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selenakPhoenix Rising
And thus the telepaths subplot concludes, though not Lyta's personal arc. It did take me a few years after the original broadcast to understand why the episode is called what it is, and that she's the titular Phoenix, reborn in flames. (Lyta Alexander, Resistance Leader, does not believe in peaceful Resistance. Also, back in the 1990s it seems red headed telepaths with growing powers and growing anger issues were all over the tv place, and as I wasn’t yet familiar with the X-Men until the movies, I didn't grasp how influential Chris Clarement with his Dark Phoenx arc for Jean Grey must have been.)
The reveal that Byron used to be a Psi Cop and Bester's protegé, and that what made him turn into a blip and then the founder of a cult/resistance movement (take your etiquette of choice) was the order to kill "mundanes" by Bester (and the subsequent indifference by other Corps officials when Byron attempted to report it) makes complete sense, though I wasn't sure back then and I'm still not sure during this rewatch whether it shouldn't have been revealed sooner. Byron, ex-Psi Cop attempting to be a pacifist is more interesting than Byron, failure at poetic speeches is what I'm saying. Though we'd still have the casting problem - Byron rescueing Franklin and Garibaldi by shooting one of his followers and talking the others into surrendering is very sympathetic and moving on paper, but the actor still doesn't have that kind of presence which makes me emotionally believe his followers gone rogue would be first ready to surrender to station authorities on his say so and then to committ suicide with him. This said, the scene with Bester earlier where he attempts to talk to Byron works for me on various levels. It shows they used to be close, it shows Bester's mixture of (failed) manipulation and sincerity, and this is the first time we see Bester remove a glove (btw, the way he does it back in the 90s was when I realised he really could not use his left hand), and the symbolism this has for telepaths on this show is obvious. Dito for the scene between Sheridan and Bester at the end, which, again, brought home botht hat "rogues are family who need to be shown the error of their ways and then readmitted/all telepaths together" is something Bester does/did belief (as opposed to just using it as propaganda towards others) and that this self delusion now has been shattered. Much as pre Star Wars Prequels the assumption was that the "Clone Wars" Leia was referencing in her origiinal message to Obi-Wan was a war against Clones, only to find out it was a war where Clones and Jedi fought against another enemy, this episode is an indication that the Telepath War, when it finally arrives (which it doesn't in this show and eventually never did, since this was one of the post B5 projects of JMS which fell through), wouldn't be "Mundanes" vs Telepaths but Telepaths vs each other. In Crusade, which is set post Telepath War, that's also the implication. And this episode is when the galvanizing spark has been lit. That Bester - who is invested in the "telepaths are family" belief, and who always thought it would be telepaths vs mundanes - should heavily contribute to it by his insistence on taking Byron & Co. personally into custody is fitting tragic irony. (If you take the Psi Corps book trilogy as canon: the third novel, which is set post Telepath War as well, reveals that Bester tried to reach Byron telepathically to keep him from killing himself in his last moments and as a result has to live with a fragment of Byron's psyche inside his mind for the rest of his days.
While all of this is going on, we also get a reminder of why Bester is one of the most entertaining villains of the show when Garibaldi finally manages some alone time and finds out Bester is still two steps ahead of him. This scene has such a "cat plays with mouse" vibe, and I don't know whether Walter Koenig improvised Bester opening only one eye, but it's perfect and darkly hilarious, as is "let me ask you something, Mr. Garibaldi, as one intelligent human being to another - on a scale of 1 to 10, how stupid do you think I am?" Otoh, it's absolutely devastating for Garibaldi to find out that after a year of being mind controlled, he's still controlled in one important aspect, and it makes sense that this is what pushes him over the edge and off the wagon. (More about this in the next episode review.)
