go through recovery.
And it's always one day at a time. And, uh, it, it can be hard. I hate seeing Garibaldi go through all of this like, I mean, I get it from a dramatic standpoint, like you, you kind of have to, you can't go through four seasons of what Garibaldis been doing as, uh, as an alcoholic and not being an alcoholic and not get a section where he falls off the bandwagon for a while.
Like it, it's, it's perfectly normal with what we got going on there. Okay. I've vamped long enough. Jeff is back. Hi.
Jeff: I can cut that out if it's easier.
Brent: Eh, I, you know, I was just, I was just encouraging people that, uh, if like Garibaldi they find themselves in a space of addiction to make sure that they seek help.
It's a very, and that it's actually really important and being your true self and, and getting into recovery and it is what it is. So
Jeff: it's a good thing. Good message. Thank you for doing that. Sure. Thank you for the space. Uh,
Brent: there you go. Um, so Gar Baldy just justifying everything and Lisa comes in and she, I mean, she gives it, she's like, this has ruined your life twice before and.
My, my big thought really coming outta this, this, this is not the Star Trek message, Jeff. No. You know, this is not what I'm saying, but this is something that to pull out, like, listen, if the people that love you in your life are saying this is not okay for you, it's a good idea to listen. And, and if, if you're finding yourself justifying it, that's a good clue that you need to have a wake up call and.
You want to get control of it, becausecause, they're not just telling you that
Jeff: to ride on you. Right. And it applies to, so it's not just drinking, right? This is Yep. Your job, your relationships, you know, and, and all those things, like the people that truly care about you when they tell you that person is toxic and not good for you, don't just take 'em at face value, but listen, give them space.
Don't just justify it. If they tell you your job is killing you, listen to them. Right? Yeah. Like, yeah, they, they care about you. They really
Brent: do. Yep. Yep. I had, uh, not in an, not in an addict way, but kind of, kind of in that, um, uh, about a year or so ago, I had, I'd been in a season. You were, I mean, you were kinda with me through this, Jeff.
I was a very busy season of life. I had a lot going on. And it was actually my friend Matt, who was my, my old podcast partner, um, he and I were getting together, we'd been working on a project and stuff together. Uh, that was not a prod, that was not a podcast. And, and he just, I remember he looked at me and he is like, dude, you're doing too much.
You have to scale something back. You've got to, and. It, it is, it, it was really that conversation with him that made me just sit back and kind of go, okay, this one cool thing, this one really cool thing that I've, that I've been doing that's really hard and taking up a lot of space. It's preventing me from doing all this other stuff.
And so, you know, and again, it's something that I would've just been like, oh, I can do, I can handle it, I can do it. I can, I just gotta power through it and, and get through it, and it'll be done like stupid anyway. Uh, she gives him the no, no booze while I'm here, and then he goes and has a drink.
Jeff: Yeah. You know, it's, it 1998 or whatever this king thing came out, you know, so I I, I get it.
But yeah, even, even now, I think we, we know that's, that's not how you approach someone. You know, who, who's, who's, who's fighting addiction. But, but it's understandable, you know, I mean, it's, yeah. It's, it's so complicated. Addiction is a disease that hurts the people. I. Suffering from, you know, or, or, or, or fighting the disease.
And it hurts the people around them. Yeah. And so it's tough. So it's really easy to drop those ultimatums and stuff, but they are not helpful, um, for all of the reasons that we saw in this episode. And yeah. So, but also, I, I, I get where she's coming from, you know? Yeah. Well, and
Brent: even the no more drinking while I'm here.
Pretty selfish. Well, not just selfish, but also ineffective because Okay. He can pour it down the sink. I can not drink for three days or four days or whatever. And when you're gone, like, it's okay to do it while you're not here. That's what your point being, you know,
Jeff: like, it also hit me like she walks in the room, he's clearly, you know, been, been hitting it, you know?
Yeah. And it's like, d does alcohol not stink in the future? That dude cannot smell good ever. No.
Brent: Right. Well, I mean, even when he walks into a meeting room. Yeah. Like everybody's gotta be like, dude, I mean, 'cause even if you've been drinking, you're like kind of sobered up the next morning. You still smell like alcohol.
