No Surrender, No Retreat | For the Second Time

[0:44] The year is 2026. The name of the podcast, Babylon 5, for the second time. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the second time. My name is Brent Allen. And my name is Jeff Akin. Brent and I used to be Star Trek podcasters, and then we watched Babylon 5 for the first time and everything changed. So now we're watching this incredible series for the second time because Babylon 5 is a series that you get to watch for the first time twice. But we are still looking for those sci-fi messages that we find in the series. What JMS intend to say, Jeff, I think I've got one today. Or what do we just find in it? We're looking for things that like hold up mirrors to society. Maybe they give us hope that things will be better in the future, or maybe they just show us how to be better human beings to one another. Now, that being said, Jeff and I have been through this incredible series for the first time by ourselves, completely spoiler free. And that is the best way to do it. Being our second watch. That means that from this point forward, anything and everything is fair game for Jeff and I to talk about anything from any point in a timeline in universe, out of universe, uh, Canon, extra Canon, uh.

[1:54] Whatever we are going to talk about all of it. And so this is your one and only and final spoiler warning. If you haven't watched the show for yourself for the first time, go join our first time. Watch be unspoiled and then catch back up with us here. When you have gotten through the series yourself for the first time this week, Brent, we are watching no surrender, no retreat. The first time that we watched this incredible series, we played a game where we predicted what the next episode was going to be about based on the title alone. What did, well, actually I'll tell you what mine was first. Cause I got pretty specific in mine once again. Okay.

[2:32] You know, we're going to go out and just like Sheridan laid out last time. We're going to go after the colonies. We're going to do the whole thing. But I said, I hope what happens is like they come out over Proxima three. And one of the ships out there is the Hyperion commanded by captain pierce that's the one from voice voice in the wilderness okay and turns out sheridan and pierce because that was with sinclair sheridan wasn't around so sheridan and pierce have a history like they were buddies went to the academy together something like that and they have to face off and it's the first time sheridan's like, dude dude come come on come on and gets pierce to be like his first defector coming over so basically sheridan like getting building his own army of earth people like getting them to basically mutiny against the president yeah mutiny against the president slash not mutiny against the earth constitution.

[3:25] Sort of thing yeah fair enough what did you predict i basically said this is exactly what sheridan said it would be he'd laid it right out at the end of the episode he's like we're gonna start with the colonies and then we're going to go to Mars and then we're going to get earth. I also said it was going to take seven episodes to do. And that's basically what we're going to run the rest of the season with is how I felt like this was going to go. And so we'll start at the colonies. Proxima three is a good one to start with. However, many other colonies are out there. We'll go basically colony to colony. In my mind, it's like one episode per colony until we eventually hit Mars. Maybe Mars becomes a two-parter and then earth is maybe, uh, maybe, uh, you know, another two-parter or something like that. But, Uh, for the most part, it's just, it's the long march to earth for the civil war, pretty much exactly what he told us to do. Just not seven episodes. Right. Yeah. And no two parters have been said, we're going to put two of the biggest things into one. That's later. We'll, we'll get to that. Right. Well, I mean, okay. Because we know intersections in real time is coming. Yeah. Just pretty soon. Right. Like, like four episodes away or something like that. Is it possible that that's – it's a top three episode of the series, right? It's like so many others.

[4:37] I'm not wrong though. As long as you don't count Sleeping in Light because that one is sort of a thing unto itself. And as long as you don't count whatever and then we don't – yes, this is the top three. It's, I mean, just what a freaking, and who could have seen that one coming? Yeah. You know, my theory here, point being, my theory was far more simplistic. And I'm much more of a fan of the way JMS laid it out. I think especially given the constraints he was working under. He probably would have wanted it to be a long stretch. And here we are. Well, what do you say we go and look at what we thought about it the first time around? Yeah, let's do that. previously on Babylon 5 for the first time no surrender no retreat whatever happened to that David Corwin guy we got him back but dude something's up with him did you see the look he was giving to other people around the room he's planning a mutiny from within or something the, little bit with Franklin and Sheridan wants him to get the telepaths ready for something I had a theory a while ago that earth has a shadow ship and so maybe Sheridan knows this and he wants to get some telepaths ready to take him down or something. It was kind of cool when they were doing the battle planning, though Sheridan said the thing. He did the thing. No surrender. No retreat. That's the thing. You did it. Literally, my note is, hey, he said the thing. It's mine, too. He said the thing.

[6:03] You had Captain Jellicoe there who was going to fulfill his mission no matter what. Mackie, you know, old buddy, he's like, hey, listen, these guys are Earth's jurisdiction and we're just here. And Sheridan just says, dude, that's BS.

