Contents: Overview - Backplot - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS

Overview

G'Kar tries to avoid capture by the Centauri while continuing his search. Delenn urges the Rangers to strike against the Shadows. Wayne Alexander as Lorien. Wortham Krimmer as Emperor Cartagia. Lenny Citrano as Isaac. Anthony DeLongis as Harry.

P5 Rating: 8.98

Production number: 402
Original air week: November 11, 1996
DVD release date: January 6, 2004

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Kevin Dobson

An episodic soundtrack is available.

Plot Points

• Garibaldi's Starfury was found abandoned in space, but someone from Interplanetary Expeditions ("Infection," "Z'ha'dum") knew where to find it. Garibaldi was captured and is apparently in the custody of Psi Corps.
• Lorien claims to be the first of the First Ones, and lives deep within Z'ha'dum. He says the Shadows return to Z'ha'dum because he's there, and that Kosh knew about his presence when he told Sheridan to jump.
• G'Kar has been captured by the Centauri. In exchange for help overthrowing Emperor Cartagia, Londo has promised G'Kar that the Centauri will withdraw from Narn after Cartagia is gone.

Unanswered Questions

• Exactly who captured Garibaldi, and why? The Psi Corps, or some other group associated with them? How did they recover him from the inside of a Shadow vessel? Did the Shadows give him up voluntarily?
• Why did they want to know what he remembered?
• Is Lorien's claim true? Is he a member of a race of elder beings, or is he somehow the first intelligent lifeform in the galaxy? What is he, exactly?
• When, and under what circumstances, did Lorien meet Kosh?
• How is Londo planning to use G'Kar to unseat Cartagia?

Analysis

• If Garibaldi has indeed been captured by the Psi Corps, why do they need to question him? Presumably they could just pick whatever information they need out of his mind. Perhaps they're simply trying to get him to cooperate, on the assumption that if he cooperates in one area, he'll be more malleable in others.

  Alternately, perhaps they're making sure he doesn't remember what happened to him because they've done something to him and wiped his memory of the event. That would explain the conclusion of the interrogation scene; they gassed him to transport him elsewhere once they were satisfied that their memory wipe was solid.

• Centauri torture is likely to result in the loss of G'Kar's left eye ("The Coming of Shadows," "War Without End, Part Two.") Whether that eye is the subject of Lady Morella's prophecy ("Point of No Return") isn't clear; it's certainly plausible that Londo could redeem himself by halting the torture of G'Kar, but there are other eyes that don't see (e.g. the Shadows' Eye at Z'ha'dum in "The Hour of the Wolf," or the Centauri Eye from "Signs and Portents.")

• Given Lorien's assessment of his situation, Sheridan presumably qualifies as "the one who is already dead" in Morella's prophecy. And, in fact, Londo spares his life 17 years in the future ("War Without End, Part Two.") Assuming the prophecy is correct and Londo was thus redeemed, obviating the need for a third chance, what form would that chance have taken?

• Why is Lorien so interested in what happens to Sheridan? He said Sheridan was "the only one to make it this far." Was he referring to the physical descent down the chasm, or some more spiritual journey?

• Lorien said neither Kosh nor Sheridan wanted to die. Assuming he was able to resurrect Sheridan, is Kosh also still alive? If so, what did Kosh find to live for?

• Lorien said he had been waiting for someone to talk to. He also said, several times, that Sheridan was trapped between life and death, between seconds. Given that he was there with Sheridan, and that Kosh knew about Lorien's presence, it's plausible that Lorien, not Justin, is in fact "the man in between" from Sheridan's Kosh-induced dream ("All Alone in the Night.") If so, what will he do now that he's found Sheridan?

• Lorien, if that's who the formless being in Sheridan's dream is, asked both the Vorlon and the Shadow questions. Why are those questions significant to him? He said that there was no good answer to "Who are you," implying perhaps that the search for an answer is what matters.

  Did the Shadows and the Vorlons get those questions from Lorien? Lorien claims to have met Kosh (who, oddly, he knew by name, which would seem to contradict the new Kosh's statement that "we are all Kosh") so presumably he has also met the Shadows. Perhaps each race latched onto one of the two questions, adopting it as its own.