I remember it's still coming outta
Jeff: your pores. I remember so many years ago when I was working in hr, we had someone who was at work and they were drunk. And, uh, it's interesting. And they, and they pulled, they pulled this on us. It's not, um, It's not, it was not against our policy to drink at work. It's against our policy to be in under the influence, you know, at work.
And so they were saying, I'm not under the influence. I'm fine. Like there's no big deal at all. And so we were meeting with them and talking to them and trying to, you know, get to the bottom of stuff and public sector so we couldn't just snap our fingers and send them to send them going. Right? So he wanted a union rep to come in and I was like, cool, we'll go find you a union rep.
You sit in this, uh, small, uh, meeting room, like, you know, four person meeting room space, just sitting here. I'll go grab a union rep for you. Knowing what I was doing, I closed the door and I took about 15 minutes to go grab that union rep. We open the door, the smell hits us like a ton of bricks. Union rep says, oh God yes, send them home.
Problem solved. Right? Like, there you go. But not with Garibaldi, apparently. Maybe afterburner whiskey. That's the thing. You know, the burn happens afterwards and it's all gone or something. I don't know.
Brent: Yeah, I, I just think this is probably a. Plot hole. They didn't think through, or maybe they did think through and said, we just can't worry about it because it'll ruin whatever they got going on.
Yeah. Like I, I think that's the real world answer of, of what happened. Yeah. So, um, but I, I think we're agreed. I, this whole piece led to this one little conversation that's setting us up for something in the next week, because that's what this episode we're, we're talking about what's setting us up for where we're going.
Right? Yeah. We're gonna need you now more than we've ever needed you before, or you're, we're gonna do something really big with you, and his alcohol is gonna totally have him drop. I mean, that's what the whole vision at the beginning of the episode was, right? Yeah. Like, he's gonna drop the bucket and or drop the bucket.
He's gonna, what's the word ball? He's gonna Thank you. I know. Begin with a beat. He's gonna drop the ball and bad stuff's gonna happen, and hopefully he's gonna get confronted and. He'll find his way out of the bottle before the end of the show here in seven
Jeff: episodes. Yeah. Maybe this will be his rock bottom.
Maybe he'll be responsible for the death of millions or something and Oh, no, I hope not. Well, he don't want that, but, you know, depends on what rock bottom's. Very personal for every person. Yeah. So maybe he'll thing maybe two or three. Yeah. Or none. That's, that's helpful. Maybe just a lot of material. Right?
You cost us millions of credits. Oh God. I can't believe it. There you go. It's Babylon five though. You go, I don't think it's gonna happen that way. It's gonna cost lease her company. Ooh. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah, totally.
Brent: See that? That'd be bad because that's bad. That's awful. But yeah. So, uh, can, can, I think we wanna finish with Lanier.
So I want to talk about Sheridan and Delin and their relationship piece here. Um, delin is trying to exercise her unilateral until Za miss. Mm-hmm. Um, and she's doing that, sending Lanier out. And was she inappropriate not to involve Sheridan?
Jeff: I don't think so. I don't think she was, I think Sheridan was inappropriate in how he responded to the whole thing. I agree. I've been working up a good mad all day. Why?
Brent: Oh, well, for, no, no, no, no, no, no. We gotta back that up. We gotta back that up. Okay. Let's talk about how Bolin is. He's, you, you, and she kills the entire thing by going, yep.
You're right. Yeah, he is. Ugh. And she, and she works. She's like, yeah, it was inappropriate for me to do this, and it was inappropriate for you to not do that. So we're both at fault. I've admitted mine now. You admit yours, like did she ninja That whole
Jeff: thing? There's a great book, uh, it's called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.
Chris Voss was the lead F B I Hostage negotiator for a. For a bunch of years, retired from that and then got into coaching, corporate negotiations, and he wrote this book. It's great. Um, I will straight up own, there's some pretty toxic masculinity in some of his stories, but you don't have to read his personal stories.
The, the techniques he uses are great, and that's one of the big things is just take, take the elephant off the table. Yep. You're right. You are correct. Well, I don't think we should. Yep, you're right. I agree. Boom. No argument. Years and years ago, I took over management of a program and the program was terrible.
Gave horrible customer service. They were the government. They didn't have to give customer service. People were required by law to use them. Mm-hmm. What I would, would do though, is I'd go meet with the customer base and they were ready, loaded for bear. They were gonna scream and they were gonna yell. But I walked in, I said, Hey, my name's Jeff.
