hello, internet. And welcome to who are you? A pebble on five watch cast hosted by two friends. Who've gotten to know each other over the show. Babylon five.
And I'm Laura.
And today we are going to play a little plot poker.
Yeah, this, this is the debut of that name. Isn't it?
it is the debut of that name. We've done the segment a couple of times now. And there is an excellent story about it and where the name comes from on our discord. And I will not short change anyone from going and discovering it. Which is also my way of just pushing you to go to the discord.
join our premium club. That doesn't cost anything.
Cost a dime.
we're doing this wrong. yeah, there's a very good story about how one of our friends in the discord came up with the name plot poker.
Yes. There their name and the discord appears to be a real name. So I won't say it on air to respect their privacy. But yes. Excellent name. And we really liked it and we both read it and we're all like, well, we have to
yeah, that's it. That's the one
It was decided. So that's what we're running with. Plot poker is the name of the segment.
Yeah. So what do we do in plot poker? Ja fair.
So we have bunch of packs of the old Babylon five collectible card And we're going to open a couple more. We got four packs sitting in front of us each right now, the last of our box of the premier set. We're going to buy a box of a. The next one, the great war
wait.
Hopefully we will, don't go on eBay and buy them before we have a
yeah, that would be very rude. Don't do it. We're about to give you some very crinkly audio, as we open
And so we're going to go ahead and open up some packs. And add cards to one of four piles that we have in front of us. We have A. Necessarily character because there's groups and things like if I can just open my first pack and religious cast is the first card I have. And that's going in this first pile. Of of subject matters as Are you thing, a person to arrive at the station. To cause a problem, which is our second pile. Our problems are then solved in our third pile of DSX.
And then the final pile is the twist. We will each draw one from each pile and use it to craft a fake episode of Babylon five, which we will then rate on a scale of Babylon's one to five.
all of our episodes are babble and five, so right.
I mean, we had our last one was a pretty good episode. I feel. Let's see here. Oh, that's a fun little problem. I got the not Colleen feeder.
Oh, damn. I know that's in one of my piles. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, Hey, I got a discount Keith or Sutherland from a couple of episodes, not Keith or Donald
Yeah, he got killed pretty quick, right? Or no. Am I thinking of somebody else?
He supervised the duel between Londo and his buddy. All right. You find anything fun so far?
I got some nightmares. You know who the face of nightmares is? It is not Sheridan from that episode where he had nightmares. It is Sinclair. Weird.
From the episode where he had nightmares. And just, I got a REFA in the chair. Some power posturing. C a war by popular decree. That's terrifying.
Hey, I finally got John Sheridan.
Hey, I don't have a John Sheridan. Look at that.
that. I also have one just called human captain. I don't think I've seen this captain yet. I don't recognize him.
All right. Well in the, a plot of our story, and I'm going to flip these cards over as we go. So if I stutter for a second, I apologize. I'm making something Minister Malakai, the Suntory prime minister. Is involved in some issues with the Marc Hab fleet. So the Suntory have a mark Hab fleet. It's one of the few remaining mark hub fleets. They fleet the planet and actually didn't have the
Oh, so we still have some alive in this universe. Wonderful.
a, there's a ha there's a couple live. They find there's a handful of ships and they hear of everything that's happened and they don't want to go to any of their mark Hab planets. Because they're so worried about the disease spreading there and they figured they'd all be dead by now if they had it. So they must be safe. So they reach out to minister Malakai. Of the Suntory Republic. To secure a place for them to just be.
okay. One of those old colony planets, maybe.
Yeah, they are not particularly happy about this. They're like, look, you got this disease thing. We're not a hundred percent about what's going to happen with it. We really don't feel comfortable there. And how this is resolved is a base is established, which is actually a very conflated pot point. For the story. They end up a couple of the groups of the non-online worlds come together. And establish a base in neutral territory. Just kind of a small settlement for these Mar cab to go live
Oh, well, that's nice of them.