• Later, however, Lorien asked Sheridan three questions: who he was, why he was, and what he wanted. The middle question is new. If the Vorlons and the Shadows are supposed to ask the first and last questions, is there supposed to be another group asking the second? (See jms speaks)

• One person did ask all three questions once: Sinclair, when he was captured during the Battle of the Line ("And the Sky Full of Stars.")

• Kosh may have implied the presence of a third question in "Deathwalker" when he told Talia, "Understanding is a three-edged sword."

• Lorien echoed another statement of Sinclair's, also from "And the Sky Full of Stars." Sinclair said of his wingman Mitchell, "I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen... you never listened." Lorien said the same of the Shadows and Vorlons, or so it seemed, though he didn't provide any more context or explanation.

  Vir made a similar comment to G'Kar in "Comes the Inquisitor:" "I wish... there was something that I could do. I tried telling them, but they wouldn't listen. They never listen..."

• In "Infection," Garibaldi observed to Sinclair that people look for things to die for, because it's easier than finding something to live for. Lorien echoed that sentiment at the end of this episode.

• Lorien said he hated to see his children fighting. Does that imply he doesn't approve of Sheridan's war against the Shadows? For that matter, does it mean he doesn't approve of the Vorlons and the Shadows fighting? If so, can he do anything about it?

• Can Lorien leave Z'ha'dum? Perhaps the planet is part of him, or he's bound to it in some way; in that case, Delenn's plan to attack Z'ha'dum could prove disastrous, assuming the Vorlons are as interested in Lorien as the Shadows are.

• Lorien said the Shadows think they return to Z'ha'dum to show him respect, but that they don't understand any more. What don't they understand? Why did they originally start returning to Z'ha'dum, and why don't they understand now what they did long ago?

Notes

• The lighting at the end of the prison cell scene is symbolic; as soon as Londo agrees to free Narn, the cell door opens and G'Kar is bathed in white light, his life's goal finally within reach.
• The passage of time on Z'ha'dum, or at least in Sheridan's condition, is similar to the effect of a black hole at the event horizon: time slows down to a standstill from the point of view of an outside observer.
• As originally broadcast, Franklin cites the date as January 8 in his opening monologue, and says it's been 14 days since Sheridan disappeared. In the second US broadcast of the episode Franklin's opening monologue was fixed to say it was 9 days since both Sheridan and Garibaldi disappeared. (See jms speaks) However, the UK broadcast, and possibly others, used the original incorrect date.
• The engine part G'Kar handed to the man in the bar is an overthruster prop from "Buckaroo Banzai."

jms speaks

• I just got a copy of the ad that's going to run in TV Guide for "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?" in two weeks. It's a great ad, well composed, well done, but it's also a major spoiler for something you will NOT want spoiled. So avoid the ad if possible.

• The script was easy to write story-wise, I think it only took me a few days (in general, the faster the write, the better the script, when it comes to something like this...writing in white heat is best), but *very* difficult from an emotional standpoint. I was just about as wasted after writing it as you were after seeing it. There's a lot of stuff in there that's difficult or painful to touch, and you can only hope that it comes out okay. I'm happy it did.

• Sheridan's fall was like Gandalf's in "The Lord of the Rings," or like the descent into the underworld in Dante's "Inferno."
  I've mentioned elsewhere that I was going more for the roots of this. Though the Dante thread you mention is closest in many ways (again, you dig into archetypes you end up with similar structures, that's the nature of the beast), it was Orpheus going into the underworld for his wife, and losing her, that was in the back of my head when I was blocking out that part of the story. (You can also toss in Christ's temptation by the devil, and descent into the wilderness, if you want.)

  This will probably get me in trouble, but...on the one hand, I am always delighted and impressed with the breadth and depth of analyses and thought of the larger group of SF fans, and the insightfulness with which they apply those perceptions.

  On the flip side of this discussion...for a certain percentage of them, that breadth and depth is only or primarily within SF and mainstream fantasy. The wellspring of material from which to draw when making comparisons is not often as broad as it should be in classical literature, mythology, medieval studies, and so on. They see a drop into a chasm, they think "Oh, Gandalf." Not understanding that the root of this goes back way, way, way further...to Orpheus and his kindred spirits.

  I was copied a note from someone on another newsgroup who insisted that everything in the show had an elvish/Tolkein base, including and *especially* the names of everyone, citing the Agamemnon as meaning something or other in LoTR elvish. The symbol is RIGHT THERE, in the name, Agamemnon, and the whole unfortunate history of that character and his wife, and the Cassandra character (which is at the center of G'Kar's character)...and yet she says, "No, no, it's all a clue, it means this thing over here."

