Sheridan’s fleet arrives in the Solar System, trying to overcome Earth’s defenses in order to free it from President Clark’s tyranny. But even victory will come with a terrible cost …
A-Plot: In the first half of the episode, we finally learn Sheridan’s cunning plan, and why Franklin was so appalled over it. Sheridan is going to smuggle the Shadow-tech-infested telepaths aboard the Earthforce warships, and let them do their “All your circuitry is belong to us” thing, crippling the fleet. Not only does this give Sheridan’s forces a fighting chance, it disables the opposition without killing (many of) them.
It’s still a horrifying plan, and Franklin, of all people, has to defend it to a Martian Resistance NCO.
FRANKLIN: They’re probably waking up right now. Wondering where they are. Looking for the Machine. They’ll start moving … looking for the first open computer relay. And they’ll merge with it. Become one with the Machine. The interference will shut down the destroyers … let us do what we have to do.
NCO: My god … you’re using them … using these people as if they were weapons!
FRANKLIN: Yeah, we’re using them. Because they are weapons. Because there are three dozen destroyers out there with over a thousand crew apiece … and if the telepaths can disable those ships, we risk thirty lives to save thirty thousand.
NCO: But how can you do this to them? You’re a doctor!
FRANKLIN: We can never remove those implants without the resources back home on Earth. If we can’t win this war, they’re dead either way. They’re fighting for Earth, same as we are. They just don’t know they’re doing it.
It’s a chilling encounter, because Franklin is absolutely right — the greater good calls for these people to be sacrificed, and that’s a horrible, horrible thing. It’s a command decision, something that Franklin is untrained for, and it kills him to be saying it.
Earthforce has its fleet near Mars, where they know Sheridan’s going to strike. It’s newly commanded aboard the Apollo by General Lefcourt, Sheridan’s old instructor, who knows Sheridan all too well. Unlike some in Earthforce, Lefcourt isn’t driven by animus against the traitors — he’s loyal to Earth because that’s what he swore an oath to be, which is why he’s determined to stop Sheridan.
[To his fleet captain] And now I’m going to have to kill him, and his ship, and everyone around him. It’s a terrible day, Charlie. I wish to hell I’d never lived to see it.
[Addressing the fleet, a few moments later] If a ship is on that list, you are authorized to open fire on that ship and any support vessels, alien or human. You are to forget forget that these people were once friends, associates and fellow officers. They are targets to be destroyed, nothing more, nothing less. We are here to do a job, let’s do it. And God help all of us.
His ships wait and bring up supplies. The Martian Resistance (aided by Garibaldi, Franklin, and Lyta) secure the security outposts around the main Earthforce base there, as the teeps are smuggled in with those supplies (apparently such shipments are only examined from the departure point, not on receiving, so nobody on the Earth ships notices those moving-tarp-covered cryotanks with the teeps inside, even where the tarps have slipped significantly).
That set, Lyta, down on the planet, awakens the telepaths (again showing her amazing power, coupled with a Franklin-rigged widget), while a White Star bombs the snot out of the base Sheridan shows no signs of pleasure over this, even though it’s where he spent a couple of episodes being tortured, drugged, and psychologically abused. He has the excuse that it will impact Earthforce power on the planet in the face of the Martian Resistance, and might distract Lefcourt’s fleet (it doesn’t).
With most of the Earth ships temporarily disabled until the teeps can be killed (and, even then, their systems are a mess), Sheridan’s fleet sweeps in and uses his alien supporters to keep Earth’s mobile defenses in check. He then micro-jumps his Earth ships and White Stars to Earth, and announces to the planet that he’s there to free them, and encouraging those who have been waiting their chance to rise up against the evil Clark regime to do so.
This is Captain John Sheridan. We are here on the authority of a multiplanetary force that can no longer stand by and watch one of their greatest allies falling into darkness and despair. We are here on behalf of the thousands of civilians murdered under orders from the current administration, who have no one else to speak for them, and on behalf of the Earthforce units that have joined us to oppose the tyranny that has darkened Earth ever since President Santiago was assassinated three years ago. We are here to place President Clark under arrest, to disband Nightwatch, and return our government to the hands of her people.
We know that many in the government have wanted to act but have been intimidated by threats of retaliation against your families, your friends. You are not alone anymore. We call upon you to rise up and do what’s right. We have drawn their forces away from Earth and disabled them. The time to act is now.
This is not the voice of treason. These are your sons, your daughters, whose loyalties have never wavered, whose beliefs in this Alliance has forced us to take extraordinary means. For justice, for peace, for the future, we have come home!
Clark, seeing the writing on the wall, kills himself, leaving a note for those who find him moments later: “SCORCHED EARTH”. Turns out he’s managed to override Earth’s defense grid, which swings its particle beams around and begins a count-down to devastating the planet. Sheridan’s fleet goes all out to take down the orbiting defenses, but their missiles pack a hell of a punch and Agamemnon, the ship he’s on, gets seriously pummeled. With no choice and no time, he orders the ship to suicide-ram the massive particle beam platform in front of them — but is saved at the last moment by Apollo, which not only finally get back underway, and convinced the ships left behind at Mars to let them go, but whose commander, Lefcourt, has been monitoring the situation and realizes he must back Sheridan’s play.
