S3E15 - Basically the Scarface of Stims - podcast episode cover

S3E15 - Basically the Scarface of Stims

Mar 01, 202340 minEp. 67
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Episode description

Join Laura and Xhafer, two internet strangers as they get to know each other while making jokes about one of their favorite TV shows from their childhood, Babylon 5.

Laura wants to have a nice birthday. On B5 it's everything everywhere all at once as Franklin confronts his addiction , Londo decides to burn it all down, Sheridan looks for a win, and Kosh makes the ultimate sacrifice in Babylon 5, Season 3 Episode 15: Interludes and Examinations.

Transcript

Xhafer

Hello and welcome to Who Are You, A Babylon five watch cast hosted by two former strangers. Now, friends who are rewatching a favorite show from their childhood, Babylon. Five. I'm Jafa.

Laura

And I'm.

Xhafer

And today, Laura, I get to ask you, what do you want?

Laura

Well, it's that time of year again when this podcast airs. I will have just had a birthday.

Xhafer

Oh, we are several weeks ahead right now,

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

so

Laura

so I will have had a birthday like. the Sunday before this podcast. The before this episode airs. Yeah.

Xhafer

That's cool. Happy birthday then. you know, also now, I guess I don't know, time is weird in a construct, so

Laura

It is true. It's true. I'm the kind of person that I like to have a planned for my birthday. Like I like to have some kind of idea of what I.

Xhafer

Okay.

Laura

in order to feel like fulfilled on the day. If I don't make a plan for myself, I feel kind of like, ugh, I just wasted my day. You know,

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

one day that's about me or sort of in the year. So I've been Trying to thank to myself, like, what do I want this year? Because, you know, I'm in a third trimester, so birthday is not exactly. an alcohol celebrating kind of day. This time

Xhafer

Yeah,

Laura

I can't have like a big rager with all my friends or something. Not that I do that anymore, cuz I'm in my thirties

Xhafer

I do, but that's neither here nor there.

Laura

Yeah. No. Okay, let me rephrase that. I'm in my thirties with kids also. I don't think that I could take it anymore. I just can't. So I've been trying to come up with things that I want that'll make myself feel fulfilled on that day. I did pick out that I wanna go to one of the really nice steakhouses. In Oklahoma City. There's one in the, the Fancy new boutique hotel that opened a couple years ago. And I have been to it once before and it is very nice

Xhafer

Okay.

Laura

So I definitely want the steakhouse dinner because my birthday falls on the wrong day of the week. We're gonna have to do it the night before my birthday cuz they're not open

Xhafer

You a strict observer of your birthday? Typically?

Laura

Like, does it have to be like the celebration have to be on birthday?

Xhafer

if at all possible, like obviously the steakhouse is closed, you wanna do the steakhouse, so you're moving it.

Laura

I, I'd say I'm a little flexible with that. I'm not, you know, super, because sometimes birthdays are on Tuesday, man, and you just don't get to do anything really like Cool on Tuesday if you gotta go to work.

Xhafer

That's fair. Yeah. Well, I mean, most people's answer that, that our strict observers are to take either the day of their birthday or the day after their birthday off work.

Laura

Yeah. And I'll take the day out off after usually because like we get a free vacation day for our birthdays at my workplace, like a special extra day. You just have to take it in the month of your birthday

Xhafer

Oh, okay.

Laura

but I'm not like planning a big thing, so I'm like, what am I gonna do on birthday day as well to make myself feel good? So I haven't quite figured that out yet. I'm like, do I need a special cake?

Xhafer

Mm.

Laura

Do I need like a special trip? I'm open to suggestions.

Xhafer

Well, by the time this airs, our audience won't be able to help you as your birthday will have already passed.

Laura

Well, I'm, I'm here with you, so I'm hoping you have something

Xhafer

Yeah. I don't, I am not a strict birthday observer, nor do I really give a shit about my birthday.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

Birthdays were not a big deal in my family growing.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

Even when I was a kid it was just like, oh, it's your birthday. I have some friends over. We'll order pizza or something. You know, Heads headstones now. I mean, I love a theme party. That's my.