[6:15] And he calls everybody out on it. We'll call them the Clark loyalists or whatever, are pretty small in number. And for the most part, you just have a lot of soldiers that are just kind of just doing their thing. They're following orders. And I love the line. He's like, listen, if you follow an illegal order, then you are an accomplice for war crimes. I thought this was such a great angle of just the ethics of. Of combat and to be able to leverage that with the guy you learned it from, the magic in this episode is Londo and Jakar so they start talking and Londo catches himself right how quickly we fall into familiar patterns but this was like peak enlightened and wise, Londo with incredible self-awareness he's finally learned maybe too little too late but he's finally finally got it He's come back to himself. The one thing I was really disappointed that Londo never did, and it wouldn't have done any good in the moment, but Londo never looked at Jakar and said, I'm sorry. Jakar would have sloughed it off. Jakar might have even punched him if he'd said it. He should have said it. Needs to be said. But did you catch when he said that he got the Centauri to throw their support in? He specifically said to support Sheridan. I had a little Michael Garibaldi here on my shoulder saying, did you hear that? They're following sheridan what's wrong with following sheridan jeff it's a cult of personality or he's actually the guy yeah but.

[7:43] Well i think there's always a problem when you're like declaring your loyalty to a person yeah and that's kind of what they do they're like yeah sheridan, we're here for you earth has a shadow ship that was my theory and they do that's, where we get the new destroyer class no well they don't have the shadow ship but they have shadow technology shadow tech but they don't have like they don't have their own actual like shadow ship they're going to stick somebody this isn't like, the x301 or whatever right in stargate we're like hey we're just going to co-opt it and put like our our own pilots in there i remember thinking though in, i think my prediction for endgame involved clark on a shadow ship yeah like i stick i stick to that yeah yeah.

[8:24] That that would have been kind of cool honestly but also i understand why jms wouldn't have wanted to go that route. I just want to lay this out at the beginning because I'm sure we're to dive into it. Mirrors to society, messages we look for. When did we first record that episode, Jeff? The one we just watched? Yeah. Two years ago? About two years ago. Three years ago? Yeah. How would we have known back then that the conversation about people following illegal orders would actually be a conversation happening today? How? Let me ask you this. How did a guy who wrote that 30 years ago know that that would be a relevant conversation when two guys decided to finally watch his TV show for the first and second times. Or this is just history, and history repeats itself. Because this has been a relevant conversation throughout the decades. For a long time, and even if history doesn't repeat itself, it certainly does rhyme. Kudos to you for predicting the long night, very long night of Wando Malari. Thank you, thank you, and Ben shouts it out. In retrospect, we know that the sorry was being held until then for a more powerful moment. And that it was. There is actually a reason. And this is actually probably an okay place to talk about this. Jameis actually talks about this.

[9:43] Somebody had asked him talking about the Londo and Jakar stuff. Okay. And we were clearly responding to the Londo and Jakar stuff when we said that. They said the Londo and Jakar stuff was nifty. And Jameis goes, yeah, he's struggling toward redemption, meaning Londo. He's struggling toward redemption as best as he can. What did he say? The redemption of Lando Malari. Anyway, he's like, he's making a real effort, which is important because if he's going to end up with a keeper, which we know because we saw that back in War Without End, it's best if we feel for him, which you can't if he's a bad guy. 100%. So we have to get him redeemed so that when he winds up with the keeper, we're all like, what a man, what a guy. And it's jms dude joe.

[10:34] Oh so good oh so good writing is and you strung us along since season two season one i was gonna say a lot longer than that like oh my word so i don't remember what the londo and jakar stuff in this one is i don't either so because i don't remember yeah, oh oh the second part the second part to jms's piece sorry i missed this speaking about it because i Because I had mentioned like Jakar should have – it wouldn't have done any good because Jakar would have punched him in the face. Right. JMS says if Jakar came around too easily or too quickly, it would ring false. Yeah. It wouldn't have done any good in that moment. He had to go through time and reflection. And even though one could certainly agree with his anger over what's happened, Jakar has to try to overcome that and even transcend it. And he does. He does. But he can't. There is a great lesson. There's a great message in that. You have to try it. Like, it is okay to be angry about something. What's not okay is to stay there. We've often talked about that, about the bitterness drink, right? Being bitter is like drinking a poison, but you're expecting the other person to die. Don't stay there. And I love his word. And even transcend it.

[11:45] It's next level stuff. Right, right. And that's not a shaking our finger at you. That's an encouragement. Right? It's possible. You don't have to stay there, folks. It is not good for your heart or your soul to stay in that angry spot. It takes time. Jeff, we're already talking about messages. We haven't even started the episode. Let's start the episode and see what's in the show. I'm excited to do this. We're going to watch the episode right now with you. We're going to pull it up. Brent and I will comment on it, react to it, talk even more about the messages that we see in it as it's happening on YouTube. This will be edited into one of those reaction style videos. We post the full and unedited version of this on our Patreon page. That's at patreon.com slash bad nerds. And for our audio podcast listeners out there, don't worry. You guys are going to have all of that conversation because we're going to have conversations just like the one we were just having and more throughout the course. And you guys aren't going to want to miss that. Plus, we'll have all the stuff on the back and we're going to rate and rank, not rate. We're going to rank the episode. Those two words are very, very similar. We're going to rank the episode and we'll talk about all the other stuff. So you guys make sure to do it. But Jeff, in the meantime, let's watch an episode right now. Let's go. Accessing file. Captain's personal log. Another personal log? September 2nd, 2261. Oh, hold on. Enough is enough. What was the date? Oh, good call.