And in a twist. When the mark have arrived at the base. It's kind of an old structure there. They find some ruins. And there they find. One of the last try luminaries.
Oh, crazy.
What's it doing out here? That's so crazy.
What were the Menari up to
Plot points, plot points, plot points.
Okay. Well, in the B story of this episode, Warren Keffer finds himself entangled in some internal strife with earth back home. So he gets himself, you know, into he, maybe he goes and rescues a ship that's near Babylon five space. And it turns out that these people whoever's on the ship is wanted by earth Alliance. Like they're, they're a persona on grata and there's an order for their arrest.
But the command staff on babble and five decide to exploit some opportunities that they have with some other some of the ambassadors like perhaps ambassador to lend to help get these people to safety because they think that these people can help them uncover the conspiracies back. We're very worried about these conspiracy theories that Sheridan's been tracking.
And so they take the moment to uh, utilize the new, the new ranger force that Sheridan has uh, recently gotten in command of and exploit that to get these people to safety. But all of this ends with, you know, earth, earth Alliance and president Clark have been kind of routed and in their anger and retaliation for this, they start a purge of the disloyal back home.
Ooh.
Yeah. So it ends on a sinister note. As some of our potential allies back home are taken out.
Okay. How do you feel about this
I feel like this is a, a pretty standard episode of babble one, five, right?
It does feel pretty standard, maybe nothing special. It might be nice to visit the mark Hab again. Because they're just gone now. So it might be nice to get a little bit of hope. I am interested to hear more about the progression of the earth storyline there too, with the purging of the disloyal. And I'm glad Keith for finally gets something to do. That's not. Be terrible. That's not fair. Right? He's. He's not terrible. He's not like a bad person. He's just boring as shit.
Yeah. He gets a lot of these like set something in motion, but
Yeah. Be there for the important thing, but not when it actually happens.
Yeah. So I think this is an, a babble on three episode to me.
That's fair. Yeah. It feels real Babylon three out of five to me as
Yeah. Big average energy. okay. Well that was a average episode of Babylon five that we created in plot poker. What do we think? Today's, episode's gonna be like, what do we have?
We have season two episode 20 divided loyalties.
Mm-hmm
open on DLN and Sheridan picking up their personalized additions of universe today.
this is very cute.
This is
it's not just, you know, meat, cutie, which it kind of is because we, we know that they're getting cutey together, but also this idea of. Newspaper kiosk where I go and I recycle my old one. And then I get a fresh printed, personalized edition of the news. It was a very nineties idea.
It's got to smell good. Yeah. It's very nineties idea to think that a paper newspaper is still going to
mm-hmm
But I'm here for it. I. I mean, I'm the person who has tried eBooks and completely shunned them. Because I miss the feel. The texture of paper in my hands. I'm very much, I will not read digital versions of books. I only am interested in reading physical copies of books. It is part of the experience.
I definitely read a physical book better than I read an ebook. I, I retain the material better just holding something. I don't know what my problem is.
I mean, I'm not going to yuck.
mm-hmm for. I mean, I love a good, like, oh, I can just check this out for my library on my tablet right now. Okay. that's great. But there's a lot of books that I want to own because I want to read it better. so, okay. Yeah. They've get their personalized newspapers.
Sheridan Scott, extra baseball news. He wants to know about that world
yeah, very cute. The lens extra is the ion minbar section.
Yeah. There's a little bit about how as an embargo, culturally, it's tradition to just know what you need to know. And to just trust society with that. And then she knows that she gets to find out stuff before she needs to know from the paper.
Uhhuh Yeah. So even though she kind of speaks of her culture all the time as like, this is how we do it and it's wonderful and it works, she kind of admits here, like, yeah, it does kind of suck.
Yeah.
I like knowing stuff
Uh, We cut over to Mars and we see a ranger get a data crystal who needs to get it to Babylon five.
yeah. We're in like a sewer and flowing water and there's a hot pursuit happening.
