S3E20 - Shenanigans Potential - podcast episode cover

S3E20 - Shenanigans Potential

Apr 05, 202343 minEp. 72
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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 and Xhafer play plot poker. Meanwhile, Londo plots an end to his enemies and Sheridan gets welcomed to the resistance in Babylon 5, Season 3 Episode 20: And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.

Transcript

Xhafer

welcome to, who Are You? A Babylon five watch cast hosted by two former strangers. Now, friends who have gotten to know each other while rewatching a favorite show from their childhood. Babylon. Five. I'm Jafa.

Laura

And I'm Laura.

Xhafer

And we're gonna play some plot poker

Laura

Yeah, it's that time again.

Xhafer

so we have a couple packs of the shadows expansion left, and then we're gonna get into some great war packs, which we did once before, but we were, they were super spoily towns, so we're gonna

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

now, now they

Laura

to take some out. Yeah. I love that. Obviously the shadows cover on the package is a shadow, right? And the Great War is a warland. It's a very nice touch.

Xhafer

Oh, I've got the, the cover the box art. Mr. Morden Flanked by two shadows. Ooh.

Laura

that's a good one.

Xhafer

do I put him under characters or I put him under problems? I think we're gonna put him under characters.

Laura

I think if you get another one, you can put that one under problems. I was looking at my stacks today before you got on online, and uh, I'm pretty sure I have Atheros in every stack. So, Z Atheros can be a, a character or he can be a problem,

Xhafer

solution.

Laura

solution, or a twist Let's see. Did I get anybody in my first pack? I got another Zs I can just load, load my deck up with Zs until we get some

Xhafer

Some good

Laura

Zhara heavy plots.

Xhafer

I got a shadow ship.

Laura

Ooh, that sounds like a problem.

Xhafer

That does sound like a problem.

Laura

I got a Lon Cruiser

Xhafer

Ooh.

Laura

Is that a problem or a solution?

Xhafer

I could see it being either

Laura

Ooh. Well, we haven't actually seen this character yet, but he's been referred to Emperor Carta.

Xhafer

Yeah, we will see him soon. He's referred to by name in this episode multiple times.

Laura

Okay. So I'll go ahead and throw him in there in my stack.

Xhafer

I got one that I'm gonna show you the card, but I'm not gonna say what it is cuz it's super spoily town, but it's unexpected return. Can you make out who that is?

Laura

I think I do. Yeah. Yeah. A hooded figure. I got a walkabout, which is you know, relevant to our current plots.

Xhafer

Ooh, I got a what are you,

Laura

Whoa. I don't think we've had that question, have we

Xhafer

we, we have not, it's kind of rude to be perfectly.

Laura

It is kind of rude.

Xhafer

Oh, hey, would you believe I got Dr. Lillian Hobbs?

Laura

Oh wow. What a good get for right now.

Xhafer

I wonder if Lillian Hobbs got the trading card for having a character named after her.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

I hope so. You know, it just occurred to me that statistically we've probably opened more packs of this card game than anyone else in the world, in the

Laura

Possibly

Xhafer

Like if you take the timeframe and cut it to just this, like the last six to 12 months, it's probably us. If not, we're probably in the top 10.

Laura

There may be some super nerds out there beating us, but do they have a podcast?

Xhafer

I don't know. The bo, the boxes are so cheap that it's just, I just like open and pack. Sometimes it just makes me feel nostalgic. will we start off with Atheros coming to Babylon five? It

Laura

It's a Zaris episode.

Xhafer

I hope you've got two Z actresses in your pile of four right now.

Laura

That'd be great, wouldn't it?

Xhafer

As Zs come on, comes on board the station, though they're having an issue with a hacker

Laura

Ooh.

Xhafer

messing up the systems on the station. They believe he's one of the home guard people left over.

Laura

Mm Yeah.

Xhafer

And they managed to capture him, but with a personal sacrifice. Uh, So how they end up getting him is Garabaldi has to let some of his personal logs go as bait that the hacker takes, and then they use that to find the hacker.

Laura

Uhhuh.

Xhafer

And so now some people know about his history with the booze that he would rather

Laura

Embarrassing. Yeah.

Xhafer

And then the twist at the end is there's some cyco subliminal influences that have been left in the system that may impact other people in the future.

