Babylon 5 Rewatch: Believers/ By Any Means Necessary

[selenak]

Written by David "The Trouble with Tribbles" Gerrold and seen back in the day as the "We're not Star Trek!" episode of the season due to its ending. Now back then I wasn't online yet, so I got my fannish news at annual conventions and via the occasional fanzine. I remember being impressed at first watching and under the impression that so were the other B5 watching fans I talked to, and not until I got the DVDs and did my first big rewatch (by then definitely online) did I learn there were as many who hated this ep as those who admired it. Rewatching it now, in a 2022 context, definitely brought some new feelings, though hate wasn't among them.

Now, in the 1990s, the episode ending like it did instead of a peaceful resolution was a new (to me) and shocking thing, whereas these days the opposite is true: episodes of this nature end badly more often than not. Back in the day, I also was surprised by Franklin not getting narratively rewarded because he was the doctor, and all the medically themed tv stories I had seen up to this point had doctors taking operations that other characters disagreed with in order to save their patient's life being right to do so. Again, circumstances and tv landscapes have much changed: doctors getting narratively punished for their arrogance has become as common as the opposite.

Thoughts on this rewatch, though, are inevitably colored by the fact we're now in the third year of a global Pandemic where a loud and noisy part of the population endangers the rest of the world by their anti-vaccination and anti-mask but pro-attack on people who do support both attitudes. Where some parents even have taken to using their children as human shields in anti-vaccination protests. Not to mention that in ye 1990s, my expose to people refusing medical treatment for religious reasons was strictly fictional. (Never mind pandemics, I hadn't met a single Jehova's witness yet and didn't know what a Christian Scientist was. Or how powerful evangelicals were in the US.)

Meaning: I still think the episode does a good job of establishing sympathy for the parents, of making it clear they do love their son, that all of this is horrible for them, and that they honestly believe he's basically a zombie once he's been operated upon. (That the parents aren't presented as the evil villains was one of the things that made me admire the episode back then.) However, because of the above, instead of thinking "both the parents and Franklin act according to their sincere beliefs, and Franklin was too arrogant to see that overriding everyone else and operating, then assuming the parents would have no choice but to come around to his pov, would not solve the key problem", I found myself thinking: the parents are making this choice (first to refuse the operation, then of course the awful conclusion) for a child when they should not have the right, and beliefs trumping medical facts is something that's causing such a terrible damage right here and now that my sympathy pendulum has swung right back to Stephen Franklin, arrogant or not.

Now, obviously, the kid in the episode doesn't have a contagious disease, nor is he in a position to spread it due to the parents' choices, I'm not saying that's a 1:1 parallel. But what's going on right now does influence how I'm feeling when watching the episode.

Other thoughts:

- again, you can tell this is a first season episode was written a) not by JMS and b) without deeper familiarity with the regulars than some basic traits, not because all the ambassadors refuse to help, but because G'Kar's attitude while entirely fitting with the smug villainous G'Kar of the pilot does not take into account what will become a plot point just two eps later and for the remaining five years of the show, to wit, that G'Kar is actually a deeply religious person himself. I'm not saying he should have supported the parents because of this - s1 G'Kar's is pretty consistent with his "what's in it for the Narn?" attitude, rare exceptions like helping out Catherine Sakai not withstanding -, but I don't think he would have been so dismissive of their faith as motivation if this episode had been written later with more knowledge of the character

- also, Stephen Franklin in later season turns out to have a belief system himself that's not quite the standard "Doctor vs religion" tv attitude he spouts there, but I think JMS himself might not yet have thought of this re: Franklin

- the Ivanova vs raiders plot has a good opening scene for Ivanova with Sinclair but otherwise feels really random, not helping my general belief the s1 raider suplot was entirely there because the network wanted some space battles in their space show

- good continuity by Garibaldi and Franklin both reminding Sinclair his supporting Kosh's operation against Vorlon objections in the pilot established a precedent

- back then I thought Sinclair's "if I rule in Franklin's favor, I definitely establish a "Earth always knows best" dogma and none of the non-humans will ever trust us again was enlightened and a good meta criticism of all too many stories where Earth/human characters (usually American) do always know best, but, see above, there's the present...

- Sinclair not firing Franklin/not accepting his resignation is one of these "he's a regular" things that goes with the tv territory was what I thought then; much later in the show, of course, we do get examples of regulars... well, those are spoilers.

