The Exercise of Vital Powers | 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. Jeff, what changed? Everything at all changed, but you name it, but you know, it didn't change our mission and our goal here, right at the bad nerds, which is to, to watch these old things and seek out the messages that are contained within the sci-fi messages. Cause sci-fi does that thing that frankly, no other genre really does quite as well. And that's hold up a mirror to society. And sci-fi gives us hope that things can be better in the future. It can just tell us how to be better human beings to one another right now. That's what it does. And those are the messages we are continuing to seek out, even from the second watch. Did we catch them the first time around and we're reiterating them? Did we miss them the first time around and they're brand new? Either one could happen. Now, you know what else is happening this time around, Jeff? We're doing something we didn't do the first time around. We are, aren't we? And that's talking about anything and everything from anywhere in the timeline, any point.

[2:12] In the franchise, whether it was in-universe, out-of-universe, something we heard at a convention or something JMS said on an interview sometime, or maybe something one of the actors or production people said gave us a little behind-the-scenes, explored the universe a little bit more. It's all fair game for Jeff and I to talk about. So for those of you who have not seen this show for the first time for yourselves, we beg you, please stop. Go join our first watch, which is completely spoiler free. And when you get done with that, come back and join us here because this is your one only and final spoiler warning. Go, go away. Why are you still here? Go, go. I'm excited about this episode, Brent, because I haven't been to the gym yet today. And I think this is going to count because it's the exercise of vital powers. Wow.

[3:11] Well, see, say that one to your trainer. Let's see how that comes back to you. Yeah, how that works. So I watched an episode of TV called The Exercise. It was called Exercise. I don't know how you get closer than that. When we watched this one the first time, we played a game where we predicted what each episode was going to be about based on the title alone. That was a fun game. It was fun. And in some ways, we could do that right now. I know. Be like, is this going to be this? What was that episode? I don't remember. what did you though brent predict this one was going to be about i said um that, okay there's a couple things going on in this one so you remember how the last episode was all about freeing proxima right, going to proxima three we're going to get it out of out of uh you know the hands of clark and they had a few people defect and come over and other people who decided to do some different stuff well, i said that this would continue that mission only it's not just the next colony it'd be like the next two or three colonies, almost like montage, because we were told there's a lot of colonies out there, right? So we're going to be doing that. But as that's happening, this episode would actually be more political than space battle. Okay. Because the last one was visually stunning, right? But this would deal with Sheridan dealing with the defecting captains and commanders as he's trying to forge this new rebel alliance. Yeah.

[4:36] Um, I said it would, it would be, uh, Oh, I, and I made a S a specific call. I don't know if this came true or not. I really don't remember. So I'm interested to find out. I said, Sheridan was going to make a call or do something that wasn't going to go so well for him. And it would cause those other commanders to start questioning him much in the same way that Garibaldi is questioning him. It's going to be a test of Sheridan's leadership ability. And ultimately he is going to win them over. And then this is ultimately what happens, you know, to help him win the big battle in the end as they press forward towards Mars and Earth. What did you predict? I think that's one of the things I was waiting for in the first time was that, like a defector to have been like, oh, that's. Or the defector to defect. Yeah, sort of thing. So that makes sense. My prediction was I thought the Earth was going to bring the fight to Babylon 5, you know. So we went to Proxima 3, they were going to come and attack and we were going to see some of that. But we'd also get Garibaldi and Edgars, and specifically just kind of a spiral of Garibaldi getting more frustrated with everything and just getting, you know, becoming evil Garibaldi. Well, that's what we predicted. I don't fully remember exactly what happened in this episode.

[5:55] And I'm not sure that you do. And I don't really remember exactly what we thought of this episode. So why don't we take a look and just remind ourselves really quickly of not only what happened, but exactly what you and I said about this the first time around. Let's do exactly that, please. Previously on Babylon 5 for the first time. The exercise of vital powers. This episode feels like it is episode two of a seven part story, which isn't a bad thing. It just makes this episode really hard to judge on its own merit. I'm not going to have much to say. Spoiler alert. We've talked a lot about the prescience of JMS's writing in this series. It felt like this episode was literally written at us today. Let's talk about the telepaths and Lita and stuff first. Franklin's struggling. Zach just is like, it's all right, dude, you'll figure it out. You always do. I hope that everyone has the opportunity in their lives to work with a Zach. When she looked into his mind, she heard the shadows. Here's what I appreciated. This was so much better than pain.

[6:58] The actor for the guy was great. And she's like, let's go to sleep. And he's down. I was just like, oh, my God. Franklin had a point. He's being asked to do the absolute impossible. I need to know what that is. Franklin was right. And we got a lot of Garibaldi in this episode. A lot of Garibaldi. I was really glad for it. We'll give the caveat his mind has been messed with. Does Garibaldi have a legit point? Does Sheridan have some sort of Messiah complex? I haven't gotten that impression from Sheridan. What I have gotten from him, is that he believes he's the only person who knows what needs to be done.

[7:36] Maybe he does have all the answers. As long as he's doing it by himself, while he's out physically leading these fleets, wow, that's a lot of risk he's taken. In the absence of information, we're going to tell our own stories. And what we know about Garibaldi is he's never going to tell a good story. Eggers, not Bester. I know. The perspective that he brought to the conversation, but also just how dramatically out of touch with reality he was. He made a comment in there where he says only a fool turns away from absolute power. Actually a lot of people turn away from absolute power because we actually watched Jakar do it. In the interest of promoting humanity's best interests, he puts no value in human life. Sheridan is screwing up the timetable so what happens to him is collateral damage. The telepaths that they had to kill, they're collateral damage. Garibaldi is going to be collateral damage. Okay, Garibaldi just handed over Sheridan's dad. Can I punch him in the throat now? Garibaldi? Yeah, you want to punch him in the throat? You're right to. Yeah. Don't you mess with Rance Howard. Right? National treasure. Right?

