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

Overview

Bester arrives with news of an Earth Alliance plan to further isolate Babylon 5. Garibaldi delivers some surprising news to Sheridan. Walter Koenig as Bester. Damian London as Minister.

P5 Rating: 8.43

Production number: 407
Original air week: February 10, 1997
DVD release date: January 6, 2004

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by John Flinn III

Plot Points

• With his Shadow allies gone, President Clark now views Babylon 5 as a significant threat to his power. There are still elements of the Psi-Corps loyal to the Shadows.
• The telepaths rescued from the Shadows in "Ship of Tears" are being kept aboard Babylon 5 in cryonic suspension until a means can be found of disentangling them from their implants.
• Lyta's telepathic powers have definitely been enhanced by the Vorlons, to the point where she can easily block a scan by a P12-level telepath while making telepathic contact across several light-years.
• Z'ha'dum has been destroyed, but not before the Shadows' allies left with unknown quantities of Shadow technology and artifacts.
• The Shadows' allies have arrived on Centauri Prime and begun deploying the keepers seen in "War Without End, Part Two."
• After receiving a strange message from an unknown source, likely related to what was done to him in "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?" Garibaldi has resigned as head of security. Zack has been promoted to take his place.

Unanswered Questions

• Since some in the Psi Corps apparently still side with the Shadows, did the Corps participate in the looting of Z'ha'dum? If not, is the Corps in contact with the looters?
• Did all the Shadows' allies go to Centauri Prime, or are there more of them headed for other destinations?
• Exactly how powerful is Lyta now? Does she in fact have additional programming of which she's not yet aware?
• What does Bester know about Lyta that she doesn't want others to find out?
• What was the message Garibaldi received? If it activated an implanted personality or some hidden programming, why did he resign after receiving the message?
• What exactly were the "station lock-down codes" Garibaldi gave Zack? Are they something Garibaldi knows, or something he might have kept a copy of?
• What is Bester's "ace in the hole?" Is it Garibaldi?
• How does he plan to recover Carolyn?

Analysis

• Even Bester isn't let in on the entirety of Clark's plan, just the part involving the Black Omega squadron. What else is planned? Bester's superior said the plan involves the Ministry of Peace and the Nightwatch, at least.

  Apparently Bester either isn't strong enough to scan his superior without being detected (telepathic strength may determine one's placement in the Corps, so that's not surprising,) or he's loyal enough to the Corps as a whole to simply accept his boss's statement that he doesn't need to know the entire plan.

• Bester took quite a personal risk by warning Babylon 5 of Clark's impending plan. The entire plan was known only by a select few, according to Bester's superior; presumably only Bester and his superior knew about the Black Omega operation. If that was the only part of the plan that failed, some degree of suspicion would naturally fall on Bester as head of the squadron, subjecting his recent activities to scrutiny. And if even one Nightwatch member noticed Bester's presence on Babylon 5 -- not too farfetched, since he entered through a public customs area -- Clark's people would presumably be able to put two and two together and conclude that Bester must have leaked the information.

• The Shadows, according to Anna Sheridan ("Z'ha'dum") believed they'd die if anything Vorlon touched Z'ha'dum. Many of them did die when Sheridan arrived with a piece of Kosh. And now Lyta's telepathy, enhanced by the Vorlons (and, indeed, genetically seeded by the Vorlons in the first place) has triggered the destruction of Z'ha'dum itself.

• Why did Sheridan not realize where the Shadows' minions were headed? In "War Without End, Part One," he saw that they had gone to Centauri Prime. His failure to do anything about their arrival there probably explains Londo's accusation in that episode.

• The pattern of light in Garibaldi's message resembles the light shining on him from above in the escape pod in "The Summoning."

• Why did Bester, who took pleasure in needling Garibaldi on his previous visits to Babylon 5, make no inquiry about Garibaldi's absence from the station's command staff?

• If Garibaldi's resignation is indeed a sign that he's been programmed, the programming may be much more subtle than the Control personality implanted into Talia Winters ("Divided Loyalties.") The effect of the programming may simply be to cause Garibaldi to become disillusioned about Sheridan and his cause. That would be useful to Clark, who could use Garibaldi as a weapon in his propaganda attack on Babylon 5.

• On the other hand, it may be that Garibaldi's programming hasn't been fully activated, and his resignation is his own choice; he may believe he can't be trusted until he can piece together what happened to him, and doesn't want to be in a position where he can compromise Babylon 5.

• In either case, Garibaldi's situation was foreshadowed in "Divided Loyalties," in which he pretended briefly to be Control while Lyta was sending the password to the command staff.

• Was Delenn's remark to Sheridan, "We are old souls," a casual observation, or does it have something to do with Minbari-human soul migration? Might it relate to her observation in "Soul Mates" that Minbari believe that souls that have known one another in one life meet again in later lives to relive good relationships and to correct bad ones?

