Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 10 – Gropos

You can read recaps from the wonderful vjs2259 at:
Dreamwidth
and
LIvejournal

The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 has a very short post about this one. It id answer one question I dound myself asking when I saw it last night.

Well, this is a fan favorite for some reason.

Main plot points are the Franklin has a father and he’s a general (played by Paul Winfield). The two do not get along. They disagree on most things, but it boils down to the fact that Franklin blames his father for never being there when he was growing up and he worries about his father when he is off at war.


The second is the 25,000 troops who come with Gen. Franklin on a stopover on their way to Akdor to help out in a civil war. Apparently, the war between the Centauri and Narn has sabers rattling everywhere. We meet a few of these soldiers and we get attached, which we should know is a bad idea.

Oh, and the weird Garibaldi/Dodger thing. She wants to have sex and he’s reluctant because reasons.


The episode is a reminder of the price of war. Franklin, we learn, is constantly worried about his father’s safety. He also feels that the military took his father from the whole family – a bit of that two masters thing, really. We also see the cost in lives. Garibaldi’s friend, dodger, is killed, as are the two soldiers who room with Keffer: an older warrior who’s been around a long time and a brand new recruit in his first battle. Even the troublemaker is among the dead on the field.

1. Did you find Garibaldi’s encounter as odd as I did? Who was the second woman he mentioned when he made his excuses to Dodger?
2. Did you find yourself singing Emily Dickinson Poems to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas?
3. So Earthforce is nosing into other planet’s civil wars? Does this remind us of anyone?
4. Franklin’s family dynamic reminded me of The Great Santini, though there is no indication he was as much of an ass as that father. What did it remind you of?
5. Were the station weapons upgrades a payback to allowing 25000 troops to hang there? Why wasn’t B5 already well armed?
6. Is this one of the only instances where we see actual battle on B5?