Latest / LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age / #5 – Stupid Enough to Take It (DUST TO DUST, EXOGENESIS)

Transcript

#5 – Stupid Enough to Take It (DUST TO DUST, EXOGENESIS) · LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age

• 0:03
  JOSH: Hello and welcome to Last Best Hope, a Babylon 5 podcast where we talk about the show that we love and the world that we hate. Is that too strong a word?
• 0:12
  JOHN: The world that we are worried for, are worried for. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
• 0:17
  JOSH: I'm Josh. With me today in CNC is John. And today we've got a twofer. Today we're going to be talking about two episodes, both from season three, Dust to Dust and also Exogenesis.
• 0:29
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 0:30
  JOSH: Excuse me, listeners, I seem to have lost my voice. We're just gonna roll with it. I apologize if the sound offends your ears or what have you, but maybe just skip to the next episode. No, you know, I was saying to you, off Air, Dust to Dust in particular, I remember the episode. I know what happens in it. But upon rewatching it, I was not expecting to have as much to say in relation to what is going on in our world right now as I feel like there is to say.
• 1:00
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:00
  JOSH: To start off, what are your just general thoughts about this episode? And do you remember what you. How you regarded it when you saw it, you know, 30 years ago?
• 1:11
  JOHN: Oh, man, that time travel. I'll tell you, the cool part about Babylon 5 was that it did leave such an impression, even when compared to other sci fi shows, that I still, I still feel like I get the echoes from when I watch it. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I rewatched this show is because I, I had such feelings, I had such curiosity about what was going on in the show and such an attachment to the characters and the environment they built around that. That was a thing. This wasn't just a show about what happens to our ensemble cast. You really had a sense of what the broader world was like. And that's because this was a cohesive show written by jms. Other shows had to deal with countless writers coming in, no ongoing plot line. So everybody's always adding a little bit of lore to the, to the world as they went on. It was sort of like building the train in front of you. Drags the train as you're going. This was, this was pre constructed. You see the world that this one has and so the feelings get there. And by this point I remember feeling really uncomfortable, like, oh, but they're not really winning yet. They don't. We discussed this in previous episodes. They're not winning by the end of every episode. There is a mini arc and there are many story in every episode, but they're. The challenges are ongoing and seemingly getting worse. And this episode starts off Boom. Scene one, right there. You know, I see you know what I'm talking about. And it's just so chilling. Is this shopkeeper is there in the station and is being harassed by 1 of Babylon 5 security team members for posting material that the Night Watch and the Ministry of Peace views as seditious and offensive. And a store keep was posting something about, you know, impeaching and removing the president that he accusing him of, you know, of President Clark assassinating President Santiago. Because just previously that, you know, that more information had surfaced on that. And so what this showed us was that the. The suspicions amongst the Earth alliance population were already there. Like, the stories have been getting out. The suspicions were there. People weren't just all in lockstep behind this authoritarian president or a president who was by this point very clearly authoritarian but wasn't completely locked down yet. And that's the ultimate threat. The ultimate threat is people who are still speaking out. People who are still saying, hey. The average. The average person. The shopkeeper saying, hey, I don't. I don't. You know, I'm not going along with this. And I'm going to exercise my right of free speech. So they're night watches and Captain Sheridan comes to rescue and classic hero mentality. I was even looking at the. The angle of the shot, the way they accentuate Sheridan's height and stature in that scene against the security officer who he has to, like, dress down in that moment. And the acting, again, like, sometimes you get these, you know, extras, the people who are, you know, day players for the show. And they really do get into that, like, his look of just like, you know, acknowledging the order he's just received from Captain to let go. Go of this issue and to stop doing this repeatedly and harassing people for their free speech and the expression of. Yeah, but I do not agree with this. And if you weren't putting this leash on me, I would totally be doing more of this. And it is Captain Sheridan to the rescue of this shopkeeper. And you sort of like celebrate that opening scene, but you're left with the. Yeah, but he's still dressed a captain and the Night Watch is bigger than him. The Ministry of Truth, I would say Ministry of Truth it is that too. The Ministry of Peace is. Is more powerful in many senses. And you're afraid. In that moment, I was afraid. And I remember that's. That's the vague echo of a memory I have. Is that. That. That disquiet of, oh, this is how you silence people.
• 4:59
  JOSH: Yeah. You know, it's It's. I notice it as well, because in that scene, the security guard, he has the line, I was just following orders. Which, you know that anyone writing that, I mean, even in the 1990s, is a very loaded phrase.
• 5:15
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 5:16
  JOSH: And that speaks to JMS's understanding of exactly what you were just saying. This is how you silence people. So the security guard disagrees with the sentiment that the shopkeeper is expressing. And normally, in normal civil society, you have to tolerate and allow that, but as soon as he's empowered to silence it, he will do so with relish.
• 5:40
  JOHN: Good word.
• 5:41
  JOSH: And I think, you know, we're seeing, unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of that play out in this country right now. There are so many things going on, including, but not limited to the area of free speech, where, you know, the people who are doing this know that it's contrary to the ideals of this country, it's contrary to the law, it's contrary to the spirit of the law, they know it's wrong, but because they have been empowered to do it how they want to do it, and they happen to agree with it, you know, they're following through on that. Watching this episode today, that very first scene struck a chord because, of course, something very chilling has been going on in the past week or more. The seemingly without due process. I don't know how else to say it, the abduction and disappearing of student activists who have broken no laws, but have been expressing opinions that the current administration doesn't like.
• 6:44
  JOHN: That's exactly it. That's exactly it. People who. They contort themselves to find a way in which they violated some aspect of immigration law, which, again, is something that would have to be adjudicated. Right. Not by wave of virtue. And that's why it's funny, you know, the way these episodes unfold. And we think, oh, well, you know, how fast is this train moving? It's been an uncomfortable experience to watch how parallel that is and how quickly the train is going. I saw the video of the woman from Turkey who was, I believe, a PhD student.
• 7:17
  JOSH: I couldn't watch it.
• 7:20
  JOHN: And I'm on the opposite. I sort of end up almost obsessively watching it, you know, for a period, and then I can't watch it again. And I tried gathering. I said, well, what do we know right now? You know, what do we know about, like, where she is, what's happened? And, you know, as far as we know, she has been disappeared, maybe in a certain facility, maybe not. And they start off with the scarier cases, the ones where People not scarier they were to be the more controversial figures. So you start off with a student who is a little more okay. Has said things that are a little more questionable and things that many across the political spectrum would find uncomfortable or disagree with. So they start with that. Now they've narrowed it into somebody who all the information we have is that they co authored a op ed piece, you know, which is literally the manifestation of freedom of speech. A newspaper article. I don't think you can get any more definitive than that as to what freedom of speech is. And expressing a viewpoint that is not in any way espousing violence or harm to anyone. It is a viewpoint that many people will agree with and many people will disagree with. It is literally a political viewpoint. And by expressing that became subject to the immediate withdrawal of her student visa by fiat of specifically the Secretary of State. That's, that's the information as I have in front of me. You know, everybody says, well, they must know more. They must be doing more bullshit. You know, they don't know more. There's no evidence of that. It would be presented if it was there. That's how these things work. They would be using any other evidence they had. That's how authoritarianism and why, how fascism operates. And so they've narrowed it to that. Just expressing the wrong opinion, just being on the wrong side of a debate means that you can expel somebody from the country who is legally here to study. And the definition is used. Well, that is a very know precarious visa. They're not really, you know, they're allowed to be here, but they have to be on their best behavior. Remember, you're some like, you know, indentured servant being brought to the country under very limited conditions. No, you're in a university. You're literally doing the things that we are supposed to be doing in this country and now being expelled for it. So as these cases now broaden out, I misspoke when I said sort of narrowing. As they broaden out to encompass more behavior and more questions, it will be okay. The next step is obviously the first person of this did have a green card and that was nullified. And as we're finding that can simply be done with a wave of a pen by one government official. What's the next step now? And this is a scary hole to go down with. And how close it relates to the show remains to be seen because I'm trying to think of the allegories in the show, but it defines what is a citizen. If everybody's Saying, well, citizens are still protected, ignoring the fact that there are a million ways the government can harass its own citizens. But let's just assume we're talking about expelling people from a country. There is no clear definition of what makes a citizen outside of the 14th Amendment. It's always been left to the legislature. The Constitution doesn't define it very clearly. There's the concept in English common law of naturalization, but it's not something that is, you know, written in stone. So there's really nothing stopping any government from saying, well, we're simply going to shift the goalposts. We are going to again, by flick of a pen, revoke one's citizenship. Because where, where is the counter law or institution to say, you can't do that? So that's where you start looking at, well, as these cases get tested and expand out their reach further and further, there's no limit to one day where it is simply a shopkeeper. It is simply a person on the street espousing the wrong opinion and you can be harassed by a law enforcement figure. And, and the follow up to the scene, which is very important is that only two or three episodes later, that store is shut down by the Ministry of Peace. So the, so the reports go back to the officer. They, they get that final piece of evidence they need from Zach Allen, you know, who's very much on the fence, but is, you know, coerced into, you know, saying even more. But that also happened at the end of the second season. You know, they started this investigation. Now the Ministry of Peace can come in and say, we're using our authority to literally shut you down. You lose your rights and they disappear him. Because that scene in later episodes is a direct follow up to this. It's the same guy, it's the same store, and he's gone. It's not just that the store is closed, he's gone. You don't see him outside like, well, I lost my business. Can you come help me? He was disappeared and his own. And one can assume he was a valid citizen of Earthdome, I mean, of the Earth alliance, that there was nothing else he had done to warrant that action. But there it was. He had the wrong opinion at the wrong time. And in that time and place, the captain wasn't there to protect him. Which leads to, you know, as I said, as we're barreling towards the episode, severed dreams that leads to that ultimately. And that's, that's the chilling part that I think in regular times to watch in the 1990s, you're like, we can never let that happen. God, wasn't that a horrible time to have lived in when things like this could happen? It's more so a looking outwardly to something and saying, aha, that's what we watch out for. It's a really sad position we find ourselves in today to be looking at that and saying, oh, look at that. That's happening right next to me. Like not even in a far away place that's literally happening blocks from me or a neighborhood. You know, it's just happening and it's not a comfortable place to be because I don't want, I don't want the storyline of Babylon 5 as it tried to explore authoritarianism to happen in my life. That's supposed to be a story that warns us from going down that path. But that's the thing about this show. He wrote into it. When you, especially when you go to Deconstruction of Falling Stars, the end of season four, it's built into the show that this is that history rhyming thing, is that we will always be on the precipice of doing this again. And you brought up something really interesting. You said about the, the officer relishing it. It's so funny because I was having a conversation with somebody not long ago, literally today about we were looking for a term for it. I don't know if there's a good definition, I'm sure. Well, of all people, the Germans have a word for everything, so they must have a word for this. But a person who at heart is a bit of, you know, has certainly sympathies towards a more fascist way of life. But during normal times when the expectation socially is to be respectful of civil liberties, of the Bill of Rights, that instinct is tamped down and they function based on that because they're told that's the way the world is and the moment that restriction is taken off of them, they will act fully in support of fascism. And here's, and here's where the, you know, I'll say where I think clear example of that is somebody, the very specific special government employee right now, who has hinted at things like this for years and years and years, but once the gloves were taken off, once the limits were taken off of him, was quite happy to act and support and signal fascist symbols. And you know, you can't tell me that somebody using the Roman salute numerous times is not doing that deliberately. It's just that five years ago, 10 years ago, that would have been singled out and that wouldn't have been acceptable, they would have apologized. It would have been a whole thing. Wouldn't change their hearts. But that's the point, is that it's not to say people are inherently bad, but we're all in. All of us is the potential to give in to our worst instincts. And it depends on how much society overlays us and where we feel comfortable doing that and then how we identify ourselves and are willing to say, hey, I'm going for my better nature, my worse nature. And I think that's what we're facing now. That security officer, we don't know anything more about him. We never will. He doesn't come back in the show, but his facial expression tells you he doesn't agree with the captain. He's angry in that moment, he wants this guy to be silenced. And whether it's because he confuses. Oh, that's the other line that Sheridan uses. It's like there's a difference between the office and the person who holds that office. And that person right there, that security officer there, couldn't tell the difference. And you can tell. And again, I say, like, that's why you. That's why they probably filmed it that way, is that he's like, what? No, no, it's. It's the same thing. And I get the sense a lot of people feel that way now. They think of presidency as a person, not an office.
