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Babylon 5 Rewatch: Darkness Ascending/And All My Dreams Torn Asunder
Darkness Ascending
I remember that back in the day when the episode was first broadcast, there was some discussion as to whether Lyta was part of Garibaldi's nightmare or whether she was actually there, because on the one hand, his subconscious is certainly (some some reason) paranoid enough about telepaths to produce this scene, on the other, well, it fits with Lyta's trajectory, though it's not clear why Garibaldi of all the possible people on the station. The rest of his dream, of course, is blatantly obvious, but given his own trajectory and the fact that if you're an addict who has fallen off the wagon, the idea that you can "control" your addiction instead of it controlling you is ridiculous, he doesn't escaple the cyle he's in but contributes even more to it.
Garibaldi has the lack or bad fortune, depending on your pov, of it being Lise who catches first at the hidden bottles, and he can smoothtalk her into "I can control this" because she's in love iwth him, and because Lise appears to have a certain amount of self deception installed (see also: being married to William Edgars). Otoh, Lyta's other scenes this episode don't concern Garibaldi, they're with a guy she pitches her rogue telepaths business idea in vain to, and then with G'Kar, which is a good thing for everyone concerned. As I said a few posts earlier, the Narns are so obviously the right candidates to go to for human rogue telepaths that it's amazing Lyta didn't think of this before, and that for ths plot reason alone G'Kar had to be off station when Byron made his ill fated attempt. Speaking of that, though, I find Lyta proving her integrity by refusing to listening in on other ambassadors for the Narn regime something of a weird test, given she and the other Byron followers did just that a few episodes ago (and then didn't use the leverage other than making the ambassadors angry, granted). Anyway. We get canon that the original B5 pilot, The Gathering, took place six years ago from this point in the series, as it was then when G'Kar made his original pitch to Lyta for DNA and benefits. (BTW,
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andraste wrote hilarious and not unlikely story in which he makes Bester a similar proposition during season 1's Mind War.) They've both changed a lot since then, but not so much that G'Kar doesn't want clarification as to which part of the proposition Lyta accepts. This scene is setting up some spoilery stuff a few episodes later, and I'll say more about G'Kar & Lyta then. Meanwhile: the scene where Sheridan starts with calling Delenn on her lying and circumventing hin and is maneuvred into defending himself to her in three steps was, as I recall, according to JMS inspired by him wanting Delenn to show off her "Jesuit skills". No kididng. See, this is why Delenn is a tried and practiced politiician and Sheridan is not, ans why Delenn as President and Sheridan as head of the Rangers might have worked better in the first year of the Alliance.Though while I love that scene for Delenn's sheer gall and rethorical arts, my favourite Delenn scene comes later, when she leaves the room to vent her sheer relief about Lennier's survival, sees Londo and carried by both said relief and the awareness this means the end of the Centauri in the Alliance at the very least goes to embrace him for the first and last time. It has so many elements at once, the leftover Lennier feelings, the fact that Delenn does have real affection for Londo despite herself, but also an elemement of a Judas kiss, because by keeping him out of the loop (despite her conviction that in this particular case, he's actually innocent) instead of sharing their concerns and investigating together, they've all but sealed his fate. There are all the years they've known each other - and Londo, Delenn and G'Kar were on B5 longer than Sheridan - , and possibly the awareness of the guilt they both carry, for while Londo didn't start this war, he started another, and so did Delenn.
Secret Agent Lennier: Living and dying for the One is what he wanted to do even before joining the Rangers, given that the One is Delenn. During the original broadcast, what I didn't notice here was that while we see Centauri ships a plenty, we do not see actual Centauri....
And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder
Aka where the fact that the Centauri rather recently not only conducted a brutal war against the Narn but were menacing other people until Londo, not believing in multifront wars, poisoned Refa's drink to put an end to this in s3, makes the current denials sound completely false to tv audience and in-universe people alike. (Not to mention that "we don't do that kind of thing.... except when at war with the Narn" is a really lame argument, since that war was started by the Centauri.) (Otoh, both Narn and Centauri certainly attacked outposts with both military personnel and civilians on them without being at war, see Midnight on the Firing Line vs Chrysalis, etc.) However, Londo is right about the evidence other than Lennier's being circumstantial, which I didn't notice the first time around, and of course no one asks the one big question: what do the Centauri get out of all this? In the case of the prelude to the Narn/Centauri war, it was obvious. But raiding attacks on various alliance members do not in any strategic book qualify as good moves to enlarge one's Empire, especially since they're designed to make everyone team up against you, including the largest firepower in the current galaxy. As Londo puts it in the narration of In the Beginning, the movie on the Earth/Minbari war, even at the height of its power, the Centauri Republic avoided engaging the Minbari. You'd have to be Cartagia-style mad to do so now, and after self immolation.
Speaking of self destruction, Zack is the next person to catch Garibaldi out, and knowing all the tactics alcoholoics use personally, he doesn't fall for them... except at the end, because he still is talked into letting Garibaldi extricate himself instead of reporting his condition at once. Terrible choice, but ic for Zack whose loyalty to Garibaldi always was intensely strong. Still a terrible choice, because no matter how much Garibaldi might have meant it, he's well and truly past being able to keep any promises but the one to the bottle in this condition. And again this directly impacts the larger plot, as Garibaldi's assurance that it was the Centauri who shot first, not, as the audience but no one else saw, the Drazi, destroys what vanishingly little chance there was for there not being an all out war against Centauri Prime.
Londo and G'Kar back on Centauri Prime: despite this being the final act of the tragedy, there's still black humor as per usual with these two characters as Londo's "where I go, he goes, and where he goes, I go" lands them both in prison, Prime Minister or not. I will have such a lot to say about both characters next week that I'll limit myself here to: G'Kar, I don't think Delenn bought this "I need to save Londo's life for the greater good" for a moment, but she's a practiced politician, see above.
