I was falling behind in episode reports, so forced myself to wait until I finished this last one.
The planet killer ship-weapon is pretty scary. Reminds me of the Death Star in Star Wars — but what is its weak spot? Don’t tell me.
So sad to hear the story of how Ivanova’s mother killed herself. Ivanova gets Sheridan to promise that no matter what happens, Ivanova will be with the fleet at the end.
I don’t like the way she says “at the end.”
Ivanova’s going to be ok, isn’t she? She has to be. She and Marcus have to get together and have little Rangers.
The speech Sheridan gives Ivanova before she leaves to look for the First Ones sounds WAY too much like a good-bye speech. I don’t like it.
Nothing bad better happen to Ivanova. I’m serious.
Don’t tell me.
G’Kar: Your heart is empty, Mollari. Did you know that?
It’s good of Londo to warn G’Kar not to harm the Emperor himself, else his people would never be set free. Perhaps there is some hope for Londo after all.
G’Kar manages to break the chain despite the chains despite the fact that they were replaced.
Vir kills the Emperor!!!!!!
Londo is promoted to Prime Minister. Interesting to see his lack of joy at the news; he knows that this only takes him one step closer to his fate.
What will happen when the Shadows find out that Cartagia is no longer the Emperor?
I so felt for Vir.
What an amazing, moving scene between Vir and Londo after the murder of Cartagia.
Vir: Don’t you understand?! I’ve never done anything like this before! I close my eyes and I always see his face… Don’t you know that all I ever wanted was just a good job? Small title, nothing fancy. A wife I could love… and maybe even one that could actually love somebody like me. I never wanted to be here! I never wanted to know the things that I know, or to do… to do the things that I’ve done.
Londo: I know. I know, Vir. I never wanted you in that hall. I never wanted you to… I remember when you first arrived on Babylon 5. You were so full of life, innocent. I was not kind to you. I treated you poorly. I think that I did that, because I was envious of you. Envious that you had come so far and still innocent in your way. You still believed. I, on the other hand … I can not tell you that your pain will ever go away. I can not tell you that you will ever forget his face. I can only tell you, that it was necessary. You may have helped to save our people. You did a hard thing, but you still have your heart. Your heart is a good one. You would not be in such great pain, if it was otherwise. It means that there is still hope for you. And for that, I find I still envy you.
I’ve said it once but I have to say it again…Babylon Five has some really excellent writing.
Delenn and Sheridan want to force the Shadows into direct confrontation. Sheridan asks Ericsson to sacrifice his own life and the lives of his crew to let false information fall into the hands of the enemy; Ericsson’s last Minbari salute to Delenn is deeply moving.
Looks like G’Kar’s troubles aren’t over by a long shot, judging from the scene with the other Narn; they want vengeance while G’Kar wants to focus on rebuilding their cities and helping their people.
Sheridan: Captain’s Personal Log. Final entry. We’re going into the heart of the fire, on one side, the Vorlons, on the other, the Shadows and us in the middle. Whether any of us will ever come back, I don’t know. When I took command of Babylon 5 I found a note on my desk. Someone had left it there for me. It was a poem by Tennyson. I still remember the last part of it. “Though we are not now of that strength, Which in old days moved earth and heaven, That which we are, we are, One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, But strong in will, To strive, to seek, To find, and not to yield.”
Dear lord. So many bad things are happening to the characters I’ve grown to care so much about.
And I have a terrible feeling that there’s a lot more pain to come…
Next episode: Into The Fire
[For those who comment below: As the title of my blog indicates, I'm watching B5 for the very first time so PLEASE refrain from posting plot/character spoilers/hints about upcoming episodes, or including links to pages with spoilers (unless you warn readers that they contain spoilers). More info about spoilers here. Thanks so much! - Debbie]
14 comments ↓
So much fun to read your posts. Do you remember when Vir was the stammering comic sidekick? Now he’s the killer of emperors and the conscience of his people. How about when G’kar was the sleazy and obnoxious lizard-dude? And now he’s a very believably holy messianic figure. Can you *fathom* that this pulled this off?
Boggles my mind.
As dark and despicable - and pitable - as Londo has become, it’s always been a multi-way tie for “favorite character”: Londo, G’Kar, Vir, Delenn. (I like all the others, but those 4 characters arc so high and so far and come down - or start coming down - so DIFFERENT than when they started up…)
Every few weeks, I’m reminded that Andreas Katsulas has passed away, and I’m stunned to think I won’t ever hear G’Kar again. I know JMS (and others) helped write and craft that character - it was Andreas that made him live.
The planet killer ship- weak spot?
There is a small vent about six meters wide and if you hit it just right…………
On the more serious side…. What can you say but WOW.
Can you believe that Vir killed the emperor?
Narn is free, but it does not seem that they have learned a lesson that revenge is a pointless cycle and that it leads nowhere.