I manage this, this, uh, this organization. I'm new here. But what I want to tell you I've learned is that we have done a really, really good job. In becoming a barrier to you doing your business. And I'm sorry, I'm here to talk about what we're gonna do and you could just watch them deflate. It's like, I'm
Brent: gonna start calling you emperor tarran.
Like, I like that. Look at, look at that Look. I don't need a buzz. I need like a, a hand clap or something. That's a cool Babylon five Cut right there. That is good. That is really good. That's a, that's a good
Jeff: Babylon five. I'll give you one of these. Oh
yes
Brent: dude. It's just, man, we need to get back to some, to some, uh, it's a little late now, but we can get back to some reviews and stuff.
We've gotten some new ones and I missed that
Jeff: part of our show. We could just do a whole episode to catch up on 'em and just hit that on every si. I'd be good with that. Like it's a great drop
Brent: to all the Oh, yes. Um, so I, I, I wanna read my note here. It says, um, during this whole, to, to reference your part of Sure.
I've been working up a good, that's a good southern way of putting it. I've been working up a good mat all day and now, And he gets to the point, he's like, now I'm apologizing. And I'm just, I wrote down here, I was like, Sheridan's learning what marriage is all about. Right? Like, I don't know about you and your relationships, Jeff, but that's totally, that happens to me all the time.
Like, my wife will do something and I'll be all like, and like, I'm justified and I'm right. And I, and then like I go to talk to her about it. Like she's gonna, she's gonna apologize. She's gonna, and at the end I wind up being the one apologizing and I'm like, how the hell did that just happen? And she says, like, ask me all
Jeff: the time.
She says like four words. You're like, and you this, and then this. And then, but I, yeah. And I'm really sorry that I did. Yep.
Brent: I just, I, I said that's just how smart my wife is and how stupid I am. So, um, well, you're not
Jeff: alone there. You're not alone. She's
Brent: amazing. But I just, I was like looking at that and I was like, they're just married.
That's all. Happy wife,
Jeff: happy life. That's Amen to that. But yeah, I think, you know, and I think too, it's a real thing. We've had a fear that's been validated through a lot of the fourth and fifth season of Ghislaine just becoming Mrs. Sheridan. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this episode, she wasn't, and that was great. And the thing is, that's a great point.
Brent: Jeff Sheridan
Jeff: was mad about it.
Brent: Hmm. Jeff, I, I mean, that's so, you know, you both, we both said that we didn't hate this, uh, episode. We didn't love it though. Like, like, I'm sorry. Let me, like we both said, we didn't love this episode, but we didn't hate it. Yeah. Like, it was fine. This episode featured a lot more delin and Sheridan Central to what was happening versus the whole thing with Byron.
And the last bunch of episodes we've talked about it, Sheridan and Delin seemed very relegated to a, a. Sub character level. Mm-hmm. And not really doing much. I, I wonder if there's just sort of a key to this show that like, it needs to be Sheridan in Delin, like at the, like Sheridan Delin and, and I mean, 'cause it, it was, uh, uh, Ivana there for a while.
Like, it, like I, they need to be co central to the, to the
Jeff: plot. Yeah. I feel like if it's a Sheridan Delen thing or Alondo Jaar thing, you know, the very long night of Lando mal. Yeah. Like, you've got, those are, those are your two power characters that they're gonna carry a show.
Brent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, sorry, Jerry Doyle and Michael Garbart.
You're just, that's not you. Like
Jeff: Yeah. Which is fine. You know, there's a reason you're supporting, you know, and, and you're greatest supporting. It's good. But I did though think, like, I thought Well, I'm, oh, go ahead.
Brent: No, I was just gonna make a reference. I'm not gonna make the reference. Go ahead. Alright.
Jeff: I do think Delaine was doing her job, inza doing her stuff, sending people around, whatever.
You could make an argument that you update Sheridan on it, but he shouldn't have to be updated. All the ranger movements and things going on, it's not his job. Yeah. He's got bigger stuff he's gotta worry about. That said, Lanier shows up with the stuff. Kind of jumping on that a little bit, just he shows up and he's very specifically only talking to Delaine and then Sheridan kind of pops and he's like, Hey, you did a really great job, kid.
