A-Plot: The focus in this episode are the two floating maintenance workers, Mack and Bo. The former is salt-of-the-earth building super, always with a wry quip about the little guy. The latter is also grounded, but has a little bit bigger perspective.
Over the course of the episode they have chances to observe — and comment to each other about — each of the major characters, and their relationships. It’s actually feels still part of the TNT reintroduction of the series, since there’s both a lot of show and a lot of tell.
Beyond observation, there are two parts of this plot. First, there’s the sense that the little guys (like Mack and Bo) never get paid attention to by the big guys. They’re the set changers in a kabuki play, invisible except when someone has a complaint. On the flip side, there’s also the idea that the little guys look for something more consequential than their work life. Bo, in particular, envies the snazzy Star Fury pilots out there, dogfighting their ways to glory.
So Byron (whilst they’re hunkering down with the teeps in Brown Sector) links Bo up to one of the pilots — initially terrifying, then exciting, then …
The vision is interrupted — but it’s a taste of a life he never had, never really grasped, making him both more respectful of the pilots and more glad of the role he gets to play on a daily basis.
A third aspect to this part of the plot is that, even as we see the little guys both feeling rare bits of appreciation and even a little adventure, we also get to observe how they see through the facade of heroism, up-close. Delenn and Sheridan’s love. Lochley’s fierceness. Franklin’s pain. G’Kar and Londo’s ties that bind. The telepaths’ humanity. It feel a bit stagey at times, but it still manages to work.
B-Plot: There’s a fleet of evil aliens looking to invade B5’s sector — let’s call them the McGuffins, because in the end who they are and what motivates them isn’t important, and they’ll never be seen again. Anyway, the station knows they’re on the way because of the Gaim. B5 has to give them, at the least, a bloody nose to teach them not to move along to another sector.
Lochley is facing her first big military challenge. B5 is a formidable force, but with the White Star fleet away (see last episode), they’re vulnerable.
Sheridan is facing the reality of not being in charge of the station any longer, but still wanting to see Delenn protected. Delenn, on the other hand, isn’t going to be the damsel locked in the tower for protection.
Garibaldi is fighting for his job, having both gotten the initial Gaim intel, but also missing out on some key strengths of the bad guys. He’s also paranoid about Lochley, trying to pin down on what side she fought during the Civil War.
Franklin is prepping for the big battle, to receive casualties both from B5 and the attacking aliens. When Bo asks why he’s willing to save aliens there to kill them, he exposits some backstory about how his own father (who visited the station in 2×10 “GROPOS”) had his life saved by an enemy doctor, inspiring Franklin to go into medicine himself.
Londo and G’Kar are in shelter, bickering, but also giving us a few glimpses at themselves through their origins. G’Kar grew up in bomb shelters, barely protected from the Centauri bombings, always eventually coming back out into the sun. Londo, on the other hand, was always saddled with layers of noble duty — he never grew up, as G’Kar put it, only grew old.
(That insight will inform the rest of the season, as G’Kar blossoms in the sunlight of freedom, and Londo becomes ever more burdened by his destiny and his duty. More on this below.)
Byron is protecting and honing his people, quoting Shakespeare (again), but still being moved enough by humanity to help Bo make the connection he’s looking for.
Ultimately, the McGuffins are defeated, thanks to a deus ex White Star return of the fleet to trounce them. The command crew are wearied but satisfied with their jobs. Sheridan and Delenn can bill and coo. And Franklin gets stuck signing the death certificates.
The B-plot, in the end, isn’t meaningful, except to advance its entwined A-plot. It would have been nice to have thrown in some plot development in what’s been a slow start to a busy season, but …
Other Bits and Bobs:
Meanwhile: JMS has noted that Mack was modeled somewhat after Harlan Ellison, who had been pestering him the entire series about doing an episode from the perspective of “the little people.” Ellison gets a story credit on this episode.
Most Dramatic Moment: Franklin, having already talked about his desire to go out and find any lives he save after the battle … ends up the episode tagging corpses overflowing out into the hallways.
As Mack starts saying in complaint to Bo, “They get all the glory, we get all the mess. Well, maybe not all the mess.”
Most Amusing Moment: Mack and Bo exchange any number of amusing quips, not even counting their interactions with the series protagonists, but the best has to come as Londo and G’Kar, after lengthy bickering, kvetching, and kvelling, wander off …
Londo: [uncomfortably] I think I will see how things are going out there.
G’Kar: I’ll go too. Good idea.
Londo: What, are you afraid I won’t come back, G’Kar?
G’Kar: No, afraid you will. [They walk off.]
Mack: [to Bo] So, how long you figure they’ve been married?
Amusing, but insightful. The two are bound, if not by oaths of love, by deeper strands of destiny and personality. There are times when it seems that B5 is actually a show about those two aliens, and, even if it’s not true, it’s still close to being so.
Honorable mention to Delenn arguing Mack and Bo out of escorting her to an escape pod at Sheridan’s orders. It may be Sinclair who studied from the Jesuits, but he instilled some of that into the Minbari generations ago, and Delenn has learned her lesson well.
Most Arc-ish Moment: Much of this episode is throw-away regarding arc, but the interaction between Londo and G’Kar and their mutual childhoods is both foundational and predictive of where things are going for the two of them.
G’Kar: Ah, that explains a great deal.
Londo: Really? And what exactly does it explain, G’Kar?
G’Kar: I spent my years in one shelter after another, but sooner or later, I was able to leave the shelter and walk out into the daylight. You do not have that luxury. You carry your shelter with you. Every day. You did not grow up, you grew old.
Overall Rating: 4.1 of 5.0 –My son, who’s always had a love-hate relationship with (his dad forcing him to watch) B5, opined, as the credits rolled, that he’d be happy to watch B5 in the future if every ep was like this.
I think this comes mainly from that human, non-epic, un-pompous note to it. Even though some of the dialog from JMS feels a bit — elaborate and heavy, even from Mac and Bo — it’s still much more of a grounded episode, reflecting not just the legendary heroes (and villains), but the little guys who get whipped up into their wakes.
We’ve seen B5 from other perspectives in the past — but that was the news media, friendly and un-. Mack and Bo, even if a bit too precious and wise at times, still give us an everyman’s perspective on life on B5 that’s too often missing in the sturm und drang of galaxy-shaking drama.
Other Resources for this episode:
- Lurker’s Guide
- Babylon Project Wiki
- IMDb
- AV Club (covers eps 1-5 of the season)
- TV Tropes
- Sci-Fi Musings (home of the little videos in so many of these reviews I’ve done)
- Sundry Thoughts
Previous episode: 5×03 “The Paragon of Animals”
Next episode: 5×05 “Learning Curve” – No janitors, just Ranger trainees, going toe-to-toe with a new gangster chief on B5. Oooookay.
Reposted on Pluspora.