Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 22 – The Fall of Night

That’s all she wrote for Season 2 - As vjs2259 says in her recap and the season ends with a bang, a prayer and the sound of beating wings.

Here are the recaps:
Dreamwidth
And
Livejournal
And a very long analysis and lots of JMS talk at The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5.

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There is a lot of stuff in this episode:
*Nightwatch comes back and we see just how insidious they are becoming, especially with the reference to ‘peace in our time’ – what Chamberlain said when the UK signed a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany. Welles is not the pretty face of Nightwatch – he’s the ugly truth of it.
*Keffler goes shadow hunting and instead is shadow fund and as JMS said, he becomes an Ex=Keffler. But the video he shot of the shadow vessel gets to ISN and maybe alerts the shadows that they’re not acting in complete secrecy anymore.
*The Centauri fire on a Narn vessel that has asked for sanctuary on B5, and B5 fires back.
*Kosh comes out of his encounter suit to save Sheridan when some Centauri bomb Sheridan’s tram. Everyone sees something different. Do any of them really see Kosh, though?


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1. JMS promises that we will really see Kosh eventually. Do we? I don’t remember if we do.
2. Did you recognize John Vickery from his other character the first time you saw him?
3. Did you find Ivanova’s conversation with Lantze a little creepy?
4. Were you surprised that Earth decided to sign an appeasement pact?

Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 19 – The Long, Twilight Struggle

Another one of vjs2259’s excellent recaps:
Dreamwidth
Livejournal
And an analysis and JMS’ at The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5.

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It’s getting deep and really bad now.

Here is the main bit from this episode:


This is another one of those OMG episodes… The Centauri cross the line into pure evil and we finally hate Londo completely, when they use Mass Drivers on the Narn Homeworld.

And G’kar makes this speech:


And John finally meets the Rangers.

And the real S** t is about to the fan!

I really don’t have a ton to say – there was a lot of build-up with Epsilon 3 that never really did much of anything. There is a lot of that in B% and I suppose some were red herrings but some were just – how many plot threads can you tie together in the end?

Things are moving fast! Y’all hang on to something!

1. Did you notice that Londo gets louder the meaner he becomes?
2. Is he so isolated on B5 that he doesn’t see how bad Centuari Prime has gotten? He does seem shocked at Refa’s plans.
3. What did you think of G’kar’s freedom speech?
4. Zathras? Where did HE come from?
5. Just what does the Great Machine do other than have Jedi feelings and feel when the Centauri attack Narn with the Mass Drivers?

Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 18 – Condessions and Lamentations

Read vjs2259’s most excellent recaps:
Dreamwidth
Livejournal

And the Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5.

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This one is one of the saddest episodes of Babylon 5 and sort of timely as it is about disease spread. JMS has some interesting things to say in his comments because some of the commentors at the time were saying he was making a political statement about AIDS and this is a quote from him: The whole point of the episode is NOT political; it says that if you make a disease political on either side, you're gonna die.

As unlikely as this one might have seemed to us years ago, perhaps we have a better idea what a pandemic is now. I guess we are lucky that ours is not as fatal this one.

I actually did not rewatch this one and may not – the child with the dead father simply is more than I can take. And then when she finds her mother and, well, you know the rest.

Delenn and Lennier insist on ministering to the Markab. Sheridan does not want her to go but she says Don’t look away, Captain. All life is transitory, a dream. We all come together in the same place at the end of time. If I don’t see you again here, I will you see you in a little while, in the place where no shadows fall. If that doesn’t knock your socks off, nothing will.

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I’m not even sure what to ask…
1. Did the hopelessness depress you as much as it did me?
2. Did you have a new appreciation for Delenn and Lennier?
3. Did you feel as bad for Franklin as I did?

Rewatch for Season2, Episode 16 – In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum

Here are the recaps:
Dreamwidth
And
Livejournal

And the Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 has a lot of info for this episode.

This episode is another jam packed and maybe the MOST important episode so far. It tells us finally what is happening and ties together many of the hinted at mysteries of the last 2 seasons.

JMS said this and it’s the one truth about this show:
The key, again and always, is that nothing is what it seems on Babylon 5. And even if it looks like it IS what it is, you have to look at WHY it is what it is...and maybe at that point it isn't.