Laura

Oh no,

Xhafer

So I don't know what Zora's had to do with any of this, but I like this episode.

Laura

I'm sure Z Atheros was involved in like the uh, the technical parts, you know, with as many tools.

Xhafer

Maybe his presence on the station, maybe he was like digging around in something and that's what allowed the hacker to do the thing in the first place.

Laura

Oh yeah.

Xhafer

He accidentally took down a security thing.

Laura

whoops. That seems like a real Z Atheros move.

Xhafer

Sure does

Laura

Okay. So in the B plot I, I drew his atheros, but I'm gonna put him aside. we're. Okay, so we have an ambitious centara captain has come to the station and he is, you know, out for ladder climbing that centara often are trying to do. Right.

Xhafer

Yeah. Such as their way.

Laura

and he is one that's on Lord Rehas side, let's say, because we know that our Lord Refa has some connections with the shadows. Yeah. He's, he's now taking over the calls from Mr. Morton and this ambitious centara captain is looking for a shadow base, he is, Trying to find a shadow base and uh, prove his own worth in the Great Empire. So Kar has kind of gotten wind of this Centara captain and what he's up to. And he still has remaining followers on Babel and five, right?

So he's trying to rally the people and trying to get some influence in order to take out this Sonari ship that he knows is on a quest, looking for more allies and the shadow base that he thinks is going to be advantageous to him.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

And uh, a as he's rallying all the people, they managed to get, you know, the Centara captain driven away and the twist is, at the end of that, that the centara captain was given a slow poison.

Xhafer

Ah.

Laura

people managed to also sneak a slow poison in through some agents. And so as the ship is leaving Babylon five it's not gonna make it to the Centara base because the captain is going to be taken out by a slow poison on the way.

Xhafer

All right. Well, it's a shame that that gives us a really good segue because we can't take it. Uh, Cuz I need to ask you, how do you rate our episode on a scale of babylon's one to five?

Laura

I think it's interesting that the plot that had some shenanigans potential was your A plot use. Usually the shenanigans belong in the B plot, right?

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

But this is P one five. So sometimes we just have shenanigans where we have shenanigans.

Xhafer

Yeah. It makes, it gets mixed up sometimes for.

Laura

Yeah. So I don't know. I feel like this is a pretty good lore episode. know, if we've got

Xhafer

app.

Laura

Cary and we've got NANS fighting them and they're subversive ways and little bit of shadow stuff mixed in the background. Uh, So yeah. This sounds like a pretty solid, average episode to me.

Xhafer

Yeah. We, so much of the stuff we get with the cent, Tori is like almost directly through Rondo's eyes or, or veers. And it's usually not people who have Rondo's ambition but aren't at his station.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

And there's gotta be a ton of those people around the Republic. So it makes sense that someone would be out like, Hey, this ship helped us, but we don't know who they are, so I'm gonna go find 'em. Like some like low level dude who's just like, I've got a ship, but I don't know anything important. Going and trying to find their secret allies.

Laura

Yeah. And we know this entire are real like social climbers, so very believable. All right, so what was that segue? You were gonna take us with

Xhafer

Well, that Centuri ambitious captain might die of a slow poison, and not every centuri makes it out of this episode. We have season three episode 20, and the Rock cried out, no hiding place.

Laura

Mm. So good.

Xhafer

It's so good. We get a very ominous Z minus 14 days.

Laura

Yeah. We're getting a countdown to

Xhafer

There's a countdown. We don't know. Something with a Z because that's the weird addition to this.

Laura

Yeah,

Xhafer

Yeah, it's, I don't know why you would do Z might, it's so weird. Like, I guess, I don't Know. It just is like, I know it's a storytelling device and that the characters are not aware of it clearly because they're not talking about, oh yeah, you know, that holiday Z day that we're gonna celebrate for the first time. You know? And it's like the music and the stinger, like, it's all, it's all there to be perfectly ominous and it's not pretending otherwise.

It just feels weird because we don't have a device like this at any other point in this show.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

I completely forgotten about this countdown.

Laura

Yeah. Me too. It's nice that they're really giving us a point in time though,

Xhafer

Yeah, we know, we know it's some 14 days like to have that kind of a solid chronology of an episode even is unusual.

