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selenakSic Transit Vir
Aka still the only Centauri centric episode I have problems with. My main problem hasn't changed, but before I get to that, let me say that the rewatch reminded me of something I had forgotten, i.e. that in addition to the Vir and Lyndisty plot, this episode also has the Sheridan/Delenn subplot. (Which contributes to the general "romcom with war crimes" feeling that's my main problem, as crystallized in the punchline.) Watching this and the subsequent episode directly after another also brought home that both are attempts of offering breathers, comic relief mixed with some serious character stuff, after the tense three parter chronicling the break from Earth, only I think A Late Delivery from Avalon does it better.
Which isn't to say Sic Transit Vir hasn't got much to offer. Stephen Furst shines in it, both in serious and comic ways. The second scene with Ivanova where he asks her for (sexual) relationship advice, is hilarious (and could easily have been cringe worthy, but is not). By contrast, his facial acting after he and Virini have the "Narn joke" exchange in the teaser and Vir turns around already says it all, and his tormented "because I had to do something!" outburst in the big climactic scene cuts to the bone. (As I said in the much earlier episode where G'Kar hold his then hardly listened to speech and he and Vir have their elevator "dead...dead....dead" scene later, it's a sublime irony that the one person who truly listened to G'Kar that day, took his words to heart and let action follow was Vir.) Even the very start, with Vir touching the imperial throne, is a neat character touch, given two eps earlier he has heard he will be Emperor one day, and Centauri believe in prophecies. (If anyone wants to quote "prophecy is just a guess that comes true" from s5, that's not actual Vir speaking bot Londo's inner version of him.) As for the Sheridan and Delenn subplot, it's them being cute(sy) again, which I remember used to annoy me upon first watching, but now, upon rewatch, I was more in a "aw, you two" mood and felt they did deserve that break. Also, Delenn does like to tease Sheridan with her occasional pretense at taking an English expression literal, doesn't she.
But. Like I said, my central problem is still there. Lyndisty's little speech revealing her to have actively and enthusiastically participated in hundreds of genocidal war crimes ("pacification") on Narn makes the last scene between Vir and her feel like Oskar Schindler/Amon Göth RPF, to put it drastically. (Incidentally, rewatch also reminded me we never find out what happened with the tied up Narn Lyndisti presented to Vir. Evidently he didn't kill him or let her kill him, but what happened? Did he drag her away and gave an anonymous call to station security? And if so, did the Narn try to fulfill his blood oath again?) You can't go back to RomCom after a reveal like that. Not to mention it's inconsistent with Vir's behaviour in early s4 in a not dissimilar situation, more about this in spoiler space. The last time I beat this particular deceased equine, a friend pointed out to me that Vir believes Londo can redeem himself, so it makes sense he still has hope for Lyndisty as well. Well, Vir has known Londo for two and a half years, and has observed his highs and lows close up, whereas he met Lyndisty only days earlier. Also, "one day, he'll surprise you" (Vir about Londo to Delenn and Lennier earlier this eason) isn't the same as "what relationship doesn't have its ups and downs?" (after Lyndisty kissed him goodbye in the last sccene).
Years ago, when I did my big Angel the series rewatch, it struck me that the end of Disharmony (season 2) does the same thing as athis sentence does: it sacrifices character development for the sake of a cheap gag. (In the case of the AtS episode: Wesley tells Angel he can't expect to buy Cordelia's forgiveness after the months of enstrangement and will have to work for it, then Cordelia rushes in, thanks Angel for the new dresses and makes clear he totally bought her forgiveness.) Vir going from being horrified at Lyndisty's actions to making said comment just because she's a really good kisser is the same thing. Plus, here comes spoiler space so I can point out the inconsistency:
How
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Early in s4, Vir initially objects to Londo's idea that they'll have to kill Cartagia to save the Republic and asks whether there isn't another solution. Then he actually meets Cartagia and gets exposed to Cartagia's gleeful cruelty towards G'Kar. After listening to Cartagia's boast about his torture of G'Kar, Vir without hesitation tells Londo he was wrong, they need to by all means kill this man. Yes, Vir knows G'Kar personally whereas he doesn't know the Narn Lyndisty captured, or the many she killed before, but Vir of all the people has shown that it didn't matter to him whether he knew the Narn he saved or not, he just needed to save as many as he could. If Vir had known Lyndisty for a longer time and had grown to love her, okay, but in fact, he has known Lyndisty and Cartagia for the exact same length of time before deciding that one needs to die and marriage with the other might work out in the future, possibly, despite them showing the same character qualities. Surely the series doesn't want to say Vir would have had a different opinion of Cartagia if Cartagia had offered sex?
screw
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lightbulb?
A late delivery from Avalon
I remember this one as being somewhat unpopular, but I like it a lot. IMO unlike the previous one it does manage to reconcile the comedy elements with the darker text. Also, the "Garibaldi vs the post office" subplot is silly, but in an enjoyable way. I think the main reason why "Arthur" works for me is because Michael York plays him straight, not over the top, and the show doesn't make light of the very serious issue plaguing him. At the same time, G'Kar enjoying the chance for some unambigious righteous team up against villainous bullies and getting knighted as the result is both funny and touching. And now I'm reminded again that someone ought to write post episode fanfic starring "Arthur" among the Narn.
The tie-in to the Earth/Minbari war backstory is necessary, but at the same time I've always suspected that JMS also wanted to write a T.S.White (or the White based musical Camelot)/B5 crossover, since the characterisation of Arthur and the knights, in as much as the episode gives them, seem to be pretty White-ean. (In universe, it makes sense that the unfortunate David would have gotten his Arthurian lore from there.) Speaking of Watsonian explanations, I appreciate Stephen Franklin pointing out the Vorlons conserved Jack the Ripper, so they might as well have done the same to Arthur, before regretfully concluding Arthur's modern English nixes that idea. (Hey, another fanfic idea: five different versions of Arthur from different media put into that story, and how that would change the plot, or not.) Otoh, minus points for Dr Franklin for trying to force Arthur/David to confront his trauma. Good therapy, this was not.
