Recap and Discussion: 1 X 21 The Quality of Mercy

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

We're skipping around a bit this week due to family stuff on both alexcat's and my part. I had this one set to go so we'll do it first, then hit the double whammy of Babylon Squared and Chrysalis. This episode is largely a standalone so it won't hurt to do it out of order.

This time for the recap I've separated out the A, B, and C storylines. A and B eventually converge, with C sort of being comic relief.

And right up front, even though I completely understand his reasons, I don't think I'll ever forgive JMS for not letting Laura Rosen and Lennier interact in this episode, solely to fulfill my child-fan desire to see Will Robinson reunited with his mom. Yes, I am that old, and Bill Mumy was probably my first crush. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

This is what we should have seen.


To the episode!

Storyline A:

Karl Edward Muller, a triple murderer is found guilty in the station’s court. B5 has an Ombuds which is apparently similar to a circuit court judge who administers justice on the station.



There are no jury trials since there is not a good jury pool. The only permanent citizens of B5 are the military assigned there and diplomatic personnel. This is according to JMS in the Lurker’s Guide, although the thriving populace of Downbelow, as well as the commercial sector, makes me wonder if they couldn’t scrape together 12 good beings and true from over a quarter million souls. Muller is found guilty, and the sentence is to be handed down the next day.

It turns out there are only three options; imprison him on B5 for life, send him back to Earth for imprisonment, or death of personality. Garibaldi wants to space him. But that punishment is reserved solely for mutiny or treason. Sinclair points out that Earth doesn’t want him, or to pay for his transport back. Garibaldi maintains there isn’t room in the station jails, especially for permanent residents. That leaves brain-wipe and in order to make sure it works you need a pre- and post-scan by a qualified telepath. Talia doesn’t want to do it, not at all. Telepaths don’t tend to specialize in criminal work, although there is a great need for it. They burn out too quickly, wandering through diseased minds. Wellington asks her to do it anyway. PsiCorps hasn’t sent anyone out despite her plea, so she’s stuck.



Garibaldi wants her to poke around while inside the guy’s head; he’s convinced this is not the guy’s first rodeo. Wellington squashes that pretty quickly; it’s not admissible, it’s not allowed, and besides, he’s already got the ultimate penalty. It’s interesting there is no weight given to closure for anyone who might have lost a loved one to this killer, just knowing what happened and who did it might help them move on. But we can’t have telepaths scanning around without strict rules, so no go there.

The next day Judge Wellington hands down the sentence, death of personality, to be performed by machine in MedLab at midnight, with scans before and after to ensure the personality of Karl Muller is gone.

Talia does the pre-wipe scan; she sees all the people he’s killed in shades of red. Muller is a psychopathic serial killer, who collects voices for a choir in his head, a choir that will sing him to heaven when he dies. This is a fascinating idea which is not followed up. I thought of Soul Hunters and their children.

Afterward, Garibaldi finds Talia in the Zen garden. She tells him Muller has killed way more than three people, just as he had guessed. At the midnight hour; Muller takes the long walk, but manages to escape at a lift tube transfer. He socks Security guy Lou and steals his gun but not before Garibaldi gets off a shot and wounds him.

Now to Storyline B:

Susan finds an unapproved clinic in Downbelow. Surprise, it’s Steven! Who says ‘You can start by removing your clothes...’

Susan ripostes, ‘Not without dinner and flowers.’



Steven has been caught doing the right thing without permission and Susan is sucked right in with a charming grin. She asks only that he tell her when he’s breaking the rules. She Needs to Know. This is not the last time Steven with break the rules to help others. His illegal practice has been slowing down, so he goes hunting for his missing patients, and finds Dr. Laura Rosen.



Laura has alien tech she uses to heal her patients; Steven is not impressed or amused. Steven talks to Janice Rosen later, who tells him about her mother taking stims (FORESHADOWING MUCH?) and how she lost a patient due to her addiction, which got her struck off as a physician. Her mother’s despair at losing her profession sent her out into space looking for some piece of alien healing tech that might get her re-instated back home. Which is such a weird plan.