• 15:37
  JOSH: Yeah. You know, it is striking the way I feel like a lot of MAGA folk regarded Barack Obama, certainly, but even Joe Biden, who on paper seems like the most anodyne, uncontroversial president you could imagine. Almost within the last week, I read somebody cited a study and I don't remember where, so you'll just have to take my word for it that I trust the source where I read this, but it cited a study that said something to the effect of roughly 30% of the population naturally has a sort of authoritarian mindset. And as you say, normally those impulses are constrained because that's not how the world generally works, you know, and that figure might even seem surprising or high until you think about the way people conduct themselves in their personal relationships or in their professional relationships. There are a lot of authoritarian power dynamics that exist in our world. You see it with certain people, the way that they're a parent, the way that they're a boss. Right. So when you think about those interactions, then all of a sudden, you know, 30% maybe sounds about right.
• 16:51
  JOHN: You're so right. You're not shocked. And I think I Mean, I don't know of the modern studies. I know that generally in the literature I've read about Germany in the Third Reich and the Nazis, is that there was always an estimation made, you know, that around, you know, and hence we have that sort of phrase. 30% sort of lean towards authoritarianism, lean towards fascism. 30% do not. And then there's 30% sort of in the middle, give or take, who can be swayed in the moment either way. And they said the same thing about the American Revolution as to who was loyal to the crown. But it does seem that pattern repeats itself. You know, roughly one in. In thirds in a given population. But that, But I love the example you give the boss there, because I always think of examples when I hear somebody say, use phrases about employees and boss relations and say, well, you're paid to do the work, you're paid to do the employee. You are ours. When you are that, you know, you are there to do, you know, completely in the service of your, of your manager, of your boss, etc. They usually use it in reference to the term of the boss. And that might be, you know, I saw a tweet the other day and somebody was talking about, you know, the idea of being harassed by their boss because they, you know, were late due to circumstances out of their control. And then the other response is being, well, that's what you're paid to do. And you have to respect your boss and you have to respect this. And it's known as denying the need for structure and discipline and the attempt to make things work cohesively. That's not what we're talking about. It's that, it's that. It's that extra little step in the voice, in the word choice, where all of a sudden you're putting that boss, you're taking that boss out of the role of just. Okay, well, they're another part of this machine of a company that has certain responsibilities. No, no, they're put on a hierarchical pedestal, you know, oh, they're higher up. You respect your boss because they're your boss. And it's like, yeah, what happens when you go into a job and you have a complete incompetent boss? You still have the job to do, but you're supposed to pretend they're not incompetent. That's, that's the point. In many cases, that's what you're required to do is to literally go against truth. You're supposed to go. Go against objective truth of what you see with your eyes. Because the hierarchy Demands it. And I think people who are more willing to. Or, or, or who embrace that are towards that part of the spectrum. The people who are really more like, calling them out and being like, hey, well, this guy's an idiot, are definitely on the other end. And then again, a big chunk in the middle who are not necessarily comfortable either way. So you can identify those trends. Same with parents. Those who say, what I do rules. I don't care about what you say. It's not doubting the import, the role of the parent and the authority of the parent. It's how you exercise it. And that's what any good story is always about, is. It's showing you. Well, you have literally, that's the scene. The captain of the station is the top authority figure on the station. There's no one above him. You have to go back to Earth to get an order above him. So he's able to remedy the situation with his authority. The point is, the way he uses it is not to beat anybody down. It's not. He doesn't even try to take that security officer down a notch. He doesn't. He doesn't go after him personally. He doesn't insult him. You really have to look at what he doesn't do and then look at what he does do, which is to say. Which is to clearly show his disapproval and say, this is all literally holding the material and saying, I will not stand for this on my station. So he's using his authority to broadcast his values, to broadcast his beliefs, rather than say, you do what I tell you to do because I'm the captain. He doesn't refer to his rank. He doesn't refer to his status. He simply gives the order and shares his views and his morality right there. And moral views on that. And you see that. I don't even want to call it deference, but the respect from the shopkeeper there isn't just one of, oh, thanks for bailing me out, buddy. It was, oh, no, I. You know, I also respect what you've done here. And that was in the body language, too. And that's. And that's the power he had over the security officers. And that's what they always did in this season. As Night Watch grows in power, they keep the captain out of a lot of the conflict. They center it on Garibaldi and the Night Watch. And you see that he has a different kind of power. The character captains is a little more soft power. Garibaldi has to be in the thick of it. And I can't, you Know, we'll get to that when he has to ultimately, you know, clash with the Night Watch. But he. He is really angry because he thought he had this personal relationship with all these people, you know, and they're already turning at this point. And. And it shows. There are different ways of showing that. But. But that Captain's authority will only go so far. That perspective will only go so far until they're given the hierarchical permission to either go around or depose the Captain, which is where we're going in the show at this point. You know that the Captain's not long for this until he does something to stave off Earth Dome. So this one little scene sets the tone in so many ways for an episode that itself is not harping on specifically speech or the shopkeeper or Night Watch outside of this. This is meant to remind us as viewers, hey, this is where we're at. By the way, before we get into the rest of the episode, which is still relevant under the rest of what's happening, we just want to remind you this is what's happening on Earth. And I like that kind of storytelling. I like where they. Where they regularly drop those scenes into. To build that world, to build that context, to say, yes, today's adventure, today's storyline is going to be this. But you also need to remember where we are. And there were. There were hints dropped. We get to Exogenous. I'll talk about, like, one of the hints I only just picked up last night on my second rewatch. I'm like, wow, they were really planning this out. With subtle, subtle detail in each episode to reference the next episode, the scene.
• 22:37
  JOSH: With Marcus and his informant.
• 22:39
  JOHN: Yes.
• 22:40
  JOSH: He says two things. He has a message from Ranger One, who we know is Sinclair, to pull their forces away from Earth space because something strange is happening. To which Marcus says something like, well, that's not exactly a revelation. But knowing what's about to happen and knowing what's happening with the Shadow vessel that we'll see in the next episode.
• 23:01
  JOHN: The next line is, oh, and the package from Mars is on its way.
• 23:05
  JOSH: Right.
• 23:06
  JOHN: It seems like a complete throwaway line in that episode. And I never noticed it. Literally never noticed it. It's because I'd done a rewatch, one rewatch, and I'd watched messages from Earth, and now I'm going back, or the one before that. And I said, wait a second. Oh. So even when I wasn't picking up on it. That's why when you and I were having that discussion as kids, like, hey, hey, Josh, I Think something's happening here. They're building this up. It's because we were in season one, picking up these seemingly throwaway lines that were always building to the next thing and then building to something that might be five episodes down or 10 down even. And that is. That's what I absolutely love about this show, is that it gives you the subconscious too, of like, well, okay, I'm not going to analyze. I'm watching a TV show. I'm not analyzing every line, but enough of them build up like that. And so when that thing happens in the next episode, you're primed for it, you're ready to go. You feel like you've been watching this, this really well crafted story unfold. That's cohesive, it makes sense. That's something that a lot of shows don't get to do because they either don't have a showrunner with the authority to do it or the, or the vision to really put those pieces into place. So this episode had that. And even this opening scene starts that Exogenesis had it. Because I would not have thought when we started this project that Exogenesis would have been, you know, as much of an important episode as it is. But again, thematically, everything he was writing was. I did read, though recently that when they were talking about pacing out these episodes and the CGI budget and the. And. And what they were doing for it, there were a couple episodes that, that were written or were given to other or, you know, secondary rules to buy them time. And I think that Gethsemane is one of those episodes.
• 24:48
  JOSH: Right.
• 24:49
  JOHN: That. That's just before this, which is one of my favorite episodes. Is it really arc based? Very much not, which is a bit of a relief. You sort of get an episode that is beautifully about the station, about a major moral issue. Again, listeners, that's an episode to watch when you just want to get into like a very Star Trek moral question episode. That also gives you relation to the characters in the show and Brad Dorff coming in amazingly, as always, you know, so you get that. But that worked in every episode to some extent. But this is, this is where we're in. Yeah, the train's out of the station, it's gaining steam, and there's no going back. And that leads us to the next part, which is the. That's the. Oh, no, this isn't going to be good moment of when Garibaldi. I love Garibaldi.
• 25:37
  JOSH: He's so grumpy.
• 25:39
  JOHN: The whole.
• 25:40
  JOSH: In every scene. In every scene. If your eye goes to Garibaldi, even if he's in the background, he looks so grumpy. He's so mad.
• 25:48
  JOHN: It's like the archetype of, like, you know, how you had. McCoy was like the grumpy, sarcastic doctor. His character serves that role, but he also loves to needle. And when he. When he calls Ivanova and it's like, I have your best friend in the whole universe on the line, he's like, guess who it is? And he's like, well, what? What are you talking about? And it's Bester. Speaking of Star Trek and original series actors, here we get the amazing Walter Koenig.
• 26:14
  JOSH: He is so, so good on this show. He is so good. Like, you cannot get further away from Chekov.
• 26:24
  JOHN: Right.
• 26:25
  JOSH: And the way that he plays this character, he's so good in this role. And I did think it was really interesting because so far in the show, we haven't spoken about him or even the Psicorps.
• 26:36
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:37
  JOSH: What is really interesting is, you know, the situation is created where he and Garibaldi have to work together, and it's a source of a lot of humor.
• 26:48
  JOHN: It's a dark buddy cop.
• 26:49
  JOSH: It's a dark buddy cop. Exactly. Exactly. But what I thought was really interesting about it, and it is actually made explicit in one moment, the role of the psy cop and the role of the chief of security are actually very similar. And it would not take much to make Garibaldi behave the way that the PsiCorps does. You know, the intimidation, the bending of the rules. There's a very funny moment in the interrogation where Walter Koenig is like, we all know you're lying, but officially he has rights.
• 27:23
  JOHN: Officially. That was the line. Officially, he has rights, but we all know he's lying.
• 27:26
  JOSH: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:27
  JOHN: Right, right.
• 27:29
  JOSH: And, like, he's not explicitly breaking the law, but he's bending the rules a little bit. He's not following the spirit of the law.
• 27:37
  JOHN: Right.
• 27:38
  JOSH: And Garibaldi quite often has done the same thing. The guy that they're interrogating, he even kind of roughs him up a little at the end. And then at the end of that scene, Garibaldi says something about. So you were using the uniform and the badge for intimidation. And then Bester's like, the same way you use your uniform.
• 27:58
  JOHN: Yeah. He's not even trying to, like, def. He's not even. Bester doesn't. This is Walter Kong's great performance. He doesn't say it defensively. No, he says it. He says it just like. Yep, that's. That the Same way you do. He's stating it as a happy fact, you know, which goes to the line that he says when they first encounter each other on the station or they're doing their little walk and talk. And Garabal, he's just like, you must not sleep well. He goes, oh, I sleep. I sleep perfectly. The sleep of the just. And again, it's almost like cheerfulness that you're like, oh, that's creepy. I don't like this. It's so good. But. But before we go for that, this is so. This is the perfect setup for what happens in season four, the end of season three.
• 28:40
  JOSH: Oh, yeah.
• 28:41
  JOHN: So. So you're talking about how similar they are in many respects. And again, like, depending on how they were, you know, where they might have gone in life. How similar. What Garibaldi and Bester do in terms of being a type of law enforcement personality was everything else. So Bester realizes, and he says at the end of this episode, well, maybe we'll get to work together again. And Garabaldi, absolutely not.
• 29:04
  JOSH: That's.
• 29:05
  JOHN: Well, that is. And again, this is jms he knew what he was going to be doing down the road with this one. So when it turns out to be Bester, who manipulates Garibaldi and uses telepathy to do. But he doesn't. He doesn't do a mind wipe. He doesn't do a mind reprogram. He says. And I remember that he just says, we're gonna. We're gonna just work around the edges. We're gonna nudge and enhance things that are already there. Garibaldi's suspicion, his ability. Because Bester knew himself, he knew Garibaldi, he knew exactly what to accentuate so that there'll be an untraceable psychic manipulation that would get Garibaldi exactly into the position that Bester needed to flush out the threats to the psicorps in season four and ultimately betray Sheridan. That's what I meant. Like the next episode, Marcus uses a throwaway line. You think it's a throwaway line. For one episode later, this is actually setting up events. Exactly. Setting up events for a season later. You know, it's just like. That's cool. That's just really, really cool. I love that.