That's, that was nice. Thanks for doing that thing. And just the most snarky, passive aggressive. Well, we live for the one, we die for the one. And I was like, oh he, he's saying he dies. He lives for that one and dies for that one. Kind of forgetting that Sheridan is also the one I think,
Brent: does he know that Sheridan is the one?
Jeff: I think so. Was he, was he there?
Brent: Okay, so we, it's been a while since we've had a good, the one talk, like, so we, we learned in War Without End, I mean, and this, this is kinda where we changed our, our opening intro piece too, like to kind of riff on that was Sinclair is the one who was, and Delin is the one who is, but Sheridan is the one who will be, we learned that more with that in, but as far as the Rangers are concerned, the one is whoever their Intel Zah is.
Mm-hmm. So Lanier might not actually really know that Sheridan is the one who will be, he's focused on the one, just the one, the one
Jeff: which is Delin right now. Because if I remember back to War Without End, I was thinking, I was like, Lanier was there, but no, it was Marcus that was there that wasn't Lanier.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So May maybe not as passive aggressive as I thought.
Brent: Yeah. But even if Lanier knows that, that Sheridan is destined to be the one, he's not the one yet. Right. So, Phil, Phil, all that snark boy. 'cause he is got the girl that you got friends zoned over, brother.
Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. He is feeling that. Yep.
Brent: Yep. Um, so Lanier does the thing that we saw him do in the training op episode where he goes into the, into the culture. Okay. Help me out. The, the ships that he got attached to, um, those were Ari ships,
Jeff: right? Yeah, warships cruisers,
Brent: I think. Okay. Okay. I, they've deliberately, very deliberately showed the logo and I'm not familiar enough, like you show me a cling on logo.
I know the Klingon logo show rods. I know the rods. I I still don't know the nar in the Centara logos yet. Sorry guys. It's still my first time through. Um, Lanier was doing the Star Trek thing though. I'm gonna u I'm gonna use two right here. Back to back Jeff. He was, it is like, why have a pilot on these ships?
Right. If all you could do is say, Hey, go do this really complicated maneuver computer. Why have a pilot?
Jeff: Just stay on your ship and feed it lines.
Brent: Do that. Just tell it what to do and let the AI take over it's chap G P t in the future.
Jeff: Well, okay, hold on and I'm gonna ride your buzz because, oh my gosh.
Season Two Strange New Worlds. The episode where they all lost their memories, the Lotus Eaters episode.
Brent: Oh yeah. You know, a lot of people didn't like that episode, but
Jeff: I did. I thought it was a, it was a, it was an original series episode, right? It's just, this is classic Star Trek showing up on a planet and having this stuff happen.
Sure fair. But there's a scene Ortegas, she's the pilot and she doesn't know who she is and she's freaking out and she makes it to her quarters. 'cause there's a really cool light path that shows you where you're going. Very, very convenient. And she's in there and she's like, the asteroids start banging the enterprise.
And she's like, computer, what do we do? And like the computer's like you are the pilot. This is your problem to solve. Do you want to change course? And it hit me. I'm just like, she could, she could fly the ship from her quarters. She could just lay in bed in her gym shorts and underwear and be like, make your heading four 13, mark six done.
You don't have to be there. Then who cares how much air they made up the ship has this week to serve your plight. It doesn't even matter anymore. Just go fly the ship
Brent: from wherever. All you gotta do is have an open, calm line to the ship. So simple. You're good to go. Simple and, and
Jeff: apparently literally it's a drone and apparently all you, you just need a light energy trace through Jump gates.
That really sounded more techno babble than anything I've heard on any other sci-fi show. 'cause I didn't understand what they were talking about. Thousand percent.
Brent: What I said. I was like, that is Star Trek techno babble to a tape.
Jeff: Yeah. I'm like, i's I, this doesn't what I'm like, this thing felt pretty out there.
I don't understand it at all. But it sounds like it shouldn't work. But it does. It works great. It works perfectly, apparently.
Brent: So linear finds the proof that they need. I had a problem with this, Jeff. I had a, it, it didn't strike me last week, but it struck me this week like, They send Lanier out to look for this proof that the, the centara are involved because they suspect the centara are involved.
