In the twenty-first and penultimate episode of the third season of Babylon 5<\/i>, the Rangers attempt to execute their plan to ward off a massive attack by the Shadows; Dr. Franklin meets himself. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Babylon 5<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of addiction<\/b><\/p>\n
Everything hurts. REPEATEDLY.<\/p>\n
Dr. Franklin<\/b><\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel too strongly one way or another about the actual walkabout plot itself. On the one hand, I like that the show didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t treat Dr. Franklin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s addiction to stims as a single-episode story, one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solved quickly and then never addressed again. Addiction is rarely, if ever, resolved in such a way in real life. The walkabout arc, though, aside from feeling appropriative, is just not that interesting. The places that Dr. Franklin visits look like every other place in Downbelow, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like we got to see locations that were new or refreshing. Plus, someone walking from one end of a spaceship to another isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all that intriguing!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Dr. Franklin \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meeting\u00e2\u20ac\u009d himself comes about in a way that allows the show to address the emotional reasons why Dr. Franklin came to rely on stims aside from the circumstances he was under. As a character study, that<\/i> felt gritty and interesting. After Dr. Franklin stops a beating and is then stabbed himself (FUCK THE DUDE WHO LEFT HIM THERE TO DIE), he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s visited by a version of himself that is… well, pretty close to the version of himself he was at the peak of his addiction. All that yelling and berating is suddenly directed at him as<\/i> he is dying, and guess what? Dr. Franklin doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it! Turns out he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a complete asshole like this! But that sort of harsh love in this<\/i> context ends up being motivational. (I would not characterize it as harsh love when directed at literally anyone else.) Spite works for him because Dr. Franklin wants to prove \u00e2\u20ac\u0153himself\u00e2\u20ac\u009d wrong, that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to run away from his problems anymore. That includes facing his addiction head-on, it means analyzing his behavior, and it means doing things differently with this second chance.<\/p>\n A Victory of Sorts<\/b><\/p>\n HI, THIS WAS SO STRESSFUL. On the eve of battle, this show really knows how to build up dread. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that sort of dramatic energy that comes from impending doom, too. Marcus makes a play for Ivanova, and Delenn initiates an important mating ritual. Both these acts, while significant for these specific characters, serve to give us a sense that the end might possibly be near. Each of them know that this may not go as planned, and if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the case, why not be honest about one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feelings? Why not give things a try? Maybe there won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be<\/i> another day.<\/p>\n And for what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth, I spent at least a third of this episode completely worried that the sector of space believed to be the site of the next Shadows attack was a red herring, that the alliance of worlds would amass their attack ships in one location, only for them<\/i> to be annihilated. LOOK, THIS SHOW HAS HAD REALLY FUCKED UP, DARK TWISTS BEFORE. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like it was out of the question??!?!? But the bigger point I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to make: the dread here is palpable<\/i>. What if Delenn was<\/i> wrong? Or what if she was right, but their forces were not enough to secure a victory?<\/p>\n Yet even as this battle unfolded and the plan turned out to be real, Babylon 5<\/i> still manages to give this victory a tinge of darkness. This pre-emptive attack goes well, so-to-speak, but it comes at great cost. The alliance lost two ships to every Shadow ship destroyed. There is no mass destruction of Shadows, as they end up fleeing before there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too much damage. So, yes, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a victory, but what will the response<\/i> be to that victory? How will the Shadows regroup in the meantime? I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say this victory is Pyrrhic in nature, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a joyous occasion, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shadow Dancing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d does a fine job of portraying such a complicated situation. (I also must say that this makes it clear how a war can take seventeen years<\/i> to resolve. If all the victories and losses are of this caliber, a war could easily last ages.)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And look, I expect penultimate episodes of seasons to set-up finales. Yet the grandeur of the fight here felt like the end of a season, a chance for the good people to have a definitive (if scary) victory over evil. It ends with a hint of what is to come: Sheridan and the others are convinced that Babylon 5<\/i> will be the next target, since that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most obvious outcome of this. And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disagree with them! But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also right when the show resurrects that strange dream that Sheridan was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153given\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Kosh, and I will admit to y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all that while some of it was figured out, I have figured out exactly none of it myself. This notion of an opposite but an equal… what the fuck<\/i>? So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not<\/i> Morden? Something also tells me that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not Anna Sheridan, either, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll talk about that in a second. So, is<\/i> there something on the station that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preventing them from attacking it? Is it Sheridan? Ivanova? Someone or something else???<\/p>\n UGH WHY DOES THIS SHOW KEEP DOING THIS TO ME.<\/p>\n Which brings me to Anna Sheridan. Not one<\/i> thing about this feels good, the least of which is that Delenn foresaw this, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she? That whole imagery of the snow globe dropping… NO. But this means that Anna was on<\/i> that Shadows ship, that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been with the Shadows the entire time since she went to Z\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122dum, and… my gods, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this is so awful. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s working<\/i> with them? What could she possibly see in the Shadows??? Unless she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being held against her will????<\/p>\n SHERIDAN. DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GO TO Z\u00e2\u20ac\u2122HA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122DUM. PLEASE.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shadow Dancing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the twenty-first and penultimate episode of the third season of Babylon 5, the Rangers attempt to execute their plan to ward off a massive attack by the Shadows; Dr. Franklin meets himself. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to … Continue reading