Neil Gaiman works some magic … as do Penn and Teller
There are two main threads. The A-plot has a dozen subplots to it, most of them delightful. The B-plot is more straightforward, and a bit more difficult to grok.
A-Plot
The Brakiri on B5 arrange to rent part of the station, in a such a way that it legally becomes “their territory” for one evening, sunset to sunrise. This isn’t just a diplomatic embassy kind of thing — weird magic stuff is going on for the “Day of the Dead,” which only happens every few centuries, son one of the Brakiri on the station want to miss out. As part of the process, that section of the station will be somehow metaphysically moved to Brakir, so that it partakes in the festival. As this includes some sleeping quarters sections (a weird thing to rent out around), some of the crew members learn a lot more about the Day of the Dead than they wanted, as they are visited by ghosts left behind during the show.
Lochley: Lochley is visited by a friend, Zoe, from when they were teenagers. Lochley apparently had quite the while JD life, living rough, involved in petty crime and drug use.
LOCHLEY: We were cold, sick, and we were hungry all the time. We did thing to survive I’ve done my best to forget. We lived in that burned-out hotel. I was scared all the time my father was going to find me. No, it was bad.
ZOE: Yeah, but … we still had fun.
It was only when she found Zoe dead of an OD (and covered in cockroaches) that she got “scared straight” — back to her overbearing Space Marine dad, back into school, and then into the military, and into the world’s most stiff-spined, upright life. It’s still a trauma that haunts her (we learn her sooper-sekrit passcode is “Zoe’s dead”). The visit ends up serving as a reconciliation between the two, and closure for Lochsley when she finally confirms that Zoe’s OD was suicide, not her being a good enough protector and friend.
ZOE: Lizzie, I do remember my death. I didn’t want to hurt you, but … yeah. I did do it on purpose. I just couldn’t go on. Don’t hate me, okay?
LOCHLEY: I could never hate you.
One added creepy note here is Zoe passing a message for Sheridan on from Kosh (!): “When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.” It’s been so long since we got some of Kosh’s unintelligible warnings, I’d forgotten how much I both loved and hated it.
Garibaldi: Our erstwhile security chief is visited by Dodger, the Marine that he loved and lost in ep. 2×10, “GROPOS”. As then, she’s looking for a good time, he’s busy being paranoid about what’s going on. Eventually they both relax and spend time … demonstrating you can recite Emily Dickinson poems to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
Londo: Just as Garibaldi is visited by a former lover, Londo meets with Adira, the Centauri dancing girl he once, truly, loved (ep. 1×03 “Born to the Purple”) … before she was assassinated (ep. ep. 3×15, “Interludes and Examinations”). She was killed (by Refa, probably, possibly with Morden’s connivance) to snap him out of his personal funk and back into leading the Centauri to greatness.
It’s a tragic re-meeting, even as Londo takes it all much more at face value than any of the others. It gives us a final chance to see Londo before his trip back to the Centauri homeworld and throne change him forever — something he is very much aware of, and rues. Because the fact is, Londo could probably have been very happy being a minor, fringe noble at a thankless diplomatic posting, if he’d had Adira by his side.
ADIRA: Normality will return soon. And when this night is done … so am I. And you? You will go on to become Emperor Mollari.
LONDO: I don’t want to become emperor. I want to stay here with you.
ADIRA: Londo, I’m a dream. In the morning, I’ll be gone. And you will rule 40 billion Centauri. But not one of them will ever know you the way I know you.
Lennier: Lennier, taking a quick break from training to actually see the long-rumored Brakiri “Day of the Dead” (and, not-incidentally, wanting to visit Delenn), shows up on B5 … and is visited in the night by Mr. Morden (Ed Wasser with sharp but distressingly short hair). After learning he can’t punch the ghost out, Lennier is informed that he will end up betraying the Rangers and, by extension, Delenn, and likely die in the process. Lennier is either the smartest or dumbest person in the tale, because he chooses to ignore everything Morden has to say and sits down to meditate, leaving Morden to read the newspaper.
Interestingly enough, dead Morden actually gets an answer from Lennier that he was unable to get from Delenn, so long ago: What a Minbari wants.
LENNIER: Why did you come back here? Mr. MordenMORDEN: I’m dead. It’s my job. Why did you come back here?
LENNIER: I came for wisdom.
MORDEN: You don’t come to the dead for wisdom, Lennier. […] Wisdom. Let’s see … Delenn does not love you as you love her, and she never will.
LENNIER: I know that.
MORDEN: No, you don’t. Not in your heart. That’s the problem, you see? No one should ever want to talk to the dead.
LENNIER: Go away.
MORDEN: Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. You raised a ghost, now you have to listen to him.
Interestingly enough, most of the ghosts — Morden, Zoe, Dodger — deny they’re actually ghosts.
Sheridan shows up a bit in this story — interrupted from the B-Plot, he personally investigates the un-enterable Brakiri zone (since apparently Security is all asleep), and nearly gets beaned by a fire extinguisher he throws at the interface. Okay.
One of the weirder, less explicable parts of the plot here is G’Kar, who has some funny moments, but … well, he seems to know what’s going to happen, warning Lochsley not to “sell” the station to the Brakiri (even if it violates their religious rights), warning Garibaldi, and finally choosing to sleep in the bridge rather than his own quarters … but he gives no details, no actual reason to listen to him, just portents and alarums. To make matters worse, he later expresses regrets about having missed it all. It’s kind of sloppy writing for the character.
B-Plot
Rebo and ZootyThe most famous entertainers in the galaxy, Rebo and Zooty, come to visit B5. They’re played by Penn and Teller, and knowing them from thirty years later, they haven’t changed much. The show does a nice job of modifying their schtick, slightly, for a different pair of stage magicians.