[8:51] Uh, Jeff, this stands in a little bit of stark contrast to what you were saying about Sheridan in our last episode. Oh, yeah, it really, I thought the same thing. No Messiah complex for Sheridan. I saw the look on your face when you said that. You're like, really? I said that? Yeah. I, uh, I've seen it for a while now, pretty much this whole season.

[9:11] Yeah. But you're looking at it through sleeping in light eyes, not well, Jeff, that was our first time around, man. Let's do our second time around. Let's do our second time. Ooh. You ready for this? I don't know. I don't know. I still like Garibaldi, even though I don't like Garibaldi. Right. Like, you know, I don't know that I want to do this, man. You know.

[9:33] Season one, for the first time, I said Garibaldi was my favorite character. You did. And that was the last time he was my favorite character. I'll just say that. Yeah. Well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to bring up the episode and we're going to watch it. We can talk about it while it's going on. You know, make comments or whatever, all that kind of stuff. I think, though, for YouTube, we're going to want to edit it up, like, reaction video style. Weird idea. You can tell me no, but we could probably take the unedited version and post that on our Patreon page. That's at patreon.com slash bad nerds. If you want to check it out and see if we decided to do that. I think that's a good idea because, you know, sometimes there's just context that gets edited out. Mm-hmm.

[10:16] You know, we wind up going off on these longer rabbit trails that may be fun to listen to, not necessarily right for the reaction, the shorter version that we get up on YouTube. But, you know, if you're a little more invested and you want to join that, that is possible. You know what else you can do at Patreon? There is a specific tier that you can join that actually gets you invited to our live recordings. You're right. Like we have people here from Patreon who are joining us live. We'd like to say hello. We want to recognize our council chambers. We always want to recognize them. You guys are amazing. You guys are joining us. They'll be making comments and we'll pull those comments in as they work within our conversation. But yeah, you can definitely do that. But Jeff, for the audio listeners though, I think we should still take that version because we're going to have those conversations in the middle of the episode. And it's just better there rather than trying to rehash them later. So we'll have that in the audio and of course all of our conversation on the backside. So you could do that on your audio podcasting platform of choice. I think that's a great idea. Let's do that. All right. Well, why don't we do the episode reaction stuff and all that? What do you say? Let's do it. Accessing file.

[11:24] This is Commander Susan Ivanova bringing you the voice of the resistance. The Liberation Fleet continues to retake territory held in violation of the Earth Alliance Constitution. More ships on the other side continue to defect. Before he went to Zahadum, he never would have gone up against his own, our own government like this. I don't know, maybe he thinks he's Alexander the Great, and maybe he thinks he's John the Baptist. Maybe he wants to take over the whole before Zaha doom. He never would have gone up against his own. I don't know that that's true. I don't think it's true either. I don't think that's true at all. I think what this actually tells us is Garibaldi. If Garibaldi was still a part of earth force, if Garibaldi was in that given, given to himself, he would have been a guy on one of these ships carrying out these orders illegal as they may be. Is that what that says of him? Because garibaldi was also one of the people in the room where sheridan was like hey you're either in or you're out right and he's like we're in right so which was it for garibaldi i i don't know i don't think he would have he didn't follow orders when he was in earth force, you know like very true despite being a warrant officer he was never one of the uh most soldiery, of them i i think what it just says is he has a messed up mind and what he knew of sheridan isn't what he actually knew of Sheridan.

[12:47] And I think the piece that he's fundamentally missing is, I don't think Sheridan is going up against his own. He's going up against the people who are betraying their oaths.

[12:57] But I think we're also agreed, Jeff. While this is certainly augmented and heightened by whatever Bester did to his mind, these thoughts still lurk within Garibaldi himself. Yeah, Bester just turned him up. Which by the way, there's nothing wrong with having thoughts that come to yourself. We all have thoughts. It's what you do with those thoughts. It's where you give those thoughts time. It's, it's how you, you deal with those thoughts. What you allow, you know, process as you process those thoughts, where do you land on the processing? And that's probably the part that's really more messed up for Garibaldi right now. He is also right to be like, hey, is this guy really on the up and up? Yeah. Because ultimately, Garibaldi doesn't trust him because he came back. He seems like he came back from the dead. He came back with this other dude whispering in his ear. Like, that's the first thing he saw. Like, you're whispering in your ear. What? What is? Whoa. And now all of this is happening and you're coming back in like supercharged. Like.

[14:00] Something just doesn't feel right here. I think his thoughts make a tremendous amount of sense. But is he not? Is he just not seeing what is it that he's not seeing that's not allowing him to assuage those thoughts? So I think what he's not seeing what everyone else has seen, the moments when he's in Sheridan is explicitly saying, I want to send this to the voters and let them decide. I'm not looking to take over for this whole thing. That said, there's a lot of moments that he saw were shared and was like, stop asking me questions and just do the thing I'm telling you to do. There's a lot that is justified in how Garibaldi has seen things. Ben points out something really great over here. He says, a small problem that I have once Bester's mental programming is removed, so we're going to fast forward here just a little bit, is that Garibaldi goes back to being super loyal to Sheridan in season five. And he feels like there should have been some lingering ambivalence even though he's back to being a good guy he's back to being on the right side those things still exist within him and he can't he shouldn't just certainly just stuff them down.