- the last time I saw this episode, I hadn't yet watched Enterprise, but now I have, and it seems Congenitor was explicitly written to do something like this episode for Star Trek (starring Andreas "G'Kar" Katsulas, no less). Alas, Congenitor failed badly, as it didn't seem to realise that its different set up included the issue of slavery and overruling a slave's explicit wish for freedom, something that definititely isn't a problem in Believers.




This episode was written by Kathryn Drennan. I don't think I knew she used to be Mrs. JMS back when I first watched, though I knew it by the time I read her novel about Sinclair and Catherine Sakai. When I read JMS' memoirs, I was somewhat afraid because what people write about their exes in their memoirs rarely is either to their or the exes' credit (unless the memoirs are centuries old, which is when the bile is just popcorn level entertaining more often than not), but no, he praises her, puts all the blame for the divorce on himself and uses some quotes to support his statement that they're still friends. What "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" (the Sinclair/Sakai B5 novel) and this episode have in common is an interest in workers that back in the 1990s struck me as very unusual in what sci fi (not just US sci fi) I was used to at that point. Upon this rewatch, what strikes me as even more unusual is how the episode deals with its theme and what it avoids doing. To wit: the "yes, the cause is just, but now that those radicals have gone violent, of course our hero(es) must fight them" trope. Or, conversely, "those workers are exploited by the Evil Empire (tm) and then our hero leads them to rebellion as part of the overall struggle against the Evil Empire, and naturally once that struggle is successful there will be no more unjust conditions, because no Good State would have those". Instead, the workers here suffer from all too familiar conditions that don't have anything to do with a dictatorship but happen more often in democracies than not. They also don't radicalize into terrorists or are secretely controlled by the mob or other Evil Overlords. Instead, they strike, and this action isn't painted as wrong or misguided, and it gets them what they want because Sinclair as Our Hero finds a way to use the power given to him in order to put down the strike instead to address the workers' concerns and fulfill their demands. This couldn't be less like the political plot in, say, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier if it tried.

(For a near contemporary comparison: the one DS9 episode which also fully endorses a strike and workers' rights is season 4's Bar Association, complete with Karl Marx quote. However, the Ferengi are so over the top capitalistic that this doesn't have a contemporary criticism feel attached to it.)

The other reason why I'm very fond of this episode and remain so upon rewatching is of course the hilarious Londo/G'Kar subplot. (Look, it can be summarized as "G'Kar spends the entire episode to make Londo give him a flower".) Which actually does have some important Narn characterisation and world building baked into the fun. As I said in my Parliament of Dreams review, the one thing the earlier episode, the first one to start fleshing out G'Kar, does not yet address is the question of his faith. Whereas this episode introduces the fact G'Kar is actually a deeply religious person which remains important for the entire subsequent show (and how!). The "Book of G'Quan" makes its first appearance. And it does address the potential problem in Parliament of Dreams where you could get away with the impression that the non-human races have just one faith per people by showing that the Narn have different prophets they follow (G'Kar and Na'Toth's father) or can be non-believers (Na'Toth herself).

Londo's own motivation to vex G'Kar in this particular way similarly works for a comedy (they just can't stand each other at this point, after all), but has dark undertones: he's not kidding when saying it's just a small payback for G'Kar's part in the attack on the Centauri colony in Mignight at the Firing Lane and the misery Londo's nephew Karn was put through. (Btw, I had forgotten until this rewatch that the nephew comes up in dialogue again in this episode, though I did remember Londo bringing up the colony attack.) Incidentally, Londo's dismissal of the Narns as "sun worshippers" on the one hand points to just the type of superficial (lack of) knowledge typical for colonial powers on their subjects' belief systems, but otoh he clearly did enough research to know about the G'Quan Eth and why it is important to G'Kar specifically. How much or little contact Londo had with anything Narn pre show is murky territory and thus open to fanfiction speculation.

The one element in this episode I don't like is the reporter, mostly because she's the first of a long line of bad/incompetent/annoying reporters depicted in the show and its spin-offs. But it's just a brief appearance, and I'll save my rant on this trope for future episodes.