Everything this week was revolving around. We have to find the proof that they're involved. We have to find the not, we have to, we have to find proof to see if they're involved. We need to, we need to find the proof that shows us one way or the other. If they're the ones who are the ones doing this, no, no, no, they're guilty.
We need the proof that they're guilty. We'll take any proof that shows us that they're guilty. Yeah. But we need that proof. And I was like, eh, I don't think that's the way that's supposed to
Jeff: work. And this isn't even proof.
Brent: Yeah, this is, well, I, well, I mean, that was the Sari ships. Uh, well, you saw the sari ships attacking and completely obliterating.
Jeff: This other group. Mm-hmm. I saw Centara ships doing that. What I didn't see was the Centara government ordering it or anything. It made me think of the ti back when we first met Sheridan. So here's a Minari cruiser showing up, busting some things up. Are the Minari response? No. They're rogue doing their thing.
There's nothing that tied this to the Sari government at all. What it does is it poses the question, Hey, prime Minister Lando, can you account for these ships? 'cause we have the markings of these ships on the video. I'm assuming they have like Yeah. You know the whatever. C. Can you give us the records of where those have been?
There's some proof or, or closer to proof this was a video.
Brent: Yeah. We're gonna go to war over this whole thing that transitions us to this. Jeff, another Sari war. Yeah. How many Sari Wars is this series gonna have? All of them. I mean, my gosh, the sari just cannot stay out of a war like
Jeff: geez. Yeah. At all. They just, there's, yeah.
Mm.
Brent: And, uh, with that, delin finishes the episode by hugging Lando. 'cause she knows what's about ready to happen.
Jeff: There's a, there's a, there's a beautiful scene, powerful scene. Mm-hmm. I don't, I, I'm not gonna put this at Mira Fur's feet. I don't think this was a very well directed scene. Hmm. She's struggling.
Right. She cries afterwards. Mm-hmm. She's got the whole thing. It did not seem. In character. The crying totally did. I'm just the, the, the, the way she show, the way that she did it, leaning against the wall or facial expressions, her express, it did not feel very delaine. Um, the hug itself and what she said and Lao's reaction, that whole thing was great.
But kind of the precursor. And then the, afterwards, I think it was the precursor, right? 'cause before she was kinda leaning up against the wall like, oh my God, this is gonna happen. And she was crying and then he happened to walk by. That just, I, I don't know. It, it felt very poorly directed. It felt really uncomfortable and not in line with just the acting in the whole thing.
And I don't wanna put it on mirror furland. Um, but I could be wrong. I don't know. It took me out. It took me out of the beautiful moment.
Brent: Well, Jeff, with that, why don't we get out of this beautiful moment and let's talk. About that part of the show where we do boil it all down and we see what beautiful moments this show contained.
What are the deep moral messages? Is it holding up a mirror to society? Is it giving us hope we can be better in the future? And how is it doing that in a uniquely babble on five way? Jeff, you get to discuss this, this week. You're gonna rate this on a scale of zero to five white stars to see just how strong that message is and how Babylon five it was delivered.
So Jeff, how many white stars are we giving darkness ascending?
Jeff: This one had a lot, and it had leadership lessons, right? We talked about that with negotiating and talking about things. It had stuff around humanity and working with someone with a real disease who's expressing it in a pretty outta control way.
But I think what this one really came down to was the importance of having confidence in what you believe, the patience to see that through, and then the fortitude to be able to sacrifice. What needs to be sacrificed in order to achieve that belief. I think those foundational to this episode, Lanier.
Mm-hmm. He has a duty to Inza and the Rangers and to his heart both. Ghislaine is the one and his unrequited love have tasked him with getting to the bottom of these attacks. Mm-hmm. He knows that he has to do this beyond anything else, beyond his life, beyond the safety of the white star that he's on. He has to get to these, the bottom of these attacks, and that's for the safety of the alliance and specifically to him, the safety for Ghislaine.
So he works tirelessly, he tries to decode the messages, he defies orders, risks his life, and then he finally brings in the evidence that apparently we needed his work is going to result in war. Right. Like, that's, that's where we're gonna end up. But right now, The alliance is in a worse place. They're in this horrible stalemate that will destroy the alliance for sure.