[15:05] Yeah that would have been an interesting piece to see although i think if he was dealing more with the alcohol thing more than anything else well i think, on the first time we even talked about that in season five like when are they going to sit down and have the talk you know like hey man, turns out i was a little out of line And frankly, you might have been a little out of line to like some back and forth. I don't think we ever, I can see where you, I can see where you would have thought that I was coming at it from that. Can have that thought. Although I don't know that two people would actually really sit down and have that conversation. It'd be cool if they did. Especially, especially two dudes from the night. I was going to say, yeah, that's, you know, like, no, we're just, we don't need to have that conversation. We just go. We're good now. We just pick it up and just, yeah, we're good. Let's go. You're the type of guy who doesn't like to give up control. This guy just never got rid of that 80s hair, man. We really do. An interesting thing about him. Garibaldi just got rid of his hair. Right. Interesting thing about Wade was when, in the first episode, when his first cast, he was, like, those, he's just a thug. Like, one shot, here's the thing, do whatever. But JMS was really impressed with the actors' performance, and so he just kept giving him more and more. Writing more. Mm-hmm. So did the Edgar's thing come out of having to give this guy more and more? No, the Edgar's thing, I think, was always. It was already there. Yeah. It was just they were going to have thugs come and lead him to the thing, but they're like, this guy's great. Hey, look, Doc.

[16:30] Shadow implants have defense systems on top of defense systems. I should be able to figure this out. It gets away from me every time. Well, you'll work it out. You always do. Zach really is awesome. Like... Ivanova said you were looking for me? Oh, Lita, yeah.

[16:51] I am. Why is she back on the black gloves? Your friend. Because she agreed to the psych horror thing from Buster. Did she? Yeah. That was the whole end of the episode. I don't remember her actually agreeing. I don't remember her actually agreeing to it. There never has been a good time for us, has there? It's just things are very busy right now. William has a lot... It's all right, Lise. Who's this? Is this your husband's dad? Our guest has come a long way on a hard road. Beatrice was looking for you. She had some questions about dinner. Do you think you could... Yes, of course. You think you could go just be the woman and just deal with the dinner? Like, come on. We're going to do man business here. You insisted on seeing me now. Why? Because I got tired of not seeing the face of the man that I worked for. And I want to know what the hell it is I've been helping you smuggle past B5 customs. I think Garibaldi is way out of line here. Like, if I'm Edgars and he's in here being like, I need to know this. I'd be like, go away. You're fired. I will find anyone else to do this job. Who the heck are you to come in here and demand this stuff from me? Right. Oh, you're on the DVD cover. Okay, that's who you are. That's literally the only reason he can do it. Right, right. Plot. Try not to touch anything. First thing he does? There's that. I love that, actually. That's what I would do. Touch it.

[18:18] Michael Garibaldi should have expected something like this. Everything's fine. You're in no imminent danger. Oh, yeah, I understand. So why the muscle? So you have no time to prepare mentally. I want your heart rate fast, your thoughts jumbled. To guard against any blocks or attempts to mislead us. Okay, so first, who the hell are you? I'm quitting as soon as this happens. Right? I mean, if this is what you do to me, I'm immediately out. I get to walk in here and I get to demand stuff. You do this to me. This is just, I mean, this is an abusive relationship that both parties need to leave immediately. Also, hey, Garibaldi, aren't you trained for situations like this? Also, hey, didn't just two episodes ago you make me fire the telepath I hired to do stuff like this? And you have this chick right here, as Suzanne points out in our council chamber. Yeah. Do you know what happened to you? No. I don't remember anything.

[19:19] Thank you, Mr. Garibaldi. You may go now. And now we're going to kill this telepath. That is way too reminiscent of him in that room, where he's getting his mind messed with. You're right. Thank you, Ms. Constance. Mr. Wade will attend to your payment. Your payment is... On the cheek. if I wasn't really married to her in those senses you know.

[19:49] Oh, she really is going to get shamed. Oh, I was just kind of joking when I said that a minute ago. Just one more. What do you want me to do? What am I? Why am I? How much of this led to Lita getting Byroned? Like just seeing how telepaths are treated. I mean, that's one way of putting it, Jeff. That's what happened. But I mean, like there's how she was treated, right? And she understands like the psych core thing or whatever. But even seeing how like the shadows treated them and then how Sheridan and the rebel alliance is going to treat them like. But this moment, that's all I thought. Like when she had that connection with him, I'm like, this is the start. I feel like it started a long time before this for her. And I feel like it's probably a shared experience of all Earth telepaths. This idea of being outcast, this idea of being distrusted. How many times have we heard Garibaldi say, I don't like telepaths? Right, yeah.

[20:56] This is the reason that Cycor exists in the first place. This is the reason Bester is the way he is, or part of it. Yeah. Having not read the novels. So, no, I don't think it started here. Was this a step along that direction? And seeing, oh, it's not just Earth, this is how other people treat us as well? Yeah, I think it's there. You know, I think what Byron is saying and what Byron comes in to say is probably nothing new. Right. Exactly. Conversations that have been happening for a very long time. Hundreds of years. But we're now going to do something about it. Is it the right time? Is it not? Should we? Should we not? Is it right? Is it not right? There is a point. You can walk down the street and just invade people's minds. They all agree you shouldn't do that. Or some of them agree you shouldn't do that. Right. So, yeah, I don't I don't I don't think I say that anything started here. Was this a step along the path? Maybe. But I don't even know that it was a big step along the path. Because I feel like she has had opportunity to rebel, join the Underground Railroad, all kinds of things that she could have done that others have done. Even Talia teased a bit with – because they – it is. It's part of their group think, their group experience, all of that. But I think the totality, and Suzanne really breaks it down in here, the abuse she experienced by Kosh 2.