The other episodes

Comments

[conuly]

The thing about Believers that really gets me, so much, is that Franklin didn't even try to find some sort of solution that could've helped the kid. He could have consulted with other doctors from similar species who might have more insight into another treatment, he didn't do that. He could've looked around for something less invasive that would still remove the problem, he didn't do that - and honestly, the fact that this is a made-up disease of a made-up species notwithstanding, I can still think of half a dozen potential treatments he might have explored based only on my knowledge of physics.

But no. He declares there is no other treatment, and then he... just sits and waits for the parents to agree with him.

[selenak]

Presumably one of the reasons why the episode includes Dr. Maya Hernandez is to assure the audience from the get go there really is no alternate method (despite Franklin pretending to look into one in the initial scene with the parents). But I agree that the episode could have shown him trying to find an alternate method (and failing) in the way you describe - if that had been an intended part of his characterisation. I do think it's deliberate we don't see such a scene but instead get Franklin absolutely convinced of his own judgment. (Though again with some backup from the overall narration via his colleague saying exactly the same thing at the start, that no alternate medical method exists.)

Now, whether the episode wants us to assume both Franklin and Hernandez have already done their research and failed to come up with an alternative before it starts, that I am not so sure of.

Franklin having zero plan to win the parents around other than the initial "soften them into it by pretending there's an alternate way, then present them with the fact there is only the operation", seemingly just believing that the parents will come around once they see the kid is alive and well post operation, otoh, definitely is intended ti be seen as pure hubris. I mean, even aside from the killing, what would he have done if Shon's parents had just left him there on the station and departed, never to be seen again? Did he look into adoption, orphanages, foster parents? He did not.

[princessofgeeks]

I was sad and surprised at the end of Believers too, as the writers no doubt intended. The thing that surprised me most about it was how Babylon 5 law apparently had no mechanism for punishing the parents for essentially murdering their child.

Most Earth jurisdictions would have had some setup where child abuse trumps parents' religious beliefs. That blew my mind more than the rest of the plot.

I liked the focus on labor issues in the other ep as well. I'm watching for the first time right now and am up to mid season 4.

[selenak]

how Babylon 5 law apparently had no mechanism for punishing the parents for essentially murdering their child.

We actually don't know that; it's not that we see the parents depart the station. For all we know, they could have been arrested after Franklin finding them with the murdered child, especially considering their people don't have a representative on the station and thus presumably no extradition agreement, either.

(In terms of whose set of laws is regarded as binding in the case of a crime (in human laws) in s1, hm - the whole Adira plot in "Born to the Purple" has at its premise that Adira is legally Trakis' slave, and only stops being so after Londo gets her contract, then frees her at the end of the episode. Now presumably slavery is outlawed on Earth at this point, and a human being enslaving another would be regarded as a criminal, but Trakis is charged with the blackmail attempt and with kidnapping Adira, not with enslaving her to begin with.)

[princessofgeeks]

Yeah, that whole behind the scenes idea of what laws would apply on Babylon 5 is a fascinating question!

[jack]

Thank you again for continued commentary, I love seeing what you say. My overall impression of these early episodes is that they were quite good but unlike later ones aren't drawing me into eager rewatches, because they don't yet have the main conflicts which are central for the characters I love. Although the hints of them are there, as you point out with G'Kar's religion, which means more when we know how is religion matters later, and how his relationship with Londo evolves.

For the medical dilemma, I think I also hadn't considered the real-world analogues when I saw it. And now I can see extra things that would have been relevant and weren't there, but it probably wouldn't all fit in a single episode.

[selenak]

Thank you for reading! I'm pretty fond of s1 and its work-in-progress atmosphere, so this isn't the first time I rewatched individual episodes of it, but it's the fist time since the first DVD releases that I've been rewatching entire seasons.

[lizbee]

However, the Ferengi are so over the top capitalistic that this doesn't have a contemporary criticism feel attached to it.

I think this is why "Bar Association" never landed for me the way the B5 episode did. Even though B5's success here is thoroughly undermined by the depiction of fawning working class characters in season 5.

[selenak]

God, don't remind me. That particular s5 episode is one I've never ever rewatched so for, I dislike it so much.

I love Bar Association for what it is - a good Rom - and Rom & Quark - character episode, also a good debut of Brunt. And the quoting form the Communist Manifesto is a fun gag. But yeah, criticism of actual real life working conditions, it's certainly not.

