Babylon 5 Rewatch: Wheel of Fire/ Objects in Motion

[selenak]

Wheel of Fire

In which we get the pay-off for the Garibaldi vs Lochley antagonism from early in the season, and it is a good one. I have to admit that when I first watched the show, I shipped them a little, not least because I thought they did have chemistry, but otoh I also think, and every rewatch makes this clearer, it would have been an utter disaster, plus Lochley would not have been able to help him in such a scenario the way she does here. I really liked that scene, though. Now, Garibaldi's friends are all concerned and acting rightly - including Sheridan, whom I have been giving a hard time this season and the last, I know, but seriously, his variation of the "I'm not angry, I'm disappointed" speech (to wit, "I'm disappointed... with me, that I didn't see this sooner and intervened/helped you") shows him at his best. (Not to mention that while yes, he knows Garibaldi was under the influence last season, and thus not to blame, it would have been understandable if he'd taken some time to work through abandoning any anger at Garibaldi for the whole betrayal thing. Not Sheridan, thougoh.) That the deciding help that helps Garibaldi get out of is self loathing stupor and into turning-my-life-around determination doesn't come from his old friends but from someone he considered at best a hostile neutral and at worst an enemy is very B5, I find; the B5 universe can be cruel, but as Londo once told Vir, it also has a sense of humor... and, for lack of a better term, humanity. People can be awful, but they can also surprise you with kindness, and that's what many grimdark shows in later days forgot.

The other development that comes to a culmination here is Lyta going Dark Phoenix, and may I say, thanks, JMS, for letting Lyta be a superpowered red head who while definitely going darker does not go insane and kills at random. (Though this time around I spotted a plot hole, or rather a lack of a dialogue line or two. During the "what do we do with Lyta?" discussion, "letting her stay on the station while putting her on the sleepers" should have least have been brought up. Given Lyta owes her ever increasing powers to the Vorlons, the sleeper drug probably would not have worked on her anymore, but I would have liked it to be brought up and dismissed.) Also, Stephen Franklin correctly lists a lot of reasons why Lyta is just about done with everyone other than the telepathic cause, but what he doesn't mention is the way all of our heroes (save Zack, and Zack had/has a crush) treated her - as someone they only talked to when needing her for something as if she was a tool that doesn't need attention when not used. And that's not on Psi Corps, that's on them. Thankfully, as I said, Lyta doesn't blow up planets (Comics Jean Grey) or want to end the world (Darth Willow in s6). Instead, she's moved on to violent freedom fighting/terrorism (depending on your pov), and it's here her storyline intertwines with both Garibaldi's and G'Kar's. Because Garibaldi's turning his life around doesn't mean he's done with revenge, on th contrary, the prospect of getting rid of Bester's Asimov helps as a motivation. And the agreement he and Lyta make basically amounts to him financing and money laundering the blip side of the upcoming Telepath War.

If this is dark yet entirely ic for both, then G'Kar, former guerilla fighter, expert in hating and there-but-for-some-lucky-breaks-go I enlightened man, offering Lyta companionship and a chance to explore the universe together is again the kind counterpoint. There is something sad about the fact that G'Kar, who fought and endured so much for his people, is now no longer able to live with lest he'd end up a theocratic dictator, but that's not how the show plays it, because it's also freeing to him. Of all the characters, G'Kar was one who embraced the challenge to change or perish the most. It was not easy, but he did it, and now it fits that he's the one most ready for yet more radical change while also given to practical compassion. (That, and I bet he still thinks Lyta is hot. This is G'Kar.)

Lastly, G'Kar while not knowing about the Drakh and the Keeper also seems to be the only one featured in this episode not kidding himself about what state they've left Londo in. "Celebrating his coronation" indeed, Sheridan. (This is why only "Lorien resurrected Sheridan with some memory holes on Z'ha'dum" as an explanation works for me)



Objects in Motion

We're now the Grey Havens part of the show, as Garibaldi, Lise, Lyta and G'Kar depart. I didn't pay much attention to the disgruntled G'Kar fan turned wannabe murderer during earlier watchings, but this time around for some reason it struck me that he might have been inspired by John Lennon's killer. Also, since my last rewatch I've been exposed to way more of the toxic side of fandom, not in the form of actual assassination attempts but via harrassing people on social media, so that additional illustration of why G'Kar really can't go home again and how a certain type of idolization comes with self appointed gate keeping and the need to destroy hit home more than before.