Mars sewer sets. We'll see some more use.
yeah, we get a big, like mini BNS died to bring you this information kind of vibe off this guy. yeah,
go to theme. We come back to a random conversation about missing trees in a bathroom.
uh, I mean, okay. Here's the thing. I do love that on babble on five, we know what bathrooms look like. Like I do love this because you think about these space nine and it's like, man, I don't know.
Yeah, they just, they, they beamed the poop out of
Yeah. They're not bold enough to do a bathroom scene in star Trek. Like, okay, that's not true. I know there's been bathroom scenes don't come at me, but we get the P Mira use only toilet, which
Yeah.
this P Mira comes out of the toilet and he does this little like P shivers
Yeah.
I, I couldn't stop laughing. Like, so we, we now know about the P mur on their P shivers and they need a special bathroom.
It's the little things in Babylon five. It's the world
yeah, I mean that, that world building top notch. But like, why are we talking shop at the bathroom again?
Well, I mean, Garibaldi is like low key scanning for listening devices in the background. And then gives the all clear. So they're just in an area that they assume won't be bugged. I think.
Yeah. Can you imagine bugging the bathroom and then being the person that has to sit there and listen to the bug in the bathroom?
Nope. I there's a reason I don't work for the NSA and there it's a bunch of other stuff, but that's on the list. It's near the bottom, but it's on the list.
and God, if you're the NSA agent, you know, cuz they're, they're all up in our phones. Right. And all the people that use their phone in the bathroom and I'm not talking just to like play games, but like talk to other people on the phone, in the bathroom. I don't know how, how often that comes up in the men's restroom, but it comes up a lot in ladies.
Yeah.
it's weird. And I don't like it.
I don't be in an airport once or twice.
mm-hmm
I, I think part of it is I just really disliked public bathrooms.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Like at work, I will purposely go to a floor that has almost no one on it when I'm in the building. To use the bathroom because it's fresh. Like I will turn the light on for the first time. The seats still have like the cleaning, like paper on them and stuff
yeah.
know, it's, you're breaking the seal.
Man. Speaking of this bathroom, like what's with the, the Blinky lights of above the urinals I was cracking up but I love this bathroom. We, we gotta use this bathroom set all the time.
We see it a couple times. Yeah. And we we've seen it before too, but uh, after they get the clear that there are no listening devices in the room they talk in earnest about bringing Talia into their resistance cell and then like, oh, no reason, but let's wait like four days just in case. Let's wait four more days just to make sure she's not a trader. Definitely not ruining the entire plot of the
right. Definitely not. Definitely. Probably not. yeah. So speaking of Talia,
Yeah.
and Susan are having a nice dinner or lunch or something. Oh, is breakfast. Oh, even
It's breakfast. And then there's nothing to read into yet.
right, right.
Been, there was a lot of, a lot, a lot of internet commentary about what does and does not happen in this episode. And there are some very specific notes about it. So when we get there, we'll get
Okay. So, you know, Susan gets a call. She's gotta get off to work, but but as, as she's leaving Talia mentions, Hey, like I gotta find a place to stay for tonight cuz something's messed up. The, the air recycler or something is messed up in her suite. And I thought it was like, well you just come, stay with me. let's have a sleepover
Yeah, just go crash at my place.
pillow fight.
I have an actual shower.
So, yeah, they're gonna have sleepover later and Yonah heads to C and C where there is a ship that came out of the jump gate, but it's not moving something's wrong with it.
Yup. I mean the last time this happened, everyone on it was dead. So I don't know why they dock with it.
right. They do.
Hey, they do.
Yeah, they bring it in, there is one person alive. We know that they there's somebody alive and unconscious on this ship. And as Franklin and GU balder checking it out and the unconscious person is being brought off the ship. We see that it's Le to Alexander she's back. Garabaldi reminds everybody what happened with Le Alexander, you know, the history with cosh that she stuck her hand inside the suit. And then
Touched cautious mind.