• 30:12
  JOSH: You know, that's wild, because I don't know how many times I have watched this episode, and until you said that, I never made that connection. But as soon as you said it, the hair on my arms stood up and, like, how cool is it that this show that's 30 some odd years Old can still do that.
• 30:31
  JOHN: Yeah. I mean, that's a testament to it. It's why I am trying to get people to watch the show. And I'm saying, listen, take that. Take the early CGI as this cheesy, you know, retro thing. Call it vintage. Call it vintage cgi. You know, call the set design anything else, because it actually really is quite beautiful. The shows, but the writing. When this show gets going, there's almost. There's very little I can compare to it. And, yeah, I just. I just could not recommend the show. Regardless of what we're talking about in terms of the overall topics. It's just a good show to watch and the story unfold. It's so rewarding. You get a payoff for every story beat. Every. Every character, every storyline. And of course, I didn't. I didn't remember when I first sat down to watch this episode. This is a major storyline episode. It has some relevance to the arc. It has some relevance to what we're talking about, but it is fundamental to character development of so many characters.
• 31:29
  JOSH: I mean, this is the moment of Jekara's full transformation into the character that he becomes.
• 31:35
  JOHN: Yeah, this here. This is his revelation. And to quote him at the end of this season, moments of transition and moments of revelation. This has the feeling of both. He's been in transition. Yes, he's been. He. He's been experiencing all these things, having new. Having to realize I have to update how I operate here to save my people. And he's already been changing to some degree. And then the very reason Bester's there is the dust named the episode and turns out the buyer's Jakar and the material that can make him a telepath. And that's. And that's just a. The. The way they did that. So they woven all the different stories. But I love that this is the beginning of Jakkar's next steps and how important he becomes for the next rest of the season.
• 32:20
  JOSH: So going along with the Bester observation about how Garibaldi, you know, maybe you and I aren't as dissimilar as you thought. What I took away from watching this episode today in 2025, the thing that stood out to me was the question of when is it acceptable to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, to do the immoral thing for the right reasons. So, you know, we have g' Kar trying to acquire weapons and illegal drugs to try to free his people from Centauri occupation. What he's doing is illegal and he assaults Londo. But given what Londo has done and the power that he has not to be like a moral relativist here, but I mean, I mean, maybe I will be like.
• 33:08
  JOHN: Well, from the writing standpoint, it's meant to give you that wider understanding and almost sympathy, but also like, oh, wow, there are no easy answers here. It's not black and white.
• 33:16
  JOSH: Right. The other thing, before Bester shows up on the station, the. They're seriously talking about whether or not they should just kill him.
• 33:24
  JOHN: Ivanova almost does.
• 33:25
  JOSH: And Ivanova almost does the count. Almost does it.
• 33:29
  JOHN: Belays that order. Oh, classic dramatic moment. Sci fi television. Belay that order to the voice command. Even though it's just been given. You're like, wait, that's a good response for Ciri there. You know, I was thinking about that as well.
• 33:40
  JOSH: I was like, so do they have like a one second delay so that they make sure no one shows up and belays the order?
• 33:46
  JOHN: Right, right. In the code, it's called the dramatic captain appearance. You know, it's. There has to be something like that. But, but these characters, these people that are all, you know, they're presented as good characters. They are the good guys as far as the show's concerned. They're all conflicted at moments because they've all, first of all, they've all suffered at the hands of people abusing power. That's what Ivanova's wrestling with. She has quite literally been abused by the Psi Corps and her mother's death weighs heavily on her. She hates what the Psychor stands for. She hates what they've done to the people she loves. And she's also afraid because she's a latent telepath. So you completely understand that Ivanava is going to blow up Esther's ship before it gets there. Because, yes, he's. And she says it as she does her inner monologue, you know, outside, she speaks it. Yes, he's a threat. The moment he reads the people on the station, the gig's up. The opposing President Clark is over. That's it. They're all done for and they all go to jail. At best. You know, she knows that. So she's, she's taking like the logical threat, imposing it upon her own trauma and pain of, like, what this guy and what he represents did to my mother, did to me. And so you understand the decision she's making, the captain is the sort of, again, is meant to be this other role of understanding that he has to make those same decisions, goes down that road himself at different points. And is able to save her from herself in that moment, save her from making that decision, because he knows that she's going to go down that road. Going down that road means there's no coming back. He's not even like, oh, hey, you'd be completely wrong. It's, look what this will do to you as a person. And that's what I love. Is that how that plays for what we discussed in another episode down the road when Sheridan and Bester are there after the. After the conditions President Clark are all resolved way down the road, you know, and he says to him and says, I make those hard calls, the morally questionable calls, the ones that I will have to live with. But you enjoy it. You enjoy it. And that was the difference. So when he intervenes that moment, yeah, he saves Ivana from herself. But that's not just because he's good. She is bad. She needs to learn. It was, no, no, no. They're all in it together. And he's like, no, I've been there. I could make that same call. Since I'm not you in the moment, I'm gonna stop you from doing it to save you from yourself. But by extension, he needs her to do the same for him. It's a very equal. That was the thing about the B5 characters. They're very equal to each other. Like one. One falls, the other picks them up and then they fall and the other one has to pick them up. That happened with Garibaldi and Franklin. It happened with every character, had these interactions where no one is the saint known as the angel and the angels aren't the angels, as it turns out, you know, quite literally with the Vorlons. So I. I really liked how that little quick, you know, scene of, oh, my God, she's doing this and you understand dramatically. No, it's important. And Bester comes on board and Roland was like, okay, here he is. The answer is to bring in a bunch of Membari telepaths to counteract him until he takes the drugs that suppress his ability.
• 36:51
  JOSH: Nothing like a level playing field to ruin a psychop's day.
• 36:54
  JOHN: Isn't that a great line?
• 36:55
  JOSH: It's a great line.
• 36:57
  JOHN: That is so good. That's. That's, I think, something that a lot of that, again, weaves back into the authoritarian nature is they hate a level playing ground. They hate having to play fair. Somebody who relishes power and loves the idea of always having more than somebody else and never having to. And never having to be accountable. That's the. A psychop who's going to hold a Psychop accountable? Well, a bunch of Manbari telepaths and a Babylon 5 crew that does not want to deal with this crap, you know? And as a result, you end up with a very frustrated Bester who keeps his composure, but you can tell he's seething underneath.
• 37:32
  JOSH: Well, so you know what's funny about that? Whenever he shows up, they play some variation of the Guess who it is like, guess who's coming. And everyone's like, oh, my God, not this guy. And then in the season five episode, the Korra's mother, the Korra's father, which is completely from the point of view of the Psi Corps, you see that they have the same reaction. There's another Psychop and he's like, hey, Alice, we have a mission for you. We're sending you to your favorite place in the Entire Galaxy, Babylon 5. And he's like, oh, my God.
• 38:04
  JOHN: I don't want to deal with it.
• 38:05
  JOSH: Why do you keep sending me to Babylon 5? And then everyone on Babylon 5 is like, Bester. Why is Bester coming to Babylon 5?
• 38:13
  JOHN: It's just like.
• 38:14
  JOSH: It's quite funny.
• 38:16
  JOHN: That's the dark humor of JMS that always is woven into this. Yes. Sometimes it lands when it doesn't, but it's always like, yeah. Oh, God. That's why you can also have fun with these episodes. This isn't. You're not getting a lecture from the show. It's very human. But, God, Walter kind of deserves. He deserves our accolades. And I think I recall, I want to go back and watch interviews with him because I recall him talking about really, really enjoying doing this.
• 38:43
  JOSH: No, completely. The most recent interview that I heard with him, I think a year or two ago, he was on the Inglorious treksperts podcast.
• 38:52
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:53
  JOSH: And he reiterated that he was like, yeah, like, I loved playing that character. I loved working on that show. I love what Joe wrote for me. I think it's probably the most satisfying creative experience of his career.
• 39:06
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:07
  JOSH: To be able to play a character like that, show a different side of himself, show what he can do, and then also have it build over time.
• 39:16
  JOHN: Yeah. To be a villain, but to be a multi layered, very human character.
• 39:24
  JOSH: You understand him. Like, so even in this episode, there were moments, at least for me, where you kind of like him and you're like, hey, Garibaldi, why are you giving him such a hard time? You know? And to be able to do that knowing he's a horrible, horrible guy who's done. Heinous things and will do heinous things, because obviously we have seen the rest of the show. But there's a moment, the one that you referred to, where they've successfully completed the operation. And he says to Garibaldi, I know we have our differences, but I think we made a pretty good team and maybe we'll work together someday. And, like, in that moment, you almost kind of want to see the facade crack in Garibaldi a little. And he just. He doesn't give him an inch. He's like, not a chance.
• 40:11
  JOHN: Not a chance.
• 40:12
  JOSH: And knowing where it goes. And as you pointed out, when they do work together, again, it's pretty dark. It's not good for Garibaldi.
• 40:20
  JOHN: It's not good for Garibaldi.
• 40:21
  JOSH: So, like I said, my takeaway from this episode was it's really grappling with the question of when is it acceptable or when is it necessary to do the quote, unquote, wrong thing? When it's for the right reasons. You know, the immoral thing, the illegal thing, the cruel thing. And with that in mind, watching the following episode, Exogenesis, there's a plotline, the B plot, or even the C plot, where Ivanova has to feel out another one of the junior officers, Lieutenant Corwin. And that interaction is almost exactly the same interaction that she had with Mr. Wells in the Fall of Night, except in reverse.
• 41:05
  JOHN: Yes, you're right. You're right.
• 41:07
  JOSH: So she has found herself in a similar situation where she's having to say what she means without saying it and to kind of feel out the other person and whether or not they can let them in and they can work with them. And I thought that that was a very striking reversal because the way that it was played the first time with her and Wells was. He's clearly the one acting immorally or at the very least, acting questionably. And now we are seeing a situation where our characters are the ones who have to act questionably.
• 41:46
  JOHN: They have to break the rules.
• 41:48
  JOSH: They have to break the rules. And the question that the show raises is, how do you know you're not becoming the villain? How do you know that doing the wrong thing to do is actually the right thing to do? Because don't you think that the bad guys also think that doing the wrong thing is the right thing? Right. So how do you know the difference? And I think this show ultimately says, yes, sometimes you have to do what you have to do, but it does not come down on the side of, you know, therefore it's right and moral.
• 42:27
  JOHN: You know, it's that paradigm of might makes right and right makes might right. The sense that when they invert people, go through contortions and say, well, when I use my power, I'm right. By virtue of having power, I'm right. That's a dynamic that's really important to recognize, is that if your precondition is, well, I have the power and therefore anything I do is right, which is most definitely an aspect of this current administration. You know, that is what it is. If I do it, it's right. Today is, you know, when recording, this is not too long after the signal leaks were exposed. I mean, the signal conversations and everything else that would have destroyed any other candidate. It did destroy, arguably speaking, it destroyed Hillary Clinton's campaign because that may have been the one thing that at the very end, when Comey comes in and says, oh, there are more emails, and everybody was pumped up to, you know, into a, you know, madness about the. About. Oh, but her emails. But her emails. She used the private emails, which was the wrong thing to do. There was no question that was breaking the regulations. There should have been accountability for that. It wasn't a grand, you know, crime of the highest order, but it was. But it was not following the rules. Now you have people doing it quite deliberately, by the way, for listeners to understand the signal issue. That is part of Project 2025's instruction set to government employees carrying out Project 2025. Do not use government communication because that can be subpoenaed and reviewed in the future in case you are breaking the law or you're. Or more specifically, we don't want our agenda being tracked as it's happening in real time. So use off government communications to carry out official government business. So here you have intelligence officials, the Secretary Defense, all using signal to communicate with each other off of government servers, off of government records. If they hadn't screwed up, no one would have known what they said. I mean, and obviously they're going to be continuing to do this stuff in the future. But they broke the rule in an egregious way, in a direct way that was deliberate and also based on what was leaking, but based on what we've seen in the community, insane to do. But no one's going to be held really accountable. There's some senators who are grumbling and angry about it, but it sounds like the senators Earth done well, we're looking into this, you know, that type of thing. But that is completely an absolute violation of every national security rule and law that would, in other cases put people in jail. But because Trump's people are doing it, he has the might, he has the zeitgeist behind him. There's nothing wrong with it. He downplays and says, oh, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. So the idea of who determines what is right and what doesn't, when it's coming from the precondition of, well, whatever I do is ultimately right because I have the power and because I believe in myself, that's where you begin to really lose it. I think that's where in when you use the word villain, I think that's how you identify the villains. If they believe that a righteousness just comes from the fact that they can do it. And I don't think there's anyone with a clearer definition of that than Trump. He switches what he thinks is right and wrong based on what he can do in a given moment, and that's just clear as day. It's right when his opponent is wrong. When his opponent does it, it's right. When he does it.