[13:11] Captain's personal log. September 2nd, 2261. So this is my birthday. This is like my 280-somethingth birthday that this is happening on. Happy birthday, Jeff. Yeah. You should put a hat on. Look at me starting the Earth Civil War.

[13:31] Christopher Franca, that makes such great use of percussion in his music. Okay, I don't know who's directing or DPing this episode, but so far they are on point. Look at that hair. Like beard. It's getting bigger. What do they want? What's going on? I don't know.

[13:54] Okay, so we know something happens between Jakar and Londo in this episode, right? Right? Track it just on a storytelling level, Londo walks in, gives the stink eye to Jakar. Jakar barely even looks at him and stink eyes back. That's where we're starting this episode. And Jakar on this end of the table, Londo on this side. As far as they can be. When was the last time we had Londo and Jakar in the same episode? Like face to face. It's been a minute. Yeah. That's where we are right now. Alpha Squadron, status report. Alpha Squadron, ready for launch. Launch. You were convinced he was going to be the bad guy. Dude, he gave that look when Sheridan broke away. As of right now, in exchange for our continued patrol along your borders, I'm declaring those treaties null and void. He is declaring the treaties that these sovereign governments have as null and void.

[14:50] And he's... Okay, let's take a moment. Did Sheridan... Was this a part of the plan? Because that whole not last episode but the episode before was him being joyful and gleeful about getting the rangers to be able to patrol the borders because if i can get the rangers to patrol the borders i can then declare those treaties null and void and go after him, like was this is this part two of that or is this in response i mean, we remember a lot of i came in last episode all like i can't believe it i can't believe it right and this may be this feels like a response out of that but the idea that somebody who's coming in even providing that kind of cover being like hey uh.

[15:33] Because i'm doing this all of that other stuff you do with those other people who aren't us is not good anymore i bet it does in a way maybe but i think, i'm just tracking to president sheridan uh-huh who i am going to stick to my guns is a dictator, sure at best and we're just seeing this, the elements of him time and again, this is another one. Hey, I'm unilaterally I'm deciding this thing that impacts your government and just declare. I'm sorry, I'm going to back up. You're saying Sheridan is a dictator. Yeah. President Sheridan is a dictator. In my head, you said Clark. And I was like, yeah, sure. Sheridan is a dictator. Sheridan's a military governor for sure. Especially now, but I'm in the future. I'm in season five with ISA President Sheridan. Where does a dictator derive their power from? The people who give it to him. Does he? Without the people, they wouldn't be able to dictator. Delta.

[16:33] Squadron, launch. Delta Squadron launches and they're like, this one's for you, Kephar. Yes, and each of you contribute at least one destroyer-class ship to the defense of Babylon 5. Taking back Proxima 3. We're taking back Mars. Then, we're going to take back our home. We're die trying.

[16:49] I love this. This is great. He's in the wrong place and talking to the wrong audience. Imagine the Drazi standing up and telling us this. You will not give aid to them. You will not respond. The Drazi saying this, they're going to tell him to take a hike. Shut up, man. I don't care. But he gets to pull everybody together and tell him this. Well, one, don't forget, he nuked Zahadim. So yeah. And he came back from the dead. There is that. But also, there is the point of he has the largest stick in the galaxy right now. So yeah, he does. like he he does have that ability to be able to go in here's what i really love about what he says we are going to go do this not all of us we no no we we are going to go do this we're going to this is our, fight we're just telling you not to get involved you outside of humanitarian aid this is our fight we're going to take care of this you guys stay out of it and and protect yourselves and protect yourself stay out of it yeah yeah and you're going to commit something here because you've got to protect your citizens here. We're going to keep it. I mean, I very much appreciate the way that he's actually going through this. Like, we're going to go do this. This is a unilateral decision. You guys have to do this. And by the way, we have our ships out there protecting you. A part of that agreement for us is your treaties are now null and void.

[18:11] Basically, he's not telling them to take up arms against. He's telling them to stay the out. Yeah. Do not take up arms. Do not take up arms. Don't don't render aid except for humanitarian aid because we're about to go do this thing, Just stay out of it and let us take care of it. We also are the audience and we're being written from this standpoint. So we know he's right. We know that he's justified. We know the dirty, shady stuff that's been happening on earth. We know the dirty, shady stuff that has not been happening under Sheridan. We know that he's true and he's legit, despite Michael Garibaldi's reservations, which are kind of justified. But they get it. Hey, you have kind of a messiah complex. You're a fascist dictator crushing an entire planet. Not the same. those are two different things yeah and i think like because like i i still like i just have a i have a problem with the set and setting of what he said i love everything he said but to your point this is a tv show and they had to do two things at once they had to set up the thing of like this is this is earth this is us humans this is us doing the thing, also i need to get everyone fired up you know and tv show wise for what's about to come and so it makes sense from a story from a tv storytelling standpoint they did it together.