Laura

yeah. I, I like when we get those points in time, you know, cuz we've had it where. The season tried to point out where in the year we're at as we get close to New Year's or we get past New Year's, like telling us how far apart things are. I like that cuz I, I don't have a strong sense of time always and I need that. So on opening up Z minus 14 days, we've got another Ivan of a personal log.

Xhafer

Yeah. Big war update.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

We see uh, that telepaths are being moved to ships all around to help fight the shadow.

Laura

Yeah. Did you catch who we are assigning to first in this scene?

Xhafer

no

Laura

We have somebody who's getting stuck on a Pac Mira ship. I, I turned to my husband and I was like, God, I hope there's somebody on that ship that's packing the right food.

Xhafer

Right I am bringing exactly 400 bags of beef jerky,

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

and hoping I can make it work.

Laura

Yeah. You need to pack like you remember when we, when you uh, set up your food on the Oregon Trail? Cuz if you're stuck with the Pak Murra for a long Time.

Xhafer

Yeah. That

Laura

You don't wanna just go down to the cafeteria.

Xhafer

No, no. That's gonna be a bad day.

Laura

Indeed.

Xhafer

After the telecast, we found out that Sheridan is moving the League of Nine Lion Worlds around as a single allied fleet,

Laura

Hmm.

Xhafer

which is a big deal because most of these people were at war with each other six episodes ago.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. Like shadow induced war. Right.

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

Somehow we've gotten them over

Xhafer

that. Yeah. People are coming together to help fight the shadows. Uh, Franklin is still out on Walkabout.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

We get a reminder that Brother Theo exists, so we know he's in this episode.

Laura

Yeah. Hooray. I don't know how much longer we get Brother Theo. So we gotta enjoy him while we can.

Xhafer

Yep. And we cut over. Kar, who is assigning Narn bodyguards to all the Telepaths being assigned to miscellaneous ships.

Laura

Yeah. Remember, if you're walking around with a Narn bodyguard, there's a person who's gonna live to 150, right?

Xhafer

Yep. That's the rules. Ivanni was like uh, you do not have great relations with everyone that we're putting on these ships.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

This might not

Laura

NAS haven't always made friends. Yeah.

Xhafer

But, uh, Kar believes in the cause, so.

Laura

yeah. And they, they finds it a poetic to send these, you know, this race that has no telepath is going to guard the Telepaths and still fight the shadows anyway. And I think that's a, I think he's right. It is a little bit poetic.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm. Uh, Meanwhile we cut over Tolando, who has decided to finally do something about Kar. He, he has a plan to get Kar to leave Sanctuary on Babylon five for Narn, and he needs veers help to execute Kar to theme.

Laura

Yeah, this is a big reveal,

Xhafer

Spoo still on the fork. Veers just like what?

Laura

I love how the SP wasn't prepared properly and he forces veer to switch with him.

Xhafer

I feel like Lando is the guy who orders his steak. Well done. And Veer is the guy who orders his steak. Very well done,

Laura

yeah,

Xhafer

And he, he is just like, you're trading. It's like Lando wants a, a medium well, but he doesn't trust anyone to do it.

Laura

Hmm. Yeah, I could see that. No one is going to do it. Right. Because that's how Londo feels about everything.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

one, but Londo. back from theme, Ivan's hanging out with Brother Theo. He's waiting for some other religious figures to arrive on Babylon. Five. We get a nice cohort that's coming in. Some of them annoy him clearly, right?

Xhafer

Yeah. It's a nice cohort with plenty of sass from Theo.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

He's having a good time here.

Laura

we've got some good guest stars in here. Did you Google any of these guys?

Xhafer

I recognize them, but I did not Google them.

Laura

Yeah. So the one that brother Theo is clearly most agitated with is Mel Winkler. And he is playing the uh, Southern Baptist Reverend who is kind of key in this episode for me. But Mel Winkler, he's a, a real recognizable face, right? Definitely has some that guy chops running around. I think the thing that most of our listeners will recognize him from is that he was in star Trek Voyager in the 30 sevens episode. You remember that one?

Xhafer

Oh yeah.

Laura

Yeah. We find all the past people in the del Trick

Xhafer

Yeah. Yeah. Amelia Earhart and stuff.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. So he's one of the past people.