[22:19] The way she was treated after the Shadow War, being left in poverty, forced to rejoin Psycor, and then seeing this and just understanding that, like, so everything happened to her. And now she's seeing how things have happened to others as well. And I feel like it was always there for her, but this was like the, this was the button that Byron was able to, this forms the button that Byron was able to actually push. I can't let you do that.

[22:50] That's great acting on his part. Just a desperate... Great acting on her part. Yeah, both of them. Frankly. See, you don't have to sit there and go... You don't have to do that. Come on, look. Even if they tried something, they'd be outnumbered 10,001. You want your secrets exposed? Your most private thoughts broadcast for the world to hear? No, but it can't... How many people actually belong to the Nazi Party? The Communist Party? The Jihad Party? A very small number. You and I have talked about this. But there were always plenty of other people who were happy to do the work for them. Nobody takes power. It's given. They're given power by the rest of us. Because we're stupid or afraid or both. The Germans in 1939, the Russians in 1917 and 2013, the Iraqis in 2025, the French in 2112, they handed over power to people they thought could settle scores. Today, President Clark has the power, and we gave it to him. We had a question. Last episode maybe two episodes ago from where does a dictator derive his or her power, and your answer was the people okay here's the difference and here's what makes them the dictator okay you know what made julius caesar the original dictator he was so.

[24:06] Roman government right in time of war the senate, Could imbue one person with all of their power for the sake of winning that war. And at the end of that time, that person was supposed to then divest themselves of that power and give it back to the Senate. They did that with Julius Caesar. And he did not divest. And he never divested. And then that went on to Augustus. And then that carried on for many, many, many, many years. The dictator never gave back his power. You give someone power, you vote in power. Sheridan's talking about let's leave it up to the voters. Let's let the voters do. Okay, fine. What happens in four more years? For us, it's four more years.

[24:46] Or 10 years, whatever your term is. What happens then? Does this person go away? Does this person divest themselves of power? Or do they cling to it? Do they hold to it? That becomes the problem. You're given power by the people. You can maintain power without the people or without their will, as long as you have people who will enforce it for you. That's the thing. It's a question of power. So I'm the people. I have power to give. I give the power. And then in a balanced world, it comes back. But when it doesn't, and it goes the other way, you end up with the Caesars. You end up with the on and on and on. Ben says it beautifully. How a dictator maintains power defines them more than how they got it. It's such a great point. That's so great, Ben. And that's so this conversation with somebody at work, cause I mean, I don't know if everyone has probably picked up on this already, but I have, all of the answers and I know the best way to not only like manage my company, but to rule the world really. And so just give me power and I'll just make things better. It's fine. I'll just, I'll make them better and it will be fine. But the reality is anyone, I don't care who you are. The minute you get that power, you're like, oh, I'm not stop. There's no such thing.

[26:07] As a good dictator, they may start as a good dictator, but no one ever ends as one. Well, that's where we go to the power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. It's once you get the power that it corrupts. You go into it well. Once you have it, things are not. You have your first vote for Jeff for the emperor of earth. Because I'll be different. Two comments from our council chambers that I think is important here. One, Katerina says you're given power, but then the system no longer has working mechanisms to take this power away. And that's what you see happen.

[26:45] That's where people like me get leery of what I watch going on right now is those systems stripping away. Look, I can handle anything for four years. Right. But in four years, it changes. It goes away. What happens when you're no longer confident that it's going to go away? Okay, eight years. You're allowed two terms in this country where we are. And yes, I am specifically talking about political stuff right now. But beyond that, like we're on a world level too, right? What happens when those systems no longer apply? That is what we saw happen with Hitler. We see dictators in our world today. There was one just a month ago that got reelected. 100%. 99.9%. Right. They love them. Right. In an open election where everybody knows exactly how you voted. Yeah. And if you didn't vote this way, what's going to happen to you? Like those systems don't maintain. And so that becomes that becomes the issue. That's the difference between a dictator. And that's where, like, we look at Sheridan. We go, Sheridan doesn't want power. He's not clinging to power. And when Sheridan gets a chance to give up that power, he does. Frankly, it's what made George Washington great. He set that example.

[27:53] I just came here to tell you that breakfast is ready. That's fine, Lise. I'll be right there. Perhaps you'd care to join us. I'm so angry on her behalf. Thank you. I've got some thinking to do. I'm sure you have. This is important, Stephen. Why? Why is this so important? Now, if you want me to do this right, I need to know what this is all about, Stephen. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You've got to cast vision in me. You've got to let me know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. All right. This may be the hardest of all but we don't have much choice.

[28:30] This is such great TV making like hey we're gonna tell you everything that's going on no we're not and we're gonna show you how stunned Franklin is by what he just heard that's all we get so what did Sheridan just tell him the idea with these telepaths is we're gonna use them to, we're gonna put one on each of our ships, and use them to disrupt the psionic waves from the crabs no that was no that was way back when they're literally just gonna that's not now they're going to what are they doing now disable earth destroyers, because earth is using shadow tech yeah well yeah because they'll they'll attach themselves to any any tech that's there so they're gonna like drop them into a into the engine room and they'll subsume up all the tech and then the the ships get become disabled, so we're literally just using them as fodder as a weapon as a weapon and not seeing their humanity because their humanity because, okay is their humanity gone are they still people i think we saw there were still people when the guy's like i can't live like this so he's.

