Okay then, time to get The Couch Potato up and running for 2015, and what better way to start with than by returning to one of my favourite shows of all time....
Season Two: "The coming of Shadows"
2.14 “There all the honour lies”
Ivanova is dismayed that the Senate have approved the manufacture and sale of merchandise pertaining to Babylon 5. Sheridan tells her it could provide much-needed revenue to help them run their budget but she thinks it’s demeaning. She’s even less impressed when he tells her he has chosen her to oversee the whole enterprise! On his way out of the meeting he bumps into a man who steals his link, but when he gives chase he runs into a Minbari warrior who attacks him. Knocked to the ground, he reaches for a PPG and warns the Minbari, who continues to advance, shouting “Death first!” and he has no choice but to shoot him. The whole thing is witnessed by another Minbari, who runs off. When Delenn finds out about the killing she is livid; she has been instructed by her government to carry out her own investigation, independent of that of station security, to determine whether or not to charge Sheridan with murder.
Garibaldi finds the witness but Ashan is reluctant to help, and between Sheridan and the security chief they begin to suspect a coverup, then a setup. How convenient that there was a weapon lying within easy reach. Why did the attacker grab Sheridan’s link, something that is useless once reported stolen, unless he wanted to make sure that he was pursued, lead the captain into a trap? And surely it could not be coincidence that there just happened to be another Minbari coming up the stairs at the exact moment Sheridan shot the warrior? Something does not add up, or rather, something does, most uncomfortably. But who would have set up such a thing, and why?
Talia bumps into Vir, who seems distracted. He says he has to go, and laughs as if that were funny. Delenn speaks to Ashan, but he will not recognise her as one of his own, calls her a freak. He does talk to Lennier, and tells him that what he saw was one of their people gunned down without provocation, and in the act of surrender. Sheridan is enraged, calling him a liar, but Delenn and Lennier explain that Minbari do not lie, as this would be a stain on their honour. He knows Ashan is lying though and demands to talk to him personally. Earthdome sends a high-flying lawyer to defend Sheridan, though she tells him that Earthgov has decided to proceed with an indictment against him. No matter how the trial goes, the stigma will mean that Sheridan will have to step down as commander of Babylon 5.
In the middle of all of this, Kosh arrives to remind Sheridan of the lesson he is supposed to be taking. Trying to excuse himself does not work and soon the captain is following the Vorlon to Downbelow, where he meets a strange old hermit-like woman who shows him “one moment of perfect beauty”. Vir tells Londo that he has been replaced; the position has become too important for a nobody like him, and Centauri Prime are sending someone better suited to the job. Meanwhile word of Sheridan’s pending trial is getting around and more and more meetings are being cancelled; he’s becoming a pariah. Delenn finds out something interesting about the dead Minbari. Lennier shadows Ashan and sees him paying off the thief who robbed Sheridan’s link, while in a conversation with Londo Sheridan learns that Minbari don’t generally lie, no, but they can if the lie is to help another save face.
Suddenly, the Minbari government want Ashan removed, back to homeworld. With the primary witness gone the case will collapse, but Sheridan will have no way to prove his innocence, and the questions will always be there. However when Delenn reveals that the Minbari who was killed is from the same clan as both Ashan and Lennier, the motive for the former’s lie becomes a little clearer: if he could lie to save face for his clan that would be honourable, and so he did. After Lennier meets with him and tells him that after he has gone back to Minbar, Lennier himself will admit complicity in the attack, thus saving his clan from the shame Ashan would bring upon them but utlimately disgracing it, Ashan admits everything. However he is unaware that Delenn, Sheridan and Garibaldi are all outside in time-honoured “sting” fashion, recording everything. Sheridan is exonerated: a full confession will clear his name.
But the captain realises that such an admission will destroy Lennier and likely ruin his clan, so he strikes a deal with Delenn. If she can get Ashan to admit to bearing false witness, and confirm that Sheridan acted in self-defence, no details of the case need be made public and face will be saved for Lennier’s clan.
That only leaves Vir, who is ready to leave Babylon 5 when Londo tells him that if he goes, the ambassador must go too. He has spoken highly of Vir to homeworld, telling them that Vir is an invaluable aide and he could not possibly work without him. So Vir can stay, although Londo does drop the bombshell that he has invited Vir’s whole family to the station to stay --- for a whole month! The Babylon 5 Emporium is summarily shut down when Sheridan sees that there is a cuddly teddy bear meant to represent him. They’ll just have to find the revenue from somewhere else.
QUOTES
Ivanova: “Welcome to Babylon 5, the last best hope for a quick buck!”
Sheridan: “Find that Minbari witness! He will back me up; I’m certain of it.”
Garibaldi: “Okay. Description?”
Sheridan: “Bald. With a bone in his head!”
Garibaldi: “We’re gonna need a real big lineup room!”
Sheridan: “I want to talk to that witness. He is lying!”
Delenn: “For your sake, Captain, I did not hear that. Nor did you, Lennier.”
Sheridan: “What are you talking about?”
Lennier: “Minbari do not lie. It would be a stain both on honour and on soul.”
Delenn: “For someone of another species to make such an accusation, it would require an immediate, and fatal response from the accused.”
Ivanova, bumping into guy at Babylon 5 Emporium: “Excuse me.”
Guy: “Excuse me miss” --- takes off human mask, reveals himself to be a Drazi! “Do you gift wrap?”
Corey: “May I ask what you were discussing here?”