• 45:40
  JOSH: I actually think it's more than an aspect. I think it's foundational. I think it may even be sort of the core of the whole thing. Some people are supposed to have the power, right? And when the right people have the power, it's.
• 45:55
  JOHN: Okay, I see where you're going with this. Yeah.
• 45:59
  JOSH: You know, again, I think whether you talk about the authoritarian mindset or what have you, there's a belief in a natural hierarchy that is the way the world is supposed to work, perhaps even divine, you know, and liberal democracy perverts it by artificially redistributing wealth and opportunity and power. So anything you do to counter that is moral because what it is doing is immoral and unnatural and is actually robbing from those at the top to give and to elevate the undeserving. So when the right people have the power that they're supposed to have, when they're at the top of the hierarchy, they get to define what is right and correct simply by virtue of the fact that they have the power, because that is their natural and proper position.
• 46:50
  JOHN: I am absolutely sure not only that you're right, I'm absolutely sure that there's some really good academic literature on this because it's. It's rumbling through my brain, and I can't call it up. I definitely, I think, like, having an academic mind join us at some point would be helpful to reframe some of this, because that is the point. I think the mindset of those who like to operate in hierarchy and are authoritarian friendly. We're talking about the population at large, that 30%, if you will, they will rage. And to use the US Example, they will rage with the Tea Party against any overstep, an executive order by President Barack Obama. As you see, this is a tyrant of our time and go crazy about that. When somebody like Trump acts in a fashion that, well, exceeds that, because that is in line with what those people want in terms of the society they want formed, its organizational structure. It's whether it's the, you know, racial balance, whether it's the economic balance, all those things because they're getting what they want, that's allowed. I always think back, and this is sort of a deep cut that, you know, won't come this. But I always think back to sic semper tyrannis. You know, John Wilkes Booth utters upon the assassination of, of President Lincoln. And that is a moment where, as a student, when I was sitting there, I thought, oh, well, I mean, I'm obviously, you know, I didn't think that Lincoln was a tyrant. He did use executive power. He overreached. He was struck back by the courts, like he was trying to hold this Union together during the Civil War and defeat the Confederacy. But the idea that from the Southern perspective, and particularly this guy who took him out tragically, that itself is one of those alternate history ideas. Gotta wonder, like, what if he had lived? Lincoln was the ultimate tyrant to him, which is unthinkable to me. And yet you realize, oh, it's because Lincoln was an affront to their social order, to their oppression of an entire group of people, millions upon millions of people who would be completely oppressed. He said, well, who's a tyrant? It would be those who were the enslavers, right? Well, not in their own minds. In their minds, they had all these, you know, twisted views about why they were doing, why they were. What they were doing was the right thing to do and how anybody who opposed them was themselves a tyrant. So sort of it takes that word and, and, and really neuters it. You're saying, well, is a tyrant entirely in the eye of the beholder. You can look back now with the history's lens in hindsight and say, well, the tyrants are those who abuse their power and oppress the others. It's not that all leaders don't go out of bounds at times, but that those who actively seek to control those other people unwillingly, that's the real tyrant. But, wow, I mean, I hear That I see the tweets. I see this. Is that the moment somebody people accuse people of. Well, somebody they say told me to use their pronouns. That's tyrannical. Literally. That's the exact phrase I've seen. And I think, hey, I don't that word means. Do you think it does. But that's the mindset. Is that somebody. Not even, not even forcing one to use. Because that's an interesting debate to always have is that no one is forcing you to speak a certain way. They're asking and maybe correcting you. But there's. But there's no use of force. There's no use of real coercion in that sense. It's just, hey, can you do this and say you are upending the order of my world? The way I order the way I define people. How dare you? That's the biggest offense. The people who operate in that mindset. So they will. And then they will immediately reverse and go to. I will support anybody who will maintain the order of my world and I will serve them. And. And that goes up. Let's dial it back to Babylon 5 now. Finally, orders. Order is orders. You know, when Lieutenant Corman is answering the question in that moment, we know where he ends up. He ends up on the side of Sheridan and Babylon 5. He's one the of good guys. But he, but in the moment, he makes it very clear. Oh, no, I, you know, if I'm given an order, it's not really my job to determine whether the order is. Is right or wrong or valid because the chain of command. And without the chain of command, it would all fall apart. And he's not. This is the whole thing. But he's not wrong. He's not the bad guy. He's not doing the wrong thing. He's bringing up that perspective that we're going to see repeated in episode of episode of people who are following orders. They're not bad people. But that doesn't mean that what's happening because of them and what they're actually doing isn't itself bad. So you have to question that framework a bit. So there's a character who himself is probably more comfortable in a. He might be in the middle or a little. A little bit tiny towards the authoritarian side of like, wants to. Wants to have a structure in place. Wants to know. Well, what somebody tells me is what I have to do because they're up there to tell me to do it. There's no question as to morality. We're here to serve Earth force. We're here to serve Earth dome. And I have to trust my leaders. Habit. And in the good times and in the peaceable times, that sort of works. And then what do you do when you get that order that you just know at the very core of your being is immoral, illegal and wrong? And what do you do with that? That's the toughest question.
• 51:52
  JOSH: Hopefully, if you do think it's wrong, you disobey.
• 51:56
  JOHN: But look. But look at what happened in this show. You have. You have General after General. You have the people now. I've forgotten his name. I just watched the episode. We quoted it in the last episode. General.
• 52:07
  JOSH: General Lefcourt.
• 52:08
  JOHN: General Lefcourt, you know, one of Sheridan's mentors, trains him at the Academy, is still following orders up until the very end. Up until the very end. And of course, he rides in and saves them too. But all these people will follow orders to the end, which is the reality of it. It doesn't make them bad. And they talk about, yes, that in the end, in the aftermath of all this, in the story, they will have to sift out who was just following orders, who was doing this. And in our world, the Nuremberg trials really had to. That's something I've read about, but I really want to study more about as we do this as well, because that, that dives into. Well, we can't hold everybody who followed orders and simply jail literally everybody. But you have to set a threshold at some point. You have to set a threshold at some point that says, yeah, you were just following orders. And where were you in that pecking order? Were you one of the people that was coerced? Were you afraid for the safety of your family? Or were you one of the leaders? Were you one of the planners? Were you one of the people who. Maybe you were just following orders, but you did some really heinous things. The guards at a concentration camp, that becomes a different category than the person who just was conscripted into the war. I mean, so where you determine those lines is really tricky. And it'll never be perfect. It'll never be easy.
• 53:24
  JOSH: What you just made me think of talking about General Lefcourt sort of following orders right up until the end. It's not until President Clark turns the Earth's defense grid on Earth itself.
• 53:37
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 53:38
  JOSH: Relating it to what we were just talking about. When what you do is right by virtue of the fact that it's you who has the power to do it. That makes me understand why Clark decides to do that at the very end.
• 53:57
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 53:58
  JOSH: Which I never quite, quite understood.
• 54:01
  JOHN: Yeah. Was he just a psychopath? Was he. Exactly.
• 54:04
  JOSH: Exactly Right.
• 54:05
  JOHN: But, yeah. No, I see where you're going.
• 54:07
  JOSH: Right. It was like, okay, he was just. He was. He was insane or like, he became insane. But, you know, if that's how you view the world and your position within it, when you are completely boxed in like that.
• 54:21
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 54:22
  JOSH: It's like that is the last thing you can do to exercise your power.
• 54:27
  JOHN: It's the idea of this world is mine to control, and that was Clark's. Like, Clark viewed this world. This is mine now to control. And if I am no longer going to be in it, then the world will no longer exist.
• 54:44
  JOSH: And you could even view it as, like, from his perspective. You have left me no choice.
• 54:50
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 54:50
  JOSH: Like, why don't you just let me.
• 54:53
  JOHN: Have this power, the ultimate line of the abuser. You leave me no choice. Yeah. I mean, you know, in one sense, I want. I wanted to make it almost childlike, like, oh, it's the kid taking his ball and going home. No, this. This is not just a childish instinct. This is a profoundly adult human instinct that we've seen repeated in leaders in the past. And that is. You know, that's why when. When people talk about the Cold War and mutually assured destruction, the limits that have been placed on nukes, this country, one man has that power. One. That means that that one man, in this case a man, but that one person can unilaterally decide on an impulse on a bad day to end it all because they have been given the authority. I don't personally think that's the best system to give that. I think there should be far more checks and balances with such awesome, horrific firepower to obliterate life as we know it. And you think, yeah, all that requires is a bad day. President Clark obviously had a very bad day, and his decision was, I'm gonna take everybody else down with me. He wasn't acting like a child. He wasn't acting immature. It wasn't a lack of impulse control. This was cold and calculated. You see him, they do that scene where he's pressing the buttons and coordinate. This wasn't just a. Oh, damn it. Boom, hit the red button. This was writing out that scorched earth thing. Doing. Going through a very specific method to do it and then carrying the instructions to do it. So, yeah, when you believe that might makes right your will, there's always this phrase that comes to mind, you know, my will or by my will, will. And it's the line of somebody with power, you. You fail to see the separation of the world from yourself in the sense if you think well from your will, because you think, well, the world has to bend to my will. Everything does. Can you imagine having the power right now that the current US President has because no one's. Again, that was a role designed to have checks and balances. So you couldn't go that far out of bounds and you'd be. And you'd be kept back on your leash. There's none of that happening right now. The very system, checks and balances, is being degraded moment by moment, day by day. So you almost understand why anybody sitting in that office would say, yeah, of course, anything I do has to be made manifest in this world. Hey, the Supreme Court said it, I can't commit a crime. It's literally impossible for me to commit a crime. So therefore, anything I do that may have been. I said to somebody again not too long ago, just today, that that decision probably influenced how he's carrying out this presidency, assuming he was going to win the election either way more than anything else, because it was quite literally taking the guardrails off of any mental restrictions he had put upon himself. Those are gone now. When you're told you cannot break the law, you are in a unique position. Unique. Of all people, all people in the country, only one gets to be above all laws, unaccountable to all laws, with the one exception of a long shot impeachment, which we now know structurally is nearly impossible. It's never succeeded in history. That's another thing for viewers, if you want to do a deep dive on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson one day, I'll tell stories about that on another podcast and my family history. That is brilliant stuff, but there are reasons. Yeah, it's a fascinating story. One relative of mine, one vote in the Senate, a senator, voted. Voted to acquit on his conscience because he didn't like the guy, but didn't believe that his dislike of Johnson justified removing him from office, didn't want to give too much power to the Congress over the executive branch, and voted by one vote not to acquit President Johnson. And it's a wild story.
• 58:26
  JOSH: I knew about the one vote. I didn't know that it was a.
• 58:28
  JOHN: Member of your family, Senator James Grimes of Iowa.
• 58:32
  JOSH: That's incredible.
• 58:33
  JOHN: Is. Is way back there.
• 58:35
  JOSH: Okay, yes, we will have to get into that.