The pair charm everyone on the station, except for Capt. Lochley, who apparently doesn’t enjoy humor and silliness (there should be some time here to her A-Plot, but there really isn’t). Even the aliens all enjoy the stage-magical hijinx of the pair (in part because R&Z have widely studied alien humor); all you have to do is say “Zooty-Zoot-Zoot!” to anyone on B5 (except Lochsley), and they burst into the equivalent of laughter.
In reality, R&Z are here to talk with Sheridan and Delenn about … going into politics. Giving up being comedians and doing something “worthwhile”. It’s an interesting take, looking back over the decades, as we see folk like Jon Stewart becoming political forces, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy leveraging a career that has included comedy to become President of Ukraine — and holding it together under their darkest hour.
Ultimately, it’s the least effective part of the episode, as we get a little homily about how important humor is, both socially to hold people together during hard times, and politically, to speak truth to power (and to serve as a canary in the coal mine). Not bad lessons, and some of the personal interplay in the scenes works well, but in the end it’s all a little preachy.
Other Bits and Bobs
As a guest-written episode (and one that written early days in the season, before Joe had the full timeline charted), it wisely avoids tying too much to live troubles in the B5verse. The telepath problem, political stresses in the Alliance … all are put into a soft focus in the background, making this a somewhat standalone (if prophetic) tale.
Meanwhile …
If this seems very non-Joe Straczynski — being a guy who is okay with writing about telepaths and aliens who wield the power of gods and technomancers who create magical effects from technology and the like, but who would never write about straight-up magic — well, you’re right. This is the single episode in seasons 3-5 which wasn’t written by JMS. Instead, it was a long-term commitment fulfilled to have fabulist Neil Gaiman write it. And Neil Gaiman writes magic.
In the end, it’s not too glaring of a matter. Suspension of disbelief — hey, we all believe in destinies prophecies and Centauri seeing their death, after all — is already established. It does create a different tone for it all, but I was able to handwave the more overt use of “magic” for purposes of an episode.
ZoeA bit of trivia: Gaiman has noted elsewhere that Lochsley and Zoe were also former lovers (perhaps another reason she ran away from home). There’s certainly that aspect to be read into their interplay, but anything overt, if it ever existed, was filed off by JMS on editing the story. If it were so, it would make Lennier the only one not visited by an ex-lover (likely because the only one he’s ever loved is still alive and otherwise involved … which then ties to Morden’s prophecy …)
There is some controversy as to where “Day of the Dead” should be placed. It was written early in the season, after only four scripts had been completed by JMS, and before all the detailed chronology was figured out; it was originally shot 11th, but shuffled to 8th during the original run because of conflicts with the NBA playoffs, and so as to let a more solid sequencing of episodes occur. This creates some minor continuity conflicts, and some oddness with G’kar and Londo being (still? again?) on B5, but other recommended options have their own inconsistencies as well. Since it’s all relatively trivial, I’m going with here, as in the original broadcast and on the recent HBO Max run.
Not only does this ep give us an opportunity for a long-promised Gaiman episode, but series consultant Harlan Ellison “shows up” as the electronic voice of Zooty (thus allowing Teller to remain mute).
Moments
Most Dramatic Moment:
Lochley — who is usually a staid rock — practically falling apart talking to Zoe about what their life together was like, how bad it was — and about finding her body.
Most Amusing Moment:
SHERIDAN: Okay, captain, let me get this straight. You sold Babylon 5 to an alien race for the nighT, who somehow transported a square mile of this station to their Homeworld, while apparently filling it with people temporarily returned from the dead?
“I thought it was a metaphor, sir.”LOCHLEY: Yes, sir.
SHERIDAN: Well, do you have an explanation as to why you did this?
LOCHLEY: Yes, sir. I thought it was a metaphor, sir. I’ll try to be more literal-minded from now on, sir.
Most Arc-ish Moment:
Surely Morden chatting with Lennier.
LENNIER: I know what kind of a man you were.
Morden and LennierMORDEN: Give a dog a bad name and you can hang him with it. You shouldn’t listen to everything Sheridan tells you. I’m surprised he’s not here tonight, since he died at Z’Ha’Dum. […] So … do you like being a Ranger, Lennier? Would you like it any better if I were to tell you that you will betray the Anla’shok?
LENNIER: You are lying.
MORDEN: I wish I were. No?
LENNIER: Sheridan did not die at Z’Ha’Dum. If you do not know the present, how can you know the future?
MORDEN: I’m talking about the future. So what if I’m not up on recent history? I’m prophetic, not infallible.
LENNIER: I think you are neither. But at least you have shown me there is truly life beyond death.
MORDEN: Not necessarily, but you’ll find that out soon enough.
LENNIER: I am Anla’shok and shall remain so until I pass beyond. I could no more betray the Anla’shok than my fingers could betray my hand. Our talk is done.
MORDEN: Your loss.
The Bottom Line
Some great dialog, some dubious plotting, a welcome break from Byron and the Telepaths.
Overall Rating: 4.5 of 5.0 — Good-to-Great stuff in the A-Plot, Interesting but Mixed stuff int he B-Plot, great lines, but also a clear sense of filling in.
Next episode: 5×09 “In the Kingdom of the Blind” — The Telepath Problem heats up, and Londo learns there’s something rotten in the heart of Centauri Prime.
Londo: Just as Garibaldi is visited by a former lover, Londo meets with Adira, the Centauri dancing girl he once, truly, loved (ep. 1×03 “Born to the Purple”) … before she was assassinated (ep. ep. 3×15, “Interludes and Examinations”). She was killed (by Refa, probably, possibly with Morden’s connivance) to snap him out of his personal funk and back into leading the Centauri to greatness. 