Marcus choosing Galahad as his Arthurian alter ego is pretty telling. With G'Kar as Gawaine, Kosh as Merlin and Franklin as Bedivere, while Sheridan gets cast as Arthur himself, that doesn't leave just the question Marcus poses - "Who's Morgan le Fay?" - which will be answered before the season is over, but also "who's Lancelot"? https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1494473.htmlThe obvious candidate emerges in s5.
The other episodes
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Date: 2022-05-23 03:58 am (UTC)Stephen Furst is great. I was expecting to cringe all the way through his scene with Ivanova, and I didn't. The whole Vir plot about him saving the Narns is greeeeat. And then Lyndisty is all "yup, did those war crimes, and also definitely still think that was the right choice" and I was totally expecting Vir to be all "okay, look, until now you seemed only faintly questionable but now I realize I can't ever see you again," and was shocked when this wasn't in fact what happened.
I fanwanked it in my head by supposing that after all it's an arranged marriage so maybe he can't really get out of it, so he's making the best of his wife being a sociopathic racist murderer. Although this is contraindicated by previous episodes, where multiple Centauri do get out of arranged marriages -- but maybe there is something inside of him that's conservative enough that he doesn't feel he personally can. Argh! That's the best I can come up with, anyway! Does Lyndisty ever show up again? (If not, I still don't understand why not, since the episode seems to make it clear that everyone considers them actually married at this point.)
I did admire the actress in the middle of all this, btw. She just delivered those awful lines in such an utterly sincere way.
Avalon: My immediate response afterwards was that my main takeaway from this was WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM FRANKLIN. Can't even blame this one on stim addiction :P Okay, fine, the rest of it I liked, Michael York was great! G'Kar with Arthur was fun.
And in the middle of both the humor and the darkness, that scene with Delenn was really incredibly moving, in a way that I felt was symbolic of a lot of things the show has been going towards. At the time, as you know, I felt (and still feel) that Delenn had a lot of mixed motivations, not all of them altruistic, for becoming the hybrid Minbari-human she is now. But in this episode (and especially coming off of the big three-parter) it becomes clear to me what she can be as a result of becoming what she is, and what her best self is -- a bridge between human and Minbari, a way to extend grace where before there was destruction. And yes, the show has been telling us that and implying that for a while, it's not that it's surprising in any way, but so far it hasn't showed it in the very poignant way that it did here, and I was grateful it showed that moment of grace.
since the characterisation of Arthur and the knights, in as much as the episode gives them, seem to be pretty White-ean.
Hm! I didn't feel that way, although now that you've said it, I certainly think it was informed by White, in the sense of White being the one to pioneer that sort of irreverent mix of period and modern. But the characterization seemed to me to be rather composite. (I did giggle a bit at calling Gawaine "the green knight.")
that doesn't leave just the question Marcus poses - "Who's Morgan le Fay?" - which will be answered before the season is over, but also "who's Lancelot"?
Lol, because I was wondering if Lancelot had been named in the episode and I'd just missed it somehow! Though I feel Garibaldi makes a good Lancelot in some ways -- I'm thinking about the flash-forward scenes from "Babylon Squared," for instance -- not in the Guinevere-affair kind of way, but in the right-hand-of-Arthur and ready-to-go-off-and-battle-threats kind of way.
Though speaking of Garibaldi, it was kind of odd to me that he's the one who's making determinations on rent? But I guess maybe he ran it by Sheridan first and Sheridan was like, "sounds good, and what, you want to be the one to tell the post office folks? Uh, I guess that's one more item off my plate, sure."
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Date: 2022-05-23 07:41 am (UTC)No. She doesn't get mentioned again, either. Now there are some events in early s4 (aka my favorite B5 storyline) that can be used to explain this, and headcanon that the arrangement was dissolved for those reasons, but we never get something in dialogue or onscreen.
Re: getting out of an arranged marriage - well, it's worth pointing out that Londo couldn't get out of any of his until he started to gather some political clout, i.e. early s2, and even then he had to keep one wife, whereas Vir's cousins in s1 got out of theirs partly due to some maneouvring using their age (i.e. they were made fostered wards of another house). Vir does now have a bit of status in Centauri society this season, both due to the Minbar job and due to being connected to Londo, but the Minbar job has just come to an end in ignomy. So I have no problem believing he can't end the engagement/arranged marriage right then and there on his own (and like I said, there's a reason why things change in s4 so I can believe this happens off screen). My problem is that he still feels attracted to Lyndisti in the final scene and behaves as if they're just disagreeing on, say, food opinions instead of a fundamental ethical principle.
WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM FRANKLIN
I thought you might say that. :)
Delenn accepting the sword/absolving the guilt: true, all this, and remember, we just learned in "Severed Dreams" that she was not only present when Dukhat, the former leader of the Grey Council died, but that he died in her arms. David/Arthur asking for forgiveness thus is in no ways abstract or general to her.
Though speaking of Garibaldi, it was kind of odd to me that he's the one who's making determinations on rent?
I didn't take it as Garibaldi making this decision unilateraly. We'll see in later episodes that rent really is heigthened for everyone due to the new situation, though I do believe Garibaldi made a request for the specific amount the post officie is charged with at this point. (I also think he asked Ivanova rataher than Sheridan.)
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Date: 2022-05-23 11:10 pm (UTC)Lancelot could be Ivanova!
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Date: 2022-05-25 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-05 09:49 am (UTC)