[19:25] I just i just put myself like with the game standing up in front of everyone or or the drazi and they they wouldn't even be able to say these things let alone be taken seriously right but again their stick is not big enough to be able to do that and isn't that a problem i my my thing doesn't matter unless i have a big stick, I'm going to say no, but I'm probably wrong. There's a piece of me that's like, no, that's the way of it. There's a reason Teddy Roosevelt said, speak softly, but carry a big stick. We're here. We've got, again, metaphorically, we've got the biggest stick out here. Well, I would say we. Deborah, Deborah asks a good question. Is Sheridan planting the seeds for the ISA even now? Oh, 100%. As if he was post-war civil planning. I think they've been doing that from the time Ivanova was handing out the Babylon Treaty. Not intentionally, because the ISA was a Delensite. Delen, Londo, and Jakarta. I don't think he's planting the seeds for the ISA intentionally. Agreed. He may be, he may be, that might be what he's doing, but I don't, I don't think he's thinking about a post war government because I think Sheridan still very much. He's earth. He wants to get earth. He wants, he wants to reunite with earth and have things kind of go back to the way they were. It's that uniform to mean something again. Exactly. He, he wants to take this uniform off and put on the earth Alliance uniform. That's what he wants right now in this moment.

[20:40] And I don't think he's on, I'm going to form my own government. You know, he's still, he's still, he's not a separatist right now. He is a loyalist. Well, yeah, exactly. But a loyalist to the true king, which is not. Clark. President Clark. You say, maybe we need the big stick because that's the way things are. I'm going to put that in someone else's mouth. And I'm going to say, we have to carry a big stick because it's our nature. It's the calling of our heart to listen to the ones that have the big stick. We talked last week about Shaqiri, just that this is just who we are. It's just what we do and how it works. And Naroon questioned that. There has to be another way. You are right. The way of things now in our nature now is the one with the biggest stick gets to talk, but there has to be another way. Well, I think the important piece of that, to go back to the Naroon bit, is your why. Yeah, I've got the biggest stick. That gives me permission to talk or that allows me to kind of dictate, well, why am I fighting? Because it's my nature to fight. We need a better reason. You should be fighting for the betterment of people or your people or the people under your charge or the betterment of your galaxy or people in your country, people in your office, people in your whatever. Bring that down to whatever your world is. You fight for them, not because it's what you do. It's just what I do.

[22:04] When you reduce it to it's what I do rather than the why behind what you're doing. And I think the difference between Shaqiri and Sheridan here, that's actually, that's the difference, Jeff. That's the difference. The difference between Shaqiri and Sheridan is their why Shaqiri wanted power for power sake. Shaqiri wanted power for himself. I don't think Sheridan wants to be in power. Sheridan doesn't want to be president. I agree. He resisted. He says he doesn't want to be president. He wants to be captain. When he becomes president later, he's all like, he resisted it until he embraced it because he had to embrace it. Our own history here in America, the great general George Washington, the only man who could be that first president and unite everybody. And he was like, I don't really want this, but OK, you're calling me to do this. Fine. I feel like anyone who signs up to run for office should be automatically disqualified from holding office. That's the way they felt back then. You did not campaign for yourself. Oh, one thing I do want to point out here at the outset, because we're going to get some space battles in this episode. Yeah. And I want to I want to point this out so we can look for it as it's happening, not on the backside. Somebody says, it seems to me that the white stars, particularly in the numbers that we look at in this episode, should have been able to deal with the Earth ships like lambs to a slaughter. I remember talking about this. They took on freaking shadows. Like, why is this? Yeah.

[23:26] And JMS goes, yeah, if all you want to do is slaughter your fellow humans and officers, but if you want to try to minimize the body count of your fellow officers, who you want to eventually side with you, then it's more difficult. You have to keep the kid gloves on because if they get endangered, then you become endangered that it hurts you later on. If you just go in and slaughter every, if, if you go in and just nuke, nuke, nuke, nuke, nuke, nuke, that's not actually going to help you later on. Again, remembering your why, making sure you're strategically targeted. You're not targeting civilian places. You're not targeting – you know what I mean? Like, no, we are being very – and that's a part of the carrying the big stick because when you have the big stick, yeah, you can go in and just swath, but you also have the responsibility to make sure that you're using it in the right places. In the right way. In the right way and for the right reason. Yeah. And that's where things often get mucked up because people wind up not doing it for the right reason or in the right way. Yeah. And Ben says it right here. That's why it's such a great space battle scene. Sheridan's goal isn't to just win, but to win with minimal casualties. And that strategy is fascinating to watch. The Vesta, Captain Edward McDougain and the Furious, Captain Stephanie Eklund. I love that. It's like Mackie. Each of them destroyed the civilian transports. The Heracles and the Pollux. Well, get moving. We need to know how many destroyers are committed to the blockade and how many are holding back.

[24:52] It's even a very different level of intelligence that he's trying to gather. Haven't found a way to remove them without causing damage.