• 58:37
  JOHN: There's. There's a thing. Talk about a nexus point. And he was one of three Republicans who voted not to convict and the vote failed. By one. Yeah. And there's a lot of history on that. So the Senate still has. If you want to say the Senate still has power. Even now, there is power in the Senate. It was seen back then. It seemed now in the show, the Senate still has that last gasp of little bits of power and they're probably too afraid to use it because, well, if you speak up, you lose your things. What's happening now? The law firms are being taken out. You know, losing their security clearances. All these little things happen and they build up. And that's Kasha's quote. Once the avalanche has started, it's too late for the Pebbles to vote. I always. That. I always come back to Kosh with that one. Do it now. Act. If you're going to act to use your voice and speak out, do it now. Yeah. You may pay a price for it, but if you don't, that opportunity is not going to be there once you cross the threshold.
• 59:35
  JOSH: Speaking of the power dynamics and who has it, that's another way to look at what happens between Londo and g'. Kar.
• 59:45
  JOHN: Oh, yeah.
• 59:46
  JOSH: Because g' Kr is near powerless. Londo has found himself with more power than he's ever had. You know, one of the most powerful people in the known galaxy. And g', Kar, through illicit means, through illegal means, has an opportunity to turn the tables a little bit. And he takes it. And again, very uncomfortable because we don't like what Londo is doing. It's actually very similar to Vere. You know, he even says in this episode, he's. Lanier says something about how he's. He being Londo is too far gone. And he's.
• 1:00:28
  JOHN: It's one of the best lines in the show. Veer is suggesting that a trip to Mimbar might be good for Londo. Yeah. And delenna skeptical. And Lanier says, a darkness carried in the heart cannot be cured by moving the body from place to place. That line has stuck with me my entire. You say, like, what do I remember from the show? That's a line that stuck with me forever. Because that's. That's profoundly true. And it's also very sad because at that moment, Vere gets up. He doesn't protest anymore. No, he's not arguing. He gets up. And Delenn looks over to Lanier and it's this sense of, like, oh, yeah, we know more about this than Vere does, we think. But also, oh, that's just really unfortunate. That's really sad. Like, they know how far gone Londo is. At this point.
• 1:01:22
  JOSH: And then Veer says something that is so Veer. It's sweet. It's also sad. That is what he thinks. He says that's because you don't know him like I do. One day he'll do something that will surprise you.
• 1:01:38
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:01:39
  JOSH: And it's like, you know, the relationship between Vera and Londo is actually really beautiful because in a lot of ways it is sort of authoritarian and abusive. But they love each other.
• 1:01:50
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  JOSH: And even in this episode, jumping ahead toward the end, you know, because of course, g', Kar, he didn't just physically assault Londo, he also assaults Vere. And then at the end of the episode when Londo is laying in med lab Veer stays there to stay with him. And, you know, he kinda. He taps the glass and, you know, Londo is fully immobilized. And he returns the gesture by moving his, his finger slightly. It's heartbreaking. And then at the very end, the last scene between them, which is a bit of a comedy scene and they're kind of pretending everything is okay and like, oh, boy, you know, what a day. The thing that Londo has taken away from his, you know, horrific experience the traumatic experience that he just went through at the hands of g' Kar is to impart some of what he learned to Vir to give Vere advice. You know, he says he's glad his government seems to be taking Vir seriously.
• 1:02:54
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  JOSH: And he says, good. Never let them think your position is a joke.
• 1:03:00
  JOHN: Right.
• 1:03:02
  JOSH: Because the memory of how Londo came to find himself as Ambassador to Babylon 5. G' Kar digs out the memory of when he got the assignment. It's because no one else was dumb enough to take. Take it. Nobody thought it was important. Nobody thought it was safe.
• 1:03:17
  JOHN: Yeah. Nobody thought it was. Yeah. That was, the last part was safe. Yeah, that's. That was a beautiful. That was actually a really beautiful character moment. Yeah.
• 1:03:25
  JOSH: Because he does care about him.
• 1:03:27
  JOHN: They're both thinking about this now. They're both so. So Veer is the joke of his family.
• 1:03:32
  JOSH: Right.
• 1:03:33
  JOHN: We don't learn the detail. We don't fully learn everything about Londo. You know, we always knew that, oh, this is, this is. We always thought for him it was a dead end position. He was a washed up politician. But to see it, to see it this viscerally that when Jakkar invades Londo's mind that this is one of the first thing that comes up. You not only realize that this is obviously what he thinks about all the time. But that this is profoundly damaging. This was something that they both share, that they were seen as jokes. Vera by his family, Londo by his is peers. And that's the thing about, you know, there is that when Babylon was written, the language we unet. We now use around abuse and trauma was not in vogue or it wasn't, you know, advanced. And I'm sure another 20 years from now, it's going to be different. Language evolved to handle these things, but the abused often go on to become abusers. The thing with that is that if you can at any point in your life, hopefully, as somebody who's abused or has begin become an abuser, that you can realize that and transcend it, work through it and then take accountability for that. You know, we know with a long arc of Londo, his accountability is at the very end. He's given those three choices. You know, as Lady Morella indicates, he's getting there now where he's like, yeah, no, in the way that I've treated you, in the way that I've been treated. And he's saying, don't let them think you're a joke. Don't. You're right. I mean, that's the moment where they're like, we've both. They've both been. Both been oppressed by this system of. In Centauri culture. And Centauri culture is. Is. It is presented as this very.
• 1:05:16
  JOSH: It's very Trumpian.
• 1:05:17
  JOHN: It's very Trumpian. It's very. It's not only hierarchical but, but, you know, in this modern space age, they have slaves, right? You know, in Centauri culture there is, you know, and they're presented as one of the advanced species, you know, outside of. Outside of the ancient ones. It's. It's really a thing you say, wow, that, that is. The problem is, is this obsession with a hierarchical thing, this obsession with status, power over. Over others to explain life, because that's what it ultimately is. Everybody's sort of like looking to explain life, but, well, if I can control it, I control other people and I can control life. And Londo was given so much power throughout the series. Now in this moment, he's completely powerless. That's that. That's how the show also like constantly goes around and around, is that he's been on the upswing. He tries to cut off from, from Mr. Morden and the Shadows earlier on in the season. And now he's sort of doing his thing. He's well regarded and powerful in his government, but he's no longer at this point, part of the shadows, I think, or at least he's coming to that point soon where he's going to try to detach from shadows. And Jakar blasts through that, committing what, what? What? I was actually surprised to hear the word, because when I reached the episode, Bester says, well, dust allows one to commit a sort of telepathic rape.
• 1:06:33
  JOSH: I had the exact same reaction.
• 1:06:35
  JOHN: Rape isn't a word that's used very often in television, unless it's svu, Law and Order or something like that. It's not something that in the 90s was commonly used. And so you had that reaction, too. Fascinating. You know, this is 2025, and watching him say that was. Was profoundly uncomfortable saying, oh, oh. That was not a word I expected him to use. And he was presenting it in a way that, like, oh, I'm using this word because it has power. It means something that is completely a violation. And as a telepath himself who's very protective of his telepaths, that's why he sees this as such a person problem and such a violation it was. Wow. We watched Jakar telepathically assault and rape Londo Malari. And you see it unfold. It is really uncomfortable, too.
• 1:07:24
  JOSH: It's incredibly uncomfortable.
• 1:07:26
  JOHN: The two of them are, I think, the standout actors of the show in so many ways. Yeah, Londo. Londo on the floor, you know, Please, please know. And his. And his scream of terror as. As. As Jacob goes telepathically full in. Yeah, that's. And that's when they do a commercial break. Yeah. You know, cut. You're just like, what the. What just happened here? And he. And Jakar did go deep. He gets to that moment of shame for Malari because. Because what is more intimate than shame?
• 1:07:55
  JOSH: Than shame?
• 1:07:56
  JOHN: And he goes for it. And. And then he goes further and he wants. He laughs. And. And Malaria says, stop laughing at me. Stop it. Stop. Get out of my head. And Jakkar, realizing that there's more in regards to shadows, goes in for the kill and says that line, which. Oh, again, Andreas Gonzalez is like, give it all to me. Give it all or I will rip it from you neuron by neuron. It could have been campy. It goes right up to the line of chewing scenery and stops right before to where it's just pure drama. And then you get that cut of all the different scenes of Londo, past and present and future, and his power and the connection to the shadows. And then that's when it happens. That's when Gkar's revelation begins you later find out that's the moment when Kosh has telepathically connected to g'. Kar.
• 1:08:53
  JOSH: It's very interesting, too, because he appears to him as his father. Later on, he appears to Sheridan as his father.
• 1:09:01
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah. It's a very interesting.
• 1:09:05
  JOSH: You know, and Justin in Zahadum describes the Vorlons as like your parents. They have rules. They tell you to clean up after yourself and go to your room. And that's literally how they're portrayed. And I thought it was very interesting because obviously, you know, the memory of Ghekar's sort of revelation in this episode, I had it going in. But, you know, again, the note that that revelation was sort of nudged by Kosh. I wonder what you make of this because in, you know, one sense, it's just further manipulation from the Vorlons on the lesser species. But in another sense, though it doesn't matter who said it. G' Kar still heard it and it clicked. He was still receptive to hearing that.
• 1:09:54
  JOHN: Message and he makes the choices that follow.
• 1:09:58
  JOSH: Right. I did find it very interesting, though that JMS made the choice to not have g' Kar come to this revelation on his own drug induced as it was. I mean, like, he could hallucinate his father, have that same scene because, you know, he's high office gored.
• 1:10:18
  JOHN: Right, Right.
• 1:10:18
  JOSH: He's out of his head.
• 1:10:19
  JOHN: Why did it have to be Kash?
• 1:10:21
  JOSH: Why did it have to be Kash?
• 1:10:24
  JOHN: That's a qu. That. That's. That's a fascinating question. Why did it have to be Kash? I really wonder. I would love to talk to JMS about that. You know, what was it about that the word that was coming to my mind, like, doesn't make his revelation any less pure. And that's what I sort of wrestle with, with that moment. But I don't think it does. I think I'm with you, that it's that. So the Vorlons, remember, they say, like the Vorlons and Shadows were left behind to shepherd the younger species and there was a balance to their views. You know, they themselves had to play nice. They had to respect each other's roles as they were. And at some point that broke down and the great ancient battles began between the Volons and the Shadows with the younger races as proxies. So, you know, the idea of having a parent, a parental figure there to guide you not to tell you moment by moment what to do but to impart wisdom and importantly, perspective. Because that's what g' Kar gets is perspective. It wasn't a Voronlan reaching to his mind and say, you must battle the shadows. You must serve us. You must do XYZ and carry out this plan. It was deeply philosophical, but it was a notion worth exploring. Saying, wait and remember. Kash chooses the point at which to intervene, right? So Kash is there. It can be assumed Kash didn't like, stumble upon it and say, oh, okay, let me intervene now. No, that's not how a Voronlan operates. Kosh was there for whatever reason, the moment he sensed that telepathy being used, that was the moment that Kosh probably began his process of intervening, whether it was heading over to there or whatever. So Kosh was very aware of, I assume, of what was transpiring in Londo's mind, what Jakara was seeing and shows that moment after, after he got all of the information that the info dump on the shadows. But after the revelation of Londo and his shame to then say, now I'll appear to you as your father. And he doesn't say anything. That is. Here's the thing about Kosh as a. I think Kosh is the closest of the Voron to what you might say their shepherding role was. And they refer to, you know, Lorian met Kosh, you know, so Kosh has been around enough to. To have met the first sentient being of the universe, you know, of the galaxy. So he's there like, yeah, okay, now's the time to intervene. I'm gonna, I'm going to nudge him in this direction and see what we can do. He wasn't ready before, but this is such a massive moment. I. Here's what I equate it to. This is just a moment I have to. Is somebody going on a psychedelic journey. Now, a lot of people think of that as you go to an EDM music festival and you drop acid. That's not really what psychedelics have been historical. Indigenous populations in particular have really centuries and millennia of experience with this, that when you go through a mind altering psychedelic experience with a chemical substance, you have guides there, usually in the form of shamans.
• 1:13:32
  JOSH: Oh, that's true.