So he did those things. He had that confidence. He did the stuff and he is moving things forward. But there's also lead up, Hmm. A lot of this episode is her trying to find that way to care for the people that Byron entrusted her with. Mm-hmm. She tries reasoning with them. Uh, she tries reasoning with different people with businesses.
She's trying to negotiate solutions, but no one's gonna hear her out Earth. Society can't see past Cyco when it comes to Telepaths. Like they've been baked into every part of society in life. So she believes in her cause and offers to sacrifice a piece of herself to Jcar taking him up on that old proposition.
What, I kind of appreciate it though. I mean, I mean, it's complicated, but I appreciate in the context of this messaging, her willingness to say no to the offer. You know what I mean? All the nuances side to everything. She said no on it. And I think that speaks a lot to her integrity. The two situations and the people were very different, but we saw in them that dedication to their belief in their cause.
And then we also saw the different ways that they handled the, their personal boundaries. Um, and for those causes, Lita would not compromise, willing to say no, but Lanier totally did. He compromises the chain of command, which honestly might not be a thing he values, um, at all. But, um, as Babylon five does in its own unique way, it offers us the thought and the lesson gives us more than one side to it, and then leaves it up to us to decide what that means to us personally.
I loved how Lita enforced her boundaries on this one, right. Lanier on the other hand, I don't like, but it's the show's not telling me what to think. It's offering it to us to say you believe in it, you're willing to sacrifice for it, but how do you, how, what are your boundaries around how you're gonna go for it?
I think there's gonna be a lot more to Linear's story. I don't think that this was his big betrayal of the analyst shock that we've been told is coming. We've been told is coming. Yeah. But in two episodes now, we've seen him directly defy orders to do what he believes is right. Right. So far in both cases it's worked out well.
But I think his comeuppance is ni hmm. I think it's a strong message. I think it's foundational to a lot that happened. I also think you gotta pull some of this out yourself and so ultimately I'm gonna give this one three white stars. Wow.
Brent: Fair enough. That's a lot more than I would've given
Jeff: to be honest with you.
I just think it had that kind of the help of the leadership stuff, the human pieces. Yeah. That kind of kind of brought together and I think. Frankly it was all those things were, were the story. This was, this was the intent of the episode. So that kind of bumps it up about a white star and a half. Fair enough.
Fair enough.
We're not done. Oh, well,
Brent: I was gonna say, I, I guess if you get white stars, that means I get the rating you do. That means I get to put it on the list.
Jeff: You gotta rank this bad boy. 'cause we are developing that a hundred percent completely accurate. Listing of all the episodes in the fifth season of Babylon.
Five. Our current top five keeping track at home. It hasn't changed very much in quite a while. We got the very long night of Lando Malari, no compromises in number two. Number three, learning curve. The ragged edge of number four and rounding it out of view from the gallery. Brent, where do you put darkness?
Ascending?
Brent: Yeah, I, I said this was gonna go in the top half of the season. This is going to be in the top half of the season, although just barely for me. Jeff. Um, I. I'm looking at the list. Uh, it's not top five yet for me. It's not top five, but I do see a Day of the dead here at number six. Mm-hmm. Followed by number seven, meditations from the abyss, which was what we had last week.
Last week was kind of like a, this one was better. Yeah. This one is significantly better. So if Day of the Dead, or I'm sorry, if Meditations from the Abyss is the best of the right now, this one easily sits out there. So did I like this better than Day of the Abyss or view from the gallery? I think I, or Day of the Dead.
I'm sorry. I think I liked actually Day of the Dead better than I did of you from the gallery, because Dave of did that. That's the one where, where Morden comes back and, and uh, uh, lock's, uh, old Girlfriend comes back and, and all that, right? Yeah. Uh, I, I kind of dug that episode like it was a little weird, but I like my memory says that I liked that episode so, I'm gonna slot this right underneath Day of the Dead.
Okay. Like, I, I like this episode. This is in that, like, I like it. I don't hate it, I don't love it, but I don't hate it at all. So, um, I'm gonna put this in underneath Day of the Dead, but I easily, I could actually see this one bumping up one or two. You know, give or give or take one or two. Like, I think there's, there's a handful of episodes right here that you could kinda put 'em in a bag, shake 'em up, pull 'em out, and that's, this is just how it's landing, you know?