[25:03] He almost played that out like he got poisoned. That's a good thing we know Veer gets to live. Yeah. I love that he checked his hair first. Is Lando around? He's not here. He had to go set up a meeting with you. He had a meeting. He checked his hair and it looks terrible. It looks like you had a late night. Now that you do, I imagine you'll want to sign on again. Not with Sheridan. Does your home world matter to you? Of course it matters. But I don't like the way he's doing this. But that's the way it is. I don't always like the way Londo does things in, well, me and most civilized worlds. But, you know, sometimes he's right. So I forced myself to give him the benefit of the doubt. Another message there of this is the way it is. No, no, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on.

[25:55] Compare and contrast these two support characters. I don't like the way he's doing it, so I can't. I agree with the mission. I don't like the way he's going about it. So I can't be a part of it. I don't always agree with how he goes about it, but I'm going to support him in the mission anyway. I'm going to swallow it because sometimes he's right. And sometimes I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Where do you walk that line? But both are, both are not wrong. And yeah. And neither are right at the same time. Right. It's easy to look at veer and be like, yeah, he's doing the right thing because when Londo is right, he's super right. Like it's, you know, whatever. But I think that giving someone a pass because sometimes they're right, but when they're wrong, it's genocide. I don't know if I could give them.

[26:39] That's a hard one. And okay. I think I'm on Garibaldi's side on this one. I'm trying to justify the Veer thing here. And the only way I can is by saying that like we have made the argument that part of the reason Londo Malari is redeemed is because Veer stuck with him. He was just Jiminy Cricket the whole time, whether he wanted him or not. And so there's that argument that like, had he not stuck around, there just would have been more genocide. Also, when you play along, you have complicit. You're complicit in some of the things that have happened. And Garibaldi is not going to be complicit in whatever happens with Earth Force. But the other side to that is he's doing his own. I'm going to fight this my own way. You're one person doing one thing. He's going to be a pebble thrown into the ocean. Exactly. What he's going to do is for the most part, not really going to matter unless plot demands that what he does matters, which I don't think it does, if I remember correctly. And most people who are like, I'm going to do my own thing, do their own thing. And you have to have like. A group that are going to, and you have to make that decision to do the thing. I mean, he's not wrong in his thinking, but what he does is just, it's just, yeah.

[27:47] I got to tell you, there are things right now that I love and I care for, but the people that are in charge are, I think, bad and evil people and do not have the same best interest at heart that I do, but they're the ones in charge right now. I'm not just talking about the government right now, folks. Just be clear. Although that too, I can't go be a part of what they're doing because of that. Even though I agree with what they're trying to do, I think it's a good thing and it should be done. I kind of am with Garibaldi on this side because I can't be a part of what they're doing, not in the way they're doing it. I go off and do my own thing, which is not that, which is, by the way, it's not that mission. The things I put my hand to today are not that mission. It's something else altogether. And I let it be because Deborah puts it very well. The avalanche has started. The pebbles can't not vote. Who said that? Kosh. Kosh said that. The operational phrase is trust no one. No, trust Ivanova, trust yourself. Anybody else, shoot him. That's the Ivanova we missed. Right. We haven't seen that Ivanova for so long. Did you see that with Corwin? I'm just trying to back up your theory here. The whole way this shot here is played out. Watch dude, random dude who comes on screen and then Corwin. No, trust Ivanova, trust yourself. Anybody else, shoot him. It's a...

[29:12] I'm telling you, that is, that is, if I'm not a bad guy, if I'm not a bad guy, I'm questioning what's going on here. And in storytelling mode, that's going to be the Judas. That's going to be the guy who thinks he's doing the right thing and he's eventually going to turn away. That's what all of those looks translates to me as the audience. That totally looks like that. And I, of course, in the definitive answer for all things, audiences everywhere. But to take Corwin, the fake Corwin that we're imagining over here in Garibaldi, Garibaldi is literally just doing his own thing. Corwin, based on that scene there, is enrolling others in his cause to do what he thinks is the right thing. I mean, he gave that. That's the exact look that he gave when Sheridan was like, anybody else want to walk out of here? Right.

[30:07] This is an incredible scene. Someone asked, it seems that Jakar knows that it's Londo at the door. Why else would he wait for so long to call enter? But how did he know? Veer just told us why. Yeah, pretty much. That's exactly what JMS said too. Somebody asked that question. Veer just said it. Unless you count a cell on Centauri Prime, I apologize for the lack of chains. The cleaning service must have removed them. Isn't it amazing how quickly we fall into familiar patterns? God, that's so good. As soon as we come into one another's orbit, it had been very difficult for both of us, Shakar. Harder on you, perhaps. Perhaps. Understatement of the year. And I never thank you for that. I have no interest in your thanks. I did not think that you would, but it is there anyway. I love that Jakar did not accept the thanks, but Londo still left it there. We've talked about this a lot with forgiveness specifically. But you do not have to accept it for it to still matter.

[31:14] And I think in this case, for Londo, it doesn't matter if Chakar accepts it. It's important that he offers it. Which is exactly what we've been saying about asking for forgiveness for years now. By the way, also, that thanks or that ask for forgiveness gets left on the table. It's there forever. He can come back and grab it at a future time when he's ready in his time. But all i ever wanted is what is right for my world i am a patriot as you are, i have convinced them to throw our official support to sheridan i love this, i love how this plays out were to do the same in a joint statement it might help if two forces recently at war with one another can agree on this perhaps it might help to convince the others I like how he makes it about something bigger than them, while I do not know who the enemy is any longer I, I do know who my friends are. And this will carry with him for the rest of his life. As he sits there with a keeper on his shoulder, knowing who his true friends are. I hope to do better. Before war broke out between our governments, you bought me a drink. I wish to return the favor.