  My background is as an SF fan myself, so I offer the above without stereotype or pejorative intent. But as well as reading SF, I spent most of my early adult life reading from classical sources. Goethe's FAUST informs Londo in many ways, as well as the history of early Rome, and Hegelian notions on the role of conflict, and the divine role of the emperor. You're talking to someone who read Plotinus' The Aenneads just for kicks, and whose favorite character was Zeno and his paradoxes. You want to talk Plato's perfect forms? The Socratic method of teaching? Greek tragic structure as embodied in Oedipus? The overall work of Sophocles? The Bible? I've read that one cover to cover twice...anyone else in the room who's done that, raise your hands and tell me you didn't fall asleep halfway through Numbers and Deuteronomy, the two most boring books in the whole darned thing.

  There was a period in my life -- from around 1976 through 1981 -- when I devoured everything I could in these areas. Mythology. Existentialism. Zen. 18th century literature. I took part time jobs in libraries so I could get access to the widest possible range of books, especially new ones in areas that interested me. A lot of the details have washed away over the years, but the cumulative *sense* of that remains. I can still remember how excited I was when a brand new translation of the Inferno, the Purgatario and the Paradisio came out (from Penguin, I think), putting it all back into the proper lyric form, and I devoured them, one day each, then read them all again using the footnotes and marginalia.

  All that time, I never knew I was preparing myself to write this show, because it could *only* be done with a generalist background, knowing a little about a lot of areas...just enough to get into trouble, ususally, but still the grounding is there.

  Funny thing...about two, three weeks ago, I got an email from a woman who is a professor of medieval studies at a major university, who said she'd been nudged into watching the show by her graduate students, and is now a big fan of the show. She said that as she watched, she "clicked" constantly on the sources from medieval and classical literature, mythology, and other deep well sources, and was pleased to see them being used in a contermporary or futuristic venue.

  Anyway, it's what I've always said about this show...you see the paradigm with which you are most familiar. Sometimes that's great, and sometimes it's a curse.

• But the thing is, I wasn't *thinking* of LoTR...I was thinking of Orpheus going into the underworld, of the classical notion of descending into hell to find oneself or something else...it just bugs me when someone assumes that they know what was in my head at a time when I wrote something, and then take that as a given and start making me explain it or acting as if this is true, when it ain't.

• Larry DiTillio made the point, while on the show, that some SF fans reared on ST expect everyone to talk like English earls, very proper. We go for vernacular every time. I like the rough edges, the hesitations, the stumbles. In editing 402 the other day, there's several takes to choose from in a particular scene, but I picked the one where the actor slightly stumbled over the line, because it was at the heat of the moment, and in that kind of situation, we all get flustered. It made it feel more real.

  Slang and idiom have been with us forever, and always will be. Now, on the other hand, I don't go full-tilt bozo with it, by peppering the dialogue with lots of techtalk and futureslang because I think it becomes intrusive. So we try to find a balance. Some people don't like it, and like their SF to all sound the same. That's fine. Tastes vary.

  Also, I use some dialogue styles that lean toward the theatrical, what you'd see on the stage, or hear in a radio drama. Other times I'm right in the gutter. You use different tools for different jobs. My influences are from Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont and Norman Corwin and Ray Bradbury, so you're going to hear those colors from time to time, and because you don't hear a lot of that particular style in TV these days, some people think it's bad...no, it's just a different approach to dialogue.

  Look at Harold Pinter, then look at Christopher Fry, then look at Joe Orton. Between just those three you've got three very stylized, consistent approaches to dialogue, not like the other two at all, and between them more diversity than in a hundred TV shows. In theater, which is where I cut my teeth, it's *okay* to have dialogue that's somewhat stylized, or a bit more formal, a bit more literate, or whatever. In TeeVee it's all gotta be the same. To which I say...why?

  (I've also made the mental assumption of a return to a new formality in 2260, since styles go in and out of fashion. People use the word Mr. and Ms. more often, there's a more formal stance with people you often get when a culture comes out of a major war, as we did after WW2.)

  But dialogue tastes are utterly individual; what works for one may not and likely will not work for someone else. And that's okay. That's as it should be. As long as the totality works.