I don’t think we ever find the weak spot for the planet killer… well, in the Babylon 5 series proper, anyway. They have to deal with a planet killer in the TV movie/prologue to Crusade, A Call to Arms, and that’s when we find out how to take out one.
For me, the Londo/Vir scene in this episode is the best one of the entire B5 series (between these two characters). It summarizes precisely the exact dynamics of Londo/Vir. And such a contrast between Vir’s pain and Londo’s pragmatism. (The empty heart that G’Kar comments upon in this episode.) Although Londo felt much pain about Adira’s death (and I sympathized with him for that), I felt more sorrow for Vir’s loss of innocence. And I don’t think anyone watching B5 was anticipating that Vir would be the one to actually assassinate Caligul-er, I mean Kartargia!
Like I was surprised at the end of the LOTR by Gollum.
For G’Kar, I think this episode really shows how far he has come. That his Kosh-inspired vision when he went after Londo in “Dust To Dust” has made a permanent impression on him. For G’Kar walks away both from the idea of revenge upon the Centauri as well as becoming an “emperor” of his own people.
If you like this sort of writing, Deb, try the Masterpiece Theater series (I, Claudius) and the books by Robert Graves.
JMS always thought, as he was plotting things out before the series started, that Londo would be the one to kill Cartagia. But then he actually started writing the scene, and he realized that it had to be Vir. He was quite shocked.
So’s everyone when they see it for the first time.
And Vir kills Cartagia in such a Flunder way - things happen in such a way for him to be blamed. Cartagia came into the needle as much as Vir was there holding it.
Although, I’m moved that Vir feels the full weight and guilt of the assasination. However, I think he comes to the conclusion that his life will not be turned to one of revenge, protecting one’s back and high court positioning.
While Centari have two physical hearts they treat them as a single heart when it comes their spirit.
It’s the non-allinged worlds that have allinged with the Human/Minbari led fleet, leaving the Narn and Centari behind, caught up in their own agrument. The Narn because they have nothing to contribute to the fleet and the Centari sustaining their conquest and the self-indulge of Caragia. It reminds me of the unintentional metaphore of the elevator scene back in S1 or S2, were G’Kar and Londo are agrueing, each ending up on one side of a human, but they are so caught up in the agruement that it’s the human that sees that the elevator has arrived and goes through the door. Are the Humans, Minbari and others of the fleet ready to go through their ‘door’ for ‘the elevator ride’?
Meanwhile, what on earth is happening on Earth?
I’ve just been lurking, but have ti comment. this is as much fun as watching you read LoTR for the first time. I think I’m getting almost as much enjoyment out of this as watching B5 for the first time. And I’m relly looking forward to your reactions to the rest of this season.
thanks!
To A_Tim:
You said “And Vir kills Cartagia in such a Flounder way - things happen in such a way for him to be blamed. Cartagia came into the needle as much as Vir was there holding it.”
JMS disagrees with you.
Per JMS: “Nothing about it was at all accidental…he had to go pick it up, turn, move to Cartagia, stick it in, and then pull the trigger. Nothing accidental about it. But if we’d shown him doing all the prep, the shock wouldn’t have been as substantial.”
^#11, Yeah, I noticed that JMS comment after I got to The LUrker’s GUide. I guess it was Cartagia already flialing around the room so randomly that he (Caratgia) would have just been in the wrong place as Vir was in the right random place to do it himself, now, instead of trying to get the device back to Londo. I guess others at the time, along with me, thought it was accidental.
On another note, it is interesting that JMS has paid off most of the suspence and cliffjumper at the end of Season 3 within the first six episodes of this season 4. He mentioned something of that kind of writting/storytelling back when Season 2 started and how he was delayed in paying off the suspence of the end of Season 1 by using story time to introduce Sheridan at the start of Season 2.
re #9: Londo, G’kar and the human in front of the elevator isn’t quite unintentional, either (per JMS):
“Again, as you point out, stuff here operates on a lot of different levels. I try, where I can, to make a given scene do more than one thing. The hall argument is a good example of this. The script stipulated a human being stuck between G’Kar and Londo. Not any other race. Had to be a human. Because that becomes emblematic of how we’re stuck between the two sides in the war, something which is *very* strongly brought home in the next batch of episodes.
Obviously, the first most important thing in that scene is just the gag, the humor. It has to work on that level, and that’s how it came to me first: just the gag. Then, when it came time to write it, that’s when I start poking at things to see if I can layer on another level of meaning, and I saw a way to do a little (very little) visual foreshadowing of stuff to come. Didn’t matter if anybody ever noticed it or not; it was never really intended to be of much note, just a little item that becomes a nice bit of irony later.”
Glad to see you are enjoying it!
I really think it is some of the finest television I’ve seen. I love the writing - both the overall story arc and the individual speeches to-die-for! And there is some really decent to good acting.
I probably won’t catch up on all your postings but you make me want to re-watch it!
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