Laura

Yeah, me too.

Xhafer

and I did, I, I was known for throwing theme parties. I haven't done a lot of them, obviously because of Covid.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

But I did one last spring that I'm doing again, right around your birthday,

Laura

Oh yeah.

Xhafer

Which you obviously you won't be able to be there. Given our

Laura

too bad.

Xhafer

But I'm doing a drunk PowerPoint.

Laura

Oh, we've talked about the drunk PowerPoint parties before. That does sound fun.

Xhafer

I, I did one Last year. I'm doing another one this year. I don't know, birthday stuff. Get a nice cake or something. I don't like cake. That's the thing is I'm not really big on sweets, so it's just like all of the normal birthday stuff, like I'd rather just cook than go out most of the time.

Laura

I gotta find an interesting cake like either to make or that somebody in town makes. I think that would be fun. For birthday day. I think birthdays were a bigger deal for me growing up because I had a few of them get ruined by the weather.

Xhafer

Ah.

Laura

Being winter birthday, like where we were like snowed in and couldn't leave our house. And so then my parents tried to like make it up and make you know, something special out of it.

Xhafer

I have, I had a series of bad birthdays from 18 until 21 every year. I had a terrible birthday for that four year stretch.

Laura

That's an awful time to have that when you're like young and cool.

Xhafer

uh, my 18th birthday I got fired from my job and my girlfriend broke up.

Laura

Oh boy.

Xhafer

My 19th birthday was a small national disaster,

Laura

Oh geez.

Xhafer

My 20th birthday I spent with a friend in the hospital who had gotten sick. And then my 21st birthday I spent in the hospital because I drank too much.

Laura

oh man. Yeah, that's a string of really bad ones.

Xhafer

Yeah, it all worked out in the end. Yeah.

Laura

don't know if that's what gave me like a, a need to have a plan and

Xhafer

make them nice. Well, it's nice to have a plan.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

I have an idea for one this year, I'm thinking about renting out a Chucky cheese for my birthday this year

Laura

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Xhafer

and having it be the birthday party. And so it's everyone's birth, like everyone is supposed to bring a. That is like five to $10, right? Wrap it up. We're gonna throw 'em all in a pile and we take turns throughout the whole party where it is your birthday.

Laura

Oh, that's cute.

Xhafer

so we'll like, oh, it will pull a name outta that. Hey, it's this person's birthday. Everyone will sing you Happy birthday. And we'll go to the pile of presents and pull you one out.

Laura

Oh, that's Cute. That's a good idea. I like that.

Xhafer

And just have a bunch of 30 year olds with no kids. Take over at Chuck E. Cheese.

Laura

Do it, my man.

Xhafer

I have to find out if they serve beer first. Find a Chucky cheese with a liquor

Laura

I don't know. Good luck.

Xhafer

Who else needs some good luck or is a couple of characters? In this week's episode, we've

Laura

Oh my gosh,

Xhafer

season three, episode 15, interludes and Examinations. Oh, by the way LON five is gonna be free on Roku channel and Tobi,

Laura

that's what I heard.

Xhafer

Supported by ads.

Laura

Which, I mean, we used to watch Babylon five with ads, so no big deal.

Xhafer

But yeah we open on Ivanova giving a diary entry in the aftermath of the shadows, attacking the pari. Uh, We see Mr. Morden bribe his way on the station. We see Franklin do some space. We get a little bit with Lando and Veer in this passage uh, where Alondo tests veer with grunting a giant room and filling it with flowers for Aira, who is finally returning to him.

Laura

Yeah. Remember Aira? It's been a minute.

Xhafer

It's been a minute, and I don't know why she's coming back, but. The, that whole, that whole situation is so fucked.

Laura

It's a little squeaky even if she is a free woman. Now I don't, I don't know what she wants. Why? Why?

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

I don't know. We'll, we'll see. I guess sort of, Yeah, if, if you felt like the pace of this Ivanova exposition was kind of a lot of things, this episode is kind of a lot of things.