• Do the Vorlons have allies like the Shadows do? If so, are they looting the Vorlon homeworld? The Vorlons have been known to keep members of other races on their homeworld (e.g. Sebastian in "Comes the Inquisitor") and presumably those people were left behind when the Vorlons departed the galaxy. What will become of them?

• At least some Vorlon technology was left behind: the White Star Fleet. That would seem to give Sheridan a huge military edge against Earth, whose armed forces aren't even on par with the Minbari, let alone the Vorlons. (Assuming, of course, that Clark and the Psi Corps didn't manage to procure any Shadow technology.)

• Who is in charge on Centauri Prime? The minister told Londo that the position of regent was mostly ceremonial. Londo is off on Babylon 5, presumably not spending his time dealing with matters of state. That would seem to leave a rather large power vacuum.

• Why did G'Kar return to Babylon 5? It's not a sanctuary for him any more, now that the Centauri have left Narn. Perhaps he was simply returning to collect his belongings, or perhaps he intends to resume his role as ambassador from Narn.

• Sheridan's comment about further troubles at the beginning of the episode, "But that's tomorrow," echoes Vir's admonition to Londo to be happy about his victories ("Into the Fire.")

• Zack and Garibaldi parallel each other to some extent. Garibaldi was willing to go on instinct and hire Zack when he was warned against it. Sinclair made the same leap of faith by hiring Garibaldi ("The Gathering.") Further, Zack's socializing with Lyta parallels Garibaldi's interest in Talia Winters. Given the way Garibaldi is acting now, do these parallels foreshadow any unpleasant developments for Zack?

Notes

• Bester founded the Black Omega Squadron.
• The season-three theme music was played at the end of the end of this episode during the original US broadcast, just like "The Long Night" and "Into the Fire."
• A visual pun: Zack commented to his staff that he wanted to get away before the next person came through the customs area, since with his luck it'd be the Second Coming. The next people through the door were three Kings -- Elvis impersonators, a little far from Bethlehem.

jms speaks

• The rest of the season will actually continue to increase in intensity, not decrease. "Epiphanies" for me is an episode where I can feel the gears changing between war and post-war just a bit, but overall it's not bad. And there's some *mean* stuff coming up very soon.

• That's one more reason why I wanted to get the war out of the way...because too many people were focusing in on the show as being about the war. It ain't. It's about the changes that happen before, during, and *after* a war. And what's coming up is in some ways stronger because it's more personal.

• About the dance music
  Chris [Franke] wrote the music for us, in Big Band style.

• How was Garibaldi's message produced?
  (Answered by coproducer George Johnsen)
  Believe it or not, that piece started as color bars. It was twisted using Flint software from Discreet Logoc on an SGI Maximum Impact using fractal morphing plug ins.

  Feedback is a wonderful thing......

  It is certainly concievable that Fractint would work to create a similar effect.

• Sheridan was very sharp with Bester.
  Yeah...Sheridan's taking a different tone with a lot of people these days. I guess being dead for a while does that to you....

• Was Bester trying to scan everyone at the conference table?
  He tried to scan, but she kept blocking him.

• The scene between Sheridan and Delenn on the White Star was edited.
  "Was this your intention - to get a response from those of us who follow the Sheridan and Delenn story line closely? Some how, I feel manipulated and very disappointed."

  Yes, as I sat in the editing room, I thought, "Hmmm...if I do this, it'll get the Sheridan and Delenn fans' knickers all in a knot...."

  Every scene goes through some editing...there is barely a scene we film that doesn't get a line or two or three snipped. Sometimes the edit is noticeable, sometimes it ain't. The only thing you can decide is, "Does this move the story along or not?" I was chasing about another 20 seconds (which was all we're talking about here), and the back-and-forth didn't really add anything to what was already in that scene. I treated it the same as I would treat any other scene.

• Lyta doesn't officially work for Sheridan, but she has nowhere else to go, and is beholden to him just for everyday survival and protection against the Corps. That makes her answerable to him.

• Why didn't Londo have guards while he was shopping?
  Because Londo wouldn't abide that for more than five minutes; it'd cramp his style.

• The G'Kar/Londo dynamic isn't quite over yet...there's more to come, and that relationship is going to continue having its ups and downs.

• RE: the regent...well, if you want to do something really nasty, you want to do it to somebody everybody kinda likes, so you feel for the situation.

  Ah likes doing that sorta thing...dropping anvils on characters to see what pattern splat they make....

• Disneyplanet?
  Give 'em time, and they'll try to buy a planet. It's inevitable.

  With Earth now in the present, that'd make two.

• Speaking of visual puns, someone pointed out that in "Epiphanies," you've got Zack leaving customs, saying of whoever comes through next, "it might be the Second Coming and I'm five sins behind on penance," and who walks in...but the Three Kings....

Last update: May 27, 2024