Um,
Jeff: yeah. Cool. Well this is the absolutely definitive list until it's not when we get to the season wrap up and then it'll be set in stone and it is Exactly, then it's done. Yes. Yes. And I think, I think a lot of these episodes, meditations being one of 'em, this one, another one, when we look back over what they lead to, we might see them very, these are ones I can definitely see us potentially looking at pretty differently.
Possibly. Well, Brent, that's it for Darkness, ascending. Next week we are watching and all my dreams torn us under for the first time. Now, we've never seen these episodes before. We don't read descriptions, we don't read synopsis, we don't look at thumbnails. We avoid everything we can about these outside of the title and the fun game we like to play.
Our prediction game is where we guess what the next episode's gonna be about based on the title alone. Brent, what do you think? And all my dreams torn as Sunder is gonna be about.
Brent: So the title sounds an awful lot to me. Jeff. Uh, if this episode is focused on Sheridan at all, this is the Alliance starting to break up.
Yeah. Um, I don't know that it, this is focused on Sheridan though, so I'm, I'm not ready to say that. We know that the, the, the alliance has to last for some time, right? Um, So here's where I'm gonna say, I think, uh, we're gonna catch the, the next half of this whole plot where everything moves, the sari are gonna be charged with attacking the shipping lines.
I think Longo's gonna get railroaded. Absolutely. Because remember, Vera's, like you haven't been invited to this closed door meeting, right? So we're gonna get that closed door meeting, and Longo's gonna get absolutely railroaded by this whole thing. And I'm gonna help, I'm gonna throw out a bold prediction, Jeff.
All right. It's, listen, it's the summer, uh, here in just a couple months, people are gonna be, or like a couple weeks anyway, uh, training camp for football is gonna be starting American football. And people are gonna making all sorts of ridiculous, bold predictions that no way, shape, or form are possibly gonna come true until they do so.
Here's my bold prediction. You know how Longo has always been destined to be emperor? But all the way back in signs importance, we learned that hey, visions don't always come to tr come to pass. Uh, Londo is not gonna become emperor that is gonna get burned to Ash. His dream of being emperor is going to be torn a sunder, although it's not really his dream anymore.
He'd rather just pass on it if he could have it his way. Uh, because visions in baby five aren't set in stone. So that's my prediction is the sari are gonna get charged. Ron Rondo's gonna be railroaded and something's gonna happen where he is no longer going to be the emperor. 'cause maybe it's fear.
Jeff: That's very bold. Very bold. But also it makes sense because like you said, it's not his dream to be emperor. He'd pass it on. But we often forget that nightmares are dreams too. Mm-hmm. So maybe it's his nightmare being torn us under. I. There you go. Well, my prediction is much more pedestrian than yours. I, I, I'm just gonna follow the story, uh, ahead, right.
So we're either gonna dive in right away to that alliance meeting or be coming out of it, but either way Yep. Londo is gonna bust in totally uninvited. He's gonna profess the innocence. We're gonna see loud bloviating, you know, londo against saying all this stuff, making threats or whatever. Mm-hmm.
They're not going to eat it up. The dreams of Unity, the Interstellar Alliance are gonna be torn as Sunder and the episode's gonna end in all out war ships firing on each other. And we're gonna be back to just that high action that, uh,
Brent: we saw. Is it everybody against the Sari or is it everybody against each other?
Because the whole thing is just
Jeff: gone, boo. I think it's everybody against the Sari for this episode.
And we're gonna find out right here next week. Thank you everybody so much for joining us. Please don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Wherever you're watching this, leave us a rating and a review and please share this podcast with someone that loves Babylon five, or is just about to fall in love with this incredible series.
So, until next time, Hey, Jeff. Yeah, man, what's up?
Brent: So, imagine this. Imagine here we are two years plus into this journey. Imagine how much faster we could have gone through this whole series if we had like 200 telepaths doing it with us. Dude, that
Jeff: would be wild.
Brent: Dude. I like we got Babylon five for the second time coming up.
We got some movies, we got some new series, we got some other ideas. Look, all we gotta do is get them some mics in the camera should be good. I
Jeff: only thing though, I, I, I don't, I don't think our insurance would cover that. Eh,
Brent: only if they find out about it. It's like the trampoline in my
Jeff: backyard. I don't know, man.
I'd say we just get the hell outta here.