[32:39] I like that Jakar didn't waste it. Exactly. I see. And Londo didn't drink yet either. Right. It's a thing that makes Babylon 5 amazing. Whether it's Londo and Jakar or Sheridan and Delenn or Garibaldi and Lise Hampton, Edgar's Garibaldi or whatever. It's earned and it's continuous, right? Like this scene started in Coming of Shadows. It actually started before, but like, and it didn't just. They weren't like we're just going to end it we're just going to give everybody what they know they want you're going to wait longer because this stuff doesn't just happen because this is the next step.

[33:18] This is a step this isn't the full reconciliation yeah nothing nothing on this show gets solved in 45 minutes it takes it's not it's why, as you said the dylan sheridan thing is the most one of the most earned relationships in television history londo's redemption it's slow so slowly paced but it doesn't it never feels drawn out yeah like because we've seen shows where it's like you're just stringing on stuff now like, come on resolve this get get through it let's move on like we've seen that it never feels that way even here even though jakar were you not just sitting there going come on jakar drink like yes this is where we want to be yes this is where we should go and i know you're not going to but or he's gonna knock it over he's gonna, like but But what Londo is saying here is 100% right. You know, and as we look for messages, one of our litmus tests is a hope that things can be better in the future. You know, and here's Londo talking about all this other stuff that we've had, all this enmity we've had with each other. A bridge can be built. You have two parties at war with each other, sharing a goal that is higher than themselves. A bridge can be built, but it requires people to allow the bridge to be built, not just to come in here and shut the other down.

[34:34] Londo's trying. The bridge is there. I love that Londo, Londo doesn't even say a word. He gets up, he turns around, he walks away. And you know what he doesn't do? He doesn't stand and look back. Right. He doesn't start to beg. He doesn't start to do that. He just, he doesn't hang his head. Londo doesn't even hang his head. He walks out with his head up. You can see the regret on his shoulders. He wishes it would have gone a different way. But, you know, Londo walks out. And we know that coming up here soon, Jakar comes back because Jakar needed his time. And that's okay, too. But there is hope when you have people who are. I mean, Londo says it that two people who are at war like we are can agree on this. What does that mean for other people? Hey, two parties there that are so at war on everything else. We can come together on this thing man what could we what hope could that give us for other folks yeah and for other things man like the the metaphor of him pouring the alcohol back into the flask, londo left his thanks out there left his respect out there jakar left the drink out there.

[35:38] To your point steps they didn't just come together they both took a step that's a top scene in the whole series probably just like 20 others, i would say of those top three all of them are jakar and londo in a room talking yeah so true we'll be fighting in close quarters so keep an eye out for each other if the battle this is great, right over right over everybody's head earth's last best oh yeah i mean god deteriorates into a furball we could sustain losses from friendly fire.

[36:11] God, in that framing of Corwin, too, and the music? Yeah. I didn't get it the first time around, but I'm seeing it now. What they... I like how they slapped the Babylon 5 sticker on everything. I think that's the general idea, Lieutenant. Oh, look at that button jump. Awesome. This is Fleet Command. They've got hostiles on Attack Vector. If they turn around, they'll expose their flank to the enemy. But perfect casting for this role. You're in violation of the Proxima Treaty, and your attacks on civilian transports are illegal. You can leave peacefully if that is your choice. But we are prepared to use deadly force if necessary. This is Captain Edward McDougain of the Vested, a hostile vessel. Mackie, long time no see. Open fire. So we had Sheridan saying they will defend themselves, do not open fire, we're going to give them every chance to leave and get out of here. Dr. Kelso is like, oh, they're here? Shoot. As completely different as they could possibly be. Heracles is open fire. Other ships moving to support. Suzanne points out both number ones on the ships disagree with both of their captains. All right. Which actually is their job. Uh-huh. In a way. All forces.

[37:39] Hey, did you know this was all done on me? Pull out, Captain. Pull out. Out the force. Negatively, command, the Vesta will not engage in support of illegal orders. This is a court-martial offense, Matty. You understand that? Commander Philby, under the authority of Earth Force Command, I am hereby promoting you to captain and ordering you to relieve Captain MacDougan. I always knew you wanted a promotion, Bob. Never knew how badly until now. Mackie, go. Commander Philby's promotion has just been postponed by the crew. The Vesta is non-hostile. If you're going to do something like that, you better make sure you have the support of the people behind you. Yep. You know? You pull that gun out, you better be ready. You better be ready. You better make sure they're going to follow you. God, the crew. Get to the life pods. Get to the life party.