[29:32] He can't live okay so if we're gonna if we're gonna not live can we not go out with one final so he can't live like that but maybe someone else can also they won't necessarily have the choice to do that and a thing that's going to become very normal, Like right now it seems like a big deal, but it's going to get very normalized. Sheridan is unilaterally making a decision that impacts a number of lives. Isn't that what your job is as a commander and a captain though? Yeah. For the people who signed up to be a part of that. What about the people that affect whatever they're doing? They go do though. But that's, they didn't sign up. Like you're not going to basically be like, Hey Jeff, come here. What? Oh my God. How did I get into this ship? And now I'm going to die. Like that's what he's doing to the teepsicles. Yeah. I'm just going to drop you in this thing. No say you go to town before you die but they don't have their i mean this is this is the same if franklin is it not the same thing i'm sorry is it not the same thing that happened i feel like star wars had the same same type of thing was it with the clones, well kind of but they, that's a whole they were literally bred and raised for the purpose of war the jet okay now you have the jim hadar again.

[30:39] Same right yeah although both of those wound up on the evil side so, i think what makes is a little different compared to other examples is what we now know because of lita is there is an opportunity to communicate with them, they do still have a level of agency the guy even though he was in pain but he was able to say in that moment not only do i want to die i'm going to like if she hadn't stopped him that would have gone right into his neck yeah now that was him, others might feel exactly the same way that might be a normal thing for all them to feel so we have a sample size of one right now is that a full stop of the plan then, no now the plan is do this now the plan is we need to, check we need to see if we can do this yeah we have 50 because now it becomes unethical exactly we have 50 of them i need 38 but here he's going to use them, in their final death match basically to take down these.

[31:32] So hard yeah i think i think that if it was a thing where in that final battle in end game like they truly tipped the scales in like a profound way, i might have a slightly different view of it but just my memory of it is it's just like you could have not done this at all, and yeah the battle would have been more difficult it would have had the same outcome but in a way then they kind of just get drafted in the military so now they're they're there they just got drafted i do I will say, as they got drafted thing, they are Psycor. Aren't these guys supposed to be the people that ran away from Psycor? Are they? Yes, these are Blips. These were the people who were Blips. They got captured and then frozen and sent out, right? Almost makes it worse. Almost.

[32:18] He's right. He's right. It's the only way. I just wish the hell that he was wrong. I have a long-term job for you. I never noticed how gray his hair was getting this early. Good. Start packing. We'll leave in a few days as soon as I take care of everything. What's the long-term job? I'll go on to work with the Resistance on Mars. Something. And then getting... Okay, so what did Sheridan just tell Franklin? We need to get these people prepped so they can be activated. You could have told me. I mean, maybe we could have got back some of what we had before. I never knew what we had. When we were together before, I never knew when I'd see you again or if I'd ever see you again. Yeah, you weren't a good boyfriend, dude. I was the one who had a call. I was the one who had to remind you when Christmas came around that while it doesn't mean anything to you, it means a whole hell of a lot to me. But in three years, you never said you loved me until I said it to you first. And from where I sit, that means the same damn thing. I'd argue you don't have to say it. You need to show it. And what he showed is he loved his job. I was working as a secretary to make ends meet when I found Bill.

[33:28] How does that happen? I'm a secretary. He's a mega CEO. And now we're married. Like there's a, there's a big story in between those two points. And I have a lot of questions about that story. I think most of them involve, inappropriate behavior, abuse of power at that point and balance of power and all that sort of stuff. Unless he was there for me, unless she was being paid. I mean, she and Lita, you know, kind of in the same spot.

[33:55] His secretary. Yeah. Yeah, what she just described, Carol Baldi was not it for her. No. Why would you think I would come back to you? You were awful. You were not good. You said a moment ago, you don't necessarily have to say it. You need to show it. I'm going to push back on you on that. And I'm going to, I'm going to, I agree. I'm going to add an addendum. You need to show it in a way that the other person can receive it. I get the ass. And if that person receives stuff through words, then your ass better be saying it. Fair enough. Even if it doesn't work for you, because it's not about you, it is about you serving the other person. If that other person receives it through gifts or acts or time or whatever other love language you want to attach to it, fine. Say it in the way that it means something to them, because otherwise you're sitting here like Lees going, you actually never cared for me. You just cared for that over there because you didn't feel you didn't speak love to them in the way that they would hear it She said something to that. I was like, yeah, dude, Garibaldi stop being selfish Christmas never meant anything to you I had to remind you because even though it didn't mean anything to you. It meant something to me Again, you were not ever concerned about me And so you were just about you and your thing. Why does least wind up going back? I know makes no sense I.

[35:21] Like, is she dumb? What's. Yeah. Becky in the chat says, oh, like their entire relationship is presented as too toxic for it to be responsible writing to have them get back together. I agree. Thank you, Becky. And Katarina actually says, actually, Katarina says the next thing of what I'm going to say also. As a partner, you need to learn how to receive it from your partner. You know, I'll tell you, for me, I'm a big words person. My wife is not a words person.

[35:52] She tries, and she oftentimes fails drastically. But I see the ways that she does try to communicate her love for me in a way that she knows how to communicate that. And I have to actively receive it that way. I can't just passively receive. I have to actively receive it that way. So thank you, Katerina. That is a perfect follow-up. You need both. Yeah, you got to do both. Say it in a way that they receive it, but also learn how they're communicating it to you so you can receive it when they do put it out there. It takes both, guys. It takes both. It's like professional wrestling. So professional wrestling, you and I are having a match. Of course it is. Right? You and I are going to wrestle. In that match, I am 100%, 100% focused on you. How do I make sure Brent looks good in this match? And that works because you are 100% focused on me. How do I make sure Jeff looks good in this match? And so we're both in there doing that. And when both people are on that wavelength, they have an incredible match. It's great. So in a relationship, I am focused on making sure I'm doing, saying things and putting out there in a way that you receive. 100% and you are also focused on doing the same for me. And because we're both doing those things, we're also hearing it the other way. It's the focus on the other, but it's reciprocal even. 100% correct.

