"Movements of Fire and Shadow" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 5x17, "Movements of Fire and Shadow". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
The hostilities between the Centauri and the Alliance continue. Lyta and Franklin conduct their own investigations on the Drazi homeworld.

Extra reading:
The article for "Movements of Fire and Shadow" at The Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And the beautiful heartbreak continues. But before speaking about the Centauri Prime scenes: let's hear it for Vir! Who may not have as much screentime this season as in previous ones, but is as brave and smart and compassionate as ever.

No matter my lack of fondness for the Byron plot, Bester scenes aside, I do like where it leaves Lyta, because there is a symmetry here, a cycle completed. You know from the moment she refuses to do any more free favours (as opposed to s4 or even early s5 when Garibaldi asked her to go to the telepaths) that she really has moved to a different emotional place, and when she forces the Drazi to shoot himself AFTER he and the others have been incapacitated, simply because she can and because he attacked her and Franklin earlier, it's completely a Bester thing to do. Note she's entirely clad in black leather by now. The irony of Lyta becoming basically Bester's mirror image (not completely; hence her accepting G'Kar's offer in the end) has always appealed to me.

Now: Centauri Prime. I so love that even in this dark time, basically five minutes before the tragedy of Londo's life comes to its climax, JMS allows Londo and G'Kar to be both funny and tragic. (Though the later Farscape makes the vomit scene look tame.*g*) The emotional continuity - Londo muttering Adira's name when anaesthesized - and Damien Hirst as the Regent, here and at the start of the next episode, making a character who started out as a bit part and comic relief heartbreaking in his own right - and Londo finally facing his worst nightmare, death and destruction reigning on his home world: it's all so incredibly well done. In that gut wrenching kind of way tragedies are.

We're coming full circle here with the Narn and Drazi attack on Centauri Prime of course, not only with the Centauri conquest of the Narn Homeworld but earlier than that, the two bookends of season 1, the Narn attacking a Centauri civilian outpost at the start of s1 and the Shadows at the request of Londo attacking a Narn outpost at the end. It also shows how unstable the new Alliance yet is (and, err, makes a case for those historians in The Deconstruction of Falling Stars re: Sheridan's abilities as President at least early on). Not unrealistic and not surprising, but does push that new age promised in various credit narrations a bit further into the future yet.