Xhafer

for sure. This episode is a ton of things and honestly, I'm kind of low-key, really worried about the show because I said that last episode.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

And then our next episode is the two-parter, and that one's paced pretty well, but we're coming up on season four here, which is notoriously ridiculous with its plot pacing.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah.

Xhafer

For reasons we'll talk about when we hit season four, and I'm sure we've talked about before, they didn't think they were gonna get their fifth season, so they'd compress two seasons into one. But I'm really, this wouldn't have been a concern at this. They're not getting the fifth season. I don't think this was on the radar at all. So it's just very worrying to me

Laura

It's a lot crammed in and we don't usually pull this tactic, I think, of having somebody like voice over a diary entry that goes over a lot of things. This show doesn't do that a lot. So yeah, but the, I think the most concerning thing that comes up in this diary entry is our watching Mr. Morton

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

skulking about the station. He bribes his way on, he gets into an empty. and some shadows materialize around him, and we go to theme.

Xhafer

When we come back from theme Sheridan, his meeting with the Bekri and the guy ambassadors,

Laura

Mm. Have we seen these guys before?

Xhafer

I dunno if we've seen the guy before. We've definitely

Laura

Maybe. Maybe. in a background

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

of like the league.

Xhafer

If, we have, I've probably brought it up already, but the Guyer named for Neil Gaiman who is a friend. Of uh, Jay McCrosky. He wrote, he does write an episode in season five, and then also they've got the Sandman Mask from the Sandman Comics.

Laura

Yeah. That's why it looks familiar.

Xhafer

Yeah. Sheridan's trying to get them to work together as they are neighbors. But the game refused to help until the alliance can demonstrate it has power equal to the shadows.

Laura

Yeah, we don't wanna get involved if you can't back us up.

Xhafer

Cut over to Med Lab where Franklin argues with a very particularly named Dr. Lillian Hobbs. They kind of go out of their way to say her name a bunch, did you catch this?

Laura

I didn't, I,

Xhafer

Okay. They're like Dr. Hobbs, Hobbs, Lillian Hobbs, Dr. Hobbs like way more than you do for a normal bit character.

Laura

Okay.

Xhafer

a very specific reason.

Laura

Okay.

Xhafer

Lilian Hobbs is a fan of the show who won a charity auction to have a character on the show named after her at the Wolf 3 95 convention in Manchester in 1995.

Laura

Oh, that's really fun and cute and I like

Xhafer

that's why they say her name a ton.

Laura

Gotcha, gotcha. It didn't strike me like as what the hell's going on, you know? But I think that's super cute and I wish that shows still did that

Xhafer

Right. Can you imagine if Discovery or something did that and have a character named after you charity auction? He probably

Laura

make so much money. Yeah. These are the ideas guys. Keep using them.

Xhafer

Anyways uh, Franklin is losing it and patience. He's just yelling this whole time. He. Clearly lost his shit.

Laura

Yeah, he definitely said. nine B p s

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

on that patient he was working with and then tries to backpedal and say, he said 13 and is like, nah. Bra

Xhafer

Nope.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. Not a good look. This is the worst look from any boss, right?

Xhafer

for. The I was right. You were wrong. Even though I was wrong, and now I'm blaming you for me being wrong. The worst look.

Laura

And not a not a thing we could really do anymore. Cuz there's so many ways you can like track somebody on that. So many receipts you can bring to the conversation

Xhafer

It's why you save your emails.

Laura

Exactly. Yep.

Xhafer

Cya uh, we flash back to Lando and Aira and Mitch McConnell when Veer interrupts prompting Lando to go to Aira suite. He's interrupted by Morden, though, who's pissed. Refa isn't returning his tax, so he does what every terrible man abusing power does about it. Complaint against a mono color background.

Laura

I think one of the interesting things about this conversation is that Lando can, he can hear these shadows now.

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

We hear them in the background, and he definitely reacts to this like, you know, the, the little shadow noise.

Xhafer

He is aware.

Laura

he's aware not aware enough to not just really step in it though. So Mor threatens the home world, which of course Lando has to puff up

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

and uh, show, show off a little bit. And he tells Morton that You can't hurt me. You've, I have nothing left. Basically.

