s2e9: The Coming of Shadows
The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us
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Here we go. Season 2 just went up a gear with an episode so dense that it nearly trips over itself and falls apart — but instead rises to be one of the best episodes of the series so far.
There’s a LOT of stuff in this one. It is extremely plot-heavy, almost to its detriment. It has an enormous amount to get through, and it is all long-term arc material that risks being bamboozling to anyone not paying rapt attention.
It gets away with all that Total Plot thanks to Peter Jurasik and Andrea Katsulas, I think. Everyone else on the cast and crew is also bringing their A Game here, but it’s those two who create a characterful story in and around all the Things That Happen. The events are huge, galaxy-shaking and momentous: war, the death of the Emperor, Rangers, the coming darkness, Shadows on the move. But it’s the very human stories (well, Narn/Centauri stories) in Londo and G’Kar that make it work, and help us to care.
The death of the Emperor is a case in point. We meet the guy and barely 10 minutes later he’s dead, and we’re supposed to care. Now, I actually Love Turhan Bey’s performance here,1 so I do care, but it’s the impact on Londo and G’Kar respectively that makes it have emotional heft. They yo-yo throughout: G’Kar wants to kill the Emperor, Londo to manipulate him. Then, once he’s dead, G’Kar feels regret, and Londo is pleased. It’s all backwards, and brilliant. In-between we have the scene of G’Kar buying Londo a drink, and the tragic irony is through the roof. That kind of juxtaposition doesn’t happen by often, as I know all too well from writing Triverse and trying to make everything fit elegantly.
Can I just focus on a particular scene? Franklin coming to G’Kar to deliver the message (Franklin keeps having to deliver messages, it seems). Biggs does a good job of delivering quite awkward dialogue, but Katsulas…it might be his best scene to date (until later on in the episode). His freeze, then turn, followed by the slow, subtle camera push-in: this is a man who is having his entire world come undone. He’s coming face to face with the realisation that…he’s wrong.
G’Kar is a proud person. Arrogant, even. Passionate and committed to his beliefs. Ruthless. And in that single moment, as Franklin delivers the message, he has to recontextualise his entire life.
Sure, it’s just one Centauri opinion, even if it’s the Emperor’s. But it’s something G’Kar didn’t think possible. It might be the first time he’s ever understood the Centauri to be people. It’s the first time he’s not seen Centauri as ‘them’, as ‘the enemy’, as things to be killed or utterly defeated.
And then, shortly after that realisation, he is entirely betrayed by Londo’s actions and it all comes undone again. At which point we get Katsulas’ deliver his best scene to date, surpassing the one earlier in the episode. His encounter with Sheridan in the corridor, on his way to murder Londo, and probably Vir, and any oher Centauri he happened to bump into, is hard to watch. Critically, Sheridan gives him a choice, an alternative, and G’Kar takes it, despite his rage and pain. Contrast that with Vir trying to give Londo an alternative earlier in the episode, and Londo’s dismissal.
A small detail in that scene is when Sheridan takes a step forward, towards G’Kar. It’s a small moment that tells us everything about Sheridan. Bear in mind that an enraged Narn could presumably rip a human’s limbs straight off without even flexing: Sheridan is in real danger here, despite all the security staff behind him.
While all that is going on, we also meet our first (acknowledged) Ranger! I always forget that it happens in this episode, and how it ties into the A plot. The delight here is that we don’t know what this guy is up to, whether he’s a threat or a friend, up until the moment Garibaldi presses ‘play’ on the video.
Seeing Sinclair appear is startling. Michael O’Hare’s departure was a jolt, and unexpected. The switch to Sheridan was handled well, but Sinclair’s disappearance certainly feels like behind-the-scenes shenanigans. The assumption is that we’ll never see O’Hare again, and nobody will talk about what happened. Move along, nothing to see here!
And then, there he is, in an awesome cameo. The show declaring “we haven’t forgotten Sinclair, and we haven’t just dumped O’Hare.” It’s a surprise, and very welcome. They even manage to squeeze in some hinted-at character development: there’s a sense of a quieter, more peaceful Sinclair. We can assume that he now knows everything about what happened to him in the war, and his connection to the Minbari through the soul exchange: that question which had haunted him for 10 years, finally answered.
