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selenakEpiphanies
As transition episodes from one big plot part of the show to another go, this was a good one, and also a great ensemble episode, as it shows us what's going on in great variety of characters as opposed to focusing on only one or two. Plus, of, course, it's a Bester episode, which automatically means there'll be quotable lines. ("For now, I trust my usual quarters in the brig await." "For you, Mr. Bester, always.") Not to mention that it has the most vicious of stingers in its last scene.
It's also one of those episodes which while I wouldn't place it among my "Best Episodes of B5" list (if I had one), I just like everything about it, including the opening party scene, because seriously, after something like the Shadow War people really needed that. But seriously, look at how many plot lines the episode juggles:
- Fascist Earth and President Clark
- Centauri Prime and the implication for Londo's future
- Londo and G'Kar
- Ongoing mystery of what truly happened to Garibaldi
- Lyta's Vorlon modifications, what they have given her, and her status on B5
- the unresolved plot thread of the frozen telepaths with Shadow tech and relatedly:
- Bester and his only partially reconcilable-with-our-heroes agendas (and mutual resentments)
There's also a good mixture of suspense, character scenes and humor. I wondered, this time around, whether the Elvis/Second Coming gag still works for the young 'uns, but while it's easy, I still smile every time. The poor Regent's "I'm thinking...pastels!" scene is one of those where you smile the first time but knowing what's coming at the end of the episode (and indeed in s5, where the actor playing Regent Virini really gets to show his stuff) , you do so through tears, so to speak.
(Sidenote: the first time I watched the tail end of this episode with the Keeper on Virini's shoulder, I gasped, but I also wondered whether Londo by suggesting Virini become Regent had inadvertendly managed to shift his fate on the poor guy.)
And there's the Garibaldli and G'Kar scene. Which is also outstanding because while most of Garibaldi's s4 scenes for plot reasons show him increasingly isolated and at odds with Our Heroes and thus focus on his increasing paranoia and temper, this one is a welcome reminder of his capacity for friendship (and what it awoke in G'Kar), not to mention that G'Kar's "Welcome home, Mr. Garibaldi!" hug drives home that not only did no one else react this way but, as Garibaldi says, no one but G'Kar went looking for him, either. While there are reasons for it, it's such a marked contrast to everyone's behavior re: Sheridan that even without (spoiler), I think Garibaldi would have noticed.
While he has only three scenes - in Franklin's medlab, the one with Garibaldi and the one with Londo - , it's also a good transition episode for G'Kar, as it shows that while he's able to see the benevolence of the universe in how his quest for Garibaldi turned out, he's still nowhere near at peace with Londo (and far from forgiving him, understandably so given the enormity of what Londo is responsible for) once there's no external need to work with him anymore. I mean, even without spoilers you know he's deluded if thinking "in my universe, you don't exist anymore" will hold, because one thing G'Kar has never managed and will never manage towards Londo Mollari is indifference. But it feels emotionally real for him to say it at this point.
For Londo, too, this scene is a transitional one. Again, with the exception of the Cartagia conspiracy - where seeking out G'Kar was of vital importance - and their off screen agreement to kill Refa, Londo until now ever since The Coming of Shadows has avoided or fled G'Kar if he could, and you can see this is still his first instinct once he spots him - turning away - but then he turns back, and heads straight towards him. Whataever G'Kar is now to Londo, he's not planning to avoid it any longer.
Moving on to the telepaths. While there were some hints before that Lyta's telepathic abilities now, courtesy of the Vorlons, exceed her original P5 ranking, this is the first episode to hammer down just how much by letting her effortlessly block the P12 Bester. (Vorlon enhancements instead of Ironheart's gift being how Lyta gts that part of Talia's storyline.) As importantly, though, the episode shows both Lyta's outsider status on the station (which will have ongoing emotional and plot repercussions) and, imo, foreshadows the growing similarity between her and her arch enemy Bester. Note that Lyta's decision to essentially blow up Z'ha'dum comes from a variety of motives, some good - Shadow technology really isn't something that should be in anyone's hands - and some petty and not caring about the victims (hurting Bester via destroying a chance for him to save his lover as punishment for Bester's having hurt other telepaths before; that this also means Carolyn and the other frozen telepaths have just lost the biggest chance they had to be freed doesn't seem to matter). ( Even the use of "my people", claiming to speak for all telepaths, is typical for Lyta and Bester both.)