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

As the lady that he

Xhafer

The one thing you actually care about,

Laura

the one lady that he says he is ever loved, is on her way to the station. What a, what A boneheaded move.

Xhafer

Yeah. Garabaldi goes to Franklin's quarters after this to call him out on his behavior, and Franklin is an as to his friend who totally doesn't deserve it. Just this once.

Laura

Yeah. Like I wrote down in my notes, Gar Baldy is actually right.

Xhafer

Yeah. Broken clock.

Laura

not a phrase I write often. Yeah.

Xhafer

So yeah, he gave all these, you know, trying to look out for his friend and it's just like, Hey, like I can do this the easy way or the hard way. Please, let's do this the easy way and talk about your addiction to stems. And he's all like, fuck you. I'm not addicted to stems. I do what I want. Get outta my room. Fuck you. You care about these like, I tried.

Laura

this is the one thing Garabaldi actually really knows really well, is how to talk to someone with a, a problem.

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

It's it's experience. So yeah, We see Dalen go to meet with Sheridan in the war room, and they're talking about the whole behavior of the shadows.

Xhafer

Their

Laura

is some erratic war. Yeah, but it's just like 1000 years ago, apparently, according to Menari records.

Xhafer

Yeah. The shadows, just kind of doing stuff attacking very randomly things that don't necessarily feel strategic, just kind of keeping everyone on their toes.

Laura

Sheridan's very frustrated because you can't herd the cats to all respond together and be a cohesive force. I really liked his phrase that it's like stacking marbles in a corner. Cause I was like, I have felt this just different projects at different times of my life. Stacking marbles in a corner. I'm like, yeah, that's really real.

Xhafer

Yeah. The big question outta all this is what do the shadows actually want?

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

That's a thing that they can't answer right now, and Sheridan needs to know to be able to. Be able to predict, be able to fight the enemy, you need to know what

Laura

interesting that the shadows ask everyone, what do you want? And now we are trying to figure out what do they want?

Xhafer

it's almost like that's on purpose.

Laura

Yeah, so Dylan is very, very succinct and suggests that we just need a win.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

a w you know how we get there if that's up to you.

Xhafer

Yeah. Get that w everyone turns around. Garibaldi meets with Dr. Hobbs to bring her in on his investigation. She refuses to help him through back channels. Aab

Laura

Yeah, it's gotta be formal.

Xhafer

Franklin does see Hobbs and Garibaldi talking though. And it's

Laura

Yeah. The music here. Oh my gosh. It's just like, you know, you know when you hear the music that he's around the corner

Xhafer

Yeah. It's a good thing that paranoia isn't a known side effect of Space Coke. Otherwise, this could be a real problem for Franklin.

Laura

Sure, sure.

Xhafer

Like what's he doing there? Like he's supposed to be going from his quarters to med lab

Laura

Yeah. He's in his whole doctor

Xhafer

and he's just Like walking through the Zocalo like. That does not make sense to me. That is not how the station has ever been presented as being laid out.

Laura

Yeah, whenever Franklin is in some sort of commercial space, he's in his, you know, uniform, not his doctor, like scrubs, so, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. Also in the Zocalo is veer. He is trying to arrange some of the nice things that Lando wants to fill a deer's room with, you know,

Xhafer

Like a case of wine and four dozen space roses and

Laura

Lingerie and outfits.

Xhafer

uh, yeah. Well they're unmentionables quite literally for fear.

Laura

Yes. We know about poor vire.

Xhafer

unable to mention them.

Laura

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we get a good laugh at his expense, but then he spots Mr. Morden on his way out and tries to dodge unsuccessfully.

Xhafer

This is so good because Morton's like, what do you want? Is there anything I can help you with? And veer is just like short of dying. No. Fuck off, It's so good.

Laura

Yeah, I, I love that Veer is not subtle with the way he deals with Mr. Morton. Unfortunately, Mr. Morton has kind of observed who he was talking to and worms his way. Into a conversation with that man and finds out that Maari is preparing for someone very special.