• "I watched _What Ever Happened to Mr Garibaldi_ last night and was struck by the scene where Mr. G was being questioned by the disembodied voice. That scene was very similar to the style of another one of my favorite shows _Homicide: Life on the Streets_. I'm just wondering if that was an intentional nod to that show."

  This is kind of embarrassing, but...see, I don't watch much TV anymore. I don't have time. I think I've seen maybe two episodes of Homicide, total. So we were in with the editor to do our producer's cut of 402, and I was trying to describe what I wanted...jarring, disorienting cuts, don't worry if it matches, use conflicting takes or overlaps of takes...and finally the editor said, "Oh, you mean the Homicide look." And it'd been so long that I asked them to explain to me what that meant, and John got into it, me with him, and ended up with what we've got. I've got to start watching TV again, beyond X-Files, 60 Minutes and Simpsons. (Well, I've added Millennium, so that helps.)

• Actually, the Garibaldi intercuts like that were something that I came up with in the editing room, and John Copeland and I thereafter assembled it, with the editor.

• This one's a favorite of mine as well. On the Garibaldi scene, it was shot fairly conventionally, but as we got into editing, I said, "Let's do something we don't normally do, let's try a visual approach that's not usually part of SF shows." So we put that sequence together. Again, my feeling is, break your format once in a while or get stuck in a rut. Take chances. The worst that'll happen is that you'll fail.

  It's a lovely episode.

• Is the director the same Kevin Dobson who was on "Kojak?"
  No, this Kevin is an Australian director.

• About the voiceover recap at the top of the episode
  I figured, since this year was much more serial than in the past, you kinda *had* to put little recaps at the top...also, it gives it a different, narrative feel, which I kinda like.

• Franklin said it was 14 days since Sheridan's death and 9 days since Garibaldi's disappearance, but the two happened at the same time.
  This is a case where jms screwed up.

  Originally, the script read, "It's now 14 days since Captain Sheridan left for Z'ha'dum and was presumed killed. Nine days since Mr. Garibaldi disappeared while on patrol."

  I went to edit the first sentence to make it active rather than passive syntax. In handwriting on the page (after the first draft, the typists take revisions and implement them), I meant to write, "It is now 9 days since Captain Sheridan was presumed killed at Z'ha'dum." I either missed changing the days, or the typist didn't put it in (it happens), and that draft of the script is long gone. But without knowing which, I'll just take the rap for it.

• I'm considering revoicing it...we just didn't catch it until it was gone.

• "In WHTMG, Marcus is talking to G'Kar about his friends and says he's had "Damn few of them, and most of them are dead." My instant reaction was "That can't be an allusion to Return to Zork." Can it?"

  Y'know, if I were to read this group as an outsider, I'd think that this jms person was incapable of coming up with a single line on his own.

  NO, it wasn't a Zork reference, for chrissakes. Can we possibly get any more obscure here? I don't even know what this REFERS to. Marcus came from a mining colony. The shadows struck, and killed everyone there. Hence, the line above.

  There was some goofing around with SF references early on in the show; this got out of hand, and it stopped. I don't sit here, thinking, "Oh, goody, I can make a reference to The Day The Earth Stood Still here," or some other show. I write what is appropriate for the character to say. Period.

  I'm sorry if I'm a bit cranky in answering this, but jesus christ, people, give it a rest and stop looking for references that don't exist. There are only so many permutations in the english language, and something has got to echo somewhere for everyone...but that ain't the source. "Oh, look, he use the word THE in this episode, he must be nodding at "The Ipcriss Files" or "THEM" just leaving off the M to throw us off."

  Your point of reference is your point of reference, it's nothing to do with me. It's like a Rorscharch test, you see what you're familiar with.

  As a writer, you work your brains out trying to come up with something, and you try your damndest to make it original, and fresh, and interesting...do you have any idea how infuriating, how maddening, how bottomlin *insulting* it is to have 10,000 people parsing every sentence and saying, "Oh, here, did you take this from that? Is this a reference to this over here?"

  NO, IT'S NOT.

  I allowed a little of that in the first season or so, often in scripts by other people, on a couple of occasions by myself, but that's the end of it, because everyone decided that the show was one big easter egg hunt. Fanfic is full of this stuff, which is perhaps why everyone keeps looking for it here.