• 1:13:33
  JOHN: They're not there to tell you what to do. They're there to shepherd you through the process. Because without that, you get lost, you lose your mind. In some cases, you. You can re. Traumatize yourself. There are all kinds of downsides to using psychedelics, from what I understand. Can't say I have myself. I'm very curious on the literature about it. It's fascinating to me, but looking at what indigenous cultures do with it blows my mind. Maybe one day. Because the idea is Shaman's there to shepherd you. So Jakkar has just done this. He's. He's changed his mind fundamentally. He's gotten into the mind of somebody else, violated them horrifically. And now it's like, okay, well, what's next? Jakar was already playing a key role in the resistance. He was already inquiring. The buildup was. He was like, what are you all up to? I know you're up to something. The shadows. But he was doing it from the very Jakkar season one approach of like, I will find out. I want to know so I can utilize this to save my people from a form, a position of strength, that we will get new weapons, we will get new allies, we will rebel and fight off the Centauri and then make them pay. That was where Jakkar was up until this episode. Even as he was learning more about nuance and compassion and the different levels of how thing operates. Now he's primed, but he could go either way. He could go mad or not. That's a psychedelic trip. So Kash intervenes. And this is the point at which a slight nudge can go any direction and it would. Is not even a guaranteed outcome, but he does it. Kash appears as his father and says in these lines that you. That are just brilliant. You know, we must. You know, we all must sacrifice each other if the whole are to be saved. You know, some of us may not make it, but the point is not revenge. This. This conflict. It doesn't matter who started it. Saying that to somebody who's literally watched their world bombarded away, who's lost, watched the suffering of his people, and then. And then having this moment being told. But at this point, it doesn't matter who started it. Because in the end, what does it matter if no one has left afterwards? And we all might know that intellectually, but how do you feel that? How do you get to that point? Oof. That was a moment. And so he sees his father, you know, hanging by a tree, killed by the Centauri as it was his memory. Then his father appears fully capable, you know, fully, fully healed right there, and is talking to him and saying, yeah, you're missing the point. The fight. You got the wrong fight. You're fighting the wrong battle. And you have to, you know, this, this. There's a bigger game at play. And it's not just about fighting that. It's not even. He doesn't even say, oh, you're fighting the shadows. He was fighting for these greater, very humanistic principles of fighting for everyone. And that includes the Centauri. Oof.
• 1:16:20
  JOSH: There's a line that he has that really struck me. You paraphrased part of it. He says, it doesn't matter who started it, d'. Kar. It only matters who's suffering.
• 1:16:32
  JOHN: Oh, that's it. That's it right there.
• 1:16:35
  JOSH: And that's like. It's so profound. And so it's like you want to grab so many people by the shoulders and shake them until they understand that. Yeah.
• 1:16:49
  JOHN: And then, weirdly, you also want to, like, give them a hug and say, like, listen, we're suffering. You're suffering. All the conflicts that are happening in the world today. I could name 100 of them, you know, and you say, it doesn't matter who started. Look at who's suffering. That one breaks me down. That. That line breaks you down. It was. It was written to break us down. And. And it worked so well. But it's. It's a. I think that's one of those moments of profound truth you get from the writing in this show. It's meant to. It's meant to harness a lot of these philosophical notions that we've been exposed to many times. This is. This is not like, you know, JMS is some prophet here. He's writing what's been written. The wisdom of the. Of us all over the ages. And now it's done in the scatter of Orlon is doing that and saying this. And Jakar begins to realize it in that moment, you know, that. Wait a second. This isn't about who's going to come out on top. No one's going to come out of it. No one comes out of it in the end. And I think Kash is still leaving room. Kash is definitely leaving room for g' Kar to make his choice, for g' Kar to see. To choose to see or not what's going to happen. And that's the leap of faith that you make as opposed to telling somebody specifically what to do. And that's, you know, and I won't go into too many spoilers of that. And we'll also go way, way over time. The Vorlons lose their way later on on because they lose that concept. They. They. They now believe, you know, at some point later in the series, they're like, no, you just follow our rules, no matter what. Like, we're here to tell you what to do. And it's just, wow. No, you bring somebody along and you let them realize it. And Jakkar then sees that in. In ways that, wait a second. I have to reframe myself on this. There is a fight to be fought. This isn't about walking away from everything. It's about saying, I. I've had it wrong. And there's nothing more humbling and empowering than realizing you've gotten your perspective wrong. But now you can take the next steps. And that's what Ricard does at the end of this. Now, he pleads guilty. No contest to this. It's just a moment. He's like, yep, and I'm happy to do what needs to come next. That's just where it is. And this is his journey to becoming what I. What I want to sort of call, like, the happy warrior. You know, he. He's not there to make trouble for the sake of trouble, to exercise might for the sake of might. He's there to. To learn and ponder and now share with others. He says, keep the Book of Jaquan. You know, to Garibaldi, you know, I'm closer to the source. You know, it's a beautiful thing, I think, that we all have those moments of revelation in our lives. Does it really matter if a Voron nudged it as much? I don't know. I think. I think if you can take it from yourselves, I mean, people have had revelations for all kinds of reasons. They see it. They see something. You know, a cloud in the sky in the right shape can trigger your mind to go down a direction that all of a sudden you realize something profound like that doesn't take away anything from it. So I. I didn't expect this episode to end that way. When I. Even when I watch it now, I'm like, wait, this is that episode. This is the episode where he gets that great revelation, but he doesn't get it. Like, it was just handed to him on a platter. It's now, you got to do the work. Like, I'm giving you the next step and a bit of a course correction here. What are you gonna do with that, g'? Kar, and he had to go. He had to go down to the darkest place in him to see that.
• 1:20:30
  JOSH: The other detail about that scene and that moment in that scene where he hears that through the person of his father. And then Kash is revealed. G', Kar, he breaks down. He weeps, he wails. Yeah, because you're right. He was completely broken down. And he's crying because, I mean, so many reasons One of them is probably, you know, he realizes how misguided he has been and how he has to, you know, reorient himself. And, I mean, the show is so good.
• 1:21:06
  JOHN: You know, one thing that he doesn't have in that moment. So he cries and he breaks. But you know what? He doesn't have shame doesn't. He doesn't go down the road of shame for who he's been. Yeah, he accepts this has been his life's journey to become the person he is. And that's. That's something that I think is really important both as an issue to talk about, but from a character perspective is that when shame is your primary motivating factor, really bad decisions come and really bad feelings come from that too. I mean, everything is warped and manipulated by shame. And warped is really the key word. G' Kar comes out of this probably weeping for the mistakes, for the pain, the suffering that he's caused for the miss how wrong he got it. But that kind of crying is also cathartic crying. It was a break from the past to be reborn in another moment. And that's why he later says in this line, the end of the season that I've quoted in my life so many times in moment, you know, this moment of transition and revelation. But he ends season three with a line that this had the feeling of both being a moment of transition and moment of revelation. And all we know is that the future is always born in pain. And he wasn't saying that meaning a masochistic kind of pain. He was saying that that process is profoundly painful and we all go through it. We know at the end of season three, Sheridan is going through it. A painful death of a sort. In reality, too, it's always born in pain. And he's bearing in pain, he's crying in pain, and then he has to go on to the next step. Londo doesn't go down that same. Doesn't make the same choices he doesn't make. He doesn't choose that path. Londo carries his shame with him up until the very end. And that's the tragedy of Londo Millar, is that he never. He never sheds his shame. And that shame he is. What makes him vulnerable to Morden is the shame that makes him vulnerable to Morden's later manipulations to get him back in the fold, to blame Lord Rifa for the poisoning of his lover. All these things the shame carried with him blinds him and warps him and that he finally takes his last chance to try to make things right. And g' Kar is there for it.
• 1:23:36
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:23:36
  JOHN: And they both end the same way. Fascinating.
• 1:23:39
  JOSH: One other observation that I just realized. Realized. You know, we are reminded in this episode that there are no Narn telepaths. But once upon a time there were. And we know that they were eradicated by the Shadows. And what I just realized through this conversation you know, the Vorlons have manipulated all the other races. Except for the last thousand years they haven't been able to influence the Narn in the same way until this moment.
• 1:24:06
  JOHN: Oh, oh, oh. Is that what you think it is? Is that they. They couldn't really appear in the same way.
• 1:24:14
  JOSH: Right.
• 1:24:15
  JOHN: Because you have to be somewhat telepathically receptive. Interesting. And with the use of telepaths, which are used against the Shadows.
• 1:24:24
  JOSH: Right. So they're not.
• 1:24:25
  JOHN: They're also not useful pawns.
• 1:24:27
  JOSH: Exactly. Exactly. So that's what I'm saying.
• 1:24:29
  JOHN: Oh. Oh, that's interesting.
• 1:24:32
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:24:34
  JOHN: Yeah. Because. And then, like, the Vorlons ain't perfect. They are. They are also the problem. Oh, man. And now he sees that. And now they're sort of like. Well, I can. Jakkar is the one with this. I mean, and then I always assumed that in that final moment Kosh is appearing as Jaquan, you know, as he sort of did when he rescued Sheridan at the end of season two. And that's what they see there. So. But the Book of Jaquan is a physical object in the series. It's one of the few physical manifestations you have. Have a spirituality that's durable through show. And that's why it's so interesting to watch, you know, Garibaldi learning Narn to get through some of it and. Oh, wow. But, yeah, the. The Vorlan's finally being able to influence him. I want to say, like. I think, like, Kosh got it right here.
• 1:25:19
  JOSH: Yes.
• 1:25:19
  JOHN: Kash has made mistakes and missteps. And that's why we're building to the point. Which is, you know, further in the season to where Kosh is really angry because Kash knows that the only. You know, that what he's being asked will require sacrifice. Sacrifice. He's not ready to die. He's been alive for how many years and years and years? And that's sort of the. Wait, maybe I didn't have it right the whole time.
• 1:25:40
  JOSH: No. Yeah. When Sheridan confronts him in interludes and examinations, it's a. It's a really intense scene. And Sheridan's got some. You know, he's got some.
• 1:25:50
  JOHN: I want to back up his claims. He really, he really does. And Sheridan is not a true believer. But that's, that's the brilliant part about Sheridan. He's not this true believer. He believes in principles, but not so much that they're absolute. He believes in his, in his people. He'll support them, but he will also do what's, you know, he will also stand up to them when their moments. So that's that, that's sort of what I, I respect about that character amongst the most. But yeah, this, this episode layers so much into it from, from building seasons, four stories, story to everything else to reminding us at the very beginning that we're still in this world. And then, and then you find out right after this. You know, I feel like we sort of have a come down from Jakkar violating Londo to the reassurance that, okay, well the Dust issue and the trafficking of Dust is going to be limited now. Okay, so that's, that's that. And then there's the gut punch. Wait, the revelation to say, oh, Psychor created Dust.
• 1:26:57
  JOSH: Of course they did.