Steven talks to Laura, finds that the machine works but drains energy from the healer to help the patient. The machine was designed as a means of corporal punishment; using prisoners to help others (total tie-in with the A storyline). Laura confesses she is dying of Lake’s Syndrome, a painful and incurable disease. She has been working on the machine in order to understand it before she dies, but she doesn’t want Janet to know about her condition. The work might shorten her life and Janice wouldn’t stand for that. She will leave the machine to Steven if she dies before she’s finished. Laura is to check in at MedLab once a week so Steven can monitor her condition, and stop her if she goes too far.

The machine will show up twice more in the series. This episode might have been written solely to get the machine on the station, it’s that important.

A and B converge:

Steven realizes that Muller may go to Laura for healing after being shot. And for some bizarre reason, goes off by himself to find out, asking Lou to send Garibaldi 20 minutes later. This must have been for purpose of plot as it makes no sense otherwise. Muller has taken Janice hostage and is using the threat of killing her to force Laura to cure his wound. After he takes a potshot at Steven and makes it clear he’ll kill Janice anyway, Laura dials the machine up to 11 and sends her own fatal disease back into Muller, all the while spouting a speech that sounds rather like a psychotic killer.

Steven just stands there for some reason and lets her kill him. *boggles*

Wellington declares Laura acted in self-defense, but she has to surrender the device for study. Laura is cured but can’t forgive herself even though she sounded borderline insane while she was doing it. This is a real discrepancy in character—the speech during the death of Muller and later at the trial just didn’t connect for me. I kept expecting her to have incorporated some Muller somehow…

She ends by saying she did the necessary thing, but that is not always the same as the right thing. This is a theme that will reverberate through the series.

Steven, meanwhile, has a new toy. And a new girlfriend, who will never be seen again. This happens to Steven’s girlfriends a lot; they die or leave or disappear. Or they come to B5 and he leaves. Commitment issues?

Finally, the C story on its own:

Londo is getting marching orders from the Emperor via Virini back on homeworld.



I really like poor Virini. Londo is to play nice with the others and make allies as well as spy on enemies. Londo runs into Lennier and decides there is no time like the present. ‘Reading is no substitute for experience’ he tells the young Minbari, and ‘Trust me’. Trust a Centauri; poor Lennier.

Londo starts with exotic dancers; Lennier bows to them. Such a nice boy. So well brought up.



Then Londo tries booze. However when Minbari ingest even a small amount of alcohol, it results in psychotic impulses and homicidal rages. So no to that.

Minbari count in base 11 (10 fingers and their head). Just had to throw that in. The Lurker’s Guide has a whole riff on the Minbari numbering system, which has the sound of Hobbit time-keeping nomenclature.

Lennier is a Master Adept in Probability; Londo sees his chance, but Lennier doesn’t want to miss the dance. Londo wins again, yanking Lennier away from his chance to learn more human anatomy, in order to teach him about Po-kah, the game that explains the human condition.

Londo cheats at cards, with one of his tentacles. He has six, you know.



And is caught by the others!

*crack* JMS asked for the sound of a whip crack to indicate the tentacle snapping back into place. He says he still can’t hear the sound without laughing. And the prop girls had a blast querying him on length and thickness and whether the veins would stand out…hah!

A fight breaks out and Lennier gets to do his martial arts pinkie-style.

Later, Susan tells Garibaldi who started the fight in the Dark Star (nice reference to a classic sf film there.) Garibaldi is not amused, although he is surprised.

Sinclair confronts our bad boys. Lennier takes responsibility for the whole thing; Sinclair isn’t buying it but lets it go with a warning and required payment for damages.



Londo asks Lennier why he took the fall, and is told ‘It is an honor to help another to save face’. It’s also one of the few reasons a Minbari can lie…

Comments

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

I had forgotten this episode was in season 1... and it does seem the entire purpose of the ep is to get that machine into the station. JMS, in the end, was never too proud to use a hokey plot device if he needed something in bad enough.

[vjs2259.livejournal.com]

This episode is a set-up for Franklin's arc I think; the whole buck the system, do what's right thing, plus the stims which I had completely forgotten, plus the Work is My Life and What am I Without It storyline, plus the machine. We had a look at his love of tech back in Infection, and we'll see it again.
Franklin is an under-appreciated character I feel, and if we (I) survive S2 and make it to S3 I will fight you to do Shadow Dancing.