Sheridan: “The only thing that matters: the truth.”
Corey: “Ah yes. The favourite song of the legally ignorant.”
Sheridan: “I don’t appreciate being called ignorant in front of others.”
Corey: “I’m sorry. Is naive better?”
Sheridan: “And I don’t need a lawyer!”
Corey: “Now we’re back to ignorant.”
Vir: “Back home I’m swallowed in silence, here I’m swallowed by secrets. I feel like I’m caught between fire and flood, and if there’s a way out I sure can’t see it.”
Ivanova: “Another lesson? What was it this time?”
Sheridan: “Beauty … in the dark.”
Ivanova: “Must be working. You’re starting to talk like a Vorlon!”
Londo: “The doll is a mockery! It doesn’t even have any … attributes.”
Sheridan and Ivanova: “Attributes?”
Londo: “Do I have to spell it out for you? Attributes!”
Sheridan: “Oh! Attributes.”
Ivanova: “So you feel like you’re being symbolically cast--- in a bad light?”
Sheridan: “Well put.”
Sheridan: “I never thought there could be anything worse than being all alone in the night.”
Delenn: “But there is: being all alone in a crowd. If you are cut off from your people, your government, you begin to doubt even yourself. I understand it so well that it cuts to my heart.”
Londo: “Your first real hangover, Vir. Enjoy it! I remember my first hangover. Actually, that’s not true. If I could remember it it wouldn’t really be a hangover.”
Sheridan (looking at the teddy bear and smiling): “Ba-bear-lon 5? Oh, he’s a cutie, isn’t he?” Turning it around to see the monogrammed initials on its pocket. “JS?”
Ivanova: “John Sheridan.”
Sheridan: “This is meant to be me?” (Losing the smile) “I want it off my station! I want them all off my station! I want the whole thing yanked out, boxed up and shipped out by 0800!"
IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS
Nothing really. There’s the hatred of certain Minbari for Sheridan, but that’s not actually part of the arc, and we already know this. Other than that it’s a fairly self-contained episode, other than the stuff with Kosh, which won’t have any real bearing until later episodes.
SKETCHES
Lennier, of the Third Fane of Chu’domo
We generally know very little about Delenn’s quiet aide, other than that he’s pretty obviously in love with her. But here we find that he is such an honourable man that he is prepared to take the blame for something he had no hand in, in order to preserve the integrity of his clan. He is also willing, when asked, to work with Sheridan and the other humans, to entrap Ashan. And yet he has no problem felling Zack when he sees him tailing Ashan. Of course, he doesn’t injure him but it’s clear he could have had he wanted to. He may be a little guy who keeps to himself and always --- always --- speaks in a quiet, level voice --- but he can defend himself and would probably prove a tough opponent for anyone who underestimated him.
It’s also his short association with Londo that informs this episode and gives us the missing piece of the puzzle. When Mollari tells Sheridan about the incident in the Dark Star nightclub, when Lennier took the blame for Londo’s getting them into a brawl by cheating, in season one, the captain realises that not lying for Minbari is not an absolute: there are moments and occasions when they can, exceptions to the rule. Mind you, it’s a very offhand comment that secures that information, and had Londo not complained about the dolls of him on sale, the situation would probably never have arisen. On such small events and moments, Babylon 5 turns…
Lennier’s devotion to Delenn is absolute. When Ashan sneers at her, calls her a freak and asks why he trusts the humans, he says “Because she does”. Given the level of insult Ashan directs at the ambassador, it probably takes all of Lennier’s restraint not to clock him one, and when they meet in Downbelow and face off against one another, you could hardly blame him for taking the opportunity to knock some respect into his clansman. Lennier will doubtless be relieved and impressed that Sheridan thinks enough of he and Delenn that he is willing to gloss over the details of the case and only sketch in the barest outlines, saving Lennier from shame. This can only serve to strengthen the ties between Minbari and humans. Well, some of them anyway.
ABSENT FRIENDS
Just really G’Kar missing. However we must take note of the guest star appearance of Julie Caitilin Brown as the Earthforce lawyer, Genevieve Corey. This lady played the original Na’Toth, attache to the Narn ambassador, before being replaced by Mary Kay Adams. Looking like that, you’d have to say she was wasted under all that Narn makeup!
NOTE
It’s pretty obvious who was behind this. As the Minbari who attacked Sheridan was a warrior, or seemed to be, and Ashan referred to him as “Starkiller”, you would have to see Neroon’s hand in this. Certainly the Star-riders would be happy to see Sheridan sacked, sent home or having to stand down in disgrace, and would consider it the tiniest reparation for the destruction of the Minbari cruiser for which they have named him. The plan though has backfired upon Neroon, and he will have essentially Delenn to thank for cleaning his mess up and not allowing the possibility of a scandal to touch the Grey Council. Were it to become public knowledge that the Minbari high command had endeavoured to basically engineer regime change at Babylon 5, that could be a very serious matter indeed. Neroon and his cronies will have to tread more carefully from here on in: Delenn is watching them, Sheridan is watching them and they’ll both be waiting for their next move.
ZACK RISING
We’ve seen security chief Zack Allan become slowly more integrated into storylines as the last few episodes have progressed, from having just one scene to a talking part to a full role in a story. Here he is quite involved and from this point on you’ll see a lot more of him, until like Joshua Cox’s Lt Corwin, Jeff Conaway joins the main cast and even features in the opening credits. Keep an eye on him: he’s a star in the making. I’ll be tracking his progress as we go on.