{"id":7152,"date":"2019-01-11T13:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T21:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7152"},"modified":"2019-01-01T21:30:27","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T05:30:27","slug":"mark-watches-babylon-5-s04e08-the-illusion-of-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2019\/01\/mark-watches-babylon-5-s04e08-the-illusion-of-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Babylon 5’: S04E08 – The Illusion of Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the eighth episode of the fourth season of Babylon 5<\/i>, I will never forgive each and every one of you for this. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Babylon 5<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For talk of fascism, xenophobia, homophobia, ableism, and consent<\/b><\/p>\n

This was an unbearable episode to watch. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just say it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brilliant, and the level at which this campaign of disinformation and propaganda operates is so fucking smart and insidious and on-the-nose that I really do want to state this shit outright. This is an expertly<\/i> written episode of the show, and JMS completely dominates this. This is EXACTLY how powerful people and organizations spread misinformation and how they manage to get away with it: by pairing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153facts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that are carefully manipulated and edited with appeals to emotion that will get most people to ignore that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153facts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are not actually true at all. Or, even worse, telling like 25% of the truth and 75% of a lie, making it even harder to detangle what is reality and what isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are so many incredible and heart-crushing moments in this single broadcast, which JMS gives us IN FULL, to ever possible recount. How long is it going to take this team to undo this? How are they even going to approach doing that? My gods, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this is so much worse than I ever could have imagined, and Randall planned the WHOLE FUCKING TIME to manipulate these people into giving him access to the station so he could ruin their lives. I mentioned this on video after the episode ended, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth repeating: This is a perfect and stunning example of a bad faith actor, upon whom good intentions, kindness, politeness, and ethics would never, ever<\/i> work. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the great mistake this team made: they assumed that being good and honest would win in the end. It might eventually<\/i>, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this negates that line of thinking, but in the short term? It absolutely lost them this battle. Randall should have been met with force, as he was in the beginning, and he and his crew should have been kicked off the station, never allowed to return as long as they were still a propaganda arm for President Clark.<\/p>\n

But really, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why this episode stung so much and made it so deeply painful to watch. This is what we are living through right fucking now<\/i>. This is fiction, yes, but JMS has borrowed so heavily from reality and the way fascist and corrupt organizations utilize the media to gain support that it is barely<\/i> indistinguishable from what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching unfold in the UK, in the United States, in countless places around the globe. My country just lived (BARELY) through an election in which another country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s government spent millions upon millions of dollars and utilized countless hours of manpower to manipulate Americans through social media. We are still<\/i> sifting through the misinformation campaign that the Russians waged against us. And just like we see here in this episode, real<\/i> shit got twisted up in the propaganda. The Russians targeted Flint, the Black Lives Matter movement, income equality, redlining and gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and they did this alongside spreading complete falsehoods to more conservative social media users. It was a multi-pronged effort to sway an election, and I do not doubt for one second that it worked.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So how can I watch \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Illusion of Truth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and not see the similarities? How can I experience this without feeling like my life has become so absurd and terrifying that a fictional space opera nightmare is perfectly describing it<\/i>? THERE WERE SO MANY LITTLE DETAILS THAT WERE WAY TOO REAL! Portraying John and Delenn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship not just as deviant, but as if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an agenda to make everyone like them. (I mean, I would have preferred an actual<\/i> queer couple here, but the analogy still felt understandable.) Portraying acceptance and inclusion as a means of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153destroying\u00e2\u20ac\u009d other races and cultures. Portraying growth and progress on a personal level as self-hatred and erasure. Discrediting people by outright associating them with a mental illness and diagnosing them from afar in order to do so. Editing of events (in this case, the images in Downbelow) in order to fulfill an agenda, but then portraying them as a shocking truth. All of this is here, and all of it has happened in one way or another in just the last two years of my country ALONE.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one part of this, though, that frustrates me on a different level. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d assumed that Garibaldi was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153activated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Psi Corps in the previous episode during that Bab-Com transmission. I was then immediately confused by him quitting because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, why reject access if you want someone to be a spy? But now, having seen \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Illusion of Truth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I wonder if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking of Garibaldi in the wrong light. What if this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t about spying but something far more insidious? What if those scenes we saw of Garibaldi distrusting Sheridan and Lorien after Garibaldi was rescued were part of a long con? Because now that Garibaldi has publicly turned away from Sheridan\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand oh lord, I imagine the next episode is going to be deeply uncomfortable because of that\u00e2\u20ac\u201dWHAT IF THAT WAS THE PLAN THE WHOLE TIME. Not spy<\/i> on Sheridan, but use his security officer to turn people against<\/i> him! THIS IS LIKE A MILLION TIMES MORE FUCKED UP. It was always going to be terrible, but turning a friend against another by brainwashing Garibaldi??? UGH.<\/p>\n

This was exhausting to watch. Brilliant, completely unexpected, and necessary, but oh my god, I AM SO STRESSED OUT.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Illusion of Truth\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":"