[37:18] 100%. Everything. It's how this show works, Jeff. It is. There are some times, there are some statements that I make that is solely for, Jeff's going to handle this one. Here you go. Here, let me look like the idiot here so Jeff can just nail this one because I know he's going to do it. You want me both? Like, let's do the thing. By the way, everything. Doesn't everything come back to either professional wrestling or Rush? Yeah.

[37:42] I'm getting too old for I don't know. Oh, she's getting old. She's killing it, though. What I do know is that Bill cares for me. This should be the end of their relationship, this interaction. You mean Garibaldi and Liz? Yeah, I'm sorry. Eat your dinner and get cold. Because of my heart, I'm still just a housewife. That's a great line to go away.

[38:05] So he was on the drug. They took him off five days, and now this is him. And Edgar's is like, five days is too long. We got to go faster. Shouldn't I finish the test? We know it works. There's no need to prolong this. Put him down. Put them all down. There's enough pain in the universe already. I was going to say merciful thing there, but it's... You created a terrible thing, And so now you're merciful because you found a way out of it for him. Right. So now we're just going to end it early. You get to Sheridan through his father. I feel like he has a little bit of conflict in there, but it's just the right thing, Michael. I mean, this is full on betrayal. Does this not make Sheridan's bringing Garibaldi back in in season five? One of the utmost stupidest things that Sheridan ever does. Yes. If he didn't know about the best or stuff. I don't think it matters.

[38:57] No, because you did this. You still did this. There's still consequences to that. And you can't be this close to me again. I agree. There have to be consequences. You're not going to be in charge of my security. You're not going to be in charge of, uh, cause what does he actually become in the covert operations intelligence and something? Right. Yeah. Like you're, you're not going to be at that level here anymore, dude. Like it's you be, you betrayed me. Yes. The best or stuff was there, but this was still in you. You still made that choice.

[39:26] We, we could put you somewhere else. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? But you're not going to be in the inner circle. That's not going to happen. You're not going to be, we're not going to be friends after this. You betrayed me. Well, and frankly, that plays out with Garibaldi in that he hits the bottle. He isn't, he is not ready. He's not, in no way should he be at the level he is. And that plays out in him because Sheridan has gone sociopath. Garibaldi is trying to like. Although to be fair, as some of our people are pointing out, Sheridan was not the best administrator president. In fact, he was rather bad at that job. And this is just more evidence of why he was like, uh, who, who is it that said it was a Robert Baratheon, Game of Thrones. It's a lot easier winning the throne than it is sitting on it, you know, so only Sheridan and that's the thing Sheridan's not even playing the Game of Thrones. He's just trying to get earth back and then he wants to let the voters decide, and then they're going to put him in. He's like, well, okay, but he accepts the position to, well, they put a shanko in charge. They just appoint him to the ISA.

[40:34] I don't have anything else that jms said on this one you know i think we're in a in a at a point where shockingly there's not, a lot earlier this season we would go to online and just have pages and pages and pages to go through that's not the case so far with uh, these last couple episodes and that's okay yeah you know i did go back and look at my notes from the first first time we watched this and i said what i said.

[40:59] The what i said last week is what i said the first time this episode feels incomplete, not a bad episode like we just we never got the ending we have our beginning, maybe we have a little bit of a middle but there's no ending like we're we've just set up a story yeah and it and it it's hard to judge something when you're in the middle of it before it completes it's like judging the first lord of the rings movie without watching two and three well how is the movie i don't know i just sort of ended right, that's how i still feel about this one that doesn't mean it's bad doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it doesn't mean any of that and and honestly I've I've come out of this episode I don't know if I was this way the first time around, I'm really pissed off at Garibaldi yeah totally the best or stuff notwithstanding he just threw Sheridan, I mean dude he's.

[41:49] He didn't just disagree with Sheridan and walk away or whatever. He gave them Sheridan by diming out his dad. Yeah, that is low, low, low, low. All for this. Not even because he believes in the mission of what Edgar's is trying to do. Not because he's trying to make Earth better to get back his girlfriend who is married to somebody else who 10 minutes ago just told him no again. Are you kidding me? and you're going to give up this dude by giving up his dad you give up sheridan okay fine he's a military combatant you did it with his dad, it's low dude that's that's not cool man the comparison has been made garibaldi judas sheridan jesus judas was less of a betrayer than garibaldi so judas.

[42:41] Judas's whole piece was i'm gonna force his hand to do the messiah thing because this is what i think he's gonna do and turns out that wasn't actually the messiah thing that he was gonna do he's like i'm gonna force his hand and force him to do it now that's not what garibaldi is doing here, at all just now remind us real quick just so we know what exactly was the programming that best were put into garibaldi's mind outside of you can't hurt me uh uh, you don't like sheridan and uh i'm just gonna take that piece of you and turn it up, i what i remember very specifically best you're saying was i didn't put anything in you i just turned up what was already there yeah outside of the asimov and i think sarah asked a good question and, this is where it gets complicated did garibaldi have a choice because of.