Next up is ‘GROPOS’.
‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️
All the spoiler stuff is right in your face with this one. There’s very little that is hidden.
What we do have is all sorts of stuff set in motion: we have Londo missing another opportunity to turn away from his fate, as well as our first actual glimpses of his eventual fate (as hinted at in the first episode of season one, right?). I think this is our first glimpse of Centauri Prime itself, too, of which we’ll see much more.
First hints here of Emperor Cartagia, who we won’t get to actually meet until season 4.
Refa appears again, cementing that he’s a recurring character rather than a one-off.
Rangers! Sinclair on Minbar!
And, of course, the Narn-Centauri war begins in earnest. Season 2 is speeding.
A controversial foreign leader coming to the station to give an address, prompting very different responses from those in attendance, was an interesting story point to be watching this week.
SPOILER STUFF:
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In this Episode, although we don’t know it yet, Sinclair gives the first direct reference to the Shadows as the name of a race. One may notice in my “non spoiler”comments I have said “enemy,”or “foe,”rather than Shadows. Looking forward to “In the Shadow of Zha’ha’dum” so I can just start saying “Shadows” in the non-spoiler section…
It’s interesting that Sinclair says the Rangers are “Mostly Humans, some Minbari,” as the Rangers were founded by Valen (Sinclair) a thousand years ago. “In the Beginning” discusses how the Rangers have fallen in the eyes of Minbari society over the centuries. Perhaps the humans drawn to Minbar are those with Minbari souls? Yup, it’s another vague thing on the “Soul Question.”
JMS has written elsewhere how tight lipped he was on the arc, overall. Apparently only two actors were given advanced information on their plot lines. One was Michael O’Hare (which can be somewhat ignored as the story changed after he left the show), while the other was Peter Jurasik, so that he’d play the dream sequences in “Coming of Shadows”correctly. Apparently Jurasik was “stunned.” As he should be. No one watching the show for the first time could have predicted how his arc would twist. Even when the audience is given hints of future information - for example, we were told Centauri have prophetic dreams, and we have now seen Londo’s, thus we can guess he will, in fact, become Emperor.
We would never guess it was under duress to prevent the Drahk from setting off nuclear warheads all over Centauri Prime. We could never have guessed Londo would have to accept a Drahk Keeper.
G’Kar’s eyepatch in the dream… Ok, G’Kar loses an eye. But we’d never guess it was due to the petulance of a spoiled, insane depost who just decided to have it plucked out randomly because G’kar glared at him.
As of this episode we pretty much know G’Kar and Londo will now die at each other’s hands. We would never guess by that time they are, in fact, actually friends, and Londo will beg G’Kar to kill him so the Drakh Keeper won’t force Londo to ruin the escape of John, Delenn, and David Sheridan from Centauri Prime - not to mention that a past Sheridan popped into a future Sheridan for a few moments, while Londo was watching on a holomonitor.
And, of course, how Londo narrates the events of “In the Begnining”to a couple of small children and their nursemaid mere minutes before his own death.
That’s a lot of plot baggage all tying back to one little dream sequence.
Blankity-Blank Substack just deleted 45 minutes of typing when I shifted to another tab to check outside reference. AAAAAAAAH!
Still catching up on prior episodes, but had to be current for this, the Hugo-winning episode.
Simon wrote about this being one of the most dense episodes of Babylon 5, and it is… But it’s nowhere near as dense as others. Namely, s1, ep1 “Midnight on the Firing Line.”