Meanwhile, the wannabe assassin of Garibaldi and Lise dit NOT made me roll my eyes and go "yet another foiled assassination plot" because he wasn't a lone evildoer, he was a paid mercenary by the board of Edgars Industries, which, you know, makes sense, given that Edgars Industries was tight with the Clark government and betting that they didn't jiust finance the telepaqth virus was a safe bet. Mind you, the idea that Garibaldi and Lise, neither of whom knows anything at all about running a company (of whichever size, let alone something like this) can now run it for the good is a bit.... errr... fairy tale like? But no more so than Sheridan the President, and I'll take it as a farewell, plus Garibaldi ensuring his and Lise's survival the way he does is very him. (Also: how can we tell JMS doesn't like that tv stalwart, big wedding episodes? By letting both Sheridan/Delenn and Garibaldi/Lise get married off screen and only providing us with brief befores and afters.)

Lyta and G'Kar departing has that detail of Lyta visibly wondering whether someone won't come to see her go, or maybe she can sense Zack. But he doesn't show himself until after she's turned around. (Which, don't get me wrong, fits with the way he never confessed his feelings to her except in one of the movies at a point when she was possessed and couldn't hear him.) That Zack is the only character bothering to see Lyta off underlines, one more time, what I said in the previous review. Nobody (except for Zack) on this crew treated Lyta as an actual friend or human being with a life beyond when she is of use. Inssert appropriate Bester quote here.

G'Kar's and Sheridan's farewell earlier with G'Kar's first "John" reminded me of something I forgot to mention last week re: G'Kar's choice of names for Londo. When he talks about him to other people, it's "Londo" (such as in the debates with Sheridan and Delenn about the shipping attacks), but to his face, it's always "Mollari". And no one has as many ways to say "Mollari" as G'Kar.

Ending the episode with Sheridan and Delenn for the first time walking from one end of the station to the other before their own upcoming departure is also one of those elegic gestures that just work for me, and puts me in wistful farewell mood already. Oh, and something else: in the previous episode, we found out Delenn is pregnant in a single scene. In this episode, this isn't mentioned. It will come up in the next episode in the scene on Minbar, I know, but that's it. Which is why one of the most bewildering s5 critiques I've heard was that it made Delenn all about her baby. All two scenes of her? And we've known that Sheridan and Delenn would have a son since s3's War Without End. Since we never see said kid in person, not in the finale, nor in any of the movies or brief lived attempts at spin-offs, I strongly suspect another thing - in addition to big wedding episodes - JM'S' doesn't care for are episodes focused on children and/or giving birth.

As to why then introduce the fact Delenn's pregnant at all, I can see a thematic reason. It brings things full circle with Valen/Sinclair as the first occasion when Minbari and humans began to intermingle, and let's face it, a child also is always a symbol of the future. (BTW, I think that's why David does not show up in Sleeping in Light - because JMS wanted to leave him as a symbol.)

Lastly, a few thematically connect to these episodes links:

Runs in the Family, a fantastic, sharp and Lyta centric vid about B5's telepaths

I have become (death), my attempt at a Lyta portrait

Talking Heads: Five conversations Garibaldi had with G'Kar over the years. Portrait of a friendship.

The other episodes

Comments

[cahn]

These episodes (and the next one, though I still haven't watched "Sleeping in Light") seemed very elegiac but also sort of drawn-out to me in general, and I wonder if the farewells might have been compressed into fewer episodes in the world where they found out about S5 earlier.

the B5 universe can be cruel, but as Londo once told Vir, it also has a sense of humor... and, for lack of a better term, humanity. People can be awful, but they can also surprise you with kindness, and that's what many grimdark shows in later days forgot.

Yes! I loved both this Lochley-Garibaldi instantiation of it and the general way it works in the show <3 (Also, I just love Lochley, okay.)

And the agreement he and Lyta make basically amounts to him financing and money laundering the blip side of the upcoming Telepath War.