[43:27] The the bester stuff i don't know like at some point is he just a program okay here's a question no here's a question does a person who's under addiction have a choice drugs alcohol whatever gambling, Do they still have a choice to hit the bottle or not hit the bottle? It's not that simple. Yes and no. That's going to be the same answer here. Different situation. But still, your mind is being – it is your choice. It is your physical thing. It is within you. And you're still heightened and kind of controlled from an outside source. But it is still internal. And he had a choice. Bester – or I'm sorry, Garibaldi had a choice. He chose poorly. Yeah i don't know he was going on he no uh he had a choice what was the choice he's not he's not what was his choice he could have not dimed out, sheridan's dad he could have he could have chosen to not dime out i don't share i don't know that he could have chosen that right now that's the thing is i'm like, if i take it all the way back he got into a star fury to go on a mission you know to go not a secret mission but to go like do the sweep and do the fight like he was just going to do he got abducted yeah he woke up he was had been programmed.

[44:42] And then the program is just running and yeah it's stuff that was inside of him but like we've talked about it's over, this but this isn't the program that like is buried inside talia's conscience that is coming out this is this is taking what's already in him and but as you said amping it up but like we've talked about you can have anything inside of you your thoughts.

[45:03] Whatever it's what you do with them that makes a difference. His agency in deciding what he isn't going to do with these things has been taken away. Yeah, it was inside of him, but maybe it was really small. And it was enough where he's like, yeah, I feel the same, but it's not a big deal. I'm going to let it go. He ramped it up to a point and then put programming in place where it's like, hey, I kind of feel this thing. And so I'm all in and making this horrible thing happen. I don't know that he had a choice. Maybe he had a choice in how he betrayed Sheridan, maybe, which would be the diamond out the dad thing. But I don't know that he did. It was literally like, I don't know another way of doing it. Does a person who's an addict, let's say a drug addict, a very expensive drug addict, do they have a choice to not steal money out of their parents' wallets, to go buy drugs? Again, very complicated. Post-Reagan criminal justice, yeah, they have a choice and it's a criminal act and then we're going to treat that disease criminally. That has not worked well. I think your answer is correct. It's complicated because I would still argue that, yeah, you got a choice. Also, it's complicated. And that's where grace and mercy all comes into the effect. That's where redemption comes, into the equation. But we've got to get you there first. And Garibaldi is in the thick of it right now. Yeah.

[46:24] The complication gets rough because I think like with addiction, the argument is made that you had a choice the first time you put the crack pipe to your mouth or the first time you put the needle in your arm. That was your choice. And then the drug took over. You hear when people, oh, God, here we go, talk about abortion. They're like, oh, they had a choice nine months before the kid.

[46:47] Yes, but also, like, it's –, it's not that simple. And in this case, Garibaldi, his choice would have been, I'm not going to go out and fly my mission. Like that was the point everything went. And so I would, I would say that like in that, that argument that is made, he didn't have a choice. Just like, I'm not so sure that the addict had a choice or the, the person who got pregnant had a choice. Like it's complicated. It's really complicated. And Ben says it over here, the programming gets stronger because in the next episode, But Bester tells us that Garibaldi would do anything to uncover the conspiracy against Zycor, even selling out Sheridan. And if this is the programming that is effectively forcing his hand, and then I go back to what I said earlier, how can Garibaldi ever come back and be in the inner circle with Sheridan? Because how can you ever trust that the programming is not there? How do you ever trust that the programming isn't still active somewhere? And when you're at that high of a level, you can't play games like that. You can't play, well, he deserves a second chance. Yeah, he does deserve a second chance, but not here. Yeah.

[47:57] You know, maybe it's not. And Nia says it really well. This is what we love about Babylon 5. It's not easy. It's a messy situation. There's no black and white answer. It's real. It's very real. And that's life. That's what makes it so compelling. Because this is real life. There is, very rarely do you get a black and white answer. You know what? I just thought of this. It is messy. It is complicated. The only black and white answer we've had to this whole thing is Clark's a bad dude. Every other villain, Londo, the shadows, Mr. Morden.

[48:30] Sheridan. Yeah. There's moments of, well, you know, it's just, that's generally how it goes. And, and JMS, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. That was his thing. Not everybody, not this isn't this. What's our original mantra here, Jeff, not a Star Trek podcast. This is not where you have the nice, bright, shiny this and then the evil villains over here. Everything's a little bit gray. Everything's a little bit gray. What an episode, man. Yeah. And it's not complete. And this is what good television should do is it should spur us on to have these sorts of conversations because you know what? What's fictional is what's going on with Garibaldi. Does Garibaldi have a choice here because of the programming that's messed up in his brain? But you know what's real? Addiction. Is addiction the same thing that's going on with Garibaldi? No, but it does stand in as a metaphor. Addiction reprograms the brain. Does that person have a choice? So how should we treat that person? How should we help that person? Should we help that? Is that person deserving of help? I didn't make that person put a needle in their arm. I didn't make that person put the bottle to their lips. I didn't make that person put the hamburger in their mouth. I didn't make that person put the chips down on the table and place that bet. I didn't make that person put the cigarette in their mouth.

[49:48] Or did I? Or am I somehow responsible for the health of this? Yeah. Where does it all lie? Where is it? And here's the thing. I don't necessarily have the answer. It's complicated. You know who does have the answer, though? Who's that? Me. Which is why, again, emperor of the world. Just saying. Well, Jeff, you know what answer I would like to hear from you right now? The other one I'm a little nervous, very nervous about. Where does this one go in our 100% completely accurate? And I'm going to say these words. It's 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of Babylon five in season four, specifically watching it as a second time. I honestly, Jeff, for an episode that had no ending, where does this one go? Oh, are you going to do this one in light of what we know is to come? Are you going to do what we think is to come anyway? How is this one going to go? Gosh, man.