[38:35] Captain. He won't do it. He knows we can't hurt him. He won't fire on us. You don't know that. I'm in charge of this mission, Commander. I will not surrender Proxima or Stand trial for following direct orders. I'm the one that'll hold responsible, not you. I won't let you endanger the ship because you're afraid to face the consequences of your actions. Are you questioning my orders, Commander? No, sir. I am relieving you of command. Look at her. Move Captain Hall from the bridge. Here's the difference. She's got support. Now. They're all like, this guy is messed up. Heracles to attack Cleet. The Heracles surrenders. I say again, the Heracles surrenders. We are returning control of Proxima 3 to its local government. I love that the Pollux got blasted the way it did. Because in other space franchises, battle is often pretty clean. Like, this ship is here and this ship is here and we shoot and this one blows up and we whatever. But battle would not be clean. It's messy. You know, and so they're shooting and the white star just, I mean, it just blasts into it. It's just, it's so raw. It's so real. Suzanne puts out a, puts out a comment in our council chambers chat over here that the, the CEO there on that ship is an interesting cause she, she's doing what she's doing, not because she supports Sheridan, but because she doesn't want to see her shit blown up. What I find interesting is what she said to him was, no, sir, we're not going to let you take down the ship because you don't want to face.

[40:04] The consequences for your actions. Put those two things together. She's willing to face the consequences for her actions, as are all the people on the ship. We'll all face our consequences. We're not going to go to death because you don't want to face yours. So you're being relieved of your command. This is not we suddenly agree with them over there. And you know what? Much respect to her, none for him. And I think that they even signaled that subtly where his demand was hand Proxima 3 over to its legal government. Her response was, we will hand over Proxima 3 to its local government. She didn't acknowledge it was their legal government. I happen to disagree with those policies, but that doesn't mean I agree with your actions either. Your oath is to the alliance and to the people back home, not to any particular government. You're splitting that hair mighty thin, John. No, actually, that's pretty straightforward and thick. Night watch. Exactly. His mind is not for rent to any god or government. This week... He's saying what Delenn said last week. Which is? That we're here to serve. There are the people. And it's the military we're here to serve. We'll kick out Clark and the Night Watch and the rest of that bunch. And we'll turn it over to the voters. Let them decide if what we did was right or wrong. Wanda was looking like he's had a few of those. But look at this.

[41:29] Issue the joint statement. I will sign my name, but not on the same page. You understand that? My God. Dude, his response right here, all in his face. Yeah, again. Look at that. I want to know. I really want to know if they came back to Peter and were like, hey, Peter, we need like an extra 15 seconds for the show. Can you just sit there silently? Joe's on vacation. He can't write anything else. Can you just emote for 15 seconds for me? That's all I need you to do. Peter's like, 15 minutes? Sure, got it. Gotcha. But we can announce that Proxima 3 has been liberated from the forces occupying it. When are you coming back? I'm not. A couple weeks. I'm not. All of his belongings that he's taking are in that duffel bag. I love the minimalism. joint statement today recognizing the legitimacy of the liberation of Proxima. What do you say? Like, there's a, there's a perfect episode. I can't think of a single thing wrong with it for such a perfect episode to be an episode that you're like, yeah, no surrender, no retreat to be like, remind me what happens in that one.

[42:47] Right. You know what I mean? Like, holy smokes. But we're in that spot of, of just greatness.

[42:56] Like in, in, in episode after episode, after episode, we've already experienced this. We experienced this in the back half of season two. We experienced this through season three. We experienced this in the first half of season four. And to kick it off this way. You know, the thing we talk about a lot, but I think needs to be acknowledged is in modern television streaming. I don't know what you can call it anymore. You know, most of it's actually garbage. It's not good. And the reason it's not good is because they have unlimited resources, right? We have all this money and we don't have to stick to a 42 minute time limit, you know, or whatever for the episode. It's all over the place. Constraints drive creativity. And what we know is at this point, P10 is a lame duck. It's dying. Babylon 5 is going to rest, and JMS is scrambling, trying to get his story compressed down to a handful of episodes.

[43:53] I'm not going to say that this wouldn't have been such a good episode if the Earth Civil War was allowed to go longer, But I am going to say the constraints that he had to work under definitely drove the quality of this episode. I think the constraints that he had to work under drove the quality of the remainder of the season. Actually, that's probably this entire season. Frankly, the constraints that JMS had to work under drove the quality of this entire series. The whole thing. Start to finish. But when you sit back and you actually watch this.

[44:26] Dude, I'm a huge Trekkie. Star Trek has never come close to this. Not even close. Never. And it's not even done. Like, there's still more. And look at the difference. Look at the resources Star Trek had. Look at the resources JMS had to work with here. Yeah. The constraint drove greatness. The prescience of JMS. Terrifying. There is no way that he should write something 30 years ago. And it's literally the conversation we're having today. We should have grown. We should be beyond that. We should be better than that. We're not. And here we are. And that's why this is a living TV show that still matters today, man. It's my hope for the future. 30 years from now, it won't be relevant. It'll be a relic of a past and be like, oh my gosh, they used to be like that.