What was truly shocking the first time I watched this episode and remains stunning upon nth rewatch, though, are Sheridan's reaction in conjunction to the earlier scene with Zack where Lyta asks why no one ever visits her except when they want something from her. Because yes, Lyta's connection with the Vorlons and the fact they altered her (something which no one other than herself knows for sure at this point) are a thing, but she did risk life and sanity on behalf of Our Heroes time and again, and it's true: Zack aside as of this episode, no one interacts with her unless they want to use her. Conversely, Sheridan's threat at the end of this episode - to hand over Lyta to Psi Corps if she ever does something like this (make a command level decision without consulting him first) again - is not something I can see him do with a non-telepath. I mean, the equivalent would be to threaten Franklin or Ivanova (or Garibaldi, for that matter) with being handed over to Clark's forces to be tried for treason if they disaobey him. Sheridan despises the Corps, he makes that clear in this episode again, and he has no reason to doubt Lyta would be vivisected (or something as vile) if he did hand her over. And he still threatens to do this. (If he'd said something like "if you ever do something like this again, we'll have to go our separate ways, and you'll have to make your living elsewhere", it would be different.)
Which goes back to something I've been saying in seasons past. The apartheid status of telepaths on Earth has been something that long predates Clark - the next episode points out it's been a hundred years since Psi Corps was founded - , and none of our heroes objected to it or tried to change it pre show while enlisting in the services of a government that upheld it. (Yes, Ivanova always thought Psi Corps was vile and blamed it for the fate of her mother. But it never seems to occur to her that Psi Corps exists only because non-telepath legislators created and upheld it, that the laws condemning telepaths to an existence where there's only a limited type of professions they can choose and where their bodily automony isn't really their own aren't something created by the Corps, or that for as long as Earth was still a democray, you maybe could/should have protested against them and badgered legislators to change them.) All Our (Human) Heroes agree that Psi Corps = Bad, but I think a case can be made that subconsciously, they do think of telepaths as other, not quite human, not really entitled to the same laws as non-telepaths. It's just easier to blame people like Bester than to see them as a symptom but not the cause of a bad situation.
Not that Bester, for his part, is blame free. Anything but. It's also telling that he imagines Sheridan & Co. as gloating at the end of this episode (which really is not the case; ironically, the one character who does feel some "hooray, Bester suffers" is another telepath). Or that for all of his "my people" talk, he was willing to sacrifice telepaths who trusted him for a chance to get Carolyn back. (This, btw, is a difference between Bester and Our Heroes that has nothing to do with being a telepath or having grown up in the Corps. I can see Sheridan sacrifice himself any time to rescue Delenn - or for that matter Ivanova, or others -, but not set up a squadron to die so he can rescue her.) (To save a planet, yes, he would. But not Delenn alone.) There's also something else I'll talk about in the spoilery section below. Newbies, skip to the next episode.
An
Ace
in
The
Hole
When you rewatching this knowing what's going on with Garibaldi, it is striking that the transmission pushing Garibaldi to quit his job as Security Chief comes before Bester's arrival at the station, and that while all previous Bester episodes featured at least one encounter between him and Garibaldi, this one did not. On a Watsonian level, while making Garibaldi quit was on Bester's agenda anyway because he needed him to go freelance and thus in a position to infiltrate Edgars, I imagine he wanted to ensure Garibaldi was not present when he briefed the command staff, or indeed when he arrived at the station the way Zack was. Bester does have a healthy respect of Garibaldi's investigative abilities, and Garibaldi at this point is just himself enough to maybe figure something out if he gets triggered by Bester's presence.
