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Straight to the point, then. It’s the episode in which JMS reveals all, lays out exactly what is going on and what the stakes are, drags Sheridan into the fight and clears up seemingly all of the mysteries from the last season and a half. The entire episode is a big exposition dump, and yet it executes it with a sly grace by hanging it off an entirely unexpected rug pull…
The twist at the start of this episode is still a shocking moment, even on a rewatch. For first time viewers, it comes out of nowhere and flips the entire show on its head. First we get Vir and Morden, a deliciously-written exchange that gives Vir an unexpected courage. This is the Vir that faced down the Technomages, who has been standing up to Londo and telling him when he’s wrong, who distrusts Lord Refa. He wastes no time in telling Morden exactly how he feels, and more-or-less directly threatens him:
“I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price.” Vir to Morden
Bear in mind that Vir is fully cognisant of Morden’s role in the Centauri power grab. He knows that it is Morden who has arranged for Londo’s miraculous military victories. He knows it is Morden who has enabled the Narn-Centauri war to not only happen but be so lop-sided towards the Centauri. In other words, he knows precisely how dangerous Mr Morden is. And Vir says it anyway.
As if that wasn’t enough, we then get a seemingly throwaway scene with Sheridan and Garibaldi, which includes a little reminder of Sheridan’s backstory with his wife’s death — something that we learned about in the opening episodes of the season and which was briefly mentioned in ‘Knives’ —
And then it happens. Garibaldi, flicking through the crew roster, stumbles on Morden’s photo. At which point, we’re off to the races.
The structure I find fascinating. We have a mystery that gets to the very heart of Sheridan, one so critical to his being that he is willing to throw everything else away to get at it. His career. Garibaldi’s career. Nothing else matters. Woven into that is a ticking clock, as we know Sheridan can’t hold Morden forever, regardless of what he says. That tension is ramped up by Vir demanding the prisoner’s release, which simply doubles Sheridan’s resolve. As viewers, we also desperately want to know what the link is, and how it can possibly make sense. The link to Anna and the Icarus is intriguing by itself, but this is also the first time we’ve had any kind of insight into Morden’s history: until now he’s been a spokesperson, and it’s never been clear if he’s the puppet or the puppetmaster. During the interrogation we see his smiling veneer almost crack, and for the first time we see Morden, the man.
All of this drama is the very clever setup for what is essentially an infodump. By the time we get to Delenn and Kosh intervening, we’re desperate to know more. More details are provided than expected, explaining Morden but twisting the knife yet deeper: their information is not reassuring or clarifying, but instead plunges Sheridan (and us) into fear and despair. The situation is so much worse and so much bigger than he’d anticipated.
It helps that the exposition is delivered in poetic fashion by Mira Furlan. She can take a big sandwich of words and make them sing. The scene in her quarters could easily have still felt like an infodump, despite the great setup, but the really clever move is to then throw it back at Sheridan with another big decision. The exposition puts him in a new impossible situation, and he has to make a hard decision. That shifts the attention away from the World Building Infodump and recontextualises it in a more personal context. It becomes less about galaxy-level battles across thousands of years and more about the conscience of one human.
The critical moment, when Sheridan glimpses the actual Shadows surrounding Morden, is terrifying. It also transforms every previous encounter with Morden: we know now that the Shadows have been on Babylon 5 for several years.1
Retrospectively, we can now also assume that Sinclair, on Minbar, has known all of this for a while: hence his warning to Garibaldi. It’s somehow reassuring to know that Sinclair is already fighting the good fight with Delenn, even if Sheridan is unaware as yet.
Point is, JMS wraps a huge glob of information in highly effective drama. The Morden mystery justifies the infodump, and vice versa.
Meanwhile we get a lot more of Zach Allen, who is becoming an increasingly prominent character. It’s interesting to note Zach’s beefier role compared to the perpetually absent Keffer, even though on paper they fulfil similar story purposes. The Narn-Centauri war rumbles on, with excellent stuff from Franklin and Ivanova.
It’s a good episode, alright?
Next up is ‘Confessions and Lamentations’. Tempted to just skip it and pretend it didn’t happen this time round.
‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️
Yikes. Where to begin?
We have the First Ones detailed, as well as the cycle of war with the Shadows. There are critical details still left out, and which even Delenn doesn’t know, such as how ruthless the Vorlons are prepared to be.
Kosh says that he can’t leave his encounter suit because he would be recognise by ‘everyone’. We’ll get to understand that more by the end of this season.
Vir’s threat to Morden will, of course, come true, eventually. I doubt either of them expected that.
The Nightwatch are introduced here, with their representative played rather perfectly by Alex Hyde-White. They will be highly consequential, and even their innocuous appearance here feels uneasy. Watching Zach’s transition from politically naive/disinterested security guy who gets the job done but doesn’t think too hard about it, to someone facing up to his actions and his superiors, is going to be fun.
Londo is back on Centauri Prime, perhaps dealing with the fallout from Urza’s death, or trying to unpick Lord Refa’s plans.
Franklin is taking stims. He criticised his doctor friend back in ‘Infection’ for doing the same thing. It’s not going to lead anywhere good.
There’s probably more. There’s a lot in this episode.
The recent animated movie The Road Home really enhances these scenes, as it shows exactly how scary Shadow creatures can be when in attack mode.
I'm sad I haven't been able to keep up with these but really loved this recap. This was an amazing episode and I appreciate how the show finally lays its cards out on the table.
I do wonder how much the story of Sheridan's wife being linked with Morden and the Shadows was a rethink of Sinclair's storyline with his wife Catherine, who vanished from the series after S1 along with Sinclair.