Xhafer

Yeah. All this lingerie and wine and

Laura

Space

Xhafer

space roses, like there's something going on. Just does a straight up Mr. Burns cackle to commercial Gear up all these strolls into Med Lab after hours, but stops himself from looking up the blood work and running the tests right as Franklin walks in.

Laura

He leaves the door open. Did you notice this?

Xhafer

Weird choice. Also Wise Med Lab closed, like it's an emergency facility. I would expect Franklin to not be there every waking hour, but I would not expect it to be. Shut down. Like is there no patience there? Like what is going on?

Laura

And when you're, whenever I'm looking up things that I'm not supposed to know, I uh, I always leave the door open so someone can come and talk to me about it.

Xhafer

Totally. Yeah.

Laura

Well, you know, we, we get to see Franklin, observe him. Make the choice not to look it up. Yeah, but at this point, Franklin has run his own tests,

Xhafer

yeah. He knows Franklin has been confronted with the hard truth. He's basically the Scarface of stems. Just a uh, his silver plate is so covered in Space Coke. He can't see his own reflection. It's bad.

Laura

Yeah, he's, he's having an awakening here to his situation.

Xhafer

So I really like this scene and I really hate this scene.

Laura

Okay. Do share.

Xhafer

I really like the, this scene for Frankel's, like I ran the test. You know, I have been this principled dude. These numbers don't lie. I know that I have a problem. I can't deny that anymore. Good. All the stuff with Garabaldi looking and then deciding to stop. Good. I like all of it. Med Lab being closed, fucking weird.

And if Franklin has decided at this point that he knows he has an addiction and he's going to resign as he does at the end of this episode, what the fuck is he coming into Closed med lab. What is the circumstance for him to go check on Garabaldi in Med Lab right now? That makes any sense. Short of, I guess he could have gotten notified someone went into med Lab, but that seems very ungar like Garabaldi would not let that happen, I would

Laura

Yeah. Maybe he's just trailing Garibaldi because he, he has got, as you said, perhaps he is having a paranoia side effect. And so he was just, you know, 10 steps behind

Xhafer

maybe. Uh, that makes

Laura

and ready to, ready to talk to him. That's, that's some head cannon to put on it.

Xhafer

Head Canada accepted. I appreciate that explanation. That makes it make more sense to me.

Laura

But we see Sheridan now going to Kosh. We haven't seen Kosh in a while, except for like a second in late delivery from Avalon.

Xhafer

And Kash is uh, refusing to help Sheridan here.

Laura

This is a great, great rant. About, it's great

Xhafer

Sheridan loses it on Kash,

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

and just starts yelling at him. He's all like, you know, uses words you'd use to describe children, you know, like you're being petulant. He's like, I don't fucking care. You know, and then Kosh kind of like activates a little bit and we

Laura

we get an energy

Xhafer

C. Yeah, it is a non localized phenomenon.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

remember where the last time we heard non localized phenomenon was

Laura

I mean, they're familiar words, but I don't remember when I heard them last.

Xhafer

in Soul Hunter?

Laura

Oh,

Xhafer

the soul got busted out of the like little soul prison gem thing,

Laura

Uh huh.

Xhafer

that was the last time we've heard someone say non localized phenomenon.

Laura

Weird.

Xhafer

I thought that was very interesting.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah.

Xhafer

That's something that j m s called out too. I read that in notes.

Laura

Okay.

Xhafer

Yeah, I thought that was really cool. Sheridan lays it in demanding to know how many need to die before the vs get involved.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

The answer's one more just not the one you were expecting. Kosh finally caves, but notes the price. They won't be there to help Sheridan when he goes to Zha Doom and Sheridan's all, like you said, I was going to die if I went there anyways. And he's just like, well, now

Laura

Yeah, you will now. Idiot. maybe I could have

Xhafer

before

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

Sheridan's like, fine, be rude about it later and don't help me in Zaha Doom. Like, fuck off, like this is worth it. And he's all like, you don't understand, but you're gonna.

Laura

Yeah, I guess we'll get there eventually.