[cahn]

I... yeah, I only got about ten minutes into the episode and I could See Where It Was Going. And I found a synopsis instead of watching it all the way through, and was very glad I had. If I'd watched this when it first aired instead of now, I think I would have thought it was powerful rather than reacting rather violently and negatively after about ten minutes? I'm not sure.

In the meantime, of course, I've lived through grimdark being a thing in media and also it being a thing (in a somewhat different way) in national politics, and also I've become a parent, and then there's been the pandemic and kids being a huge huge flash point, and so combining all those things, my reaction was a kind of "aaaaargh I can see even from here that you're going to use the death of a child to manipulate my emotional reaction to things, DO NOT WANT." (It certainly also didn't help that I'd just had a conversation with my friend who got me to watch Wheel of TIme about child death played for angst in that show as well, and that's an episode that was made in 2021!)

The interesting question here I think is, what could the writer(s) have done to sell me on this? I think that if the terminally ill character had not been a child -- with all the issues that raises not just about playing-child-death-for-easy-angst but also, as you and other commenters have brought up, the issues of child abuse and murder -- and the terminally ill character themselves had been the one to decide that they could not live with their religious principles forsworn -- that might have worked for me. Because then it focuses on the actual issue I think the writers wanted to tackle: what happens when doctors' and patients' most deeply-held beliefs conflict, without muddying the waters with the Child Death Angst. Because I think that can actually be an interesting question!

I think I'd also have been on board for a more in-depth look at what it means for alien laws/ethics to be different from human laws/ethics. So, let's say, killing your child isn't considered child abuse or murder for these aliens. Is that okay with humans? What does it mean for humans to be okay or not okay with that either ethically or politically? But also, what if aliens regard their children as more like, idk, larvae than as like human children, does that make it any more okay, and why or why not? I think I'd have been on board for a story that tackled that kind of thing, although it would have had to tread very carefully for obvious reasons and I don't necessarily know that a show in the 90's could have done it in a way, no matter how careful and nuanced they were, that would hold up decades later.

It's also interesting to compare the Farscape episode "Different Destinations," which is rather seared into my memory as THAT EPISODE. No kids in that one, and I watched it much decades ago so can't say how I would have felt watching it today -- probably I would still have not been as impressed by the grimdark as I was when I first watched it, and very possibly I would have intentionally spoiled myself as I did here, but I don't think I would have had quite the recoil of DO NOT WANT that I had from this episode.

[selenak]

Separately from all of this, did you watch By all means Necessary (which has nothing to do with children or dangerous illnesses of any type) as well? Because that was the one I had marked as a must watch in the list I gave you. "Believers" is pretty important for Franklin's character, but not a must for the overall story.

? I think that if the terminally ill character had not been a child -- with all the issues that raises not just about playing-child-death-for-easy-angst but also, as you and other commenters have brought up, the issues of child abuse and murder -- and the terminally ill character themselves had been the one to decide that they could not live with their religious principles forsworn -- that might have worked for me

Then there would have been no plot, though. If the character had been an adult and thus able to decide for themselves, then Franklin could have tried to persuade them, but once the character declines treatment, that's that, there's no legal issue, no reason for Sinclair to be appealed to by both parties and get involved. The episode ends after five minutes. Also, neither party is at fault or could have changed their actions.

I also never felt this episode played child death for "easy angst". What's easy about it? And it's not cheap, either. To me, it felt like a carefully constructed logical tragedy.

So, let's say, killing your child isn't considered child abuse or murder for these aliens.

Actually, the episode is very clear here: in the eyes of these parents (and their society), they did not kill their child. They would be horrified by the idea of killing their child. In their eyes, Franklin killed their child, the moment he operated. He is the murderer. What remains is like a zombie or a vampire in a horror movie or show, an animated corpse, and they act like, say, Buffy when staking her old friend at the end of "Lie to me", Gunn when he stakes his sister-turned-vampire on "Angel", or the people on "The Walking Dead". Since the entire episodes shows the parents as loving and considerate with their son pre-operation, and horrified beyond belief when they run first to the various ambassadors and then to Sinclair for support once Franklin has said he'll operate no matter what in a way that makes it clear they see what Franklin intends to do pretty much as murdering their son and turning him into a vampire, I had no trouble believing this.