She thought she saw shared and trying to murder him, but it turns out it wasn't shared. And and we got through a whole pilot.
nice little recap of the pilot.
Yeah. so they take her to med lab. But when she becomes conscious, she is gonna have none medicinal head stroking
Nope.
is not into it. And she is very upset. She, she grabs like a, a, sort of a medical device.
knife. Some kind of, it looks sharp
Yeah. It looks like he's got a pointy end and threatens Franklin with it and says that she will not be alone with any one of them. And she needs to talk to Sheridan right now because somebody on the command staff is a trader.
Dun dun dun. They discuss in Sheridan's office and she catches the command staff on what she's been up to for the last two years. She wants to On space and was working with the Mars revolutionary group just has like a side gig to earn money. When she intercepted a message about the Sycor sleeper program. Implanting a personality so deep that it can't be found. But a telepathic message with the key. Can cause it to surface essentially deleting the person and replacing them with someone new.
mm-hmm
We get offers to try the password on the staff and those close to
she knows somebody here has got this sleeper personality. They don't, they didn't find out who. But we know it exists and we know one of them is here.
What do you think the password is?
man, that would be fun to no, wouldn't it.
we don't, we don't know what the password is.
Hmm
I hope it's something stupid or something. Maybe literary, maybe like Jabber walkie or something, maybe something unrelated. It's gotta be like a word that you wouldn't just, well, it can only be telepathically sent it. Overhearing it is not enough. It has to be sent directly into the mind by a telepath.
Yeah. So it's not like You just stumble across it and all of a sudden you're a, your sleeper is awakened. Yeah.
But we've seen like best or just talking in people's minds all the
Mm-hmm
Like very rudely. So it has to be a word that you wouldn't just say. Like you'd have to know that this happens. Especially, probably with other cultures.
is it the same word for every sleeper, because that's a long password spreadsheet to keep up with, if it's not
Yeah. That's a lot of Excel. Your feet look up is off by one letter and it just throws the entire thing. Use index match pro tip.
you're transmitting it. You're transmitting. It's not working because you've gotten off one line. Yeah. anyway. So Sheridan goes to meet with Thelen in the gardens. And this is where it becomes clear about the continuity in this episode because
they talk about the more colorful parts of language.
mm-hmm and we get the, the classic abs of Ely that Dylan dropped on us in the previous episode on HBO max.
Fix it HBO, max.
That's the next Babylon five hashtag, right?
Yeah, for sure. We'll get JMS on that tomorrow,
I'm sure he is.
you're not mad at me.
I'm sure he has nothing else to do.
it doesn't seem like a particularly busy guy.
yeah.
Anyways.
yeah, so they they're talking about language. He gets called away.
Garibaldi and Sheridan talk for a bit and maybe his second was the sleeper and he was already activated.
Mm. I mean, that is a really easy theory to jump to. Right. Like, and it would sure make Garabaldi feel better right. About whole business.
of the obvious stuff in hindsight.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's a comforting thought, but we wouldn't have much of an episode if that was the answer, would we.
No. But over in Yvanova's quarters. Uh, She talks with Talia about Lita. And they knew each other, but it was a long time ago.
Yeah.
we find out Weeta, might've been a psych cop, but she didn't have the taste for it.
Yeah. She's got the eyes, those really dark eyes.
Yeah.
could pull the look off for sure.
staring into your soul eyes.
I think it's funny that Talia's reaction is like, oh, I, I kind of knew her at school, you know, but she doesn't say she was stationed here before me. Right. Like that seems to escape her entirely, which is interesting. You know, someone's mentioned it to her.
Yeah. It was at a brief somewhere for
mm-hmm
Garibaldi as Zack to move lead off, but then two other guards do it suspicious. Zack. And someone attacks Lita. Who can we trust?
yeah.
now. Okay. We've seen this. We know how this ends. We saw this before, and we both remember how this ends. So there was no air of mystery for us watching this episode.