Xhafer

Oh, okay.

Laura

so yeah, especially I know you're in a Voyager rewatch, so if he felt familiar, That's probably the last time you saw him. Right.

Xhafer

Yeah. Yeah. I'm

Laura

But he did Cosby Show and he did a bunch of other stuff. Yeah.

Xhafer

Okay.

Laura

So we got Mel Winkler and then we've got next recognizable guy is Eric Avari.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

And uh, I think, again, the most recognizable place for me as a host of this podcast was he is the Seti guy in Independence Day,

Xhafer

Okay.

Laura

like the Seti chief, you know, the beginning of the movie

Xhafer

Yeah, that's, I knew I recognized him from, so,

Laura

Yeah. And I also have a fun story about Eric Avari. He and I have been in the same series,

Xhafer

What?

Laura

I, I was an extra in the Librarian three when it filmed in New Orleans in 2008 And apparently he was in the Librarian two in 2006. So,

Xhafer

degree of separation.

Laura

yeah, I mean, I've practically been in Blon five now, right?

Xhafer

a hundred percent. That's totally how that works.

Laura

this is, this is the head Cannon So, yeah, I, I loved that. When I, when I saw him, I recognized him from Independence Day, so I went Googling and I was like, oh my God. We've both been in the librarian movies, both directed by Jonathan Franks as well. So yeah, I never actually watched all of the Librarian three, I watched past my scene, which was toward the beginning of the movie, and uh, Then I was like, wow, this is bad. And I turned it off.

Xhafer

After the religious delegation, heads out, REFA walks into the station wondering what was going on there. Oh, well, it must have been nothing.

Laura

Yeah. uh, REFA is really looking forward to meeting with Minister Verini and Londo a little bit, right?

Xhafer

Yeah. He's got some plans.

Laura

Plans upon plans. That's all. This

Xhafer

yep. Dalen tells Sheridan to get some sleep and at Thesaurus Sheridan is trying to piece together the shadow attacks with no luck, and Dalen has arranged a need for him to take a break.

Laura

Uhhuh.

Xhafer

Since Mbar don't lie, you'll give great shame to me and my family. If you don't come to the dinner that I said you'd be at

Laura

This is a very wifey move, isn't it? I know we're not, we're not that serious, but it's a very wifey move.

Xhafer

Lando is aware of Refi's presence and tells his plan to get Kar to veer. He tells Veer that NATA is still alive in their government building and he knows that Kar is the only one who knows that building well enough to be the one to go save her.

Laura

Mm.

Xhafer

And when Veer is all like, I don't want to tell Kar this. He's all like, fuck you, you are gonna tell Kar this, or I'm gonna tell everyone what you did with those fucking Narn when you were on Minbar and then your family's gonna get shamed and killed and then you are going to get shamed and killed.

Laura

Yeah, he's gonna blow up the whole Abraham Lincon story. Oh,

Xhafer

Yeah. Refa and the Minister talk about Babylon five. How some real Alphas talk about those Delta cooks. I, I, I guess I don't, that's just kind of the vibe I got. I don't know how any of that conversation actually goes.

Laura

Yeah. You're not in that corner of YouTube, huh?

Xhafer

No. Nope.

Laura

Good for you. Stay outta

Xhafer

shit,

Laura

Keep that outta your algorithm.

Xhafer

I was, at a gym the other day working out and some dude was wearing a shirt that was just like sleeveless cut off lifting weights, you know, like, like you would expect that just said alpha af and I'm all like, if you have to put that on a T-shirt, I have some bad news for you about your actual status. Like, it's absurd.

Laura

and sometimes it's like, well, are you doing it? Ironically, I don't know. I don't know you so

Xhafer

I didn't get that vibe, but I also did not have a conversation.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the things, you need a lot more context in order to sniff that out, but do you actually wanna get the context? Mm.

Xhafer

Probably not. If someone was running around wearing a Trump Fuck Your Feeling shirt. I would not engage them to find out if it was ironic or not.

Laura

right.

Xhafer

I'm just not interested. I'm

Laura

You have to signal that visually somehow. Yeah.

Xhafer

Right.

Laura

Anyway, these guys are wanna be alphas.