If this is dark yet entirely ic for both, then G'Kar, former guerilla fighter, expert in hating and there-but-for-some-lucky-breaks-go I enlightened man, offering Lyta companionship and a chance to explore the universe together is again the kind counterpoint.

Yes! I loved both of these, um, solutions to their problems.

(This is why only "Lorien resurrected Sheridan with some memory holes on Z'ha'dum" as an explanation works for me)

Yeah, this makes no sense unless he just doesn't remember that at all!

Nobody (except for Zack) on this crew treated Lyta as an actual friend or human being with a life beyond when she is of use. Inssert appropriate Bester quote here.

Heh. And also, I appreciate you pointing this out all the times this happens, because I'm not sure how much I would have noticed it, otherwise.

Speaking of Bester, I meant to ask in his last episode -- so what happens to Carolyn?? She's still just in one of those medical bins, right?? Does she ever get out of it?? Do they ever figure out how to fix them?? Do she and Bester ever get back together??

Which is why one of the most bewildering s5 critiques I've heard was that it made Delenn all about her baby. All two scenes of her?

...what?
But I do agree that there's something hopeful about a child now, especially this child symbolic of two worlds, and also given that Sheridan (BECAUSE OF THE HOLE IN HIS MEMORY, lol) didn't know that it was even possible. (I suppose it's possible he could have asked Franklin knowing that it was possible in the future he saw... but he still seemed pretty surprised by it all, and worried they both wouldn't survive.)
I also appreciate knowing the chronology -- that David would have been... 16, huh. (Although I guess one could have made him whatever age, but in WWE I sort of assumed he was a little kid, I don't know why!)

(ahhhhhh so much good B5 fic I can read now! I haven't even been able to go through last week's yet, what with ToT and all!)

[lightofdaye]

I wonder if the farewells might have been compressed into fewer episodes in the world where they found out about S5 earlier.

This is something I'm curious about as well. Four episodes of slow paced denouement seems an unusual choice.

[selenak]

I wonder if the farewells might have been compressed into fewer episodes in the world where they found out about S5 earlier.

Possibly, but I don't think so, I think we're back to the originally planned schedule, and JMS always had a LotR type of elegic ending with a slow one after the other farewell for everyone in mind once Centauri Prime has fallen. (Sleeping in Light, btw, is the reverse, it's a reunion type of story, and one of the best finales I know.)

I'm so glad you like Lochley as much as I do! She caught all this not being Ivanova ire at the time, plus of course we know her less well than the rest of the regulars, but I enjoyed what we got and was happy that JMS kept including her in his various spin-off attempts. (Lochley is in Crusade, and three of the movies - River of Souls (that's the one with Martin Sheen as a soul hunter), Call to Arms (Crusade prequel and set up of the Excalibur's mission, but not an actual pilot), and A Voice in the Dark (standalone which is basically JMS wanting to do The Exorcist).)

- so what happens to Carolyn?? She's still just in one of those medical bins, right?? Does she ever get out of it?? Do they ever figure out how to fix them?? Do she and Bester ever get back together??

That depends on what you count as canon. On screen, the last we hear of Carolyn is a) Sheridan telling Bester in Rising Star that no, she wasn't among the frozen teeps used by him in battle and would be transfered into Bester's custody now the war was over, and b) his reference to her when talking to Lauren in The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father when he says his heart is taken, and that though they can't be together now, he hopes they will be in the future. However, if you count the the books - i.e. the Psi Corps trilogy, as canon: the third volume which is set after the end of the Telepath War (with Bester as a fugitive) includes the information that Bester kept trying to find a way to help her but Carolyn was still in a frozen state at a Psi Corps facility when it was blown up by Lyta's forces, and that's how she died.