[50:47] I'm going to play, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to grab our, we got 15 episodes on the list here, right? I'm going to grab our middle five. Okay. Cause I don't know that this bumps up into the top. Well, we'll, we'll go, we'll go with the middle junk juncture here. Cause I, I, I don't know that it's touching one, two, and three, but let's see where other things go. I'm going to start with, uh, I'm going to start with number nine rumors, bargains, and lies. Number eight was moments of transition. seven was the summoning six was the hour of the wolf five was whatever happened to mr garibaldi when we first found out about all this, and four was atonement jeff is it in this chunk is it below certainly it's not above but maybe it is it's your your spot to put it on there where does, the exercise of vital powers land so my eyes are first drawn to rumors bargains and lies and kind of that zone of things yeah, but i keep getting drawn in a different direction and i'll tell you why i think like you said this is an incomplete episode i think that's okay though i think that it's it that's its place in in the story the episode itself, isn't really i don't know not great.

[51:59] There's a lot in it where it's like, the things that stand out to me are the things that we just talked about, right? The, the, the dilemmas that it poses. I also really like Edgar's waxing all of his stuff. I enjoy that, but it doesn't mean a lot. And there, I don't know. There's a bunch of it that's, so where I'm drawn is the illusion of truth, which was a similar episode where there was a lot of it was like, okay, but it presented these dilemmas. In a way that we had to dive in and really, you know, really challenge ourselves in ways. And I think this episode did it differently than Illusion of Truth. They're very different in their presentation and everything else.

[52:43] But I think that I would rather watch this episode than The Illusion of Truth. Not just because Illusion of Truth feels so filthy to watch, but the redeeming parts of this episode are very redeeming. I like the character of Edgars. The actor is... Holy crap, right? Like we got Dr. Kelso a week ago who just elevated a very one-dimensional character. This week, we're getting this guy who does Edgar's and just brings so much to this part that I really enjoy. So this, Brent, is going to be number 11, just above the illusion of truth. All right. There you go. You heard it, folks. That is 100% correct and definitive.

[53:26] Yeah, that feels right. Right. It's like I want, but I can't. But this is what makes these episodes that don't really have their own beginning, middle, and end so hard. Because you know that this is just a part of the bigger whole. Well, Jeff, that's going to do it for the vital, for the exercise. Don't leave the exercise out. Hold on. Let me try this again for editing's sake. Well, Jeff, that's going to do it for the exercise of vital powers. Next week, we continue with the story, The Face of the Enemy. Me for the last couple of weeks jeff we've kind of been like ah what was that episode about do you have any memory of this episode and what actually happens in it because i do so i remember this one right yeah this is where sheridan gets abducted we get the little, patch on his on his hand that weird like music video beat up scene that's pretty intense, and then everything that kind of falls from from that that's the biggest thing, that i remember out of it i remember digging this episode I remember having thoughts. I don't remember if they were positive or negative around the music video piece of the whole thing, but I liked it. I remember it fondly. Maybe in the moment I felt differently, but it's been a long time.

[54:36] I'm looking forward to this one because also because I know where this one is leading. Like this paves a very clear road to one of the greatest episodes of television ever. What do you remember about this one? So I remember this next one also being incomplete. I remember it being plot, plot, plot, plot, plot. I remember that was my big thought. But I also remember we find, we find out about the Garibaldi brainwashing thing. We get the definitive answer there because Bester is in this one and he really, he reveals all that. But what I don't think I realized last time, but I realized right now, this episode today sets, it starts us on the, Hey, we have to go capture Sheridan, next week is the capturing Sheridan. I think the week after that is what happens when sheridan is captured we're gonna break sheridan and now we got to break him out and then the week after that is sheridan coming back right like that's the family episode but.

[55:28] So this is actually the middle episode of a three episode mini arc about sheridan's capture which ends in in just a phenomenal way, and i'd say this is a four episode arc or a four episode or whatever it is but this is a part of that arc which i don't think i've realized well there's no way i could have realized the first time around but, for for me saying last week's episode never really ended this week's episode, or next week's episode this week's episode didn't really feel like it has that big of an end next week's episode is going to feel more chunky chunky chunky, knowing it comes up here with intersections in real time i oh my i'm in yeah, i'm all in as well and hopefully everyone else is as well because if you haven't already you We need to subscribe to wherever you're watching or listening so you can be a part of these as soon as they come out. Leave us a rating, leave us a review, comment, be a part of the conversation, all that great stuff. If you want to help us out, the calling of your heart is to help build the community that has surrounded around the bad nerds and Babylon 5 for the first, second time, Stargate for the first time, anything else that's out there, please share this show. Just share it with somebody. I said last week this is a great time to get on board. We're heading in, like Brent just explained, an incredible line of episodes. So with that.

[56:47] My name is Jeff. That is Brent Allen. Hey, Jeff. What's going on? Hey, so there was something that was going on earlier with our council chambers, and they were talking about something, and I just want to know what you think. Okay. They were saying it. We could get t-shirts printed up and everything. Jeff Brent, 2028. I like it. That sounds good. You know what I think sounds better, though? I'm afraid. What? Brent Jeff, 2028. Nope. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Can't work. Oh yeah don't don't look at the rest of the comments about that because they had talked about that a little bit too don't don't look at that just let's go brent jeff 2028 let's do it run alphabetically that's the thing it's just it rolls alphabetically better Akin allen, brent jeff now Akin allen politicians are only known by their last names that's it oh really oh your last name happens to also be a first name but that's that's that's fine but no it's got to be Akin Allen. And also, I need to be the top name on the ticket. You, Brent, you would abuse the power that you had. I wouldn't. You mean like the power that I have to silence you? You wouldn't. I mean, we're not some deep space franchise. This station is about something.