[45:16] We did used to be like that. Or I would hope that's where we are in 30 years. I don't think we're going to be, but I would hope that's where we are in 30 years. That's hope, right? Hope's a thing. We have to rank this episode, Brent, and it is your responsibility. Our ranking right now, which is objectively correct. It's got 14 episodes on it. We're going to add a 15th. We have used a phrase throughout this episode that I'm going to apply here. And that was top three. And our current third place is atonement. Number two is the long night. Number one, into the fire. Brent, where are you placing No Surrender, No Retreat? Well, Atonement is definitely out. Sorry. It's a good episode. It's a great episode. Absolutely. Still, End of the Fire is probably the most perfect episode of television I've ever seen. It's paid off. The payoff of it was for what it, I mean, Atonement had six episodes prior to that wrapped into that one. Frankly, Atonement, or I'm sorry, End of the Fire had six episodes wrapped up into that one. And frankly, it had three seasons prior to those six episodes. It's about 72 episodes before it.

[46:22] This episode is not that. And it's still, I mean, we said it coming out. This is a perfect episode. Our friend Ben... Says that this is his favorite episode in all of Babylon five. It's it, because it's just, it's a perfect episode. The space battles, like everything about it, the Londo, Jakar stuff, Sheridan, where he's going. And Ben, you're not wrong, pal. You're not wrong, but I don't think it's over into the fire. So the question is, is, is it above or below the long night? You know how I said, you could tell me, like, you could remind me of a show called no surrender, no retreat. And I'd be like, yeah, what happens in that one? Yeah. Jeff, what happens in The Long Night? That's the Cartagia dying, wrapping the Narn Centauri stuff. That's a good episode. I'm purely going off of recency bias here. This one, I think, has to be better than that. So I'm going to put this in at number two, objectively incorrect. Number two. Although I love seeing Cartagia eat it, especially at the hands of Veer. Right.

[47:22] Yeah, I mean, gosh, what a great – where did this episode fall in our final ranking in the first time around? And we, there's understanding we got seven more episodes of the season, all of which are great. So at number one on our first time around was into the fire. Yeah. The next two, we have not watched yet. And then in number four is no surrender, no retreat. And number five, the long night. So, so far we're on track for a similar top five, depending on what we take and what's coming. But where was atonement? Because that's going to make atonement number six. It was number six. You know, we had just been trying. I think JMS just trained us at that point. After three seasons. It took us a little while. This is where we are. We eventually got there. Well, Brent, that's going to wrap up No Surrender, No Retreat. And we're going to continue on the Earth Civil War next week with an episode called The Exercise of Vital Powers. Do you remember what you thought about this one? Do you remember what this one was? No. What was this one? I don't remember what this one was. We meet Edgar's in this one. Okay. I think what I really said was this episode is.

[48:32] This next episode feels incomplete for whatever reason, this episode, there was a beginning, a middle and an end. And I feel like the next episode doesn't feel that way. Like the next episode feels like you remember the first six episodes, like they, they all were kind of one big major episode. Like, I feel like that's the next episode. Like it, I know it's a good episode. There's a lot of goodness in there, but it didn't come to a conclusion. And I, that's what I think I remember coming out of, uh, exercise of vital powers, uh, being that that's where we finally meet Edgar's. And it just, it just, it starts this long string of, of episodes that don't really get complete until the story, until that story arc is completed. That's what sticks out in my memory. How about you? What sticks out in your memory about this one? You know, I think this is where we really started getting into the, the corporate world of things and the, the oligarchical nature of the government back then that wasn't as apparent it is now, but what's the thing? I remember really wanting more of Edgar's.

[49:32] I forget if it's this episode or the one after, but he sits down and he really dives into his philosophy. He talks about the big events of the year 2112 that I was very excited about. I think that's in this one. And I wanted to hear more about what it was. I remember being interested. And when I reflect on it now in this moment, I also remember thinking they were done. And they're squeezing a bunch of this new stuff in. They're talking about the frozen telepaths, the teepsicles start becoming a thing in this one.

[49:59] And I think this is where I started to really feel the rush and the crunch of compressing the story into this season. But I could be wrong. I thought that about this episode. That's what I said last week. So I was very wrong about that. Music to my ears, Jeff. So let's see what happens next week. Right here. Same time, same place. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it. Please leave us a rating, a review. If you're on a platform like YouTube or GoodPods that has commenting, comment. Be a part of the conversation. We have a ton of other content available on our Patreon page for which there are links in the place there are normally links wherever you're watching or listening. So please check that out. The one thing you can do, though, and now is a fantastic time as we're heading into the end of season four. If the calling of your heart is beyond just your nature and you want to help this show out, you want to get more people to join the incredible community of which you are a part. Just share this show. So share it with someone that you want to experience this incredible series as well. So until next time, I'm Jeff. Hey, Jeff. Yeah. What's up, Brent?

[51:06] I'm going to give you three choices. Okay. Number one, you can wrap up this episode and we can just be done. Number two, you don't wrap up this episode and we just keep talking about this one. Or number three, you can wrap this one up and we can do the next one right now. Can I offer a number four that maybe we talk about this one for a little bit longer, but then we go watch some Stargate? No. I mean, we're not some deep space franchise. This station is about something.