THE big arc episode of the season, and it still holds up against the later season big arc episodes very well. I unfailingly get the shivers when Londo finally answers Morden's question. The best thing is that when first watching, you already have an idea Morden could be up to no good (people who smilingly offer to fulfill wishes never are), but if you are unspoiled, you can assume he's simply a trickster character, and at the end whoever answers him will have learned a lesson, etc. Then G'Kar does give him an answer - and a pretty bloodthirsty one at that (I'll get to this in a moment) - and Morden isn't content with the answer because evidently, just wiping out Centauri isn't enough. That, more than the abortive Kosh and Delenn encounters, made me take him very seriously and deduce that this was no one-shot trickster up to some mischief.

Londo's reply: another case of character building is that this doesn't come out of nowhere. We've seen Londo talk ruefully about the grand old days of the Republic before. We've seen him deeply resent the "tourist attraction/joke" status he thinks Centauris have today. Back in the season opener, after G'Kar racked up bad karma with the attack on Ragesh III and Londo's nephew presented on camera, we've seen him wanting to kill G'Kar in a more than metaphorical sense. And yet I don't think a first time audience realized how deep this all goes, and how serious it is for him, until his final outburst towards Morden.

Incidentally, answering Morden isn't what I see as Londo's first step towards damning himself; that comes later in season 2 when he asks Morden for help for the second time, despite then fully knowing just what the "associates" are capable of and what the long term result of the request will be. On the other hand, this episode contains what I think of as three lucky breaks G'Kar got from fate. Because if Londo hadn't replied, then Morden would have had no choice but to go with G'Kar, and G'Kar, at this point of his life and before the various experiences which change him, would have accepted that help to wipe out the Centauri. (G'Kar's other two lucky breaks, imo, were a)in Coming of Shadows - Turhan's heart attack, because if Turhan would not have had said heart attack, then G'Kar would have assassinated him, and then this, not Londo's later request to Morden, would have started the second Narn/Centauri war; and b) in Dust to Dust, Kosh intervening in his mind attack on Londo, thereby triggering an crucial epiphany for G'Kar.)

Ed Wasser as Morden: still one of the best villain performances in the genre.

Delenn's reaction to Morden reminds me of her reaction in Objects at Rest when confronted with the urn containing a mini Keeper and with Londo-under-Keeper-influence.

Kosh's "they are not for you": reminds me of later statements like "they are a dead people" (re: the Centauri and the Narn) and the fact the Vorlons have already written of the Centauri (and the Narn) as evolutionary dead ends and are betting on the humans and the Minbari. The irony is, of course, that in fact the Shadows have already gotten to the humans via Clark at this point, not to mention that the existence of Morden - a human - as the Shadows' emissary should tip Kosh off that the whole business with the Icarus might not have ended with all the crew killed after all.

The vision of B5 being destroyed with one shuttle leaving is, err, somewhat misleading, when compared to the actual destruction of the station...