We have Morden’s encounter with Vir. Vir is actually the one true good man who is always good through the whole series, even when he had to do a bad thing.


Sheridan sees Morden in the crew list for Anna’s ship, the Icarus and has him held on the station. Morden gives him no answers and he refuses to let him go. Delenn and Kosh are forced to tell Sheridan what is going on finally. And they convince him to let Morden go so the Shadows won’t know they’re on to them.


Also, we meet the representative of the Ministry of Peace… and we see the Night Watch armbands. We have our Nazis at last. They’re offering 50 credits a week to anyone who will spy on their neighbors and report bad thoughts and actions. Zack joins for the credits.


So we are set up for the rest of the season! Hang on! All hell is about to break loose!

Rewatch for Season 2, episode 14 – There All the Honor Lies

Recaps are here:
Dreamwidth
And
Livejounr nal

The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 always has some interesting tidbits and some stuff from JMS.

The craziness in this episode overshadows the serious issue and I don’t really have a problem with that. To be honest, I found the frameup of Sheridan to be dull compared to merch on the station, Londo dolls and the singing monks in one moment of ‘perfect beauty’. Did I mention that the Centauri want to recall Vir because he’d too dull to be the cool Londo’s assistant?


Oh and Na’toth is Sheridan’s lawyer!


There are a bunch of radicalized Minbari and one of them martyrs himself to frame Sheridan, who simply won’t go down without a fight and he wins, as usual. The Minbari are strange and mysterious, but they don’t lie… except to save face, which Londo tells to Sheridan. This gets him out of his trouble and all is sort of well at the end.

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1. Who exactly sent Sheridan’s lawyer? The real details are a bit vague.
2. Do you think the chanting monks were Pak’ma’ra?
3. So are there different castes in a family? Or group? Were the dudes from Lennier’s clan all of the same caste?
4. Wouldn’t you love a Sheridan bear? OR an anatomically correct Londo?

Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 12 – Acts of Sacrifice

First off, here are the links to recaps:
Dreamwidth
Livejournal
And the Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 post.

This episode has arguably one of the most bizarre scenes in the entire series. JMS called it “Ivanova’s Dance”. The Lumati got the last laugh on that one with the note and gift that the ambassador sent her when he left.



Aside from Ivanova’s sacrifice, what others did we see?

The Narn ship sacrificed itself to save civilians when the Centauri attacked. From this action, several things happen. G’kar goes to Sheridan and Delenn and asks for aid from Earth and Minbar. Unrest on the station causes fighting among the Narn and Centauri population, with one group of Narn deciding to kill all the Centauri on B5. The Minbar and earth refuse to help the Narn though Delenn and Sheridan do agree to send humanitarian aid and to try to move refugees.

We see short tempers all over the station. Sheridan yells at G’kar about the violence. G’kar is angry and upset and finally cries in the privacy of his own quarters after practically begging for help and having to settle for what little Sheridan and Delenn can offer.

Londo seems fairly calm through all this but he does get the memorable lines:

He complains to Vir that he is now “a wishing well with legs.”

And this little exchange with Garibaldi at the end:
Londo: "It is good to have friends, is it not, Mr. Garibaldi? Even if maybe… only for a little while."
Garibaldi: "Even if only for a little while."
I almost cried at that one, knowing what is coming.

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1. Do you think Earth refused to get involved with the Narn/Centauri war because of Clark’s connections with the Shadows? Or do you believe there was another reason?
2. Would the Lumati, with their ideas about their own superiority, even make good allies anyway?
3. I almost felt sorry for Londo… do you?

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?

Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 8 – A Race Through Dark Places

Our recaps this week are done by the wonderful vjs2259 and you can read them here:
Dreamwidth
Livejournal

Also get the notes from JMS at The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5.

This is the episode with the “dinner date.”


But lots more happens. And a lot of it is totally useless to the actual story arc. This episode is about telepaths – their origin, the “Underground Railroad” and how much power they truly have. This episode would have you believe that Talia was going to be VERY important to the rest of the show. Hah!

We get evil Bester again and as much as I love Walter Koenig, I hate Bester with a deep and abiding passion. And if you know me, you also know I reallllllly don’t like telepaths in general.

I digress.