The Corps
Is
Mother
the Corps is
Father
The Illusion of Truth
I'm a bit torn about this one, and that is less because of the episode itself and more about the larger B5 context. Given that heroes need obstacles, and that our lot had scored against Clark in the previous episode, Team Fascist Earth needed a win to make it clear it wouldn't be that easy. Also, Sheridan & Co. naively believing they can outwit the propagandists by their statements shows they're amateurs in that department (which they are), and that the recent win against the Shadows maybe left them with a touch of hubris.
As for the propaganda broadcast itself: what strikes me upon this rewatch is that it suddenly looks old fashioned. Effective, but old fashioned. By which I mean: it echoes Stalinist and/or Orwellian type of news reporting, complete with an obviously tortured "repentant" man confessing, and the fake concern for "Minbari war syndrome" and Sheridan as a sufferer of same who just needed treatment
The reason why I'm torn about the episode is, like I said, about the larger context. Firstly re: the depiction of journalism on this show, and secondly, the Garibaldi storyline. Regarding the first: the Clark-captured ISN being a pure propaganda tool is only realistic, BUT my problem is that even in earlier and later episodes featuring journalists, they're depicted as annoying and intrusive at best (s1), mean because They Make Delenn Cry (s2), or the target of a remarkably jerk-like Sheridan prank (in the post show "Legends" segment which if you haven't watched it, you don't need to) for the crime of interviewing him. To be fair: we also have a sympathetic depiction (the tv moderators when ISN gets captured by Clark's forces who broadcast till the last moment are undoubtedly meant to be heroic) . But still, overall B5 seems to think reporters are at best annoying and mostly scum, and in an era where more and more journalists get assaulted (verbally and physically) world wide not in dictatorships but in democracies, that just sticks in my throat. I guess that if the show had offered a minor recurring character, a journalist who has escaped from the ISN purge and is now doing their stuff as an exile, which doesn't mean only positive stories on our heroes but deos mean honest reporting, I would not mind so much.
Which brings me to Garibaldi. In previous episodes, Garibaldi had critisized Lorien, but not Sheridan directly. This is the first time he does it. My problem here is that the audience knows Garibaldi himself has been subjected to brainwashing by Mysterious Forces, and that thus anything he says is automatically questionable. Compare this to s2's episode In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, where Garibaldi objecting to Sheridan's treatment of Morden was treated by the narrative as both valid and right. Whereas here, when Garibaldi says that Sheridan gets hero-worshiipped far too unquestioningly, and says it to a hostile reporter, no less, he's clearly meant to be in the wrong.
Now, if there were any other character around who occasionally disagrees with Sheridan and is proven correct, that would not be a problem, either. But there is not, and that's why I'm torn about an episode which by itself is competently done and achieving all its aims.
The other episodes
no subject
Date: 2022-07-17 12:27 am (UTC)i was really thrilled to get access to the remasters and started a rewatch, then backed out as the fascism themes hit closer and closer to real life
no subject
Date: 2022-07-17 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-17 12:31 am (UTC)I was kind of excited that I'd nailed that they'd be talking about Earth and President Clark -- wait, Bester?? I wasn't expecting him! I was delighted :D
I wondered, this time around, whether the Elvis/Second Coming gag still works for the young 'uns
I don't really count as a young 'un, but I'll have you know I laughed so hard at that bit. (My kids, who are young 'uns, did not really understand. But they don't actually know about Elvis.)
The poor Regent's "I'm thinking...pastels!" scene is one of those where you smile the first time but knowing what's coming at the end of the episode (and indeed in s5, where the actor playing Regent Virini really gets to show his stuff) , you do so through tears, so to speak.
I love the Regent and that last scene was shocking! And now I guess we know where the Keepers came from...
this one is a welcome reminder of his capacity for friendship (and what it awoke in G'Kar), not to mention that G'Kar's "Welcome home, Mr. Garibaldi!" hug drives home that not only did no one else react this way but, as Garibaldi says, no one but G'Kar went looking for him, either. While there are reasons for it, it's such a marked contrast to everyone's behavior re: Sheridan that even without (spoiler), I think Garibaldi would have noticed.
Yes! Man, I'm so curious about what's going on with him and why he resigned right after he got that odd message... I assume the message was Psi Corps telling him to resign? But why? Or maybe he was fighting against something they wanted him to do, and so resigned so he wouldn't be tempted to do it??
by letting her effortlessly block the P12 Bester.