Xhafer

yeah. He tells the minister that he brought him to Babbel on five so he could just see how Alien Lando has become. That's his big play here. It's like, look, there's this thing between my house and LA and House Malawi. But Lando is like not even Centuri anymore. He spent too much time among the aliens,

Laura

Yeah. He's gone native

Xhafer

he shouldn't even be considered. Yeah, you gotta get him out of the. As soon as he says this, Lando like, shows up. Perfect timing.

Laura

It's also the most ridiculous thing, right? Like Lando is clinging to his centerness harder than anybody we've seen

Xhafer

Veer goes to Kar, goes to commercial. The minister gives Lando the same speech he gave Refa about how this issue between the two houses needs to be resolved. And he's all like, well, I'll not solve this with words. I will prove this with actions. a guard overhears all of it and sneakily walks away in the background.

Laura

So sneaky.

Xhafer

After this we get the dinner for Sheridan to relax at and we find that they've brought back a bunch of stolen transmissions from Earth.

Laura

Hey,

Xhafer

them all in a Bible.

Laura

look at this. Especially the Baptist was useful. I think that's

Xhafer

the resistance lives on

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

the, he, the, the, the minister here does get the best line, which is ra I'd rather do something and be wrong than do nothing out of fear.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

Good line.

Laura

Yeah. Good, good. Call to action.

Xhafer

Kar goes to gu Baldi to ask him to smuggle him to narn

Laura

Yeah. A big package. I love how he describes it.

Xhafer

Yeah. How, how big's the package?

Laura

yay wide yeah. And he, he doesn't tell him that he's got word about NATA being alive, just that this is a personal thing. and he is hoping for somebody to be able to drop him off and then idle for a while. and

Xhafer

Yeah. Just hang out for a couple hours and then bring me back.

Laura

So presumably this is the Rangers that are gonna do this, pull this off. Right.

Xhafer

For sure. Yeah. Probably Marcus personally at this point,

Laura

yeah, this is Marcus's kind of bread and butter. He loves this stuff.

Xhafer

Right? We don't see it, but I'd like to thank you that he is there,

Laura

Yeah. after this veer gets on the elevator and gets jumped by the Sonari goons, he's taken to a dark room and uh, just imprisoned there by Lord Refa who's says, you know that hey you've gotta tell me these plans that Maari has, or we're gonna take it from you,

Xhafer

Yeah. Vere's not happy about this. He's like, REFA, what Matts to you about this? What are you doing? What is going on? But uh, yeah veer has a bad go as Centuri nor McDonald steps out of the shadows and probes his mind to find out Rondo's plan.

Laura

These centara Telepaths, they clearly don't have the same code of ethics that you see. The Cycore at least proclaim. Okay. The Cyco doesn't have Cyco code of ethics either, but there's like a facade there, right?

Xhafer

Mm-hmm. After all this, we see uh, Sheridan and Reverend Dexter talk about sharing responsibility, the worry tank getting full,

Laura

Uhhuh,

Xhafer

he's like, well, I don't wanna pile on Glen. You know, she's got her own shit. And then he tells the story about his uh, wife cleaning his apartment because it was more than just cleaning. It was helping. And that felt different. It wasn't just it, it's not a one for one. When you help somebody.

Laura

Yeah. I mean, gender rolls aside in that conversation. I get the idea. Yeah. It's different when you're doing something with somebody or for somebody than when you're just doing it yourself. Like, I always find it harder to cook for myself. if for some reason the boys are both gone, it's like, well, You know, if, if I don't have something in my mind that I'm like, I really want this and I never get this, you know, it's like, why bother I don't need to eat to live.

Xhafer

I always will go out and get fried chicken when I'm by myself, because I'm the only one who's really, I, I, I don't even wanna say I'm like really into fried chicken, but we've got a really good fried chicken place. It's not very far from me that I 100% will just be all like time to go.

Laura

sometimes I'm gonna admit something very shameful. Sometimes when Aaron is not around. My thing is Arby's because he hates Arby's. So I'll go get myself a beef and Cheddar

Xhafer

that Arby's tastes like sadness. I, I, I do occasionally go cuz low key, they have an a menu item that is super good and it's just like, it's their Turkey euro.

