{"id":7135,"date":"2018-12-28T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T21:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7135"},"modified":"2018-12-25T16:52:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T00:52:00","slug":"mark-watches-babylon-5-s04e02-whatever-happened-to-mr-garibaldi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2018\/12\/mark-watches-babylon-5-s04e02-whatever-happened-to-mr-garibaldi\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Babylon 5’: S04E02 – Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second episode of the fourth season of Babylon 5<\/i>, G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar attempts to track down Garibaldi; Sheridan faces two possibilities; Delenn deals with grief. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Babylon 5<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of grief, brief mention of self harm<\/b><\/p>\n

Holy shit, WHAT IS THIS SEASON DOING????<\/p>\n

Letting Go<\/b><\/p>\n

Again, I am so intrigued by this notion that as characters learn to accept Sheridan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death and live beyond it, Sheridan is off… not dying. NOT ACCEPTING HIS OWN<\/i> DEATH. And I am really interested in seeing how the show is going to deal with his return. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen in other shows or books, sure, but this specific context feels so refreshing and exciting. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in part because Delenn goes through such a challenge in this episode to accept that she can do anything now that Sheridan is gone. Now, I did appreciate that there was depth to this beyond depicting Delenn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sorrow as all-encompassing. As Dr. Franklin notes when he seeks Delenn out, the Minbari grieve through fasting. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a complication here: Delenn is part human, so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an element of the fast that harms Delenn. And maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intentional. (It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly a very human reaction to grief.) So, we get a characterization here that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complicated because Delenn herself is a very complicated person, one whose coping mechanisms and traditions might well be at odds with her body.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the DEVASTATING video that Dr. Franklin later finds that snaps Delenn out of it, and WHAT A MESSAGE. I loved that it was a metaphorical image as much as it was very<\/i> literal for Sheridan. Sometimes, when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re falling, you might as well try to fly. And Delenn, wracked with guilt and regret\u00e2\u20ac\u201dvery human emotions, I might add\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwrestles with the idea that there is<\/i> anything left for her to do other than joining Sheridan in the place without Shadows. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not true: she can live<\/i>. (Which is an interesting parallel to Sheridan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey!) She can unite those left behind and strike at the Shadows, despite that the League of Non-Aligned Worlds is mostly in shambles. This loss for her is immense, and she will most certainly change because of it. But it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that she has to give up.<\/p>\n

The Agreement<\/b><\/p>\n

That notion\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof hope within an immense darkness\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis all over this episode, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there within G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to locate Garibaldi. (And what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting is that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only<\/i> character thus far who has not gotten a glimpse of that bit of light; his situation is pretty damn dire right now.) No matter how impossible it might have seemed, G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar still left the station\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand his only bit of sanctuary\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto find his friend. He does so with a brashness that might be seen as foolish. Seriously, he seems so unconcerned about the ramifications of his actions beyond the search for Garibaldi. But I saw that as a sign of how pure and right<\/i> he believed this action to be. His was a noble mission, a chance for him to return to Garibaldi the kindness and respect that was paid to him over the past year, especially after G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prison sentence. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll admit that Marcus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role was initially quite engaging, but I thought it would have been interesting if Marcus stuck by his side. INITIALLY, I SAY. Because LOOK WHERE THIS GOES. LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an obvious tragedy here because G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar becomes a pawn for Emperor Cartagia, a gift to be wielded not because Cartagia actually cares for Londo, but because all his acts are extensions of the power he wields. He grants Londo a gift, I believe, because<\/i> he is able to do so, because it reminds Londo of his power, because it has the outward appearance of being something Londo wants, because in the end, all conquered peoples are nothing but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gifts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to other Centauri. It is a monstrous and horrifying thing to witness, and it may have taken Londo an unnecessarily long time to realize it, but by gods, I believe him. He was genuinely horrified by what he saw, by what Cartagia had done, and by what Cartagia was going<\/i> to do. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a strange thing to admit because this character has so often delighted in or caused the extreme suffering of others, which is why I also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore how long it has taken for him to be so critical of what the Centauri do.<\/p>\n

But he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at this point, and thus, when he proposes an agreement of sorts to G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar, I could both not believe it was happening, but I entirely<\/i> believed it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a shocking alliance because WHO WOULD HAVE EVER EXPECTED THESE TWO TO EVER BE ON THE SAME SIDE. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, we know the endgame for G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar and Londo: they both choke one another to death! So this almost seems an impossibility\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 except for, after years of struggling against one another, the moment they have a common enemy: the Shadows. This has manifested through Cartagia, of course, and in typical Londo Mollari fashion, Londo can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to understand the nature of the price to be paid, at least not until it is spelled out to him. He only promises G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar survival at the end of being ruthlessly tortured for an indeterminable amount of time, believing that since G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar is in no position to bargain, he shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even bother. But G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar, shrewd and observant as he tends to be, realizes that his longtime foe is in the same place. So he makes a demand: he will help Londo, but only if the occupation of Narn has ended.<\/p>\n

And Londo agrees to it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I CAN BARELY BELIEVE THIS, BUT THERE YOU GO. Will Londo keep his word? I assume at some point, if the timeline is still the same, Cartagia will be gone, and as I said in the previous review, this seems to be setting up Londo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ascension. But we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any confirmation that Londo will do as he said. Oh god, what if that<\/i> is the reason why G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar eventually kills him? HELP ME, THIS IS TOO MUCH.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tick, Tock<\/b><\/p>\n

Look, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna invoke this trope\u00e2\u20ac\u201da character dying and talking to a mystical, ethereal being that may be able to grant them life again\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthen by gods, go all the fuck out like this episode does. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, Sheridan actually died. The end. HE IS DEAD. Even if he exists in some otherworld, just a single second away from death, he died when he jumped off that balcony. And because of that, he meets the being who actually lives at the bottom of that chasm! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lorien, your friendly First One, who is the LITERAL First One. LIKE EVER. And right then, as soon as that was revealed, I really didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen this trope used before. The context of how it used felt so exciting to me. This was how we got to meet The<\/i> First One!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I honestly do not feel like this opportunity was wasted at all. Through Lorien, we learn of the First Ones, of the Shadows\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s misguided act of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153respect\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by returning to Z\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ha\u00e2\u20ac\u2122dum as if they are honoring Lorien. This information is vital to developing the complicated mythology of the show, so I found the scenes between Lorien and Sheridan to be captivating for that reason. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much more here than that! Like Delenn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey, Sheridan must embrace life in order to be granted it again. And like Delenn, Sheridan turns to the one he loves for the guidance he needs to either submit to death or be granted a new life. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a cheesy romantic, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m all for characters who escape extenuating circumstances because of love, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good explanation of what happened here. Sheridan had to have something to live for, a reason not<\/i> to die that was more than just merely wanting not to, for Lorien to even attempt to breathe life back into the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153embers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That reason is given to us with a single name: Delenn. I assume, then, that the last image of the episode is what has become of Sheridan: he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alive. Impossibly so, yet there he is, with Lorien at his side.<\/p>\n

Now what? I HAVE NO IDEA. His reunion with everyone else is gonna destroy me, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?<\/p>\n

Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bold that this episode title is a line of dialogue that G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar rebelliously utters in Emperor Cartagia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face and not the entire focus of the episode. Indeed, while G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s search for his friend makes up a portion of the story, we are only given one brief but disturbing scene with Garibaldi. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where he is being held, but we do have confirmation of who<\/i> is holding him: the Psi Corps. The Shadows must have dropped Garibaldi off with the Corps, but where<\/i>? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not back on Earth, is he??? HELP.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\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":"