Ha, that scene was great.
I mean, the equivalent would be to threaten Franklin or Ivanova (or Garibaldi, for that matter) with being handed over to Clark's forces to be tried for treason if they disaobey him.
Ohhhhh. The scene did ping me as awfully harsh, but I hadn't really thought about what it meant that it was so harsh, gosh.
I can see Sheridan sacrifice himself any time to rescue Delenn - or for that matter Ivanova, or others -, but not set up a squadron to die so he can rescue her.) (To save a planet, yes, he would. But not Delenn alone.)
Oh, yes. <3
...aaaaand I have actually watched the next episode, but will do that one later!
no subject
Date: 2022-07-17 10:39 am (UTC)The reaction of the avarage B5 viewer to spotting Bester is diametrically oppposite to the reaction of the avarage B5 crew member to spotting Bester. :) Incidentally, it occurs to me that I can now link you to my s2 story about Bester meeting Control (former Talia), which I couldn't at the time because it has some spoilers re: Bester's attitude towards the Shadows. It's here.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-18 05:05 pm (UTC)Heeee it's true! The funny thing is that the crew members' reactions are part of the fun. It's so hilarious to see them rolling their eyes at him :D
Oh yay Bester and former!Talia! I am really looking forward to that :D
On "Illusion of Truth" -- oh interesting! I had a somewhat different perspective.
I would have agreed with you on the old-fashioned-ness before 2022 (I certainly thought that "And now for a word" was very old-fashioned!), but as it is I guess it didn't look exactly old-fashioned to me, because I wasn't comparing it to anything on American media, but rather to Russian media, because the way the show is structured, what's going on on Earth seems to be more similar to that than it does with what's going on in the US (which is a raging trash fire, don't get me wrong, but we don't have anything resembling an only-state-controlled media). (I mean, I do see what you mean about how JMS didn't anticipate the current state of US media, and if he had he'd probably have done it differently. But that's not to say what he was doing isn't something that still can happen.) And I agree with what you say about Sheridan's dad! (Again, not an issue in the US, which isn't that bad at least at this point in time, but does seem like it would have happened in current-day Russia...)
The other thing is -- and this may just be because a *lot* has happened since S2 and I don't remember the episode that well -- I remember thinking in the end that the journalists on "And now for a word" were fairly reasonable. They certainly came in with their own biases, and okay, they did make Delenn cry, but they did that by making comments/questions that reflected their Earth audience. And it seemed pretty clear that, whatever their failings (and there were some other disturbing bits, like the mention of Mars being pretty biased), they were trying to get at the truth. And what this episode did for me was hammer that home, by making it very clear what the difference was between journalists and a journalistic system that might be flawed but that were trying their best to get at the truth, and journalists and a journalistic system that weren't.
Now what I thought, watching for the first time in 2022, was incredibly frustrating and old-fashioned, so much that I could barely watch parts of it, was Sheridan's naivete. I guess we, the viewers, could see the still pics that were being taken by the production crew, so we had more of an insight into what they were doing than Sheridan did, but, for example, I was cringing so hard during the whole Sheridan/Delenn interview. You wouldn't even need to have been a propaganda machine to make the interview where their relationship was revealed explosive -- I mean, just the idea of Sheridan, the hero of the Earth/Minbari war, getting it on with a member of the enemy race, is like dynamite and it was shocking to me that Sheridan didn't see it as such, even when he had the example of the previous "And now for a word" Delenn interview. And when he said that he thought it had gone well and he hadn't given them any sound bites to use, I about fell out of my chair. Everything Sheridan had given him was sound bites! Anyway, I think maybe in the 90's he came across as more reasonable, but in 2022, he comes across as just painfully and I'd even say unprofessionally naive.
And, lol, wait, we weren't supposed to take Garibaldi at his word? Because I was nodding along and going, "well... he's right, you know!"
no subject
Date: 2022-07-19 08:12 am (UTC)And what this episode did for me was hammer that home, by making it very clear what the difference was between journalists and a journalistic system that might be flawed but that were trying their best to get at the truth, and journalists and a journalistic system that weren't.