Laura

Oh,

Xhafer

If you have not had the Turkey euro from Arby's, one Arby's sponsored this podcast. Two, go try a Turkey euro. And you're like, cuz it's just like, why would I order that from Arby's? It's not even a Euro. Right? Cuz you're right, listener. If you're upset that I consider the Turkey euro from Arby's a euro, it's not,

Laura

Right.

Xhafer

it's also not pronounced gyro. I don't care what part of the country you live in.

Laura

Well, the point of this whole scene was like that Sheridan needs a confidant is Dexter's opinion. And this little lady is crazy about him. He can tell. So,

Xhafer

Yeah. He sees it. He knows

Laura

Yeah. But Sheridan doesn't like to be lectured at. Have you noticed this about our boy

Xhafer

a hundred percent

Laura

Especially not from

Xhafer

going to lecture me. He does get a jab in here about like, oh, are you going to sell me your religion now? And he's just like, I don't care about selling you my religion. When God comes and knocking. You won't need me to tell you who it is.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah, that's probably the best way to be as a uh, a religious figure. Let your actions do the talking Okay. So we get another Z minus 13 days.

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

We've definitely turned over days here, and Kar is arriving on the Narn home world.

Xhafer

Yep. And we see the state of Narn it is basically nuclear winter.

Laura

Yeah. They say something about it's, you know, dust, wind, cold the, the dust is probably contributing to the cold. Right. Blocking out sunlight.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

They expect it to last for years, I would assume so.

Xhafer

yeah. We cut over to the Karie building. I, well, I guess it's the same building that Chi Car's in. It's just the part of it that's being used by the Centauri and Refa talks shit like a Batman villain when they think they've won, but it's still before they've won.

Laura

Yeah. This is the Huberous man. Don't do it.

Xhafer

Yep. It is never a good look.

Laura

Nope, nope, nope. I, I thought it was very funny that in this part of the government building, we are setting it up to look like this Inari Royal Palace,

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

Because we need this cent entire Royal Palace set here soon in this show, and we gotta start getting it ready yeah.

Xhafer

yeah. we totally didn't just want to build another set. Yeah.

Laura

yeah, the excuse is that, you know, car Taja is going to come visit Narn. at some point and he wants to be, you know, at home on Narn. Okay. What kind of weirdo would do that? Jafa.

Xhafer

Well, when we meet Kaja.

Laura

gonna be interesting, that's for sure. So Refa needs some loyal guards to come on this mission that he's got, that he thinks he's going to finally get one up on Malawi for good.

Xhafer

yep. He needs the, the most loyal guards so that he can deliver Malawi's head on a silver platter. And he's like, oh, I got just the guys. Don't you worry about that. Sheridan Dalen puzzle out the shadows tactics. and they figure it out. They are corralling people into a central location in order to attack them all at once.

Laura

Yeah, we start putting the everything up as dots on the tv, you know, in the cube of the sector. And uh, we see that they're trying to drive them into a certain space.

Xhafer

and then Sheridan says that that's what he would do, and Len is not happy.

Laura

I, I, I, totally understand his sentiment. He's saying, this is what I would do if I didn't have a conscience or ethics

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

She cannot imagine being someone who did not have a conscience or ethics, unlike Sheridan and myself, apparently

Xhafer

So, yeah, she's just like, all right, break. after this, Lando rescues veer as Kar moves underground and is followed by Refa. And at this point we start this big cross-cut sequence between the preaching and the Narn home world. Kar plays a message from Lando listing off the reasons why his vengeance is overdue. And refa is like, what madness is this?

Laura

There it is. I thought you were

Xhafer

Yep.

Laura

and then you just like uh,

Xhafer

Nope. Drop edging the whole episode. Kar delivers the death sentence as the choir sings. And what follows might be my favorite two minutes of babble on five.

Laura

I agree. Hard, agree. This is really impactful.

Xhafer

It's such a good scene. It's so well done. I will say I feel like the HD remaster did take a bit away from this because the scenes on Narn did not seem to be upscaled, like the scenes on the station were, and that made it a little jarring.

Laura

I definitely thought it did not look as good. Yeah. I, I wish that the narn scenes had been a little bit cleaner.

Xhafer

But yeah. The Nans beat refa to death leaving the data crystal in his face alone while the choir sings that there's no hiding place.

