Season 2, Episode 2 – Revelations

I love the opening scene with Londo yelling at Na’toth and Lennier. He says the ambassadors should be replaced by their governments since G’Kar is missing and Delenn is in a cocoon in her quarters. Na’Toth tells Londo that G’Kar is investigating the attack at Quadrant 37. Sheridan adjourns them until tomorrow.

We see G’Kar and two other ships at Quadrant 37 when shadow like ships come after them. G’Kar’s escorts sacrifice themselves so he can escape and report what he has seen. He heads to Babylon 5.

Franklin and Sheridan speak of garibaldi and we learn that he is not doing well. Sheridan’s sister is coming to visit. Franklin tells Sheridan that he can heal Garibaldi with the machine. Sheridan authorizes it if there is no other way. Liz arrives.

Londo meets Morden in the Zen garden and he mentions Quadrant 37. Morden assures him that the Centauri government will take notice but others won’t be able to connect it him to. Morden assures him they will continue to help. He asks Londo to tell him if he hears anything strange. Then there is this exchange, which is perhaps one of the most chilling in the show:

LONDO: "Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld why you're at it?"
MORDEN: "One thing at a time, Ambassador. One thing at a time."

Sheridan talks to his sister about work but she presses him about the death of his wife, Anna and pushes him to deal with it, something that annoyed me at the time and does even now. Even as his sister, I found her to be prying and intrusive to John in his grief. He does seem to bl;ame himself since he didn’t make their last planned vacation and Anna went on a doomed deep space exploration and her ship was blown up out near the Rim.

Sheridan tells the doctor he wants to help in healing Garibaldi with the machine.

Na’toth finds G’Kar in his quarters. He is visibly shaken as he tells her he has looked into the darkness. He tells her he went to Quadrant 37 and he saw either a new enemy or an old one, a very old one. He says they must warn the others.

Garibaldi wakes and is told of the president’s death and their new CO. He says that there was a conspiracy, byut he can’t recall who shot him.

G’Kar tells Londo what he’s seen and that he needs his help.

Lennier finds Deleen out of her cocoon and covered up. She is in pain and whimpering ‘Help me.’ He calls Franklin and swears him to secrecy. We see her hand is covered in what look likes a grey stone. Franklin begins to crack the rock off of Delenn and uncovers her rock covered face.

G’Kar tells the council about what he saw and how they look lkike the ships in the Book of G’Quan. Sheridan says they can’t act without proof. G’kar says he has sent a heavy cruiser out to Z’ha’dum and it will report in in 12 hours.

Londo, of course, reports this to Morden, who has heard of Z’ha’dum.

Talia scan Garibaldi and they find out ‘Jack’ is the one who shot Garibaldi but when he is questioned, the crewman will only say that a ‘new order’ is coming and he gives Garibaldi the same salute as Bester did, saying, “Be seeing you.” (Which Garibaldi realizes later.)

President Clark calls and wants the prisoner sent to Earth to be dealt with, along with any evidence they have. Sheridan reluctantly agrees.

The Narn cruiser is destroyed by Shadow ships as it comes out of hyperspace. G’Kar knows that the Shadows had to have been told and he looks directly at Londo when he says it.

Lennier introduces Delenn, who uncovers her head and we see a Minbari woman with human hair. She says this is to bridge the differences between her people and humans just as Sinclair went to Minbar to do.

Liz gies John a vid of Anna telling her that she was going to cancel that vacation too so her death was never John’s fault anyway.

G’Kar quotes Yeats’ The Second Coming to Na’Toth.

Ivanova tells Sheridan that she traced the ship carrying Jack and it transferred him to another ship, one she can’t find registered anywhere. And Clark will not take their calls.

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Since I was an English major, I really love JMS’s habit of sticking good lit into the show; therefore, I can’t resist posting the Yeats poem, The Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indigant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(The italics are the words G’Kar recited.)

*

Quotes:

LONDO: "The one deserts his post without any explanation, the other takes the most breathtakingly inconvenient moment possible to explore new career options--like becoming a butterfly!"

GARIBALDI: [waking up from his coma] Oh, God. I'm out of it for a few days, the whole place goes to hell!

*

Questions:

1. What did you think of Liz? Beloved sister or plot device?
2. Does it seem to be necessary for Delenn to become a human/Minbari hybrid? Can you see any way this can make the two races get along better?
3. Who has Jack? Clark? PsiCorps?
4. What do you think of the new Na’Toth?
5. Does it feel like too much info is crammed into one episode?


Sources:

The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5: Revelations: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/024.html#gaffe
The Babylon Project: http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Revelations
The Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062
Wikiquote: Babylon 5: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Babylon_5