The Ragged Edge
So, as opposed to Stephen Franklin's stim addiction arc back in the day I always thought Garibaldi's s5 alcoholism arc was efficient storytelling, made sense for the character and contributed to the overall saga. Garibaldi as a recovering alcoholic had been established from s1 onwards, it comes up now and then, and while not being his sole character trait, it's one of the things that contributes to him being who he is. Last season was a harrowing and deeply frightening experience for him, and he didn't really deal with it, partly because he thought he'd get his revenge on Bester. Finding out about Bester's goodbye present pushing him into his old addiction does, as I said, make sense given Garibaldi's control issues, current inability to direct his rage and self loathing. And as opposed to Franklin's arc, where his addiction only affects himself except for the episode where it finally leads to his temporary resignation, here we get Garibaldi's fall of the wagon almost immediately having results that affect the larger plot line (the mystery of the raiders - a sober Garibaldi a) would have had Franklin with him as backup, and b) would have heard the shot taking his old friend out). Now, would the rational thing have been for Garibaldi to confide in someone about what Bester did - Franklin being the obvious candidate, but there's also Lise Hampton back on Mars? Sure, and in Phoenix Rising he's about to do that (BEFORE falling of the wagon) with Franklin. After, it's another matter. Addiction isn't rational. And Garibaldi telling himself he can still control it and function is very much in character.
G'Kar returns to find himself a bestselling writer and holy prophet very much to his horror leads to a lovely scene with Ta'Lon (when did we last see Ta'Lon - s3 I think?). It's also a bit of comic relief with serious undertones, as it's not something that will go away, and will have long term consequences for G''Kar. The scene with his new follower insistiing that the "Book of G'Kar" is sacrosant in every word and therefore everything in it is correct and G'Kar himself doesn't know better works on various levels - there's writer/reader/viewer meta here, but it's also a comment on various faith's handling of their sacred texts involved. As if to prove he's anything but infallible , G'Kar later makes a judgment call which I misremembered Sheridan and Delenn making before this rewatch, to it, NOT to tell Londo about their new (and inadvertendly Londo caused realisation) that the Centauri are involved or behind the mystery of the shipping raids. Note that the argument here isn't "given all Londo did in the past, we can't trust him" but "he'll get himself killed" , which otoh says something about G'Kar's feelings for Londo ("where he goes, I go") but otoh is headdesk worthy. Firstly, for all his bombast, Londo is actually good at keeping secrets when he has to, especially when lives are at stake. Ask Cartagia. Or Refa. For that matter, G'Kar only found out about the Londo-Morden connection via artificial telepathy. By not telling Londo, G'Kar, who wants to save him, inadvertendly contributes to the unfoldling story of doooooooooom.
The other episodes
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Date: 2022-10-09 04:00 am (UTC)Byron, ex-Psi Cop attempting to be a pacifist is more interesting than Byron, failure at poetic speeches is what I'm saying.
This is true! I felt a lot more sympathetic towards Byron after that. And the ending was extremely dramatic and horrifying! I could have done with a lot fewer flowery speeches in his entire arc, though.
this episode is an indication that the Telepath War, when it finally arrives (which it doesn't in this show and eventually never did, since this was one of the post B5 projects of JMS which fell through), wouldn't be "Mundanes" vs Telepaths but Telepaths vs each other.
Ahhhhh, okay, I didn't realize that, but it makes perfect sense. Especially because one might imagine that all the other races, who have figured out what to do with their telepaths, would be somewhat horrified if it came down to Mundanes vs Telepaths. (Horrified by both sides!)
That being said, Byron's whole speech about telepaths being controlled by different means on other planets was interesting to me (though it did seem as if the speech belonged to a different character than Byron of the Flowery Speeches). I suppose on Minbar the religious/cultural imperatives towards service are instrumental in the telepaths and non-telepaths living in peace, but I also imagine they wouldn't think of it like Byron does...
"let me ask you something, Mr. Garibaldi, as one intelligent human being to another - on a scale of 1 to 10, how stupid do you think I am?"
This was an awesome line!
It also took a second for the penny to drop that Garibaldi was pouring himself whisky -- and then I noticed (probably partially because of the camera focus on it) and was completely appalled. Poor Garibaldi :(
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Date: 2022-10-10 07:53 am (UTC)To be fair: if you go compare and contrast, I don't think Byron's rethoric is necessarily more purple than, well, Londo's towards Adira, or G'Kar's in full flow, or for that matter Delenn's in speeches starting with "a thousand years ago". It's that a) their actors could carry it off and so it becomes moving, and b) JMS was unafraid of using Londo and G'Kar as comic relief and highly serious characters. It helped fleshing them out from the get go and made them so rich as characters. Even Marcus, who also is a tragic character and due to being human, doomed and in a kind of relationship with a regular and thus a passable comparison to Byron, is given a sense of humor and scenes where he's not just joking but the butt of the joke. If Byron would have been given that, I think even within actorly limits the character would have worked better.