Mm-hmm
If you are watching for the first time. Like our friends over at Babylon five for the first time are I'm only really looking forward to them getting to this episode. But. There's an important. Aspect that is missing here. Which is the internet community around the show, as it was airing. And this is something that we can't replicate anymore because the show has been off the air for so long. And the internet community here. Knew that Taka Shima was supposed to be the sleeper.
oh, okay.
Originally Tashima was going to be the one who shot Garibaldi. And then later in the season, this would happen. So there wouldn't be the comeuppance immediately.
Wow.
Shima was the trader for like 15, 20 episodes. Before anything happened with it? Everyone knew. Ivanova replaced Taka Shima. And they, and he had talked about Taka Shima was going to be the person when that episode aired at the end of season. One two, whenever they show us who it was. I forget if it was the season finale of the season premiere. JMS knows this. He knows the fans assume it's Ivanova and that's why there's so much play. the sleeper being Ivanova in this
yeah, I can totally see that.
It is meant to lure a very specific set of his audience. Into the false presumption that they are right.
Mm.
It was a hundred percent designed that way. This is him saying gotcha. To everybody on use net.
Okay. Okay. I do wanna go ahead and ask, do you remember being fooled by this? I mean, obviously it's been a long time. Yeah. I don't remember this fooling me at all.
I D I didn't think, I don't think, I remember think like pinning Talia, because it's kinda out of left field.
Mm-hmm
At a certain point, especially cause I was younger. And wasn't picking up and stuff. It's very obvious that it's Talia to me watching it now.
yeah. Yeah. I think, and obviously memory is imperfect, especially when I was a child when I watched this, but I feel like I always clocked it as Talia. And I think that was maybe just general distrust of Sy. Um,
thought it was Zack.
oh really? Okay.
when I was a kid.
Well, and you know, they, they set Zack up in this scene as a possible. and also he's still doing the night watch thing and they point that out and we have weird feelings about night watch. We don't know what they're up to yet, but it can't be good.
Yeah. And Zack, I mean, As a kid, I didn't understand this, but Zach just kind of shows up and then just starts keep showing up. And knowing that Jeff Conway was actually a famous actor and that this was fun for him. And all of that stuff was completely lost on me as a child. Because I had no idea who he was. He was just a dude who showed up and then kept showing After everything went to shit, like things start going to shit. Jeff Conway shows And so it's just like it's sack. It's totally
yeah. Okay. I could see that. I didn't E I didn't even think about Zach being a possibility until you mentioned just now that Hey, he wasn't present. I'm like, oh
Yeah.
shit. He wasn't.
So anyways, Lita escapes the attack and goes into hiding. Sharon is going to let her do the password thing, but they have to find her and protect her. Leader reaches out to Dylan for help, since she wouldn't be compromised by Cycore and they had worked together before, so they had kind of a standing relationship.
she has good feels about Dylan from the pilot.
Yeah. Ivanova and Talia catch-up. Where she is afraid to tell Sheridan and the other senior staff about her latent telepathy. So this is on Talia is known about for awhile.
Yeah.
She confided this in Natalia a while ago, but it's not something that shared and has
Yeah. Sheridan does not have any idea. Did, did Sinclair know? I feel like,
I think Sinclair knew. I think it came up in that one episode where he was demanding. Everyone gets scanned.
yeah,
she had the weird vision about her mom, the weird dream vision thing. With Lou Welch as one of the. Guys in her dream
Oh, yes, yes. yes. Yeah. I feel like we did talk to daddy Sinclair about it, but Sheridan, it hasn't come up yet. So
Dylan catches up with Sheridan and passes along the message from Uh, Ivanova is waiting for Sheridan in his quarters. They do a really great cut. Uh, Like a take where like, he just like, Russia's pastor she sitting on the couch and then it's all like, you see her in the background, but it's just like how it would happen in real life where you just like, you don't expect anyone to be there, you walk right past them and then you see them and you're like, oh, Hey, and you stop.