“Midnight” has all of this: 1) establishing the Narn/Centauri conflict with the Ragash 3 incident, 2) establishing the threat of the Raiders, 2a) who are being armed by the Narn, 3) defining the form and function of the B5 Advisory Council as they attempt to mediate Ragash 3, 4) the election of Earth Alliance President Santiago, 4a) and the controversial (illegal) endorsement of Vice President Clarke by Psi-Corp, 5) establishing rules of conduct for Psi-Corp telepaths, such as unauthorized scans being inadmissible in court, 6) as well as a plethora of personal backstory, including, but not limited to, 6a) re-establishing the Battle of the Line and Sinclar, 6b) Ivanova’s telepath mother, 6c) Talia’s immediate attraction to Ivanova, 6d) Delenn’s current role as peacemaker, 6e) Kosh being Kosh, 6f) G’Kar’s attitudes towards the Centauri, 6g) Londo’s attitude towards the Narn, and 6h) Londo’s “Centauri Dream of Foretelling TM.” That’s 5 major subplots and a lot of worldbuilding/character exposition in an episode of which my Dad (wrongly) said, “nothing happened.” Dad was a great man, but he couldn’t analyze media to save his life.
So, “The Coming of Shadows” is much less dense, yet mirrors “Midnight” in several ways. Some are reversed - this time it’s G’Kar ready to murder Londo in a fit of rage and given a choice - others twisted - the Centauri attacking the Narn with outside help, rather than the Narn attacking the Centauri while providing outside help to Raiders - while others are linear continuations - as in how we SEE Londo’s “Centauri Dream of Foretelling ®TM.” (Several paragraphs later on in my typing, I went over to the “Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5”to check something. JMS himself noted that “Coming of Shadows” is deliberately structured as a mirror to “Midnight on the Firing Line,” with much of the mirrored beats reversed. It’s a great way to show how much evolution there has been in this show already!” My own analysis of the episodes as mirrors just shows I may have gotten the point.)
Speaking of Londo’s “CDoF ©®TM” we all saw that eyepatch on G’kar, yes? I wonder how THAT might happen? (OK, I know, but this is the non-spoiler comment…) I also saw a great hand, reaching out of the stars…
Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik absolutely hold this episode together. Both are utterly brilliant. Simon brought up specific scenes already, but I’d like to highlight a few more moments: How JMS thought he could get away with adding in a comic relief scene about an assassination is beyond me - yet Katsulas makes it work. “Maybe he’s feeling better! Just prop him up for a minute and…” Yet, by the end of the scene his quiet reflection on the Emperor’s message brought tears to my eyes. Once again, in a moment of comic relief we have “MOLLARI! I’m going to GET you…a drink.” Again, by the end of the scene, tears - both for the agony we know G’kar will soon face, and for Londo’s utter horror at the realization that he just made the biggest mistake of his life. Finally, the scene in G’Kar’s quarters after the faied assasination. Besides yet another stellar scene from Andreas Katsulas, who, for some reason, didn’t get ALL the Emmys from this episode alone, I’m gonna shout out to director Janet Greek, who produces one of the best visuals of the series. The camera pans across G’Kar’s trashed apartment as he sits, lit in red, cradling the book of G’kar, and the hatch to his room opens, spilling warm light across him. The image has stuck with me for decades, and I’ve verified on this rewatch that this type of lighting has never happened in G’Kar’s quarters before. Director Janet Greek and Director of Photography John Flynn made a conscious choice to have that lighting. It’s a custom setup specifically for that angle, and, when Sheridan exits the room, that spill light doesn’t hit him on the G’Kar POV shot. For those of you who have never worked on a film set, let me break it down for you this way - an additional hour was spent on set setting up and taking down a special light, just to get that highlight in G’kar for that one angle. Totally worth it.
Besides G’kar, there are all those great Londo moments. Jurasik doesn’t get to play the gregarious Londo. Everything Londo has in this episode is subdued. Londo KNOWS he’s stepping in it. He knows it’s not something he’s going to be able to scrape off his boot anytime soon, but he commits to the shit. Refa is beautifully slimy, and Stephen Furst continues to bring colors to Vir, both with his “Londo, DON’T DO THIS…Someday I’m going to remind you of this…” scene, and, at the end of the episode where Refa tries to pass his drink off to the “servant,” and Vir just gives him a look of pure and utter disgust while staying firmly seated.
Substack is making me split this comment, so I continue in a response to myself...