• 1:26:58
  JOHN: I'm like, oh, these, these people, like, they're always, they're always involved in something. And, and this is, this is the thing about people who believe that they're right in everything. They'll always do something they'll cover up. And for this whole episode we think that Bester is there, like, well, at least this time he's the good guy. And they give you that last moment of like, no, you know what, this is all his fault too. This is all. And he doesn't say like, oh, we've captured Dust and now we get to keep people safe. It's like, no, we got it back into the hands of humans where it belongs. That language is so Earth first Bullshit. You know that that's where all that is. At least it's back in the hands of humans. It's like, oh, here we go, here we go all over again. So you know that the ride is about to start back up again with Bester and the Psychor. They never stop. Wow. That episode had so much more than I, Yeah, than I thought in it. You know, going, going into the next episode. I, I watched them out of order to some extent. I, I was watching them in order and then I would jump around, I was like, oh, exogenesis isn't really an episode I need to watch. But I didn't even think Dust the Dust was an episode I had to watch. I just was gonna, I just ended up watching them all. And then I was Thinking about, okay, well, how. How are these episodes linked and. And how do they go to the overall themes? But I realized as I was watching the next episode that the idea that this happens over and over again was really core to that episode. So here we have in Dust to Dust, sort of we say, oh, well, you know, God. People just seem to regularly get themselves into these pickles of, like, falling for authoritarianism, but falling for, like, you know, the strongman. And here we are like, oh, there's this entire species out there initially were suspect, you know, what are they there for? They. They merge with other organic life forms and preserve the knowledge of all they've experienced and lived so that when the darkness comes, that one, not specifically another dark Age comes, they will be there to share this with the civilizations that have lost it. And I thought, well, that sounds kind of overly dramatic. I mean, almost Vorlon, and it's in its drama. But you realize, oh, wait, they've been watching this unfold. They've been watching the Shadows and the Vorons. They're watching what's happening on Earth. They know that this cycle happens, that people make this mistake and that they can't be revealed and their power can't be used, you know, for advantage of one group over the other. But it was a good episode to follow this because it continued the idea of, like, let's expand what it is, what the real threat is. The threat isn't just one group taking over another. The threat is this idea of power for all sakes, conflict and that. And ultimately it'll burn us all. So the revelation to CAR is if you don't get your focus right on this and realize that you've been fighting the wrong battle, we all lose. We all lose. It doesn't matter who started it, we all lose. And these creatures. There's Zandrisi, right? So you pronounce it. They see that as a very likely outcome. They're like, yeah, you're all going to lose. Everyone's going to lose. We're going to preserve this. This. The Shadow Mages, I mean, the tech majors have already left. They're like, peacing out, like, we see this happening. And now the trees are like, this is why we're here is to preserve these. These beautiful memories and the civilizations that you don't even know existed over time. And I love how that episode ties in with Marcus and his friend there. It was very much a, you know, fits in with what the Rangers do. They're not just fighters, they are philosophers, they are poets. They Are they do this very Minbari way, you know that. Yeah. He has to understand, like preserving that knowledge is really important. But knowledge is also the ultimate threat to power. It can give people power. It can also take it away. It also a threat to those who are manipulating it. So, like what could be a bigger threat to President Clark or the Shadows even than knowledge? And knowing what they're really, what they're really up to. And those little things we were referring to earlier of like the subtle digs of like, oh, there's some subtle things. There's stuff happening on Mars. We know this. Like the episode builds an interesting way. But I really like what they do with the Zenrezi. Yeah.
• 1:31:07
  JOSH: You know, Duncan even says when he's describing to Marcus what it was like he was saying. Which by the way, I noticed. I almost feel like JMS must have recently seen Blade Runner when he was writing this because he gives Duncan some lines that are very reminiscent of what Rutger Hauer says at the end. Yes, Blade Runner. But then he says, I knew everything. And you're right. What is more of a threat to power or to authoritarianism than seeing the whole picture, seeing how it all works and seeing the cycles of history play out over and over again. You wouldn't be susceptible to that sort of control. And you would know how to beat it.
• 1:31:48
  JOHN: Ask any propagandist what their ultimate enemy is and it is a well educated population with critical thought.
• 1:31:58
  JOSH: Yeah, which is why they're attacking all these universities and they're destroying the Department of Education and banning books that have inconvenient facts. You know, making it against the law to teach about other perspectives and experiences. Can't talk about slavery. You can't admit trans people exist. Because if you start to allow for the idea that there are other perspectives on life and the world that other people have and they're just as valid and legitimate, that makes it hard to have that iron control. You really have to control the narrative completely.
• 1:32:36
  JOHN: Yeah. Every time we've seen something like this happen, there's a decision on what the acceptable facts are, what the acceptable forms of education are. And anybody who is outside of that is. Is a threat in the show. It becomes, well, we don't have a homeless problem. We were discussing that before, you know, the reframing, the literal denial of reality. But it becomes, but I say this, therefore it's true. We redefine it, say, oh, well, anybody who does have a problem, they're just mentally ill. Don't worry about them. You know, that's that, that's this, like, you know, very toxic in today's language, but it's, it's. What you need to do is you need to be able to shape reality to where people will look at an object and see what they're told to see instead of what they can critically analyze. Very rarely do humans look at the same thing identically perspectives.
• 1:33:28
  JOSH: And to be fair, like that is almost a literal impossibility. Yeah, if you want to get technical about it, we don't like the idea though, that quote unquote, objective reality is really as mutable as it is.
• 1:33:41
  JOHN: Yeah, it's a tough one.
• 1:33:42
  JOSH: Yeah.
• 1:33:44
  JOHN: If you think about it though. So instead of memory being stored in some sort of relatively static data storage.
• 1:33:53
  JOSH: Medium that will probably become obsolete in.
• 1:33:56
  JOHN: Very short order, they're storing it. The Zandrizi are themselves the receptacle of that, but they themselves are life forms, living, conscious, sentient beings. So with their own biases, flaws and all. Yet that's the choice for this sort of repository, is to receive this through their own experiences. And obviously they're sharing what they've experienced in the various hosts over the however many, many, many, many, many years they've existed. So there's nothing perfectly objective there, there. And nor do they ever use that language. They're not talking about perfect information, perfect truth. They're just talking about memories, wisdom, experiences and knowledge. And that all together is going to be from their perspective. And so much so that they probably had access to ways to neutralize foes. But what did they do? They didn't. They. They did lock up Franklin and Marcus, but they weren't like, we want to kill you. You could see that if they were really forced to, they, you know, would have for their own safety. But that was like the last of the last of last options. And what was the thing they ultimately did to convince Marcus? It wasn't to say, well, we'll find a way to disarm him. He might have been able to find a way to disarm him. He sacrifices himself, he sacrifices his link to the Zendrizi and can never go back. And that's so interesting to me because it's like that that was the choice they made, was to say, yes, this is what we do. We share knowledge. And we're going to share that knowledge with you. We're going to share our truth with you, that what we're telling you is true. We're not here taking over host bodies and doing this. We're choosing William. Willing people who don't have much left for them in life. And that was such an interesting moral question around that. That's what I love when these shows get to explore those moral questions. But they weren't taking over because they judged, oh, this is somebody with a sad life. It was a cooperative process. Hey, would you be willing to do this? Let me lay out the facts for you again. That's the idea of sharing information you have, sharing all the truth you have. And then person makes the decision from there. And that goes back. Jacquard is now up to make the decision. Yes, he's influenced by Kash, but now the decision is his. It was shared with him. What are you going to do with it? What are you going to take? You just got the ball. What do you do with it now? And the Zandrisi make that same choice available to every lost soul they find is, hey, here's an option that we can offer you and here's what we can tell you about it. The sacrifice you'll make, the benefits you'll get from joining with us and everything else, sort of. I think of them as the anti Borg, but the real. But the sci fi comparison I really make to them is foundation now, Foundation. The idea is that through, you know, Harry Seldon and what was it called? Psychohistory, you know, that they can, in a form of a computer and data and academic practice, they can preserve the not predict and then preserve the knowledge for the dark age of humanity across the galaxy. That's a little more physically objective. Like we will preserve this and then we'll keep it. And this is. Well, no, we're going to remember it and then we're going to carry it forward quietly, secretly, through all of the different civilizations of the galaxy.
• 1:37:17
  JOSH: You know, along those lines, something else that's kind of interesting about it. If you remember how Delenn describes her belief system. You know, she says we are the universe made manifest, trying to understand itself.
• 1:37:30
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:37:32
  JOSH: And it's almost as if the Vendrizi are the universes, like antibodies are not antibodies. But it's like a. It's like a fail safe. So that if life or sentient life wipes itself out, it will retain the experiences, the learning and the knowledge.
• 1:37:50
  JOHN: There'll be something to start from again. Yeah, it's not just. It's not just wiping out the past as now. It's just all gone. Nothing of what was learned was gone. And JMS loves exploring this notion because in deconstruction of falling stars, we, you know, Earth does go back into a dark age 500 years from this point. And I think it's sort of part of that rhyming, cyclical nature of history that James talks about. But, yeah, that's. That. That's something that I'm so glad he got the opportunity to make that episode, because that wasn't going to be the case without season. That it does help tile together.
• 1:38:24
  JOSH: I love that episode so much. Like, I still. Yeah. And obviously we'll cover it in more detail when we get there, but there's.
• 1:38:30
  JOHN: So that's the fun of doing this, is that all these things, they always tie in together. You're not just doing an episode by episode. It all does tie together. That's why you go down these little, you know, we go down these excursions to other parts, other parts of the story. And an episode that when I. I don't remember watching Exogenesis, if you ask me, like, well, what was your experience with this? There was none. I don't recall watching this episode at all, rewatching it. I remember that this happened.
• 1:38:54
  JOSH: Right.
• 1:38:55
  JOHN: I don't remember the episode as far as a visceral experience watching it. But I'm realizing, you know, like, oh, this. This was a really important episode. From the little lines that were dropped. Marcus's mission, his relationships with people and informants on the station to the Jeezy Franklin figuring that out, like, all these things there. And then, of course, what we talked about earlier in the show was Lieutenant Corwin, that's. This episode is how are they going to determine whether somebody is. Is. I don't want to use the word. See, this isn't the term. It's not morally flexible. It's able to see morality from more than just the hierarchy they're familiar with.
• 1:39:35
  JOSH: Yes, right.
• 1:39:36
  JOHN: And. And, sorry. Yeah. I mean, and we learn what. We learn what we think is going to be with one character, and we get to see how that unfolds with him.
• 1:39:47
  JOSH: We also have a counterexample of Marcus, who sort of the flip side of Corwin, someone who's operating outside the hierarchy and all the problems that that has. Right. So. Because, like, they're talking in this episode about, like, you know, oh, you know, Marcus, like, you know, where does he fit in? Can we trust him? Why is he doing what he's doing? Hey, what do you sort of do here anyway? You know, it's. It's. I mean, I don't have any profound insight except to say it's like the. The inverse of the situation presented with Corwin.
• 1:40:36
  JOHN: And I do.
• 1:40:38
  JOSH: Right. Yes, right.
• 1:40:39
  JOHN: It's about, it's about trust. It's about trust. And at the end, they've established that trust. Say, well, we didn't know his. We can understand how he fits in here. But Franklin says at the end he sort of reports back to Viri. But yeah, no, we can work with him.
• 1:40:52
  JOSH: And what's also cool about that is that, you know, again, this is an episode like you. I don't know that I recall the very first time I watched it. And it's certainly not one that I've revisited that often, but, you know, I didn't realize until I just rewatched it that, you know, this is the beginning of the Franklin Marcus marriage.
• 1:41:18
  JOHN: Yeah. Yeah, it is. You're right.
• 1:41:20
  JOSH: It's the first time that they're sort of.
• 1:41:22
  JOHN: I love when they pretended to be married. That was so ahead of its time. No.
• 1:41:26
  JOSH: Yeah. And so, like, yeah, no, it was great.
• 1:41:28
  JOHN: So matter of fact, I know. And, and, and they, they're great.
• 1:41:32
  JOSH: I thought it was funny and they thought it was. The humor was not because they were men. The humor was because they can't stand each other.
• 1:41:43
  JOHN: Right, exactly. That's, that, that's that like a matter of fact. That's, that's, by the way, that's the future I want. And people say, like, this is the future. That's the future I want. And, and that's why the humor is still there, is because, oh, we have our same problems and we don't get along, but the two, the two of them make such a great duo unexpectedly. And they're great operationally together as well. So, you know, the Doctor gets to be so much more than a doctor in this show, but this. So now when people ask me, like, all right, which, which episodes of Babylon 5 Do I Watch? I'm just like, all of them just watch. All of them just watch the whole show. You know, I, I, I can give you a list for the, for the arc episodes. You can definitely limit it down and get a punch from it.
• 1:42:30
  JOSH: You miss so much.
• 1:42:32
  JOHN: You do. And, and us talking here proves that just that, that the, the care that goes into it for every little subtle detail. It really is a joy to go back and re. Watch that. And I think that's why it worked. When I was watching it the first time, I didn't know why it worked. I, I've oftentimes haven't had trouble communicating to why, to people why this works. And, and it's, it's because he didn't just get the story. The story right. In fact, Sometimes the story didn't work. I actually, I have a lot of bones to pick with how the Voronlons are done. And I think that has to do more with the compression of how season four and five and the production was canceled. But yet it all still works because each episode is crafted well with the characters with the railover. So very rarely. I mean, people talk about some of the first season episodes you can buy with. And it is true because the show changed pretty fundamentally going into season two. I think the vibe changes with the new captain and everything else. There's probably some stuff you can get through with season one that you don't really need. But I still love watching all of it.
• 1:43:34
  JOSH: Even so, though, like, there are a handful of episodes in season one that I don't love. But even those have great things in them.