Laura

yeah. No hiding place for the

Xhafer

Yep.

Laura

I think it's interesting. If you watch Ja car in the scene, he does not throw any blows. He just watches everyone else throw blows and kind of turns away. And that's sort of telegraphing to me how different Kar is than he would've been at the first of this show, right?

Xhafer

for sure.

Laura

He was always out for blood. But now, you know, he. knows that throwing any of those blows is not gonna make him feel any better. He knows that they've got to do this, not just for moari, you know, they're doing it for the

Xhafer

For Narn.

Laura

millions of nans that died. Right?

Xhafer

Yeah. And the mil and the thousands of Nans that will be freed.

Laura

Yeah. They're, they're doing it for a reason, but he doesn't feel the blood anymore.

Xhafer

So it's clear that Londo had to have gone and talked to Kar after Veer, right? Like that's the only way this happens cuz he's not around looking for nata and he plays the message from Londo. We do not see this scene. I want to see this scene. I understand that You can't give it to us for the narrative. Like, yeah, but I would've loved if they could have cut back to it and showed us that super awkward conversation. Rolando's like, Hey, you're gonna go rescue nata. She's not there. That was a lie.

Here's what's actually going on. I need you to kill this fucker. Here's the evidence that he's the one who destroyed your home world. He did all of this terrible shit. I couldn't stop. I don't care if you believe me about that, but here's the evidence that he did it. And if you go and do this, I will free of narn.

Laura

Yeah. That could have been a cool scene. Like, you know, you just after, after this, obviously because this is cool enough on its own you get kar just like staring off into space thinking and then you fade into the the past flashback of their conversation and Kar deciding to do this. That could have been cool too. I mean, maybe narratively they didn't need it, obviously, but yeah, it could have been fun.

Xhafer

have not been in person since the dust thing,

Laura

Yeah. Yeah.

Xhafer

so we, we need to see them together still. Mm.

Laura

Yeah. So good though, like the, the cuts back and forth, the music, this is such a well written little, I mean uh, and the Rock cre out, no Hiding Place is like a traditional spiritual American song. Right. But there's lots of different versions of words. If you Google it you know, lots of bluegrass versions out there on um, apple Music or whatever. You use them to find your stuff. But this is like well chosen and the choir is, you know, well choreographed with their,

Xhafer

Yeah

Laura

words and actions and stuff. It just fits really, really well. And now if you Google, instead of getting, just getting the song or the spiritual, you get this episode, you know,

Xhafer

yeah.

Laura

it's

Xhafer

Yep. It's so good. I. I, I like asked Google to play the song while I was doing, like digging into the notes to start watching the episode and it played the version from the show.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. That's how, how much it's really tied in and become associated with this scene.

Xhafer

Yeah. So Rondo's plan is fulfilled as he talks it over with the minister. He puts all of Vere's work on bar on rfa. He doesn't like, obviously he can't say that, but when he is talking about the stuff that RFA was doing, some of that, not all of it, but some of it is definitely the stuff that would very easily be Abraham Lincon. Right. And so he does this besides for his own reason, he also clears Vere's name.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

So if anyone ever finds this shit, they won't point to. they'll know that it washa. Now,

Laura

yeah. And I, I don't think Veer knows this. Right. And I don't think he's gonna know this. Yeah.

Xhafer

He's pissed about being used and rightfully so, you know, he was lied to outright knowing that, you know, Orlando knew Veer was gonna get got,

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

was gonna get interrogated and that he needed that to happen in order to get refa specifically in this manner,

Laura

Yeah, and he couldn't even give Veer any reassurance that, you know, I'm not actually sending Kar to his death, theoretically you know, like I'm not making you betray him because he knows that he's gonna get telepathically scanned. So he only gives him part of the story. And fear has to feel terrible for at least a day, right?

Xhafer

Yep. And after this Dalen shows Sheridan, Hey, I bought you a new car. And then they make out

Laura

it is. Finally, kiss time guys.

Xhafer

Yep. Yeah. It just takes a fleet of warships to really get them both in the mood, apparently

Laura

that's an

Xhafer

some romance. Yeah. It's bizarre, but I get it. Like it's, we're doing this thing, you know, here's the fleet of white stars. It's a really cool reveal.