Now, in terms of everyone else we see in this episode, killing their son is of course murder, but since it's the last but one scene (the very last scene is a conversation between Franklin and Sinclair where Franklin offers his resignation and Sinclair doesn't accept and Franklin talks about his guilt some more), there is no indication as to what the legal consequences for the parents were.

Now, as I said in my review, my own reaction to the episode has somewhat changed due to the intervening years and current circumstances, and since I have my own "do not wants" or red buttons and have stopped watching or reading stuff because of them, I would never tell you to continue despite those. But I wanted to clarify these few things which you might not get from the summary.

[cahn]

By Any Means Necessary: yes, that's the one I'm watching right now, I'm about a third thr-- oh wait, I got the rewatch schedule wrong again! I hadn't realized you were skipping Survivors, I just assumed that the fact I was skipping it meant that the next episode I was watching was due for next week, not this week, and I (clearly) didn't look at the episode names very closely until you asked about it :) Whoops! Well, good thing I hadn't yet read your comments on that episode in any depth, and, umm, I guess you'll get a comment about it later in the week :) (But means I might be behind on comments for next week, right when I thought I'd be able to catch up, haha.)

Well, hmm, I think there could still be an episode if Franklin insists on treating an adult patient despite that patient's wishes, because he knows that he can save him so very easily (and I can see the temptation if it's a very easy fix), or -- how about this -- harangues the patient into accepting the treatment, but then afterwards the patient regrets it. (I don't actually think this is all that backwards from things that do happen -- I was actually just reading an Atul Gawande essay, probably written not so far from the date of this episode, where he talks about putting someone on a ventilator against his will, because he was pretty sure the patient was not in his right mind, and he would die without, but was otherwise young and healthy and should have a long healthy life if he didn't die of the thing. Now, that story had a happy ending and the doctor clearly in retrospect made the right choice ;) Of course, it's a different situation entirely because of the "not in his right mind" part -- Gawande had to make a split-second decision with someone who was close to death and clearly panicking, and who would probably have made a different decision had he been calm and in possession of all the facts.)

Yeah, it's probably extremely unfair of me to class this episode with playing child death for cheap angst (which is unequivocally what the WoT episode I referenced was doing, no ethical issues involved there), but it still kind of clicks that button in my brain, hm. Perhaps it would have been better to say that I think that using child murder for your conflict is a choice, and it's one I'm increasingly uncomfortable with -- though again, in the 90's I don't think I would have been nearly as uncomfortable with it, or perhaps uncomfortable at all.

I did get from the synopsis I read that the parents think what Franklin did was murder (and are otherwise loving parents), but the fact that no one else thinks so, including you and the other commenters, is what makes me side-eye it. Also, now that I have thought about it some more... I'm realizing that also this episode makes me angry because I don't like how it sets up religion as the fall guy (again, in my head! regardless of what they actually wanted to convey) because I got the sense that obviously if they didn't have this stupid religion, the parents wouldn't have thought their totally okay kid was a zombie, they wouldn't have killed their kid, and they'd all live happily ever after. Which I have extremely complicated feelings about, because I do know individual people whose lives seem to me to have been wrecked, or at least much farther from optimal than I think they could have been, because of religion, and I don't even know any Christian Scientists (I know one Jehovah's Witness, but we have fallen out of touch). And a lot of those situations are major familial rifts, which this might be kind of a metaphor for. AND that's even before these past few years. But as someone who is inside a religious community myself (and one which sometimes makes good choices -- yay vaccines -- and sometimes in my opinion just really doesn't, but which despite all that I find it worthwhile to stay with), I also found it rather othering (and partially because, regardless of what the writer intended, it is really hard for me to imagine anyone thinking that what the parents did was right or justified -- which is part of my issue with using child murder, because once you go there I feel like it's basically holding up a huge sign saying "look this belief system is crazy"). Compare e.g. Kira in DS9, where iirc she sometimes makes religious choices that are baffling to a human observer, but they aren't quite as extreme as child murder, and also by that time we've built up enough sympathy with her that it isn't othering.

(All that being said, I ran this by ase, who is rather more level-headed than I am (and who watched B5 when it came out), and she pointed out the same thing you did in your post, that it was written in response to Things Getting Fixed in e.g. ST:TNG, and that at the time aliens probably seemed like a better choice than, say, actual Jehovah's Witnesses, only to then run into the 2010's reading of Aliens as Othering -- so that my kneejerk 2021/2 response might not, indeed, have been a thing if I'd only watched it a couple of decades earlier.)