  If it's an absolutely blantant, and extremely recognizeable line, like the Tolkein reference in year two's "Geometry," then yeah...but some of this is getting so obscure and ridiculous that it's starting to make me crazy.

  Can we *please* declare a moratorium on this for a while?

• About the final scene with Sheridan remembering Delenn
  During the music spotting session, where I indicate where music comes in and goes out, my main note to Chris on that final sequence was, "Break our heart."

  He did.

• About the shot of Sheridan as he sees the pit
  "Was this scene redone for WHtMG? I'd have to compare, but I think I would've noticed that hopeful smile at the end of Z. It would've been just a -little- out of place, under the circumstances."

  It's *exactly* the same footage, frame for frame. Only your perspective has changed.

  Sort of like Shroedinger's TV show.

• About Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas
  Yeah, those two are terrific. You know you can write *anything* for them, and they can play it. Just terrific stuff.

• Who thought up the cat sound when G'Kar extended the pike?
  The cat was my idea. Cats are endless sources of humor.

• Ivanova wasn't in this episode. Was she supposed to be the one cleaning out Sheridan's quarters?
  No, those scenes were always written with Franklin in mind. There was a brief scene with Ivanova originally in the ep, but it was snipped for time.
  The scene was inserted into the next episode.

• Londo is very careful with his wording around Cartagia.
  Which is why Cartagia likes Londo...he stands up to Cartagia, but does so in such a way that Cartagia can't touch him...doesn't give him any excuse or way in. He's got nowhere to go...and in a way, he admires and respects that.

• I will, on *rare* occasions, address a note or correction directly to an actor while we're shooting, but in general I give any notes to the director on the set, who passes them on to the actor. There really can't be a multiplicity of voices talking to actors on the set...it can become confusing, and they can get contradictory directions. They can get skittish and lose concentration.

  One occasion where I *did* do this recently...in the scene where Londo explains to Cartagia why he shouldn't be killed for being late, the director had Londo playing that scene submissive and nervous in rehearsals, didn't understand that the whole point of the exercise was Londo standing up to Cartagia, but doing so in a very sly way, not giving him any room to maneuver. Cartagia likes Londo because there's intelligence and steel, in a very manipulative fashion..."you think the same way I do," Cartagia says. So before we shot the scene, I pulled Peter aside and gave him the correction, and that's how we shot it.

  But, again, those incidents are fairly rare.

• Do actors ever ask you for clarification?
  That, yes...very often, while the actor is prepping, they'll come by my office, or at lunch ask about a particular passage, for clarification on my part, as opposed to an adjustment on their performance.

• Wasn't Londo afraid G'Kar's cell was bugged?
  I figured Londo would've bribed the guards to shut down the bugs. Also, there's reason to bug a political figure's quarters...but a cell in which there is just one person, who in theory has no allies with whom to conspire...that would likely have a low priority.

• Female is an irrelevant concept to the vorlons.

• I think Lorien is beyond concepts of male and female as they pertain to the Vorlons...that's our perception of them, not his.

• How long can bits of Vorlon consciousness survive?
  They can't survive for long on their own.

• What did the Vorlons tell Lyta about their intentions?
  Only that they'd still respect her in the morning.

• Was there a reason the Psi-Cop had the same build as Bester and wore an opaque mask?
  Who would do a thing like that?

• Did the interrogation scene actually happen, or is it an implanted memory?
  No, that scene happened in reality.

• About Sheridan and G'Kar
  "They are being made to choose between life and death, action and inaction, hope and despair. They are in the position of having to either lose faith, or keep it."

  Yup. Got it in one....

• Is Lorien God?
  The first sentient being. He ain't god in any sense of the word. That he's still puzzling out this "word/thought" business shows that, even after all this time, he's still trying to suss things out....

• The first being, or the last survivor of his race?
  First, as far as he knows. To quote from a later episode, "So we left, and found no others like us."

• He'll discuss his origins at considerable length in about 3 or 4 more episodes.

• Well, technically speaking, I suppose you could say that the Vorlons and Shadows are second ones, since Lorien's people came first, about which you'll hear more in the next batch of eps.

• Was Lorien waiting for Sheridan in particular?
  He was waiting for whoever would be first to get that far.

• About the questions
  "Why are you here?" asked by Lorien, is #3. The balance point between the two.

  There's a fourth question coming, though.

Last update: May 27, 2024