Laura

and then we end on Z minus 10 days.

Xhafer

Yep. Yep. We're getting there. So whatever Z is.

Laura

Soja Fair.

Xhafer

Laura,

Laura

How do you feel about this episode on a scale of babylon's one to five?

Xhafer

I really like this episode.

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

This is a great episode. It's great to see Lando really pull out those skeen shops and be the character we know he is. It's great to see that plan come to fruition. The episode itself, like the alo, the blot, it all comes together very well, even though the alot and blo don't intertwine in the story. The, the shots and the theme are really great. Cuz you know, it's talking about the na resistance to talking about the earth resistance too.

So there's a lot of stuff overlaying that shows that there is hope that these evil people who are doing evil things will have justice. For their crimes. It's great. I don't have any complaints, but it's not, it doesn't feel like a perfect episode to me. Like I feel like other episodes are better, but it's one of those like, ask me to ask me to tell you why I can't.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

This is a solid four out of five for me. It's a great app.

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

it's

Laura

It's, it, it it made such an impression on me that I'm gonna give it my five outta five. Like I, again, I have no. No notes, You know, the, because we've seen Lando be both competent and a buffoon.

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

real interesting turn into that ruthless competency that he can sometimes have. And I, I love the scheming. I love it. I love, you know, I hate for vere that he got put in that position, but it's absolutely what Wado had to do in order to get what he needed done. And I really like that he chose the enemy of his enemy to be his friend. You know, that he went to Kar even though they're not friends,

Xhafer

no.

Laura

And knew he could get something that Kar really wanted and needed. And also get his enemy out of his way. And this is just a, a start on a ruthless path for him that he's going to try to set some things. Mm. I don't know right is the word, but he's trying to do some, some things better

Xhafer

Yeah.

Laura

So, you know, I, man, if you're veer right now, I, I, do you think up to this point veer felt like Lando still had something redeemable in him, or do you think he had already kind of turned on that?

Xhafer

He, he still thinks Lando is redeemable. He's, he's said things along those lines this season

Laura

Yeah.

Xhafer

If you feel, if you feel that way after the genocide and all that stuff,

Laura

Mm-hmm.

Xhafer

then you're gonna feel that way for forever.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. So you think at the end of this episode he's still, he's upset, but he still believes, I think if there's an eternal optimist on this show, it's probably gonna be veer, right?

Xhafer

Mm-hmm.

Laura

So, I don't know. It's just real beautiful for me. And I, I'm okay. I'm a sucker for anything that wisely uses coral music in it, So uh, the gospel choir for me just nails it. This whole thing is great work of art. I love it. Five outta five.

Xhafer

All right. Well, next week we've got season three episode 21, shadow Dancing. The Shadows Launch A major offensive Franklin finds a spiritual resolution and Sheridan receives a surprise visitor, and he's not the only one. We've got a surprise visitor too. We're gonna be joined by Yum. Yum. Podcast next episode.

Laura

Hooray. I'm so excited.

Xhafer

Yes, me too. Uh, We. Haven't got the exact time yet due to the ridiculous multinational time change we're dealing with. But I'm very excited to have to have them on and it's gonna be a great time. So tune in next week for that. While we're closing out, let's say thank you Jeremy Siegel, creator of our lovely theme music. You can find more Jeremy's work at Jeremy Segel 40 two.bandcamp.com.

Laura

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

Xhafer

Mm-hmm. Hey Aaron, thanks for editing our podcast.

Laura

Yeah, thank you so much, Especially in these times.

Xhafer

And thanks to all of you for listening. Uh, You can join the conversation on our discord. Who are you? B five gmail.com. We have other social media that I theoretically should take responsibility for, but I don't. Fuck Twitter.

Laura

Yeah. You can send us a Facebook message. We'll probably get to that, that, that might be a little easier. But definitely email. Who are you? B five gmail.com.

Xhafer

We would ask for your thoughts on the end of season three. But this episode airs a month and a half from now, so whoops. Uh, we needed to start asking for those a long time ago.

Laura

we can consult the discord for

Xhafer

Yeah. Yeah. We'll, we'll consult the discord in real time, but, uh, yep. All right. We'll see you next week.

Laura

bye.

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