That is also true, and I may be overracting. It’s the lack of journalists-as-a-necessary-element-of-democracy, perhaps, that I am missing. For example, if one of the hints/leads to the truth about the Santiago assassination had come from a journalist in pursuit of that story, and Sheridan would have first allied, then gotten into conflict with the journalist as to when to break this story, that would have soothed my slightly ruffled feathers, I suppose.
Now what I thought, watching for the first time in 2022, was incredibly frustrating and old-fashioned, so much that I could barely watch parts of it, was Sheridan's naivete
LOL, yes. Mind you, I could see him thinking that if he pretended his relationship with Delenn was solely professional (ambassador/station commandor), he could have easily been proven a liar, because by now there surely would have been no shortage of people on the station willing to say Delenn and Sheridan were an item. But he really should have known it would be used against him no matter what, and yes, thinking it had “gone well” was breathtakingly naive. Then again, maybe career militaries in the future have no idea how to handle PR?
And, lol, wait, we weren't supposed to take Garibaldi at his word? Because I was nodding along and going, "well... he's right, you know!"
Well, as I said: when he critisizes Sheridan in s2’s In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum, the series is squarely on his side (despite the audience knowing more about Morden than Sheridan and Garibaldi), and there’s no question that it’s Garibaldi making that statement. Otoh, in s4, the audience has seen that Garibaldi is influenced by third parties (i.e. he gets that secret transmission, he directly quits afterwards in the previous episode) and thus not completely himself, so “how much of this is Garibaldi, and how much is programming?” Is not clear, which gives his criticism less weight than if he’d made it without that baggage.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-17 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-18 06:38 am (UTC)Spoilers!!
Date: 2022-07-18 07:38 pm (UTC)I'm wondering if Bester is also worried it'll mistrigger and mean his other plan won't work. Which I'd quite like from a sci fi perspective, this idea of technology/treatment not being perfect.
Re: Spoilers!!
Date: 2022-07-19 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-30 05:36 pm (UTC)I hadn't really thought about Lyta becoming more like Bester, but I agree. There were many telepaths who might have benefitted from that technology - she didn't care about them, only about revenge on Bester.
I do love that no one in this series is totally black or white. They all have their own weaknesses.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-01 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-03 06:34 am (UTC)I thought that the brainwashing might have used Garibaldi's normal existing feelings and just twisted/exaggerated them. eg. His distrust of Lorien.
But he had come to trust Sheridan - he got those nukes without asking a single question...
no subject
Date: 2022-10-03 09:19 am (UTC)I found the Illusion of Truth very hard to watch - largely because it reminds me of how common fake news has now become. Trump and Putin between them have made it the norm.
I hear you, though I would add Boris Johnson to the list, given he‘s been at it ever since inventing stories as the Torygraph‘s „correspondent“ in Brussels. It‘s truly frightening that we all live in seperate realities now, and you can‘t reach whole swathes of people because they have chosen to disbelieve anything not ordained by their „leader“. B5 was somewhat optimistic in this regard in that once Our Heroes get the truth out there via „The Voice of the Resistance“, it‘s believed more and more by the majority of people over Clark‘s propaganda.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-03 10:51 am (UTC)by David McRaney
It's not an easy read as it involves a lot of psychological research, but in essence it's saying that confronting false beliefs directly doesn't work, but there are approaches that help improve the chances of people coming to question those beliefs.
It also helps a lot if there are reasons why it is beneficial for them to shed that belief. eg. Vaccine resistance tends to crumble over time. But that process can be helped by things like holding vaccination sessions in mosques. If respected community leaders are seen to support it, others follow.
The most likely thing to chip away at Putin's lies are the people fleeing conscription. They will be far more likely to believe this is an unjust war, as it gives them an internal reason to reject the war. Also, they will be fleeing to countries that already hold this belief.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-03 10:53 am (UTC)People trusted the Telegraph. We expect our newspapers to be biased, but we don't expect outright lies.