And you turn around. I speak from personal experience at us in Las Vegas. Two weeks ago.
yeah.
It felt like that to me. Uh,
real, very believable.
Yep. She, she tells him the truth that she's late and telepath, all that stuff. He's like, why didn't you tell me before? And it's all like, fuck off. You know why I didn't tell you before.
really like,
You don't ask someone why they don't tell you that there are latent telepath, Sheridan.
yeah.
It's not a question you ask in polite society.
making it about him. He's like, why couldn't you trust me enough to tell me this? what did I do wrong? on Sheridan.
Yeah.
about you.
Right. I know you're the white dude in charge. So you think it is.
word.
Uh, He has a CAUTI vision flashback twin Ivanova says something, the exact line from that And before you can follow up on it. Dylan calls to get everyone together for Lita.
Yeah.
They start sharing and goes first. Then Franklin and then Garibaldi is rude as fuck.
Very rude. This, you don't do this.
There's like, Amanda, this is going to go last night. You start calling in. Everyone in close proximity to the senior staff, we get a cavalcade of extras. We see that Babylon five model I'll bronze. In the office.
mm-hmm
You know, who we don't see. Kiefer.
yeah. And he gets a credit in everything he sh he should have been in this episode by God. You could have had a moment with him and Sheridan of, you know, Sheridan being like, not doing anymore of your extracurriculars. Right. Okay. Good boy. you know
you run along?
that would've been a good one. We get core win. That's he's a delight
Yep.
he makes me giggle
Lido leans into scanning. Ivanova who finally agrees. She's not the sleeper and Lita knows her secret.
yeah,
It's like you're blocking me. She like immediately knew.
If there's one telepath, who's gonna know your secret. The one who's like on the run is probably not the worst. like, you know, as long as they can stay ahead of Cyco and Cyco, doesn't like drag it out of them later. You're probably fine.
Yeah. Talia walks in and blammo just like instantly. It's all like, oh, Hey Talia. And she just like lead it just instinctively sends the password and Talia just loses her shit. She tries to kill Leda. Uh, She shouts a bunch of propaganda about the core's. Both of the course father and just gets arrested. Like it is just, oh, Hey guys. What's. Just starts blasting.
got two, like really good unhinged performances out of both her and Le in this episode, cuz you know, Leeta kind of
Yeah.
it when she's alone with Franklin, which
I read in the notes that she had a baby three weeks before this was filmed.
God bless her.
Right. And she's like running around and doing shit. I'm just like your
That looks hard. And now I'm, I'm sad. but you know what, there's a lot of like weird feelings. You have three weeks after having a baby that you could really channel into that
I will trust your word on that matter.
at least in my personal experience. It's not the same for everybody.
Yeah.
So we get really good performances out of both of them to kind of Cal cap off Andrea Thompson's last episode.
The senior staff gathers to figure out what's been compromised. Dr. Franklin's telepresence underground is completely shot. Uh, Talia was the one who protected it in the first place. It's done.
Yeah. But I mean, they had kind of. Tapered that off it it's presence was not on the station anymore, so yeah. But Franklin might have, have a bad rap to face with Cy
Oh, I mean, it has just been smuggling non refugees for months at this point, too. So We get some flashbacks to remind us of Talia caution, the vicar.
mm. we do.
Gear up all these, like, I'm going to follow up on
Mm-hmm
And then we never see Talia again.
yeah. I, I did wonder, like, since that is kind of a loose thread that didn't really get a resolution, like, what was the, what was the direction we were going with that?
don't know, it might be somewhere. I don't remember reading anything.
I don't know. And it's not apparent, it's not like obvious to me
Yeah.
where that could have gone, but, you know, it's, maybe it was a back door to be able to bring her back later in some sort of.
Yeah. Presumably. Ivanova goes to see Talia who confirms that The old Talia is fucking dead. And the new Talia is the fucking worst.