(Since the author of the Psi Corps trilogy, Gregory Keyes, ended the previous volume, the one covering Bester's entire life from baby to shortly before B5, just before Bester encounters Carolyn, I strongly suspect he just didn't want to deal with the relationship. But maybe I'm wronging him, presumably he was given a general plot outline. In general, I think the Psi Corps trilogy is the most successful intallment of the books in that its author actually got creative with what he was given and developed a plausible feeling telepathic culture. (Complete media they consume, rituals and jokes that develop, etc.) Whereas, I'm sad to say, Peter David just wasn't with the Centauri trilogy. Instead of coming up with Centauri myths or literature or operas (taking the hint from how on the show Vir and Londo talk about opera, or Londo asks Vir about that myth of the soul wanting to leave an unworthy body etc.), David had them discussing baseball (!!!!) and reference 20th century human pop culture as if they were Garibaldi, and that's just the least of it. It's not all bad, I like David's OC Senna, and of course he provides excellent Timov in the first volume - he invented her -, but at no point did I have the impression he put any thought into what a culture like the Centauri was like.)

[lightofdaye]

The other development that comes to a culmination here is Lyta going Dark Phoenix
Lyta's arrest scene was a vivid reason why some form of PsiCorp seems necessary if Sheridan wasn't arbitrarily immune they'd have a real problem arresting her against her will. Which makes me wonder the reasons, especially watsonian ones, for not sending Bester to arrest her. Presumably they didn't want to kick the Telepath War off right there and then.

It's weird that even characters who seem to be general supportive of telepath rights in general don't care about Lyta as an individual.

Which is why one of the most bewildering s5 critiques I've heard was that it made Delenn all about her baby. All two scenes of her?
The weirdest thing to me is that the Delenn pregnancy in Wheel of Fire where we find out her pregnancy and medical risks and... she's unconscious and it's all about Sheridan's thoughts and feelings on the matter.

[selenak]

Presumably they didn't want to kick the Telepath War off right there and then.

Indeed. Plus if they asked for Psi Cops (be they Bester or others), they'd take several days from Earth anyway, by which time Lyta, if unarrested, would have been gone. That's leaving aside that even with Sheridan being immune, as we see in the next episode Lyta could have freed herself anytime she wanted. Presumably if it hadn't been station personell guarding her but members of Psi Corps, she'd have shown no such restraint.

The weirdest thing to me is that the Delenn pregnancy in Wheel of Fire where we find out her pregnancy and medical risks and... she's unconscious and it's all about Sheridan's thoughts and feelings on the matter.

That's true. Though I haven't rewatched Objects at Rest yet, so can't be sure, I don't remember a Delenn pov scene on her pregnancy, plus of course in the next episode she will have urgent other things on her mind. But I do recall Delenn pov scenes about said other matters in the episode, and of course in the series finale, so what I'm getting at, it's not like "she's now pregnant, ergo the characters is all about the baby" applies - more the contrary, as you point out, we don't get "how Delenn feels about motherhood" type of scenes.

[gabolange]

I have truly grown to love the dynamic between Lochley and Garibaldi, and I appreciate so much that she is the one who helps him in the end. (I even wrote them a story: but tell it slant.)

I have also always wished we got some view on what Delenn thought about the pregnancy, but I agree that I am glad the show didn't centralize it beyond what we see. David is a symbol - the next great story, as it were - and that works here as a gesture to the future that will exist beyond the characters we know. It's a good nod and it doesn't even need to be more.

[selenak]

David is a symbol - the next great story, as it were - and that works here as a gesture to the future that will exist beyond the characters we know. It's a good nod and it doesn't even need to be more.

Yes, that's precisely my take on it. Life will continue, the stories will go on, and that's the point letting the pregnancy happen (and previously to already establish Delenn and Sheridan will have a child one day in s3). Incidentally, do you have a headcanon as to whether Delenn wanted to get pregnant or whether she left it to fate, especially since on the one hand she was told that there was very little chance of it but otoh she found out only last year that she was a descendant of Sinclair/Valen, so evidently, it had worked once before, and she always did see herself was a woman of destiny...

I liked your Garibaldi and Lochley story - the oldest and the latest person/regular serving on the station aspect comes across very well there, but also what they share.

[gabolange]

I feel like Delenn would have wanted to have a child with John in a woman of destiny kind of way, especially given the role she plays in terms of the joining of the human and Minbari races. And the scene where they find out about the pregnancy implies they did ask about their chances, which expresses some level of interest--but also it's not like there were available interventions to improve those chances. So some leaving to fate, as well.

I also wonder if John told Delenn about David *before* he went to Z'ha'dum. And then re your headcanon where he loses parts of his memory...maybe she knows this is possible but he doesn't.