Xhafer

Yep. And then Dalen brings the leak to the war room. As a lon fleet rolls up and attacks the shadows who are attacking the be.

Laura

Yeah. They really uh, kind of mop the floor with these guys.

Xhafer

there's like two shadow ships and the WANs show up with like 15 of Kashas ship and a couple big guys, and one really big guy. So I think they, they knew they weren't playing.

Laura

I like that there are different colors too. You know, we, we saw Kasha ship before and it was kind of a very bright neon green, or it had some bright neon green in it. And it, it's very modeled, right. And I, you know, they, as the volans come out, there's some brown and there's some green and it's like,

Xhafer

There's one that's bright

Laura

yeah. It's, it's more dynamic. Whereas, you know, all the shadow. Obviously are supposed to be creepy and scary and they're all kind of black with that gray. Yeah. Yeah. But we've got a little more diversity of types of ships. It makes them feel more alive than manufactured.

Xhafer

over at Space tsa, Lando and Veer are waiting for Aira, but she hasn't left the ship yet.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

Dr. Hobbs is with the medical staff removing a body, and Lando sees them and finds Aira is dead.

Laura

She makes it off in the body bag.

Xhafer

Yep. He immediately concludes that this is refa. Despite it obviously being Morden,

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

You know,

Laura

Yeah, he, he's remembering the poison incident and says, check her for poison, which, come on. He did say that like, poison was the centara drug of choice. So couldn't it be literally anybody if it was poison

Xhafer

Yeah. I mean, he, he decides it's refa without investigating. I think that's that, I mean, that's important. Like that's, that's a choice that Lando made. Is he? He said it wasfa before he even knew it was poison.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

Because it's so obviously morden if you pay just a little bit of attention and it's supposed to be,

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

But Linda's not paying attention. He's, he's swept up in the.

Laura

Yeah, he's really distraught. We see Veer try to go and embrace him. You know, veer is a great friend. Wado hasn't always been a great friend to him but he still goes to try to give the man a hug and he just, la just turns away and sobs in a corner. I thought that was really beautiful. It said a lot about the two characters to me.

Xhafer

The Volans beat the shadows and leave. The league is now ready to join the war together

Laura

Sheridan thinks about going to say thanks to Kosh, but chooses to go to sleep and intercut cuz this is again, one of those scenes where we're having kind of voiceover and a lot of intercut. We also see Mr. Morden paying somebody off.

Xhafer

yeah, Yeah. We see a bit with Morden and uh, Eventually he starts to make a movie on Kosh. We see him go into uh, the green sector and put the mask on and everything.

Laura

Yeah,

Xhafer

And in his sleep, Kosh comes to Sheridan under the visage of his father. And this is Wall Kosh is being attacked.

Laura

yeah

Xhafer

Kosh really likes and showing up as people's dads

Laura

yeah. It's almost a little patronizing. Little paternal

Xhafer

Yeah,

Laura

Wonder if that says anything about anything? I don't know.

Xhafer

little bit. Kasha, Sheridan's father apologizes to him. Sheridan was right. He was afraid, you know he'd gotten so used to living. He had lived so long that the thought of not living Had grown terrifying to him. And so he knew this was gonna happen the second the four ones opened up and was trying to postpone it, but it needed to happen. He apologizes for not being a better mentor too. This is one of the parts of like the hero's journey. The mentor always has to die.

Laura

Yeah. This is a big trope. Sure.

Xhafer

You know, without the mentor dying, the hero can never fully grow into the person they're supposed to be, cuz otherwise the mentor would do the heroic thing nine times out of 10.

Laura

Right, I, I'm in the way. Yeah.