I love that. We've vaed up her hair for this, like Talia's hair. Talia's hair has been, you know, very prim and proper flat ironed, blonde, and it's
hair cast, Laura.
But now that she's evil Talia, we have puffed it up. We have vaed it up. And we've made her sexier because she's
Which is of course. The nineties, female Saifai version of the goatee.
oh yeah, yeah. It is. It's like, you know how we know this character is evil is either they have a GOE or they're very sexy now.
God did I say female? Can I cut that? Can I, can I retake that please?
If you.
gross it's because it's because she's evil and gross. And I'm really mad at her for what she does do. Ivanova.
yeah, me too. Like, I think Yvon has, you know, she's been through her own stuff. So I think she's like knows she's in here doing this for herself. She knows that this person will not give her anything. Yeah.
it's a hundred percent for her. Uh, Because they sleep together this episode. It happens. It is canonical. They bone this episode. It is not happened before. It happens to the once. And it's the night where Talia wakes up and reaches over and Ivana was not there, which is another thing that's there to make us think that Ivanova is the person who did the attack. That's when that's, when it happens. And very specifically. People were like, why didn't you make it more implicit?
Why didn't you make them kiss? And JMS said. Some people like to dip their toes in the water. I like to jump in the deep end.
Yeah. I mean, I could see though, where this could also be to kind of get past people. Like there's some,
Yeah.
if you were a certain type of
This is 1995. Has has the Roseanne kiss happened yet? That was the first lady kiss on TV.
was it? I don't know. This has gotta be before
space? Nine?
Nine. Yeah. It's gotta be before that.
Oh yeah, it would definitely be before. I think maybe not. It might be a right around then.
yeah. Okay. Well, there, there, maybe they're happening in parallel. We, we don't remember, but you know, a middle America, certain type of person who wants to pretend gay people don't exist can absolutely do that in this episode. Like.
Yeah.
They're just two girlfriends, you know, you know, whatever, like,
The stuff I read was not why didn't you take the opportunity to be the first. Uh, Lesbian kiss on television. I didn't read anything about that. So it has to, had to have already happened by the time this aired.
okay.
Because no one was giving him grief about that, that I could see.
Yeah. So I don't know. I, I feel like it could have been a little more explicit cuz it's definitely not something I picked up on as a child, that there was romantic interest between the two of them, honestly, not until re watches and it's like, oh yeah. Okay. That could have been a thing. I don't know. And if, if this, if the reboot was actually like following the same characters and following the. Sort of path. I think you would absolutely be bolder with this today,
Yeah. All right. Well, we got a little bit left on the episode. Weeta goes to see cosh.
Mm
the last thing that happens in the episode. Uh, She's kept his secret. She's kept a secret in a place in her mind. So deep and buried that no one could ever find it. And she let. Kosh sing her to sleep every night is the only time she would allow herself to remember.
Hmm
And she requests to see him. The real him.
mm-hmm
And we get slow reflection in the glass of the breather. To credits.
yeah. This is really mysterious and spooky
It is. We get that reveal soon though.
we will. But it's at this point, it's like, huh, why is Kash the most reclusive, alien on the station? And, you know, presumably that whole thing was a violation in some way, just completely acquiesce. And he's like, yes, you can see me. He has every reason not to as far as we know, but it, it makes him just even more of an enigma and a puzzle that he just is like, yeah, of course,
Yeah.
this telepath who just showed back up after two seasons
I mean, you know, she, she touches
mm-hmm yeah, they had something special.
Yep. How do you feel about the Swan on a scale of Babylon's one to five.
Oh man. I wish that the, you know, mystery had played well for.
Yeah.
It just didn't for me. And I think that maybe if I was watching it in the context that you described of everybody having assumed that it would be the new commander character, maybe I would've been fooled by that, but in this context, I don't feel like I've ever not known who the sleeper was. So for me, that kind of knocks this back into average territory. It's not a bad episode But it feels like that was so important to try to fool us. And it, I wasn't, but I like the conflict.