The other episodes
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Also the continuing lying, running political circles, and repeatedly just not being in bed with Sheridan when he wakes up still sends a really bad message about the genuineness of their marriage to me.
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Aka where the fact that the Centauri rather recently not only conducted a brutal war against the Narn but were menacing other people until Londo, not believing in multifront wars, poisoned Refa's drink to put an end to this in s3, makes the current denials sound completely false to tv audience and in-universe people alike
It's interesting to note, that the effect is slightly different in-universe and out. In-universe, Londo's denials seem false. To the audience it's what the Minister is telling Londo that seems false. Though Londo is coming off very trusting of his government considering as G'Kar points out all the shit and mysterious secret movements of the military that happened last time he was at home.
Sheridan's big outburst... doesn't seem quite earned to me? I mean, has he desperately being trying for peaceful cooperation with the pirate attacks all this time? Is it unreasonable for the Alliance to want shit done about random unprovoked attacks on their civilians?
It feels to me more warranted if they evidence had remained circumstantial but Sheridan is compelled to present it to keep the Alliance together and tries to argue for restraint but no-one is having it explicitly because of prior Centauri wars. (Thinking on that, because of G'Kar's revelations, he seems not to do much in the alliance other than writing pledges, the Narn grudge is very muted. It feels like there's room for a foil for G'Kar a Narn aide who's very much in the early G'Kar mindset).
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RIGHT?? I have a headcanon now that the "John Sheridan was a good man" that old!Delenn says in "Deconstruction of Falling Stars" has a subtext of "I was not really that great to him, but he put up with it."
Though Londo is coming off very trusting of his government considering as G'Kar points out all the shit and mysterious secret movements of the military that happened last time he was at home.
Huh, I think you're right although at the time I didn't read it so much as him being trusting as that he considers it both his job and his duty to be protective of his government in public. But I guess he also is like that to Vir, isn't he.
Sheridan's big outburst... doesn't seem quite earned to me? I mean, has he desperately being trying for peaceful cooperation with the pirate attacks all this time? Is it unreasonable for the Alliance to want shit done about random unprovoked attacks on their civilians?
Hee! Yeah, good point, it's mostly been him and Delenn angsting in private.
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Lol! "the man put up with me, he was a saint, y'all don't even know"
In fairness, did S2-4 really sell them as a couple? I can't remember, I took a long break between them and s5. They just a need a few more scenes of them being a good couple to counteract the dodgy ones, at least.
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S2-4 really didn't sell Sheridan/Delenn, at least to me (and I have been watching straight through). Partially, in retrospect, I feel like it came through that Delenn was "masking" some to be Human-attractive to Sheridan -- which means by definition she wasn't showing her true face to him. (Lennier, on the other hand, got to see her Minbari true self and share it with her -- which is why I felt the show sold that relationship very well, possibly better than it was intending.) This I think was intentional and really interesting.
The other part, of course, is that I kiiiiinda feel like JMS has no idea how to write a functional romantic relationship. Delenn has been hiding things and not telling him the whole truth about things ever since S3 (Anna Sheridan, random Minbari rituals that poor Sheridan finds out about on the spot, and that's not even to mention the huge elephant in the room of who started the war). I kind of feel like in S2-4 I was either seeing Delenn being dodgy or her masking her alienness to Sheridan, and so it was really hard to commit to the ship.
S5 has actually been a bit better for that in some ways, because we see them doing regular couple-y things, like having Rebo and Zooty over for dinner and such.
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Though Londo is coming off very trusting of his government considering as G'Kar points out all the shit and mysterious secret movements of the military that happened last time he was at home.
True, but I think the problem is that even from a Centauri imperialist pov, it just does not make sense, and Londo is missing a key information here which the audience does have (that in the end, it's not Centauri pulling the strings here, and the goal isn't anything to do with benefitting Centauri Prime), while having a basis of comparison, i.e. his own schemes back in the day. When he started to ask Morden for favors, he picked clear Narn targets, and there was an obvious goal (subjugation of Narn). Even in the late s2/early s3 era, when the Centauri started to flex their muscles and started to make menacing noises beyond subjecting the Narn, which as we know from the Londo/Refa poisoning scene Londo personally thought was stupid but which as the ambassador he nonetheless in public presented until getting the drop on Refa, they did so while having the Shadows as military back up. (Since at that point, Refa and Cartagia were both in contact with Morden and the Shadows as well.) Centauri forces alone simply aren't capable of taking on all the major races in the Alliance, definitely not with the Minbari being a part of it, and they know it. There's nothing to gain in sight, and much to lose, given the Centauri at the start of s5 are a member of the board of the new Alliance.
Sheridan's big outburst... doesn't seem quite earned to me?
I know what you mean, though I guess to me it's a case of Sheridan having assumed that once the big wars were over, he'd basically get the Federation, that that not even a year after its foundation, the Alliance is already at war with a key member because said key member seemingly has taken to attack all the others. And bear in mind that even before that, we had the episode where it turned out the Drazi were attacking a minor planet at their borders. So he's reacting to the ugly reality that without a shared foe the way the Shadows & Vorlons had been, or even Clark's government, there seem to be internal divisions threatening to tear the new creation apart.
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And yeah I guess I can't expect Londo to make the same deduction that seems obvious to a viewer because we know what's happening. Centauri military misuse and shipping attacks are related. But even without that, Londo knows there's problems on Centauri Prime with the Regent and the military that he's just not pushing. I suppose it's the same attitude he had initially about Na'Toth. "This isn't right, I don't agree with this, when I'm Emperor I will do something about it."