Xhafer

But what makes this interesting more so than not, is the mentor isn't even close to being done with Sheridan's. Yeah. You know, most of the time it's like, okay, well in Star Wars is probably one of the most prominent examples in current pop culture. And Luke Skywalker OB one gets killed way too early to be able to train Luke. So then, you know, O one gets replaced by Yoda, he finds another mentor, and then we'll see what happens with Sheridan going forward with his lack of this figure to

Laura

Yeah. Is he gonna get a Yoda now that he's lost his OB

Xhafer

So spoilers but we'll talk about it after the credits maybe, or something at the end after we'll talk about it a little bit later. Well, after the next episode preview, we can talk a little spoilers about it. Okay. So you don't have to worry about it with right now, listener. But yeah. Kasha killed a wave of energy runs over the station when he. And Sheridan wakes from his dream knowing Kasha has been killed,

Laura

Yeah, it's really intense.

Xhafer

his kashi's wrecked helmet sits on Sheridan's desk. In the next scene,

Laura

Yeah. And. Better. Better put an eBay alert out

Xhafer

right

Laura

Yeah, Garibaldis on the case. He's brought the helmet. Um, So good luck,

Xhafer

yeah.

Laura

We'll see if we get anything out of this, but Dylan is also there. She expresses that the volans want to keep this quiet. They don't want anyone to know. Something happened to Kosh at.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

They just want his stuff put on his ship and his ship will do its thing.

Xhafer

Yep. It'd be normal for Kosh to be gone for weeks at a time anyways.

Laura

Yeah, yeah,

Xhafer

It's not like anyone's seen his face, so they'll just send a replacement.

Laura

yeah.

Xhafer

We'll talk about that for a minute too,

Laura

Okay.

Xhafer

because the language here makes me think something happens. It doesn't, and I get upset about it.

Laura

Okay. We also have londo going to talk to Morden. So Morden also plants the seeds that, oh, that, that was refa that had to be refa.

Xhafer

Yeah, REFA was totally asking about poison. and Aira. That's weird.

Laura

This is just so transparent.

Xhafer

Yeah. Well, it's supposed to be, you know, Lando is like, fuck it, fuck it. Shadows. We can work again. Let the galaxy burn,

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

which was an interesting choice of words because if you remember back to an Emperor, Turin was on the station,

Laura

Mm-hmm. Sure.

Xhafer

he asked Kosh how this was all going to end. And Kosh said in fire.

Laura

Oh my gosh. He did

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

Oh, that makes it even more sad.

Xhafer

Also, prophecy Watch, we said we were gonna bring up stuff that could possibly. When it were first, when Yolanda's prophecies, it could be a thing. One of those was Don't kill He was already dead.

Laura

Yeah. Right?

Xhafer

Refa is part one. Poisoned.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

so this could possibly be about Refa now because he's already dead. He's already, he's already got part one of the poison, right. Don't kill he

Laura

Whenever part two

Xhafer

dead. So maybe Rondo's uh, decision here that he refa needs to go, is his second chance at not fulfilling that prophecy,

Laura

Hmm. Yeah, I, when we watched this scene and, and finished it, My husband turns to me and says, is he really that dumb?

Xhafer

Yes.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. He's that dumb This is the downfalls of not doing a lot of critical thought

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

for examination. So Franklin goes and confesses everything to Sheridan. I think Sheridan at this point had no clue. Sheridan doesn't realize that anything is going on with Franklin,

Xhafer

Sheridan is not. Sheridan is either super, super micromanage or he doesn't know what's going on. He's, he's proven that,

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

So even when he's like taken handed, delegated stuff, he's like, oh, what happened with that from delegated it? So he has no idea what goes on in me lab. A hundred percent promise.

Laura

Right, right. He's like, that's doctor stuff. This is doctors do the

Xhafer

pew, pew

Laura

Exactly. He is a, has a very puzzled lick on his face as Franklin resigns in order to deal with this

Xhafer

Yeah. Space coke. like the cola. I don't understand. Just drink less coffee. You'll be fine. No. Oh, okay. Okay.

Laura

Mm-hmm. Uh, We see cautious ship wake itself up and it leaves presumably to grieve or maybe fly itself into the sun.

Xhafer

Yeah, it's gonna fly itself into the sun. But before the uh, as it's on its way out, the maintenance team looks on and the skin on Kashas ship changed to say deuces bitches and just flies out.

Laura

What a way to go, Well, what do you say to this episode? Is it deuces bitches?