• 1:43:41
  JOHN: They have great character moments. Yeah.
• 1:43:43
  JOSH: Like there's tko. Is that episode with like the space boxing?
• 1:43:48
  JOHN: Space boxing, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:43:50
  JOSH: But in that episode, Ivanova has a final conversation with her father. And the boxer that Garibaldi has a relationship with, he has a line. You never were good at watching your back, Garibaldi. And at the end of the season, he gets shot in the back.
• 1:44:07
  JOHN: And now I'm thinking when Ivanova goes off to find. To try to find Sheridan on Zahadun and she hears her father's voice in the eyes of the shadows.
• 1:44:15
  JOSH: Oh, that's right.
• 1:44:17
  JOHN: Space. And there's another moment when they're liberating Earth and she refers to her family. Yes, family. That I was literally thinking back. I didn't remember it was the episode tko. Yeah. But I remembered her father in those moments. That's why this show, everything works. And why, yes, if you can watch the whole show through. Because those little moments are what really give you this beautiful insight into the characters. I think that's why we really like these characters in ways that I connect to that I don't get in a lot of other shows.
• 1:44:50
  JOSH: I miss when TV shows were allowed to have meh episodes.
• 1:44:55
  JOHN: I'm right there with you.
• 1:44:57
  JOSH: Something about this episode, even as I was watching it, it's not mind blowing, but it was a fun way to spend 43 minutes. And I liked spending time with these characters. So that thing that you were just talking about, the reason why you feel close to these characters is because of all of the downtime. They were always there, even if the episode wasn't your favorite episode. And the way TV works now, ironically, the TV landscape has learned all the wrong lessons from Babylon 5. It's just the arc stuff and none of the other stuff.
• 1:45:34
  JOHN: I know exactly where we're going with that. Yeah.
• 1:45:36
  JOSH: And there's also a thing. I'm going a bit out on a limb. There's also a thing with attention and focus where, you know, even the very question, okay, like, what episodes of this show can I skip? You know, it's like, if you want to watch the show, like, sit and find out for yourself.
• 1:45:53
  JOHN: Yeah. You know what I mean? It's a bigger commitment than a lot of modern shows just have shorter runs. Sure. But that's the. Well, and we were. And we were watching on a weekly basis back then, but that was. The point is you got this long term thing. What you said is Data's Day. Data's Day. On Star Trek the Next Generation, people say, like, because we don't have modern Babylon 5. Sadly, though, there was the animated film recently. There's a lot of modern Star Trek and critiques and all. And one of the difficulties I find with modern tv, especially modern Star Trek, which in some of the shows, I don't even know who the other bridge characters are because they don't have episodes like Data's Day, which is just an episode where nothing big happens. It is seemingly not tied into very much else, but it's about the characters and what they do on the ship, and maybe they go perform. And it's an episode that when you're watching, you're like, cool, I just watched another episode. But it doesn't leave the same. It's not like an episode. You say, oh, my God, the thing that happened, you know, Picard was assimilated or something like that. Like. But that's what gives you the characters and that's why you remember everything about Data. When I think about Data, I don't think about, like all these episodes. I usually think about the downtime episodes. True. For all the other characters. And they. The beauty is they had the time with 22 episodes to do that. It's a math problem. TV used to be 22 episodes and of any show, even before there were arcs. So many of those episodes were just like, you're hanging out with these characters as they do the things that they do, and that's why you watch the show. And then some episodes really punch up in terms like, oh, my God, did you see that one? We miss that with eight episode seasons, you know, we don't get there anymore. And I feel like I miss that. I miss being able to casually stroll through a TV show rather than, okay, you got seven episodes. Everything happens in seven episodes. Every episode is a must watch. It's really intense. It's like, that's great. And I think that's great for a miniseries, but not everything.
• 1:47:54
  JOSH: And that makes everything so high stakes because, you know, the other problem is that there's just so much stuff out there. So if you start watching a show and you hit episode three and it kind of hits like a bum note or like a so. So note.
• 1:48:08
  JOHN: You check out.
• 1:48:09
  JOSH: Yeah, you check out.
• 1:48:10
  JOHN: And like Star Trek would never have survived that.
• 1:48:13
  JOSH: No.
• 1:48:14
  JOHN: Never have survived that. No.
• 1:48:15
  JOSH: It's funny, you were talking about season one of B5. If you compare the ratio of good episodes to bad episodes of season one of B5 to season one of TNG.
• 1:48:24
  JOHN: Oh yeah. That completely different ratio. B5 wins hands down. And you get to go into its second season and look what we get. You know. And I mean, there are other examples. I mean, I always remember hearing about Cheers was this example of like low ratings, specifically at abysmally low ratings for the first season. But there was something that they trusted in it. And all of a sudden it becomes one of the most famed shows of the 80s into the 90s. So that's not possible now. And. And Babylon 5 as it is now would not get made, which is why I'm very skeptical. All the talk about a remake, I don't think it's ever going to happen. And I almost don't think it can happen in this landscape. Because where. Where else are you gonna get a show that even if you get four seasons, that's 88 episodes. Where are you gonna get 88 episodes and the funding for that?
• 1:49:09
  JOSH: Yeah, I mean, it's something I don't need. I have a sort of morbid curiosity and I do have trust in jms. I am curious how he would explore the same themes and how his approach has evolved in the last 30 years. It's like, that would be interesting, but I don't need it. I'm also very sick of having to reinvent everything.
• 1:49:33
  JOHN: Yeah. And that's the thing. JMS has done amazing other work. Yeah. Sense8, which that did get cut off early, but there was so much in that like do do new stuff and. And occasionally I think a nice little sentimental revisit can be fun one off things like that. I enjoy, I enjoy the animated movie for what it was. But you know, we got a real. It was a magic time when he got 22 episodes in a season. I love that. That's your point. Bringing up this, is that the, the. This episode particular Exogenesis wouldn't have been an episode in a 10 episode run. No, but it also gave us so much so that when we look back and we say, oh, and there's a lot in all these shows that you look back and you say, wait, what episode did that happen? And I said, g' Kar's Revelation. I would have said, oh, that happened like right before Severed Dreams. In a really important episode.
• 1:50:18
  JOSH: Gray 17 is Missing is very often the episode singled out as, like the worst episode of the series. I do want to cover it because I'm curious what we will find in there.
• 1:50:29
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:50:30
  JOSH: But the B story of Gray 17 is missing is when Delenn becomes Ranger 1 and Narune tries to assassinate her and Marcus saves her.
• 1:50:44
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:50:45
  JOSH: And like, I don't know, Delenn becoming Ranger 1 and replacing Sinclair seems like a pretty big deal.
• 1:50:51
  JOHN: It's a big deal. And that again, that whole thing with Nayrun literally trying to stop her by any means becoming a Ranger One. He's devout in his views and belief to then be the one in the. In. In the following season to sacrifice himself for Delenn.
• 1:51:07
  JOSH: So if you tell someone to skip Grace 17 is missing, then miss that.
• 1:51:12
  JOHN: You're right. So, all right, that's gonna be my new line. It's like, which. Which episode? Just watch the whole show. Watch the whole show. Enjoy it and laugh at the parts that don't. Don't work. But understand. And to those, you know, much younger than us, you know, be like, understand, this is the way it used to be. Right. You know, we used to have 22 episodes in a season and you got to know your characters.
• 1:51:36
  JOSH: Yeah. So, John, any idea what we're gonna watch next time?
• 1:51:41
  JOHN: Well, I mean, the next couple episodes like this, this is the train out of the station going at, you know, accelerating speed. Every episode. We can probably just go episode by episode right through Severed Dreams.
• 1:51:52
  JOSH: Yeah. So I think from here it's Messages from Earth is next.
• 1:51:56
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:51:58
  JOSH: And then that's. The trilogy is Messages From Earth and Point of no Return and Severed Dreams.
• 1:52:03
  JOHN: I mean, it's going right in. And I'm fascinated with what people think. I didn't expect to get this close this quickly. But it also makes a lot of sense. Um, again, like, I expected to sort of meander through the show and have some vague points of peril. It's been shocking to me how many points we've made happen in real time. You were talking about the universities speech. Everything else. Well, that's the beginning of the episode. We just with dust to dust is that very notion where you're getting, oh, it's really happening this way. But they're safeguards. Captain Sheridan is still there and we're seeing that. Well right now the lawyers are still fighting it. We still have some things, but every day it's getting harder. And now. Yeah, like what is that point? I think that hearing. I don't want to put too much hope in anything at this point. I do, you know, but hearing a surprising number of Republican senators going completely head into this issue of the signal app usage and leaks around that is pretty substantial. But like that it's going to provoke an equal and opposite reaction ultimately too. So. And that's. This show explores like so we. So we. As more happens in B5, President Clark pushes back even, even harder. So I'm really curious to see what happens. I mean I'm under no delusion recording this that there are necessarily Vorlons and independent station out there to help save us. And well, the volumes don't really save us, but you know, extra powers. The, the other things. Like what's going to be really interesting for us to see. Well, where does it divide? Post severed dreams in our tracking of what happens, what. What do people do? And then I hope that, I hope it doesn't get to the point where we're doing a episode like now, what is it called? Endgame. Basically, you know, season 20 of episode of season four. I hope that that's not where we end up like, well, this is what we just went through. That's the. That that's not what I want to see.
• 1:53:59
  JOSH: No, not at all. You know, I mean, I don't want to get to severed dreams because the thing that finally instigates the decision to break away is the bombing of civilians on Mars.
• 1:54:12
  JOHN: Yeah, that's. That's gonna be a moment. And we may even want to hold off on severed dreams. You know, go sort of straight through and say like this is where no return is the point of no return. But even then, oh, that's when lame run ended for returns. Widow shows up. Yes.
• 1:54:28
  JOSH: Major Barrett Roddenberry.
• 1:54:31
  JOHN: That episode sort of leaves with like, oh, they know it's coming. But even then, as viewers, we didn't know several dreams was going to happen or that that was the next episode. Right.
• 1:54:39
  JOSH: We still thought that somehow they were going to avoid this.
• 1:54:45
  JOHN: Yeah. And I think there'll be that moment. You know, there may be a moment for us now where we say, oh, that was our Mars. That that was the moment. The difference is you know, well, hey, I mean, today, Canada is making a full throated, you know, opposition and break with normal relations of the US I saw some headlines today. I want to dive back into that. We'll probably pick that up in the next episode. They're saying, enough. They're not waiting. They're saying, enough is enough. They're standing up and saying, your behavior is unacceptable. You know, and as a people, I mean, not that they're Babylon 5, but they are very close to the US in terms of culture, language and obviously proximity is being on the same continent. And they're saying, this is not acceptable. We didn't do anything to provoke anything. And you are doing this to us. Why are you coming after your friends, the people who've been there for you time and time again, and standing up? Well, again, the more people that speak up, the more people that will speak up. The more people that are silenced, the less likely people will speak up. So I'm looking. I'm looking for where people are talking and who's talking and who's standing up. And the more we see that, we get to the more hopeful parts of Severed Dreams. Because that episode leaves you with hope.
• 1:55:55
  JOSH: Yes. But the very, very final shot is, like, kind of ominous because I believe the civilian population surprises Sheridan and they applaud for him, for the stand that he took.
• 1:56:07
  JOHN: Right.
• 1:56:07
  JOSH: And then the camera pushes in at a propaganda poster on the wall that's been sort of torn down, but not.
• 1:56:13
  JOHN: Yeah, it was torn down like the middle.
• 1:56:15
  JOSH: That says traitors can't hide.
• 1:56:17
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 1:56:18
  JOSH: And that's the note that it ends on.
• 1:56:20
  JOHN: Yeah. It's saying that, no, this isn't. We didn't just win the day and go on to the next episode. Like, this is the beginning of the next. Exactly. It's not going to be easy.
• 1:56:31
  JOSH: Exactly.
• 1:56:31
  JOHN: Yeah. It's an intense time. An intense thing to be doing. Would have expected it.
• 1:56:37
  JOSH: So, okay, next time, Messages From Earth. An episode with a misleadingly bland sort of a title because it's actually pretty momentous. But this is Last Best Hope, leaving you with the idea that sometimes peace is just another word for surrender.