The last platform is destroyed. Earth is safe. Clark is dead. ISN comes back on the air. Sheridan and his Resistance have won.
So what comes next?
B-Plot: Ivanova, only a few days from death, is shipped back to B5. Everyone agrees that she would rather stay with the fleet, but everyone (but Marcus) wants her to be kept as safe as possible.
Alas, Lennier turns out to have a big mouth, giving Marcus the clue that B5 might hold some powerful medical secret. He downloads the information and discovers the alien healing device introduced in “Quality of Mercy” (way back in S.1), and used by Sheridan to heal Garibaldi (“Revelations,” early in S.2). Despite the fact that Franklin far-too-well-tagged high security medical logs keep saying, “Whoa, this is way too dangerous to ever, ever use again until it can be studied,” Marcus hijacks a White Star and hightails it back to B5. Alas, by that time they are in range of Earth’s interstellar comms jamming (to block Resistance propaganda), and Sheridan can’t let B5 know that Marcus should be arrested on sight kept from the MedLab locked closet.
(Yes, “arrested on sight.” Yeah, I get it, he loves Ivanova with a love that burns like a thousand burning suns. I get it. He also diverted one of the most powerful ships in the fleet, just before they were going to go into the most important battle ever, when the presence of absence of a single ship might mean victory or defeat or, as it turns out, the destruction of planet Earth. That’s desertion, at the very least, and is a hanging offense in most armed forces, no matter how much he loves Ivanova.)
As it turns out, the final scenes of the ep are MedLab, where Marcus has knocked out the security guards watching Ivanova, and hooked him and her to the machine, knowing it will kill him if not monitored. He professes his love, and closes his eyes, collapsing next to her bed.
Overall: And boy-howdy wasn’t that the most depressing episode ending ever, in a episode that should be all about the triumph of the Resistance over Clark, the saving of billions of lives, and the apparent resolution of a story arc that’s been going on since early S.1.
Unlike the defeat of the Shadows in S.3, the liberation of Earth is muted here as something to celebrate. As both Sheridan and Lefcourt make it clear at various times, civil war is a terrible thing, and there have been a lot of casualties despite everyone’s efforts. Plus, of course, there’s the whole Marcus/Ivanova thing to be depressed about. Yikes.
Boxleitner does a particularly fine job here, keeping the beard he grew in captivity (if trimmed up), and giving a marvelous speeches both to his own folk and to the people of Earth. Everyone else does a workmanlike job with their roles. Franklin’s unhappiness with Sheridan’s plan, and his inability to argue with the calculus of lives it will save, is all conveyed well by Richard Biggs. Marcus quiet stoicism as he sacrifices everything for his love doesn’t allow Jason Cole much to do besides using those dreamy eyes to convey emotion, but he does so well.
The one person we never hear from is President Clark himself; we simply see his actions, taking his own life before arrest, arranging for Earth to be destroyed as his legacy. It’s all very mad and authoritarian, but Clark’s lack of presence as the person who engineered (or led) this dark chapter in Earth’s history somehow keeps us from personifying the totalitarian and xenophobic evil he represents, and therefore robs us of that conflict in a dramatic sense. It keeps the conflict from being just about evil President Clark, sure, but it makes things feel almost anticlimactic. (More discussion of that here.)
Things aren’t over, not by a long shot, but JMS still thinks he has to wrap up the rest of the saga in a mere two more episodes. He largely takes the time here to do the job right, but further dramatic and narrative shortcuts are yet to come.
Most Dramatic Moment: There are some great moments in this ep — Marcus’ final line, various moments in the battle, Lefcourt’s speech with the captain he’s replacing, Sheridan’s message to Earth, Franklin revealing the plan. I have to give the nod, though, to something smaller: actress Maggie Egan’s turn as the ISN anchor, back on her job, choking up as she talks about what’s happened, but emblematic of the freedom that has returned to the planet.
(The scene was originally written for the next episode, but chunks of it were used here.)
Egan had played that role from the very first episode of the series the entire way to ISN being shut down by Clark, and she’ll continue to do so the last main timeline episode of season 5.
Most Amusing Moment: I can’t think of any humor in this episode, for obvious reasons.
Most Arc-ish Moment: The alien healing machine as Chekhov’s Gun on the Mantelpiece. It took multiple seasons (and, frankly, some other opportunities where it would have been of potential value), but it finally got pulled down and used. The irony of that won’t become clear until we get to S.5.
Overall Rating: 4.5 / 5 — Action, intrigue, and dramatic heartbreak. (Rating History).
Other Resources for this episode:
- Lurker’s Guide
- Babylon Project Wiki
- IMDb
- AV Club (covers eps 18-20 of the season)
- TV Tropes
- Sci-Fi Musings (home of the little videos in so many of these reviews I’ve done)
- Sundry Thoughts
Next episode: “Rising Star” … as power and government — both on Earth and on B5 — shift dramatically.
#b5 #babylon5
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