A-Plot: Someone is setting off bombs / explosives around the station. Eek! The populace is in a panic. The command staff is demanding answers. Eventually — after various speculation / accusations of it being the Centauri, the Narn, or other dire and conspiratorial forces … they figure out it's just some random wacko, albeit one who claims to have planted a bomb which can blow up the station.
That leads to Sheridan going in as a (demanded) hostage, adding both to the tension and to the humor (as he stuffs his link down into his crotch, which, despite my wife noting it as a variant on "butt dialing," eventually leads to problems). After lots of tense dialog in the context of a pistol held to the face and a dead man's switch in the other hand (http://goo.gl/Qg9u2S), the bomb is discovered by a crew of CG workers around the fusion plant, and Sheridan engages in some nifty fisticuffs with the Mad Bomber What Bombs At Midnight, eventually KOing the bad guy (then staggering off, leaving the man's PPG sitting on the floor next to him, d'oh).
B-Plot: Londo is saved from one of the bombings by Lennier, which leads the Centauri ambassador — who realizes that nobody (even in those wartimes tales?) has ever risked his live to save him. He has an extended, and very touching, scene where he talks to the comatose Lennier (http://goo.gl/dB4VtQ), re-establishing himself (for viewers old and new) as an amiable and even sympathetic sort of fellow.
Which lasts up until he's about to get on an elevator later, realizes G'Kar is on it, begs off, but dives in when another bomb fills the corridor with fire. Eek! That leads to an extended closed elevator scene (http://goo.gl/BHzea2), flames all about the car, where it seems likely that both will die unless they cooperate. Except that G'Kar is more than happy (in a giddy, giggling fashion) to just sit around and watch Londo perish, even at the cost of his own life. He can't actually kill the man, lest the Centauri promise to execute 500 Narn for each Centauri killed by one of them be enacted — but he's reached a semi-rational acceptance that he can just stand by, even on peril of personal death, and watch Londo go down. (see the video below)
Alas (for G'Kar), they are found before they die, leading to a simultaneously amusing and disturbing exchange of insults from both prone, half-dead combatants. The two of them are dead-set on the other's destruction, regardless of their personal virtues (and vices). Can they ever rise above such madness?
C-Plot: A group of Christian monks comes to B5 to set up permanent residency (http://goo.gl/QE9l6I). Their goal is to understand (through the various races on the station) the totality of the definition of God, as understood across the beings of the galaxy. But they are a working order, and have a variety of skills to offer to the visitors to B5 — in this particular plot-driven case, analyzing videos of the various bombing scenes to see if there's a person present in the aftermath, which leads to the resolution of the A-Plot.
It's a vaguely interesting bit, and the leader of the monks, Brother Theo (http://goo.gl/Kc6p1i), will return in future episodes in more (and less) interesting ways. (The actor, Louis Turenne, was the orignal Draal in "A Voice in the Wilderness" back in S.1.)
D-Plot: Lennier is facing some ethical dilemmas, perhaps not all that well for our once-naif. First he lies to a guy who just won't leave him alone in the passenger waiting area (http://goo.gl/dO8EqS) Then, in the B-Plot, he makes the split-section decision to throw Delenn and Londo out of the path of the explosion, nearly dying in the process (http://goo.gl/p19q1g). But later, after he regains consciousness, he actually speculates that saving Londo may not have been the best thing to do, given how much evil the Centauri ambassador is responsible for. Yikes.
Net-net, it's not a very engaging episode, except for everything having to do with Londo, both his dutiful, even desperate engagement with the comatose Lennier, trying to prove (to himself) that he's a good person — and the elevator scenes with G'Kar (http://goo.gl/dFek05), where he realizes the mad nihilism he's backed his nemesis into, even as he descends into a name-calling match with him as they both lie prone and exhausted in the bottom of the elevator car awaiting the rescue team breaking in.
In many ways, the episode is really about Londo — how a person can be both a decent being and rightfully hated as a monster. That echoes the various other plots: the crazy man lashing out at the world; Lennier feeling compromised by the reflexive good deed he performed; even G'Kar, scrupulously, draconianly ethical in not killing Londo but all-too-gleefully waiting for him to die. The crazy guy is already crazy; the others will all deal with the madness of their convictions over the course of the series.
The other players are — well, competent, but not all that interesting this week, mostly in play to go through the appropriate motions. Ivanova is completely without interest (aside from why it took her hours to tell Security about a threat that was promising to strike within hours); Garibaldi is the Worried Security Guy, competent but generic (with a similarly competent but even more generic bomb squad guy on call). Sheridan gets a bit of fun time with the bomber, but not in any way that adds to what we know about his character.
No, in its own odd way, this is a Londo episode, doing what is right, and still being confronted by the fanaticism his own actions have engendered. As such, it's not a bad episode, but it's not really a great one, either.
Most Dramatic Moment: Londo tells G'Kar they have to cooperate, or else they both will die — and G'Kar tells Londo that's a perfectly acceptable outcome to him.
Most Amusing Moment: The various iterations of a Centauri knock-knock joke. Which is only mildly funny, but ties together a surprising number of characters. (And, apparently, was based on various fan posts to the B5 boards.)
Most Arc-ish Moment: After being discovered, but before they are recovered from the elevator car, the supine, near-dead Londo and G'Kar exchange insults until we fade to black. It's amusing — but also pathetic, and indicative of both how things haven't changed since the first episode and how far apart these increasingly sympathetic characters are.
Londo: There, you see? I'm going to live!
G'Kar: So it would seem. Well, it is an imperfect universe.
Londo: Bastard!
G’Kar: Monster!
Londo: Fanatic!
G’Kar: Murderer!
Londo: You are insane!
G’Kar: That’s why we’ll win.
Londo: 'Go be the ambassador to Babylon 5,' they said. 'It will be an easy position. I hate my life.'
G’Kar: So do I.
Londo: Shut up!
Overall Rating: 3.0 / 5 — A plebeian plot, but some nice character moments to move it along.
– Lurker’s Guide: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/045.html
– Babylon Project: http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Convictions
– IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0517641/
– AV Club: http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/babylon-5-matters-of-honorconvictions-98330
– Kay Shapero: http://www.kayshapero.net/b5review/Convictions.htm
– TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/BabylonFiveS03E02Convictions
Next episode: "A Day in the Strife" is another one I'm not remembering well. So I guess it will be a pleasant surprise for all!