Nearly everything that we find out in this episode is eventually debunked. Telepaths do not come from where we think, Talia is not what we think, Jason Ironheart and his gifts were not that important after all… all of it, tossed out the window.

This point came up in the discussion at the Lurker’s Guide – why were there so many military vessels passing through at B5? Earth wasn’t at war yet. Perhaps it had to do with all the attacks on shipping that the Shadows were carrying out.

But there are some interesting questions:
1. What does Psi Corps do with all the rogues they bring home to help? Do they help them or kill them?
2. Who told Bester than Sheridan would be more sympathetic to Psi Corps?
3. Didn’t Delenn kick ass in that black dress?
4. Does anyone actually lay around their quarters in such gorgeous blue pajamas as Ivanova’s?
5. What was your favorite part of the episode?
6. Do you think Bester figured o9ut he’d been had?

Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 6 – A Spider in the Web

You can read the recap at Dreamwidth
or at Livejournal

Read JMS’ comments and some other interesting tidbits at The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5

This was a crazy episode that really seems to go nowhere in some ways…

A businessman comes to B5 to make a deal with Mars (represented by Amanda Carter) that might help Mars become independent without a lot of bloodshed but Earthgov doesn’t want this and contacts Sheridan to stop it. He pretty much refuses. The senator who calls him says something very chilling to me: "These are volatile times: practicality is more important than principles."

A man kills the businessman and blames Free Mars.

It’s all twisty and turny – we learn of a project in which people were experimented on with cybernetics. The project was a failure but the experiments continued. Abel Horn was a dead member of Free Mars and he was a subject of this AI.

We find out about an agency called Bureau 13, which is also not mentioned again though we do eventually find out who the contact on B5 was. They do seem to be headed by a dead psicop.

There is also a lot of hubbub about an alien race called the Tikar (Or T’kar) who might play a big role in the future but we never see them nor do we ever hear of them again.

Anyhow, the solve the murder, the Ai/Abel Horn blows up, leaving no evidence for anyone to examine.

We find out a little about Sheridan, Garibaldi and Miss Winters in this episode. Sheridan collects secrets. Garibaldi is full of crap and Miss Winters is little pathetic since her only family was a woman who was assigned to take care of her when she joined PsiCorps when she was a small child.

My husband loves Adrienne Barbeau so there’s that.

And this is the first appearance of Zack Allan.


1. Did you find this episode almost a throwaway?
2. Speaking of such, are you annoyed by throwaway races and characters? For example, the Tikar, who are supposedly very interesting yet we never hear of them again.
3. Did you notice what drink Sheridan ordered in this episode? Coincidence?
4. Did the glove remind you of shadows?
5. Did you find it odd that Sheridan mentions a spider in a web AND we already know the Shadow ships and the Shadow’s themselves look like spiders?
6. Anything else YOU noticed that I left out?

Rewatch for Season 2, Episode 4 – A Distant Star

You can find vjs2259’s excellent recaps at Dreamwidth and at Livejournal. she even has a recipe for Bagna Cauda.
You can read what JMS said at The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5. It has Garibaldi’s recipe.

And here is Delenn at her most quotable. And when she begins to get Sheridan’s interest:


And Sheridan’s quotable ‘Egyptian Blessing:’ God be between you and harm, in all the empty places where you must walk.

Another busy episode.

Franklin puts everyone on the command staff on a diet. Sheridan and Garibaldi are to eat less and he wants Ivanova to eat more. She prefers salad evidently. Bah! She doesn’t strike me as a lettuce eater!

John’s first commander, Jack Maynard, comes in with his giant explorer class ship and sort of chides John for settling for a desk job. When he sets back out into hyperspace, they have some sort of explosion and lose their ability to navigate out of H-space.

Sheridan to the rescue!

The Minbari are all whiny about Delenn – Are you a Minbari? Are you a human? We’re going to pout!

Maynard has seen a shadow ship! Corwin sees one too! God, they’re menacing!

And all’s well that ends well – Garibaldi ends up sharing his Bagma Cauda with Franklin.

This is also the last ep that DC Fontana wrote for the show.

1. What did you think of Stinky (Capt Maynard)?
2. Why did the shadow let Corwin go? Did it think he was dead?
3. Have you ever had Bagna Cauda?
4. What was YOUR favorite part of this episode?