So... anyway, yeah, a lot of super complicated feelings on my end, haha, thank you for letting me think them out in your DW :) And hey, in some ways this episode was still an incredible success, as it certainly made me think, the most of any of them to date :)

[jesuswasbatman]

By Any Means Necessary is somewhat hypocritical when you know that B5 itself was a non-union set, because JMS and Netter thought that the Hollywood unions' requirements were unreasonable and they couldn't afford to do it that way.

By Any Means Necessary - watched!

[cahn]

WELP I have now finished "By Any Means Necessary" and I see why it came up :P Well, of course I can't talk yet to continuity etc., but it's actually rather striking to me how well this works as a counterpoint to "Believers," dealing differently with all the things I didn't like about that episode -- here is a situation where Our Heroes and their nominal antagonists are both extremely relatable and not othered (well, okay, Orin Zento is clearly the real villain here, but he's also human and of a Type, and maybe not entirely othered because it's certainly true that I've been in situations (mostly parenting-related) where it became about control and a battle of wills and later I had to go back and apologize for it -- really what makes him a villain is not as much the first half of the episode as the doubling and tripling down). And the B-plot where religion is treated seriously (well, also in a light amusing way! but in a way that doesn't lose sight of our sympathy for both characters). Of course it ends with Our Hero Sinclair being able to save the day in both cases, so it's also a very different kind of episode, so in that sense it's not really fair to compare them. (I wonder if there was anyone who loved Believers and didn't like By Any Means Necessary? I could see that happening!) Anyway I loved Connolly (especially her line to Sinclair about how she was sorry it had to happen there), and I loved Eduardo Delvientos.

Also, somewhat randomly, I am liking Garibaldi more and more. I feel like in the very early episodes he had this side that was supposed to be endearing but honestly came off a little more to me as creepy, and in these last couple of episodes it's been more his professional competence that's been highlighted, and I really like that (and him).

Re: By Any Means Necessary - watched!

[selenak]

Oh, I'm thrilled you like it! It's often overlooked when people make lists, but it's one of my not so secret s1 faves. (And no, I don't think anoyne has compared it to Believers before. After all, they're not usually watched together, it's just that I skipped Survivors.)

well, okay, Orin Zento is clearly the real villain here, but he's also human and of a Type, and maybe not entirely othered

*nods* Also, he clearly sees himself as the hero in this story, not to mention that he's representing the various institutions who sent him. (He's just the face - they are the antagonists in the episode, I'd say.) He's not coming to the station to commit a crime, nor does he torment puppies in his spare time.

Eduardo Delvientos and Connolly are instantly vivid characters, aren't they? And I'm glad you like Garibaldi. Incidentally, Survivors is the first Garibaldi centric episode, so I should explain why I don't rec it nonetheless:

1.) Garibaldi is a recovering alcoholic. This is something that comes up now and then in the show, but in Survivors, it's dealt with really clumsily, as in, he falls of the wagon and gets back on without a problem within the space of a single episode. The show will deal with a similar subject far better in a later season, but here, it's just badly done.

2.) They try to do a classic noir theme - Garibaldi gets framed for a crime he didn't commit, is on the run, has to prove his innocence and find the real villain, while also haunted by something from his past -, but again, execute the trope badly. It doesn't help that the daughter of Garibaldi's dead old friend whose death he blames himself for and who is in charge of the investigation, convinced Garibaldi is the killer, is played by a really bad actress, so what should have emotional resonance - he doesn't just have to prove his innocence but regain a relationship from his past - just falls emotionally flat. The whole episode is like that - tropes that should work in theory but are just terribly executed, and life is too short to watch that.

The only scene I liked in this episode was when Garibaldi when on the run early on asks Londo for help (and cash) - Londo, not Sinclair, because he doesn't want Sinclair to do anything illegal for him though he has no doubt Sinclair would -, and Londo actually helps him out. And when we had a B5 episode based drabble community, I found myself writing a vignette with a follow-up scene that also works as a Garibaldi-down-and-getting-up-again character portrait, here. Whereas I've never written a "By Any Means Necessary" vignette when I like the episode so much better! Inspiration is weird sometimes.

(I've also written two other and longer Garibaldi-centric stories, but these are spoilery for the rest of the show, so I can't link them.)