Xhafer

I really like this episode. This is a really good episode. It is faster paced but unlike. Some of the like, I feel like the times I don't like the really fast-paced episodes is when they're trying to do things that are conflicting either thematically or in the plot. Everything here lines up really well.

Laura

Yeah. I mean, it, it is very fast. I think I'm flip flopping with you. Are you? How do you, how do you rate it?

Xhafer

I would put it at a four out of five.

Laura

Okay. I I can give it a

Xhafer

spoiled in the streaming era of television. Because I think this would've been a like 55 minute episode or something instead of the strict 45 to air for TV with commercials.

Laura

Sure.

Xhafer

And I think this episode would be better for that. I don't think it needs a part two, but it's a little bit of breathing room would've been nice.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

But overall solid.

Laura

One thing I read about this episode was that there was actually a scene that was cut for time, That was a ranger kind of picks up Morden's tail and tries to follow him and gets murdered by the shadows. And I'm like, man, I really miss that. Like, I feel like that would've been a useful scene. I understand why it got cut compared to, you know, e everything was so important.

But it's one of those things where it's, if we'd had that extra 10 minutes, like you just said, we could have had a few more scenes, we could have slowed a couple of things down. And I think I really would've benefited from those.

Xhafer

agreed.

Laura

So, yeah, it, it's a four for me. I'll, I'll keep it up there in the high.

Xhafer

Mm.

Laura

but I, I do wish it could have been slowed down a little bit or we could have spaced a little bit

Xhafer

So speaking of Babble on four, which is what we both just rated this episode

Laura

Hey.

Xhafer

next week, season three, episode 16, war Without. End Part one, Sinclair returns to accompany Sheridan on a life-threatening mission involving Babylon four. We're here.

Laura

Yay,

Xhafer

We're at, we're at part two of the three parter from season one. Mm. I love these episodes.

Laura

Me too. I'm a sucker for Babylon four. I'm a sucker for Z Atheros. I'm a sucker for Sinclair coming back.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm. ,it's so good. I can't wait. But we're gonna have to,

Laura

Yep.

Xhafer

so At this point, listener, we're gonna move to Spoiler Town conversations about some of the stuff from this episode. Uh, You're not missing anything, so if you want to avoid spoilers, you already know who we're gonna thank because you've listened to more than one episode. This, this podcast. So we're going to spoiler town, we'll say our thank yous. All right, so one Prophecy watch, obviously, especially after we talked about it a bit on the Discord. This has gotta.

Sheridan is he who is already dead.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

just, it's, it's super obvious and also it ties into the prophecy as we'll see in the next two episodes. We don't know that he's dead at that point, but seeing what will happen with Lando in the flash forward bits we get a hundred percent. But it is fun to call out other stuff when it happens. Thing two. Kashas replacement. Why is he in a different encounter suit them? Don't even attempt to make him look the same.

Laura

Yeah. I mean, if you're just a random person observing a Kosh, you could think, oh, he got a new suit.

Xhafer

Yeah,

Laura

know,

Xhafer

I don't know. It's just like, why go outta your way to make it clearly a physically different character when the whole point is that you're trying to beat the same person? Doesn't make sense.

Laura

We gotta upgrade though. You know, it's mid-season and we've worked on on some sets and we worked on some costumes. We gotta upgrade some stuff.

Xhafer

All right. Thank you Jeremy Segel for our lovely theme music. You can find more of Jeremy's work at Jeremy Segel 40 two.band cam.com.

Laura

And thank you to Angry Duck Time machine on Instagram for our podcast artwork.

Xhafer

Aaron, thank you for editing our podcast. We really appreciate all the work you put into it. Thank you so.

Laura

Mm-hmm. And thank you listener for being here. And if you wanna reach out to us, you can use our email at, who are you, b five gmail.com. Or you can find us on Facebook. We have a nice discord,

Xhafer

Yeah,

Laura

to have you there.

Xhafer

for sure. If you feel so inclined, I hear five star reviews help the podcast get noticed, so that's cool. so that'd be nice. Thank you. See you next week

Laura

Bye.

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