I like Lida coming back. I like the dramatic way that Talia goes out. Um, Just, it felt like that big plot point didn't hit me. Didn't hit for me. What about you?
Same. Uh, This is a three out of right in the middle of the road for me.
Yeah.
Much like our plot poker episode. Stuff happens and important stuff happens. But it just feels like it's a mystery for the sake of the mystery.
mm-hmm
I can't hold, uh, the timeframe in which what was made and TV standards at that time against the show. I can hold them against TV executives all day. And I do, uh, but, uh, I would have appreciated a more. Implicit telling of Ivanova and Tahlia's budding romance. Um,
to me is, is a big factor too. Like it's just
not explicit to be clear there too.
it, it was just. You know, if we'd seen her a little more in the season, if we'd seen them having more breakfasts or running into each other, more working with each other, more having coffee in her quarters or, or, you know, having a
something. Well, I mean, part of it was Andrea Thompson's availability. Wanting to do more stuff, not being able to make it all the time. That kind of stuff was part of the problem. But for sure, even if it was just like, Talia reaches over and we see like avant of a getting up. Like just. Just a little bit more, just like, make it clear.
mm-hmm
Don't leave it up to debate. So you have to clarify it on the internet later.
yeah. Yeah. But I understand it's a product of the time, so I don't hold
For sure. You know, like a show like a Harley Quinn could not exist back then. People's heads would have exploded. speaking of which Harley Quinn, if you don't watch fucking Harley Quinn, it's so
Man. I'm just not in the superhero versus like that's a lot of
You don't have to be. It's it's completely unrelated to anything.
Mm-hmm
I will say, especially this most recent their version of the joker is the only version of the joker I'm ever interested in ever getting screen time again.
okay. I I'm down with that. There are some pretty tiresome versions of the joker there.
percent. And this is the most interesting, refreshing take I've ever seen. If the
okay. I'm interested. It just, and you mentioned, you know, there's a show like Harley Quinn now, like even in children's media, which I could zoom a lot of having a child uh, we've, we've watched the owl house recently. That's a cartoon on the Disney network and the main character is a girl. and she is dating a girl throughout the show, like, uh, it it's, it develops in the show and it's natural and there's nothing weird about it. And the show doesn't treat it like it's an anomaly or not.
Okay. At any point. And it's just that representation that I think is good for those kids to be seeing so that they know it's yes. Gay people exist and it's okay. That they exist. So
Steven universe so good.
universe that's another one. Yeah. But anyway, that's, that's the ways that I would change the episode if I could.
All right. Well, next up we've got season two episode 21 the inquisitor.
Mm, yeah. This isn't iconic episode, I think, but that doesn't mean I necessarily like it. I don't know.
I have not watched it yet. I I watched it. A while ago, but I haven't watched it as part of my notes and our, our run on the podcast. So we'll see how I feel about it this time. Uh, Dzhokhar. Rallies the Narins on the station to uphold the resistance efforts against the Suntory. Dillon undergoes a torturous test of her allegiance to Kosh.
Mmm.
All right. Well, thank you, Jeremy Siegel for our lovely theme music. Jeremy Siegel 40 two.bandcamp.com. You can find more of his work there.
And thank you to angry deck time machine on the Instagram for our podcast artwork.
Join the conversation with us on our discord server, where we'll talk about all kinds of stuff. And then also shoot us some email over to who are At gmail.com. We have our upcoming season to recap. You've still got time. If you're listening to this episode to get us your thoughts on season two. And we would love to read those on the air. And then if you just got other stuff to say, we will save it for our next mailbag segment, which will be sometime. Towards the start of season three, probably.
Yeah.
Oh, and there's also two certificates of graduation from Michael Garrett. All these homeschool security. Waiting for us in their
Yeah.
I printed mine up and put it up on the wall here.
Oh, fantastic. I need to
In my office. Yeah.
print mine. Ben.
Thanks Ben.
Bye.