Byron's whole speech about telepaths being controlled by different means on other planets was interesting to me (though it did seem as if the speech belonged to a different character than Byron of the Flowery Speeches
That's because it's Bester who has the speech about telepaths being controlled by different means on other planets in this episode? (Btw, it is, of course, questionable whether or not he's being truthful there. Not just in the sense of him intentionally lying but of his very skewered ideological perspective.) Anyway, re: telelpaths from other races, we've only seen some Minbari and some Centauri examples, and never from their perspective, only as silent cameos. So we simply don't know how they feel about their status, or what their status even is. (Do they have the same rights as everyone? Are there special laws dealing with telepathic crimes? We just don't know.) As you say, the Minbari cultural imperative towards service might have come in handy there, and as for the Centauri, given Refa can "hire" a telepath, and so can the families of the victims of the Black Rose murderer when they want to avenge themselves on Brother Edward, I'm going with the assumption that they either have a guild of their own organizing them as mercenaries and/or work directly for the noble houses. I also have some headcanon about the four telepaths dressed in white serving the Centauri Emperor, and why we don't see them anymore about Turhan's death, and you'll soon be able to read that story. But that's all speculation.
It's interesting that Bester mentions "extinction" as one of the ways other people have dealt with their telepaths. This is what happened to the Narn telepaths, of course, but according to the book of G'Quan, it was the Shadows who were responsible. I wouldn't be surprised, though, given the lack of Narn cultural history knowledge among humans, that human telepaths, learning there are no telepaths on Narn but that once there were, and not knowing about the Shadows pre-show, came to the conclusion that they were wiped out by the Narns themselves, and that's what Bester still thinks happened because no one on the human side, other than our heroes after Garibaldi read the Book of G'Quan and came to the righth conclusion.
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Date: 2022-10-11 04:31 am (UTC)*facepalm* I honestly do not know how that got coded in my head like that. It was a very long week, I guess! (I watched this episode at the beginning of that week, before being on travel.)
But anyway. I think I must have had a lot of headcanon about the way other planets treat their telepaths even before Bester said that -- I think I assumed none of them had to resort to solutions like the Psi Cops, but of course as you say we just never see a lot of them so we don't know they don't have stuff like that going on!
and that's what Bester still thinks happened because no one on the human side, other than our heroes after Garibaldi read the Book of G'Quan and came to the righth conclusion.
Ooh. That makes a lot of sense.
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Date: 2022-10-14 12:51 pm (UTC)Note that the argument here isn't "given all Londo did in the past, we can't trust him" but "he'll get himself killed"
Not knowing anything about what comes after, I was absolutely shocked that G'Kar's argument was the latter rather than the former. Quite a change, and a very shippy one as well that hits all my enemy-to-friend loyalty kink buttons :D <33
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Date: 2022-10-14 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-09 03:38 pm (UTC)though I wasn't sure back then and I'm still not sure during this rewatch whether it shouldn't have been revealed sooner. I think it should if at least to see everyone else's reaction to Bester being semi-honest that Byron has done terrible things and betrayed him, when the terrible thing he did was because Bester forced him to and that prompted the betrayal.
this is the first time we see Bester remove a glove (btw, the way he does it back in the 90s was when I realised he really could not use his left hand), That did stand out to me and Bester emphasises by waving the fist on screen a couple of times as well. We also seem him pilot a figher this episode, which I guess means he must have specially adapted spacesuits and controls for it.
For Ragged Edge in apropos of nothing it was interested me into these little comedy skits that keep happening in the teaser Londo finally gets on over G'Kar when previously he seems to have been the butt of the jokes.
, here we get Garibaldi's fall of the wagon almost immediately having results that affect the larger plot line This did stand out to me that it did immediately have consequences and Garibaldi's lame excuses and best efforts to do his job despite it seem to be covering it so far but it feels like he'll be caught out very quickly. How the others will deal with it, I don't know.
There seems something very odd going on with Franklin this episode. He twigs something's up with Garibaldi but doesn't follow up on it. Then he has a super urgent message and then he's got a new job at EarthDome. A job offer doesn't seem like a 'drop everything and come to the phone right now' type deal.
The job offer being start at the end of the year, almost means the end of the season I guess? like he's still in the other episodes, it's part of every moving on from B5 theme, with Sheridan/Delenn eventually going to Minbar, Londo to Centauri Prime etc.
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Date: 2022-10-10 07:58 am (UTC)