s4e6: Into the Fire

Get the hell out of our galaxy!

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Bursting at the seams, this episode very nearly trips over its own expectations. There’s so much at stake, both in the fiction and in the telling of that fiction, that it’s an almost impossible task. After one of the best build-ups in TV history, how could the Shadow War possibly have a satisfying resolution?

There’s no doubt that this episode would have benefited from being a two-parter. Between the Centauri storyline and the main war, there’s plenty to go around. Every story beat could easily have expanded into more screen time: the final search for the First Ones, the White Star fleet battling the Vorlons, Londo’s discovery of Adira’s killer and his plan to rid the planet of Shadow influence, the final battle itself.

So much is crammed in, and it’s all stellar stuff. Perhaps spreading it over two episodes would have diluted it too much, but given the build-up it would have been justified, I think. This is the culmination of three years of epic storytelling.

The new VFX team start to find their feet here. The opening battle against the Vorlon output is visually arresting for the most part, there are several excellent shots of Centauri Prime, and the final space battle has some cool stuff — especially anytime the First Ones are involved. This is also the first episode in which I recall seeing some full-on camera tracking going on, with the camera suddenly freed from being locked down as in the rest of the show to date. Being able to rove around the White Star bridge rather than cutting between fore and aft shots really helps with the sense of geography.

For all the bombast of the Shadow War, it’s the Centauri plot that sticks with me. Peter Jurasik is likely the best actor on the show, or at least is tied with Andreas Katsulas, and this is his episode. Jurasik gets to put Londo through everything: we see the schemer, the political genius, the humour of season 1, we see the tragedy of his decisions, are witness to his rage, and it’s capped with his first true moment of selflessness.

As the audience we come to realise that he is the last part of the Shadows left on the plane slightly before Vir points it out. That Londo is the last to realise is key to his character in this moment, because he’s already started to think of himself as the hero. His actions to free his own people from Cartagia, and free the Narns, and rid Centauri Prime of the Shadows has him believing his own PR. For a brief moment, he’s able to live a fantasy in which he’s atoning for his past actions. The Vorlon planet killer continuing its approach brings all of that crashing back to reality, and he realises that he’ll never really escape his prior decisions.

Running the Centauri Prime plot alongside the main battle is a savvy move, as it gives us an anchor. We don’t know the inhabitants of Coriana 6, and we’ve already had multiple anonymous planets be destroyed in the show, but we are familiar with Centauri Prime and the people on it.

Ed Wasser does some of his best work on the entire show here. His nervousness is startling, and his utter despair after his two Shadow companions are killed is deeply unnerving. That fear and shock is not that of an annoyed Bad Guy who knows he’s lost (although we get that, shortly afterwards), but the pain of a child who has just seen his parents gunned down. Whatever relationship was going on between Morden and the Shadows, it ran deeper than mere survival instinct on his part.

The ending of the Shadow War entirely bamboozled me back in the 90s. My teenage brain couldn’t quite fathom how it ended with a conversation, rather than a punch. I think it works, though (more breathing space would have helped, as noted), and it makes for a more memorable resolution than another big spaceship fight. It’s about stepping out from your parents’ shadows and forging your own path. The moment that makes it click form me is Lorien’s final exchange with the Vorlon and Shadow representatives, when it becomes suddenly clear that he is to them when the Vorlons and Shadows have been to the younger races. That shifting of the power dynamic, of them being the children to his elder, recontextualises the entire conflict.

It also makes me wonder about Kosh, the original, and how he was already working towards this conclusion. He knew Valen/Sinclair, and chose to form a direct connection with Sheridan. Kosh wanted to break the cycle, and was planting the seeds to make it happen the whole time.

As a final note, I like that Lorien’s energy form, as it zips off into space, is reminiscent of Jason Ironheart’s energy form. Ironheart accidentally took a shortcut towards immortality, it seems. Is he already beyond the rim, waiting to greet Lorien and the others? The first human to do so, millions of years ahead of schedule.

The other aspect that broke my brain as a teenager was simply trying to figure out what next? The show had been so focused on the Shadow War that I rather forgot about everything else, especially the Earth civil war. There’s so much still to come, but at this point it feels like the show has accidentally concluded with most of the season still to go.

Next up is ‘Epiphanies’.

‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️

While we won’t see Ironheart again, we will see a glimpse of humans in their post-corporeal form in the final episode of the season, which leaps into the far future. Nifty.

The big foreshadowing here is Morden’s threat that it isn’t over. Despite the temporary victory, Londo hasn’t really ‘won’ here. He’s shifted and delayed things, but Centauri Prime is still on track to a terrible fate. His Keeper is coming, as are the Drakh. While the Drakh storyline in season 5 never quite clicks, I do like that Babylon 5 takes the time to show the messiness of a post-war situation. ‘Into the Fire’ makes everything seem very neat and easy, but that’s not how it will actually turn out.

Otherwise, it’s hard to even think of future episodes. ‘Into the Fire’ feels so conclusive, it’s hard to imagine what comes next.